we are at betty's and she's on the phone pulling together her entry so i'm writing mine. when she's done, whatever i've got at that point, goes up. wally and cedric are here (we're at betty's) and we'll all be traveling to texas together. elijah, ruth's grandson, is playing with betty's kids. her daughter loves not being the youngest.
road story. what the hell is wal-greens' problem? i don't think i've ever been to 1 before. we stopped at 1 today to grab some things and i was paying. i wasn't using a credit card, i was using my debit card. the little punk behind the counter, grabbed it from my hand as i was about to swipe my card. i just stood there with my mouth open thinking, 'that didn't just happen.' he then demanded my driver's lic.
now it was a debit card that i need the code to punch in on. so that's (a). (b) is, how the hell dare you grab something from some 1's hand? i asked to see the manager and this little 20-something twit comes over and looks bored the whole time. no, she says, he shouldn't have grabbed the card from me. no, she yawns, i shouldn't have to show my driver's lic. to use a debit card. no, she says looking bored, it's not wal-green's policy.
she never once apologizes not even when i said, 'are you going to apologize?' so we left, i didn't buy their crap. we went to another store.
i've never been to a wal-greens before. is that how they treat customers?
so that's my road story for today.
now, for news. this is from jeffrey st. clair's 'Crude Alliance' (counterpunch) and it's a long article whose point is that both major parties have hopped into bed with big oil:
When it comes to oil policy Bush relied on Griles, while the Democrat often to turn to Ralph Cavanagh, the top energy guru at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the neo-liberal environmental group headed by John Adams. In Clintontime, Adams and his group made a notorious splash when they publicly betrayed their fellow environmentalists by endorsing NAFTA, the trade pact with Mexico hotly opposed by a tender coalition labor and greens. NRDC's endorsement shattered the coalition and secured passage of the bill through congress, a prize that had been denied the first Bush administration. Adams felt no regrets. He later gloated about "breaking the back of the environmental opposition to NAFTA."
Ralph Cavanagh is exceptionally close to John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz. In fact, Heinz's foundation bestowed on Cavanagh its annual eco-genius award and a $250,000 check for his pioneering work in energy policy. But just what did this work entail?
Well, while his boss John Adams pushed free trade, Ralph Cavanagh hawked the deregulation of the energy business in the name of environmental efficiency, an old canard discredited in the progressive era. Cavanagh plays the role of Betty Crocker in bestowing green seals of approval for enviro-conscience and selfless devotion to the public weal by corporations like, well, Enron.
These green seals of approval were part of the neoliberal pitch, that fuddy-duddy regulation should yield to modern, "market-oriented solutions" to environmental problems, which essentially means bribing corporations in the hope they'll stop their polluting malpractices. Indeed, NRDC and EDF were always the prime salesfolk of neoliberal remedies for environmental problems. In fact, NRDC was socked into the Enron lobby machine so deep you couldn't see the soles of its feet. Here's what happened.
In 1997 high-flying Enron found itself in a pitched battle in Oregon, where it planned to acquire Portland General Electric, Oregon's largest public utility. Warning that Enron's motives were of a highly predatory nature, the staff of the state's Public Utility Commission (PUC) opposed the merger. They warned that an Enron takeover would mean less ability to protect the environment, increased insecurity for PGE's workers and, in all likelihood, soaring prices. Other critics argued that Enron's actual plan was to cannibalize PGE, in particular its hydropower, which Enron would sell into California's energy market.
But at the very moment when such protests threatened to balk Enron of its prize, into town rode Ralph Cavanagh. Cavanagh lost no time whipping the refractory Oregon greens into line. In concert with Enron, the NRDC man put together a memo of understanding, pledging that the company would lend financial support to some of these groups' pet projects.
But Cavanagh still had some arduous politicking ahead. An OK for the merger had to come from the PUC, whose staff was adamantly opposed. So, on Valentine's Day, 1997, Cavanagh showed up at a hearing in Salem, Oregon, to plead Enron's case.
Addressing the three PUC commissioners, Cavanagh averred that this was "the first time I've ever spoken in support of a utility merger." If so, it was the quickest transition from virginity to seasoned service in the history of intellectual prostitution. Cavanagh flaunted the delights of an Enron embrace: "What we've put before you with this company is, we believe, a robust assortment of public benefits for the citizens of Oregon which would not emerge, Mr. Chairman, without the merger."
With a warble in his throat, Cavanagh moved into rhetorical high gear: "'Can you trust Enron? On stewardship issues and public benefit issues I've dealt with this company for a decade, often in the most contentious circumstances, and the answer is, yes."
david obey, congress rep, made a fool out of himself and mike's 'Anthony Arnove at Cooper Union Saturday & Sunday' takes care of that so please make a point to read it. also please check out kat's 'It's about perspective and humanity' which is really powerful. so let's get to the war hawk of all war hawks, hillary clinton. stephen zunes' 'Hillary Clinton's Hawkish Record' (common dreams) explores her record:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has already assumed front-runner status for the Democratic Party nomination for president despite a foreign policy agenda that closely parallels that of the Bush administration.
Since most of the public criticism of the former first lady has been based on false and exaggerated charges from the right wing, often with a fair dose of sexism, many Democrats have become defensive and reluctant to criticize her. Some liberals end up believing conservative charges that she is on the left wing of the Democratic Party when in reality her foreign policy positions are far closer to Ronald Reagan than George McGovern.
For example, she opposes the international treaty to ban land mines. She voted against the Feinstein-Leahy amendment last September restricting U.S. exports of cluster bombs to countries that use them against civilian-populated areas. She opposes restrictions on U.S. arms transfers and police training to governments that engage in gross and systematic human rights abuses, such as Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Israel, Pakistan, Cameroon and Chad, to name only a few. She insists upon continuing unconditional funding for the Iraq war and has called for dramatic increases in Bush's already bloated military budget. She has challenged the credibility of Amnesty International and other human rights groups that criticize policies of the United States and its allies.
Mrs. Clinton has been one of the Senate's most outspoken critics of the United Nations, even serving as the featured speaker at rallies outside U.N. headquarters in July 2004 and last summer to denounce the world body. She voted to authorize the U.S. invasion of Iraq despite its being a clear violation of the U.N. Charter and in July 2004 falsely accused the United Nations of not taking a stand against terrorism when it has opposed U.S. policy. She was one of the most prominent critics of the International Court of Justice for its landmark 2004 advisory ruling that the Fourth Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War is legally binding on all signatory nations. She condemned the United Nations’ judicial arm for challenging the legality of Israel's separation barrier in the occupied West Bank and sponsored a Senate resolution "urging no further action by the United Nations to delay or prevent the construction of the security fence."
Mrs. Clinton has shown little regard for the danger from proliferation of nuclear weapons, not only opposing the enforcement of U.N. Security Council resolutions challenging Pakistan, Israel and India’s nuclear weapons programs but supporting the delivery of nuclear-capable missiles and jet fighters to these countries. This past fall she voted to suspend important restrictions on U.S. nuclear cooperation with countries that violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
well she was a goldwater girl but stephen better watch his back before katha pollitt gets her dander up and decides to go after him the way she did codepink for pointing out the obvious about hillary. want to be a war hawk like hillary clinton? or silent like katha pollitt? then don't pay attention to this from codepink:
Don't Buy Bush's War! Congress will soon be debating and voting on Bush's war budget requests, starting with an emergency supplemental on March 14. In response, we have launched our broad and exciting Don't Buy Bush's War Campaign. We need to flood the offices, halls, sidewalks and streets of Congress with people opposed to the war from now through this Fall. We're asking for your help to get people to Washington DC and to do similar actions locally. CALL CONGRESS: we're also asking you to call and email your member of Congress telling him or her to stop buying Bush's war by voting NO on these supplemental appropriations. Click here to learn more.
david obey really let every 1 know how those of us opposed to the war are seen by the elected reps in congress. so let's stick it back to the assholes and demand that they do their job, the job they supposedly wanted when they were on the campaign trail. let 'em hear from you.
mike ran out of time blogging tonight (friday nights is the iraq study group) and e-mailed me to ask if i could note something for him. i'm asking him tomorrow (when we're all on the phone) if he knew c.i. sent the same thing to me. (again, thank you to c.i. for providing me with multiple highlights each day. i've got my dsl tonight and had it yesterday but in some places i've had to use dial up and with the laptop that can make page loading take longer than i can stomach - oh the burdens of the road!) this is from lance selfa's 'The new face of U.S. politics' (international socialist review):
THE CONGRESSIONAL election in November 2006 was a vote of “no-confidence” in the Bush administration, especially its handling of the crisis in Iraq. Eager to deny that obvious conclusion, many pundits and Bush supporters proposed that Democrats only won the election because they adopted conservative positions on social issues and tread lightly on the question of the war. But if the Democrats wanted to tread lightly, the electorate didn’t. And the new Democratic leaders in Congress have been forced to respond.
If anything, the period since the November election has only served to heighten the increasing loss of confidence in the Bush administration, on the part not only of the population, but also of large sections of the establishment itself. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found Bush’s popularity dropping to truly Nixonian levels (below 30 percent). Near two-to-one majorities in most national surveys tell pollsters they would like to see the Democrats or Congress take the lead on Iraq and domestic policies. Perhaps most damning of all was a recent Newsweek poll that found 58 percent of Americans surveyed wished the Bush administration were over. Many more indications of popular discontent with the Bush administration could be cited.
This new reality has also made the Democrats more assertive than appeared to be the case even a few months ago. While Democrats are certainly not putting forward genuine antiwar positions, they have become bolder in criticizing Bush and the war. They are exercising their new congressional subpoena powers to hold hearings that have, and will continue, to expose the shameless cronyism, corruption, and ineptitude of the Bush administration and its many disasters, from Iraq to its manipulation of scientific research.
The Democrats’ current strategy is to unite against the troop “surge” in Iraq by offering non-binding resolutions condemning it as an escalation. Meanwhile, they continue to vote to support the war at its current level while proposing various scenarios for troop redeployment in the future. At this point, only a few liberals have tabled bills asserting Congress’s right to cut off funds for the Iraq adventure. While these fund cut offs will give many rank-and-file liberals hope that their “vote to end the war” will succeed, Democratic leaders, from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to foot-in-mouth Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Joe Biden (D-Del.) have been far more cautious—and in Biden’s case, dismissive—of these proposals. All of this positioning shows that the Democrats want to take advantage of the public mood of opposition to the war, while not taking the fall for defeat in Iraq. For this reason, most leading Democrats have embraced the recommendations of the establishment-dominated Iraq Study Group as their road map out of the Iraq debacle.On the other side of the aisle, the Republicans and conservatives have yet to recover from the defeat in November. Developments since the November election have accelerated disintegration in GOP ranks. This is symbolized most prominently by the willingness of leading GOP conservatives, like Senator John Warner (R-Va.), to offer their own resolutions condemning Bush’s troop “surge” in Iraq. The Democratic “100 hours” program attracted substantial GOP support. And the presidential candidate seeking to be seen as a successor to President Bush, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), has seen his support decline. McCain even polls behind Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008 presidential polls, something that would have been considered unthinkable just a year ago.
But even outside the machinations in Washington, other pieces of the conservative conventional wisdom of the last generation are under challenge. Due to court decisions challenging lethal injection as a method of execution, there is now a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in some of the largest death rows in the country (California and Florida, for example). The newly elected governor of Maryland has said he would sign a bill abolishing the death penalty if it reaches his desk. Overwhelming support for minimum wage referenda and the fact that most Americans continue to view the economy warily despite “objective” indicators of a strong economy (Wall Street records, strong GNP growth, low unemployment) show that even the dominance of neoliberal ideology has eroded since its heyday in the “there is no alternative” 1990s.
that's the opening and this is a really strong article that you can really sink your teeth into so check it out. now i don't know if the next thing is strong or not, i just know i loved reading it. this is from ron fournier's 'Analysis: Patriot Woes Weigh on Gonzales' (ap):
Another day, another scandal. The Justice Department's improper and illegal use of the USA Patriot Act puts Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the hot seat, an all-too-familiar place for President Bush's inner circle.
The last thing a troubled president needs is another friend in trouble.
"This strikes me as another blow for the administration," said Republican consultant Joe Gaylord.
He was not the only Republican fretting about the Bush White House after a Justice Department audit criticizing the FBI's use of post-9/11 powers to secretly obtain personal information.
"This is, regrettably, part of an ongoing process where the federal authorities are not really sensitive to privacy and go far beyond what we have authorized," said Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.
Lawmakers were already seething at the Justice Department for the firing of eight federal prosecutors and Gonzales' dismissive response to critics.
"One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," Specter said Thursday.
It is too soon to tell whether Gonzales will be forced to leave, but his ouster would do little to change a perception that the Bush administration is unraveling amid declining public support and trust. Some heads have already rolled.
yeah, john asscroft was a nightmare but gonzales was in there too, in the mix, as 'the white house counselor' and he's defended all the crap j-ass pushed through. i'd love to see him stripped of his office. i'd love to see them all, they're a bunch of crooks who should be behind bars. do i think that's likely? with the dems in congress? don't make me laugh!
nancy e-mailed me. she gave birth in november and is just getting back into her groove. she told me some tales of how her body changed during her pregnancy and wondered if i had any similar stories? of course! alterpunk hates the personal so we should share the personal.
my breasts and belly have increased, yes. and, since i already had large breasts, back pains are pretty much a daily given. but in terms of weird, the weirdest thing happened tuesday night. flyboy was being very sweet and giving me a neck massage when he asked, 'do you want me to pull this?' pull what? 'a stray hair.' where is it? it was about an inch from where my hairline stops in the back. yes, pull it, i insisted. he did so and then i demanded to see it. it was about 6 inches long. it's been growing all this time and i've never noticed it. (hopefully, no 1 else had. though i doubt that and will bring it up to t when we get back. 'you cut my hair and you never told me!') (i'm teasing, t, if you're reading this.) the other big thing is just smells. some things i can't stand the smell of. i love snickers, always have. but if i smell 1 now, it just makes me sick to my stomach. what smells good, really good, are the sour things. pickles can just have me smiling for as long as i can smell them. lemons are another big thing. limes less so but they really aren't as sour as lemons. i can't stand the taste of iceberg lettuce for some reason. i've always enjoyed iceberg lettuce but, these days, when i have a salad, i want spinach 1st and will settle for romaine. but iceberg lettuce just turns my stomach. i tried eating some a week ago thinking i could ignore the smell but i ended up spitting it out because it just didn't taste right to me. treva jokes that it's an old wives' tale that if you like sour things, if you crave them, you are having a boy.
we don't know the sex. we're trying to be surprised. that's really more of a flyboy thing. i'm trying to go along with that but i hate secrets! so we agreed to wait a bit. that's how we do it. before each visit to the doctor, he'll say 'can you wait a little longer?' i'm surprised i've been able to wait this long.
boy or girl, i don't care. i'm just so happy to be about to have a baby. i always assumed, growing up, that i would have kids. and getting pregnant has never been the problem for me. miscarrying has always been my problem. that's why i went overboard (yes, i admit it). the doctor kept saying, 'you're out of the critical period now, you don't have to limit your movement.' but i just didn't want to take a chance. i was already further along than i'd ever made it before but, even though i kept saying 'don't worry, i'm fine' here, i was worried. i've probably made so many 'deals' with god over this pregnancy that i'll never be able to keep them all! (but, as i remember, joan collins promised to give up cigarettes if her daughter katie would pull through and then she went back to smoking.) (no, i didn't promise that i wouldn't smoke.)
okay, betty's done. here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Friday, March 9, 2007. Chaos and violence (though little reported) continues, protests continue, the country of Georgia provides mirth in the illegal war (if not genuine support for the Bully Boy), a US marine is announced dead, footage of another US service member's death is supposedly set to be released, Dems plan receives muted response, and the veterans health care crisis moves from Walter Reed to VA hospitals.
Starting with war resistance. Agustin Aguayo was court-martialed and sentenced Tuesday. Circles Robinson (Ahora) notes: "Doing the right thing can be costly, but in the end one can at least sleep at night. Ask Spc. Agustin Aguayo, 35, a U.S. citizen born in Guadalajara, Mexico, who was just sentenced by a US military court in Wurzburg, Germany. His crime was a gut feeling shared by a growing number of ordinary citizens and soldiers alike: President Bush's war in Iraq isn't their war." He was sentenced to eight months but given credit for the days he had already served since turning himself in at the end of September. Rosalio Munoz (People's Weekly World) sees a victory in the outcome: "The March 6 military court conviction of pacifist soldier Agustin Aguayo was reversed in the court of public opinon as Amnesty International officially recognized him as a 'prisoner of conscience,' and a battery of progressive attorneys began efforts to get a federal court to reverse the Army's denial of conscientious objector status to Aguayo." Stefan Steinberg (World Socialist Web) sees the line of continuity from one war resister to another, "Aguayo has become the latest in a growing list of US soldiers who are facing trials and courts-martial for refusing to serve in Iraq. Recently, Lt. Ehren Watada, 29, became the first US officer to be tried for refusing to obey a command to return to Iraq. In his defence, Watada argued he was merely following his constitutional rights to oppose fighting in a war he regarded as illegal. The Japanese American described the US invasion and occupation of Iraq as 'an illegal and unjust war ... for profit and imperialistic domination.' Watada's attorney Eric Seitz, had sought to defend his client on the basis of the Nuremburg Principles -- i.e., that soldiers have the duty to disobey unlawful orders in the case of an illegal and unjust war."
Steinberg is correct, Agustin Aguayo is part of a movement of resistance with the military that includes others such as Ehren Watada, Kyle Snyder, Agustin Aguayo, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, 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, Michael Blake 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.
It is vital that we build a strong counter-recruitment movement to expose lies used by the military to send working-class and poor children to war. We must also lend our full support to the soldiers and reservists who are refusing to fight in Iraq.
[. . .]
During the Vietnam War, the U.S. government learned how quickly the discipline of an army fighting an unjust war can break down. Today soldiers in the field can see the contradictions between the claims of their officers and especially the politicians who sent them to war and the reality of the conflict on the ground. They now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and posed no imminent threat. And as the Iraqi resistance to occupation grows, more soldiers have come to see that they are fighting not to liberate Iraqis but to 'pacify' them. To end this war, more will need to follow their conscience, like [Camilo] Mejia and the other soldiers who have refused to die -- or kill -- for a lie.
The excerpt above is from Anthony Arnove's IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal. Arnove has an event on Saturday the 10th and on Sunday the 11th (Ty and Sunny -- for Elaine -- passed on the following):
Saturday, March 10
8 pm
Readings from Voices of a People's History of the United States
The Great Hall, Cooper Union
NYC
as part of the Left Forum 2007
Free for conference participants and the general public.
With performances by Staceyann Chin, Deepa Fernandes, Brian Jones, Erin Cherry,
Najla Said, Mario A. Murrillo, and other special guests.
Narration and introduction by Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! and
Anthony Arnove (who, with Howard Zinn, authored
Voices of a People's History of the United States)
Sunday, March 11
10 am
"Iraq: What's at Stake?"
Cooper Union
NYC
Left Forum 2007
Panelists: Anthony Arnove, Christian Parenti, AK Gupta, Nir Rosen, and Gilbert Achcar.
Wednesday, March 14
7:00 pm
"Friendly Fire: An Independent Journalist's Story on Being Abducted in Iraq,
Rescued, and Shot by U.S. Forces"
Judson Church
55 Washington Square South
NYC
featuring: Giulian Sgrena the Il Manifesto journalist and author of Friendly Fire who was abudcted in Iraq, rescued by Italian security forces only to be shot at (Nicola Calipari would die from the gun fire) by US forces while en route to the Baghdad Airport; Amy Goodman and the Center for Constitutional Rights' executive director Vince Warren.
Sgrena is calling for the Pentagon to take responsibility for the shooting.
Yesterday, in the United States, Democrats in the US House and Senate unveiled their plans for Iraq. Michael Rowland (AM, Australia's ABC) explains the House legislation: "Democrats have been talking about setting a troop withdrawal deadline ever since opposition to the war swept them to power in last year's congressional elections. Today they bit the bullet, unveiling legislation that sets down actual dates. . . . The legislation sets out a set of benchmarks that must be met in Iraq in the coming year. They're mainly to do with quelling the sectarian violence on the streets of Baghdad, the very objective of the president's plan to send an extra 22,000 US troops to Iraq. The House of Representatives speaker, Nancy Pelosi, says the strategy will be given time to work. But she warns the troop withdrawal will be fast-tracked if the re-enforcements fail to make any difference." John Nichols (The Nation), picking up at the benchmarks: "If those benchmarks remain unmet, a slow process of extracting troops would begin under the plan favored by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, Wisconsin's David Obey and Pennsylvania's John Murtha, the chair and defense subcommittee chair respectively of the appropriations committee; and Missouri's Ike Skelton, who chairs the armed services committee. The fact that Democratic leaders are talking about attempting to impose a timeline for withdrawal is good. It puts the opposition party in a position of actually opposing an unpopular president's exceptionally unpopular policies. Unfortunately, because the president wants to maintain the occupation on his terms, Bush can be counted on to veto legislation establishing benchmarks and a timeline. So the Democrats find themselves in a difficult position. They plan to expend immense time and energy -- and perhaps even a small measure of political capital -- to promote a withdrawal strategy. Yet, the strategy they are promoting is unlikely to excite Americans who want this war to end. In other words, while Pelosi and her compatriots propose to fight for a timeline, it is not the right timeline."
John A. Murphy (CounterPunch) observes, "The Democratic House has drafted legislation which has no chance of surviving a presidential veto and at the same time does not meet the hopes and aspirations and demands of the overwhelming majority of the American voting public. They have however drafted legislation that makes them feel good. Somehow or other the so-called 'liberal Democrats' are going to be happy about supporting a bill which would kill 60,000 Iraqis and 1,800 Americans because the bill will not alienate the 'more moderate Democrats'." Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) points out: "Anti-war Democrats have also come out against the plan. New York Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, a member of the Out of Iraq caucus, said: 'All this bill will do is fund another year of the war, and I can't vote for that'."
NYU professor Stephen F. Cohen (writing at The Nation) notes: "Unless the United States withdraws its military forces from Iraq in the near future, a war that began as an unnecssary invasion based on deception and predictably grew into a disastrous occupation will go down in history as a terrible crime, if it hasn't already. For Americans of conscience, Iraq has therefore become the paramount moral issue of our time."
On that note, we'll return to MADRE's "Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq" (which can be read in full in PDF format or, by sections, in HTML). Wednesday, section one ("Towards Gender Apartheid in Iraq") was noted and, Thursday, section II, "Iraq's Other War: Impsoing Theocracy Through Gender-Based." Section III is "The Rise of US-Backed Death Squads" which further documents how the US equipped, trained and facilitated the ongoing femicide in Iraq.
The femicide has its roots in "The Salvador Option," so, as the report notes, it is not surprising to find the same actors involved. Just as James Steel and John Negroponte were involved in the death squads in El Salvador during the 1980s, they teamed up in Iraq with Negroponte acting as US ambassador to the country and James Steele commanding the US troops who trained the Badr and Mahdi militias. While the Bully Boy made noises to domestic audiences about 'freedom' and 'liberation,' "on the ground in Iraq, the Islamist militas were wholly tolerated." Backing, training and arming them "offered an enticing advantage over government troops. For a time, their quasi-official status allowed the US to out-source the violence of its count-insurgency operations without having to answer for the militias' gross human rights violations, including their campaign of terror against the women of Iraq." When not training these militias themselves, the US out-sourced the training to DynCorp which
Working women have been especially targeted because "they commit a double offense -- by advocating a secular society and by being accomplished, working women." But the press has refused to cover this campaign of violence against women as one of the stories coming from Iraq and treated acts of violence against women as incidental to the larger story (it is the story). "To cite just one example, in October 2005, journalist Robert Dreyfuss, known for his authorative and critical analysis of Iraqi politics, reported that in addition to targeting Sunnis, the Shiite Badr Brigade was 'terrorizing Iraq's secular, urban Shiite population.' Although gender-based violence was a central tactic of this terror campaign, Dreyfuss does not mention it. Nor does he explore why a supposedly sectarian militia was terrorizing members of its own sect. Like most media accounts, Dreyfuss' report fails to consider the Badr milita from the perspective of Shiite women. From women's vantage point, the militia is typical of theocratic fundamentalists everywhere. For such groups, asserting control over members of their own religion -- especially women, who are seen as the carriers of group identity -- is a prerequisite to extending control over society at large, including, ultimately, the institutions of the state."
The report notes that the press is not the only grouping that has failed to draw attention to the ongoing femicide and notes the anti-war movement has also ignored the gender violence that is taking place. The clampdown, by the US, on the Iraqi Health Ministry has prevented already faulty data on the attacks from being released. The report uses Maha as an example of how the militias and the police work together in Iraq -- Maha "was abducted from her home in Najaf and trafficked from brothel to brothel in Baghdad for nearly two years. She managed to escape twice and flee to the police station in Baghdad's Amiriyah neighborhood. Both times the police forcibly returned her to the brothel."
Noting the report, Laura Flanders (writing at The Notion -- Nation's blog) pointed out that 100 female corpses were left unclaimed in a Basra hospital "mutilated . . . families are too scared to pick them up." Flanders is the host of RadioNation with Laura Flanders which airs each Saturday and Sunday, 7:00 to 10:00 pm EST, on Air America Radio, XM radio and online. Saturday's guest will include one or both of her uncles as guests -- Andrew Cockburn and/or Patrick Cockburn. The program's website says Andrew, the blog post says Patrick. Either (or both) will be worth hearing.
Bombings?
AFP reports at least one person died from a roadside bombing in Kirkuk. CBS and AP report that Donald Neil, civilian contractor, was killed while trying to dismantle a bomb. (Location given is "Iraq.")
Shootings?
AFP reports that, in Kirkuk, two Iraqi soldiers were shot dead. Sami al-Jumaili (Reuters) reports that one police officer was shot dead and three more wounded when a police station in Hibhib was attacked -- ten police officers are missing and assumed/feared kidnapped. Australia's The Daily Telegraph reports that the attack included "setting fire to vehicles and destroying the building".
Corpses?
Reuters reports that ten corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Voices of Iraq reports seven corpses were discovered today in the Diala province.
Today, the US military announced: "A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West was killed March 9 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province." In addition, CBS and AP report: "On Friday, the Islamic State of Iraq announced it would soon be releasing a video on the death of a U.S. Air Force pilot whose F-16 jet crashed Nov. 27 north of Baghdad, according to the IntelCenter, which monitors insurgent Web sites. The pilot, Maj. Troy L. Gilbert, was listed officially as 'whereabouts unknown' but then reported by the U.S. military as dead following DNA tests from remains at the scene."
Meanwhile, in military news, Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) reports that David Petraeus' much noted Thursday press converence "did not offer . . . a strategy for dealing with such attacks, underscoring a major dilemma facing U.S. and Iraqi forces as they carry out what has been described as a last-ditch effort to curb the deadly civil war." Ernesto Londono and Thomas E. Ricks (Washington Post), on the same press conference, noted the fact that not only has Petraues upped the escalation numbers but he's dropped Casey's talk of "the summer, late summer" when the supposed, alleged accomplishments of the latest crackdown version will be visible. And the escalation continues to add numbers. Yesterday, it was an additional 2,000. Today, Andrew Gray (Reuters) reports that Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon is requesting more troops for the Diyala province.
The BBC notes that Georgia (the country) "will more than double the number of troops it has in Iraq" from 850 to 2,000. 2,000 isn't a large number and some wonder what the US government offered to get the small figure doubled? (Georgia's population is estimated to 4.6 million.)
Things not worth noting in depth. Puppet of the occupation, Nouri al-Maliki toured Baghdad -- with a heavily armed squad of bodyguards numbering at least six who shadowed him at all times as he shook hands with Iraqi soldiers at checkpoints. US forces announced another al Qaeda (alleged) leader captured. Don't they get tired of selling that nonsense?
Turning to the issue of health care for veterans, Ian Urbina and Ron Nixon (New York Times) report on the Veterans Affairs where the government is slow to respond and refuses to anticipate or calculate need resulting in various horror stories such as prolonged waiting for claims to kick in (James Webb returned from Iraq injured from a bombing and had to wait 11 months for the promised and obligated payments to kick in while Allen Curry fell "behind on his morgage while waiting nearly two years for his disability check"). Hope Yen (AP) reports that, testifying before US House Veterans Affairs committee yesterday, Paul Sullivan (one time VA project manager) stated he repeatedly "warned officials" at the VA that "there would be a surge in claims as veterans returned from Iraq and Afghanistan," and that he began sounding the alarm in August 2005. Joel Connelly (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) notes that US Senator Patty Murray, who severs on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, has drawn comparisons to today's health crisis for veterans with the illegal war itself: "They have lowballed the cost of this war, and the cost of caring for our soliders. . . . It goes to the top, to the highest level. The Bush administration wants the country to feel there is no cost to war." Rick Maze (The Navy Times) covers an idea by US Senator Larry Craig which would require "issuing veterans an authorization card that would allow them to seek care anywhere could address two longstanding complaints: long waits to see a VA doctor, and long trips for veterans who live far from a VA hospitals." Based on Urbina and Nixon's reporting, 'portability' might be besides the point when "the current war has nearly overwhelmed an agency already struggling to meet the health care, disability payment and pension needs of more than three million veterans." Zooming in on one VA center, Mike Drummond Peter Smolowitz and Michael Gordon (The Charlotte Observer) discover that a 2005 inspection of North Carolina's Hefner VA Medical Center found a substandard facility: "Using the clinically blunt language of the medical bureaucracy, the team describes a facility with poorly trained doctors and nurses who, among other things, cut corners on treatment, manipulated records and did't talk enough with paitents and families." In one tragic example, they note 41-year-old Robert Edward Lashmit who died: "Lashmit's condition and vital signs were not updated during his 19-day stay. Instead, investigators found, his doctor 'copied and pasted the same daily progress note for the entire hospitalization.' That meant information vital to Lashmit's treatment remained the same even as his condition deteriorated. He died of live failure. Later, when investigators asked Lashmit's doctor about pasting outdated records, they said he told them: 'no one told him he could not do it'."
Turning to the scandal of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Brooke Hart (NBC News) reports on the scramble as the army attempts to address the disgrace -- the army willl institute a "30-day study of problems at major military facilities" and will establish a complaint hotline for veterans that will be allow for complaints to be registered twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In another quick fix measures, Alana Semuels (Los Angeles Times) reports that Michael Tucker ( a brig. general) will move from Fort Knox to become the "deputy commanding general of the Walter Reed Army Medical Ceneter." Interviewed by Jake Stump (Charleston Daily Mail), US Senator Jay Rockefeller declares that "[t]he real question is not necessarily what happens at Walter Reed," but the refusal of the US Defense Department to meet the needs of veterans. US Rep Kirsten Gillibrand tells Albany's Time Union that she hopes the Walter Reed scandal starts a new debate on topics such as funding of the VA and veteran's' benefits. Walter Reed Army Medical Center, FYI, is funded by the Defense Department, not the VA. Interestingly, one Congressional rep wanted answers but he appeared to have had them some time sgo. Adam Schreck (Balitmore Sun) reports that US House Rep C.W. Bill Young made frequent visits to Walter Reed with his wife where they "found wounded sholdiers who didn't have adequate clothes, even one doing his rehabilitation in the bloody boots he had on when he was injured. One soldier, ashamed that his mattress was soaked with urine, tried to turn Young's wife away, the Florida Republican recalled yesterday. Another with a serious brain injury fell out of bed and his head three times before someone was assigned to make sure it didn't happen again." For those who've forgotten, Dana Priest, Anne Hulle (Washington Post for the first two) and Bob Woodruff (ABC News) shined the light on the issues in the last few weeks. What did US House Rep Young do since, by his own accounting, he was familiar with many issues that needed addressing? As Florida's Star-Banner notes in an editorial: "The St. Petersburg Times and other media reported on Thursday that U.S. Rep Bill Young, a Republican from Indian Shores and formerly one of the most powerful members of Congress, acknowledged that he knew of the squalid conditions at Walter Reed but failed to disclose them. In one instance, Young recalled one soldier who was sitting his his bed in a pool of urine when Young's wife discovered him. Hospital staff, Young noted, did nothing and when questioned told him, 'This is war. We have a lot of casualties. We don't have enough sheets and blankets to go around.' Young, according to the Times, kept quiet because he wanted to respect family privacy and 'did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war'." What a load of hogwash. By staying silent he allowed the problem to continue and worsen. Staying silent helped no one and, were it not for the press doing their job and his, he'd probably still be silent today.
In protest news, Frederic J. Frommer (AP) reports that the Occupation Project (ongoing visits, sit-ins, and of sustained nonviolent civil disobedience to put the pressure on elected officials to stop funding the war) continues and focuses on actions in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In Wisconsin, US House Rep David Obey has not met with them but did have four arrested on Monday including Joy First. In Minnesota, US Senator Herb Kohl did meet with them but is quite happy to continue funding the illegal war and play stupid (all his life). Frommer notes that every Tuesday, two nuns, Kate and Rita McDonald, are occupying the office of US Senator Norm Coleman who is a Republican but also "a former anti-war protester himself from the Vietnam era". Despite knowing better, Coleman remains firmly behind funding the illegal war. Also in protest news, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) interviewed Wally Cuddeford about the protests going on in Tacoma which resulted in four arrests Sunday night. Cuddeford explains the purpose behind the protests: "Our goal is to stop military shipments from Fort Lewis going to Iraq. We were successful stopping the shipments through the Port of Olympia and now we're helping our friends in Tacoma stop the shipments there. The shipments are Stryker vehicles, they are speedy combat trasnprots, armed transports. They are the back bone of the occupation.
Half of all the Stryker vehicles to Iraq. If we are able to cut off Stryker vehicles to Iraq we could easily end this occupation." Clear Channel reports that Ann Wright (retired Army colonel and retired State Department) spoke to the Jefferson Community College about the war ("For us to have gone into Iraq, invaded and occupied it, and not even with the agreement of the UN Security Council, unfortunately it falls into the category of a war of aggression and in my opinion is a war crime.") in an event sponsored by Veterans for Peace and Different Drummer Cafe. She will be speaking at Different Drummer Cafe today at 6:00 pm at 12 Paddock Arcade, 1 Public Square, Watertown, NY.
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