alan nairn has a piece at counterpunch. i've gone over it for 20 minutes trying to figure out what to pull from it and getting ideas but nothing for sure. he's noting the tsunami, he's noting that thugs were flown in by the u.s. after and even the devastation had an effect on the thugs. the best i could figure to excerpt would be grabbing 1/2 of it and that's a fair use violation. so i'll just steer you to it.
i'll also note what you should have learned today but might not have, the number of u.s. service members killed in the illegal war reached 3900. that should have been BIG news. instead we got the nonsense of the woman who hurt women, betrayed her people and a host of other things being presented as a 'saint.' it was ridiculous. that's what prevented news about the number of u.s. service members killed in iraq - a corrupt tyrant that the u.s. wanted to install back in power so they could control pakistan with less concern from outside the country (not worried about in the country because they never gave a damn about the people of pakistan) died and we had to see the kind of propaganda we expect from big media handed to us by little media. it was disgusting.
3900 u.s. service members and who gave a damn in media?
that's why so many have lost the right to even cover iraq if they wanted to, that s**t right there.
people don't believe them when they pick back up the topic after months of silence because their silence allows things like the 3900 mark to go ignored.
this is a press release i'm posting in full "Chief Big Foot Riders Return To Wounded Knee, 'We Want To Be Free' 13 Day Ride Began Under Bonds of U.S. Treaty, Ends On December 29th With Free Nation 21ST Annual Ride Returns To New Life for Free Lakota People:"
WOUNDED KNEE, Lakota (formerly South Dakota)- December 27 - Thirteen days and 287 miles ago, 44 people mounted horses and began the Memorial Chief Big Foot Ride in honor of Si Tanka (Chief Big Foot) and his unarmed band of Mniconjou and Hunkpapa refuges who were slaughtered by U.S. Calvary in 1890 at Wounded Knee.
But while these 44 riders began their journey under the shadow of U.S. Treaty, their numbers will swell to over 100 and end under the protection of a free and sovereign Lakota Nation.
The ride began on December 15th in Standing Rock, the anniversary of Sitting Bull's death, and has traveled through fierce snowstorm and cold, the same conditions faced by the 357 mostly women, children and elder men at Wounded Knee Creek 127 years ago.
"The purpose of the ride is to ride the spirit trail of Chief Big Foot," said Tegihya Kte also known as Garry Rowland, leader of the riders and recent delegate of the Lakota Freedom effort in Washington D.C.. "The Tree of Life died in Wounded Knee in 1890, and the ride was begun to mend the Sacred Hoop."
Riders ranging in age from 10 to 65 travel the footsteps of their Ancestors, along the way offering prayer for the women, children, the Elders, and the conditions the Lakota people are forced to live under today. For the children, the ride is also a powerful introduction to the sacred relationship between the Lakota and the horse and the courage their Ancestors took during their 13 day walk from the site of Sitting Bull's assassination to Wounded Knee.
"My sons and now my grandsons have participated in the ride," shared Tegihya Kte. "They ride for our future and the self-determination of our people."
The self-determination of the Lakota now takes on powerful meeting as the Lakota Freedom Delegation traveled to Washington D.C. and withdrew the Lakota from their treaties with the United States Government. The ride becomes an outward expression of sovereign Lakota rights and spirituality.
Tegihya Kte said, "We don't want the government telling us what to do, we want to be free."
Lakota Freedom delegate and Cante Tenza leader Canupa Gluha Mani (Duane Martin Sr.) agreed, "The Lakota withdrawal in Washington D.C. brings real protection for our people today, exactly the real protection Big Foot sought for his people then."
We are the freedom loving Lakota from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have withdrawn from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural, International, and United States law. For more information, please visit our new website at www.lakotafreedom.com.
if you're new to this topic, there's a really great article by kathryn a. graham entitled 'THE LAKOTA SIOUX: THE BRAVEST AMERICANS' (the people's voice) which will get you up to speed and here's the opening:
And So It Begins
In an incredible irony, the very people that the United States have most oppressed throughout our history may hold the key to freedom for all of us.
Few Americans remember the siege at Wounded Knee in the mid-1970s, but perhaps they should. Members of the AIM, or the American Indian Movement, occupied parts of Pine Ridge in protest over the brutal killings of two of their own, the disgustingly mild prosecutions for those murders, and the beating of the mother of one of those two when she attempted to seek justice from the U.S. government. The AIM were seeking their rights under U.S. law and for the U.S. government to honor treaties with the American Indian that had been ignored for more than a century. It was a lawful - and a peaceful until attacked - protest.
In response, the FBI fired almost 200,000 rounds at the protesters (the protesters did fire weapons in their own defense, but only over their attackers' heads) in an illegal show of force that betrayed every ideal of real freedom. The siege at Wounded Knee lasted 71 days. This was Waco decades before Waco, largely ignored by the U.S. population due to media indifference and the fact that the victims were not white Americans.
Later, the defense team for Russell Means and Dennis Banks was infiltrated by a government informant, which led to perjured testimony and a very angry judge who stated that the government was more interested in convictions than in justice. South Dakota Judge Nichols was quoted as saying, "It's hard for me to believe that the FBI, which I have revered for so long, has stooped so low," and dismissed all charges against the defendants.
meanwhile the piece of crap that is charlie wilson's war, leaving stains on screens at various theaters, and 1 of the few to call the crap out is stanley heller's 'Worst Movie of the Year: Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War' (counterpunch):
Mike Nichols who directed the movie had very little to say about the fact that the weapons we gave the mujahadeen ended up being used a a long and bloody Afghan civil war once the Soviets left and that the mujahadeen/warlords mutated into the Taliban and al-Qaeda. "You don't know the consequences of any act," Nichols told a reviewer. Crap. Brzezinki knew exactly what he and Carter were getting into. Wilson and Reagan and the rest knew Hekmatayar was openly anti-American at the same time they were sending him the Stingers.
At the end of the movie you see Wilson pleading unsuccessfully for a million dollars for Afghan schools. Then after Wilson ceremoniously gets an award from the CIA there's a black screen and a Wilson quote something like "It was a glorious victory and then we f'd up the endgame." As if a few schools and roads would have made the difference. "Our guys" didn't much believe in schools. They had the nasty habit of killing school teachers for the crime of educating girls.
This movie glorying in our "triumph" in Afghanistan fits well in Washington's current climate where Democrats fall all over themselves saying Iraq was a mistake, but we should be sending more money and troops to Afghanistan. Sure, we really need to sacrifice more American lives for a warlord "Northern Alliance" government that is so hated that the Taliban is making a comeback
One could imagine another movie about Afghanistan, about real heroic resistance, about the women of the Revolutionary Association of Afghan Woman (RAWA). They've struggled against fundamentalism and all the regimes oppressing Afghanistan since 1977. In a recent comunique they wrote "Instead of defeating Al-Qaeda, Taliban and Gulbuddini terrorists and disarming the Northern Alliance, the foreign troops are creating confusion among the people of the world. We believe that if these troops leave Afghanistan, our people will not feel any kind of vacuum but rather will become more free and come out of their current puzzlement and doubts. In such a situation, they will face the Taliban and Northern Alliance without their national' mask, and rise to fight with these terrorist enemies. Neither the US nor any other power wants to release Afghan people from the fetters of the fundamentalists."
the only reason to see that piece of crap - actually, there are 2 reasons. 1) you'll gasp at how awful julia roberts is. 2) you can boo it throughout. which flyboy and i did - we didn't plan to see it, but our family was watching the baby and said, 'go out, go out.' we figured we'd go see a movie. everything was sold out except the crap no 1 wants to see. we ended up seeing it and booing throughout. except when a woman in the audience said, 'tom hanks looks like richard nixon.' i applauded and cheered then.
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Thursday, December 27, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the 3900 mark is reached and the bulk of All Things Media Big and Small drops the ball, and more.
Starting with war resisters. Brett Clarkson (Ottawa Sun) notes that the "growing community of Iraq war resisters who've fled to Canada from their native U.S. are hinging their hopes on a motion to be introduced in Parliament in February by NDP MP Olivia Chow. Chow, who fiercely opposes the Iraq war, is the last hope for the 50 or so deserters, who face deportation after the Supreme Court refused to hear a final bid by former U.S. soldiers Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey to be given refugee status in Canada. With all their legal avenues exhausted, the deserters are hoping enough politicians in Ottawa will vote in favour of Chow's motion to allow them to be granted refugee status in Canada." Among the war resisters in Canada is Brad McCall. Anthony Lane (Colorado Springs Independent) explains the basics of McCall's story, "lured into the Army by a recruiter's slick pitch and the promise of a $20,000 signing bonus. After joining, though, his bonus only came to half that amount, he says, and he soon realized he could not support the Army's mission in Iraq, nor could he stomach the thought of having to kill a person. With his inquiries to get out of the Army as a conscientious objector seemingly facing long odds, McCall made plans to hit the road instead, speaking nonchalantly with the Indy about his travel plans the night he left."
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 16th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation.
First up, who sent the message today that Iraq is not important?
A great many. Here's reality for Media bound and determined to make themselves useless on the topic of Iraq: 3900.
That's the number ICCC reported this morning before anyone started broadcasting, before anyone started scribbling. It's the number of US service members killed in the illegal war since it started. (It leaves out those who died from injuries -- physical, mental and emotional -- after returning to the US from Iraq. As well as those who kill themselves on R&R in the MidEast -- but we're not supposed to note that detail either.) ICCC is the Defense Department's count of 3898 plus the two (see yesterday's snapshot) deaths that Multi-National Forces announced on Wednesday. Which, once the families of the two are notified, will bring DoD's count to 3900.
Somehow that's not news to many in media. It's shameful. But pimping a US backed leader's death is apparently more important than noting the non-leaders sent into an illegal war by the White House to die. Well, we always care about the famous -- or at least All Things Media Big and Small does.
The 3000 mark was reached December 31, 2006. And, in one year's time, a thousand more have died. The 2007/110th Congress held their first session on January 4, 2007. At that point the number dead was 3006. There was a huge shake-up in the Congress, for any who've forgotten. Democrats promised a lot with regards to Iraq and they delivered nothing. In the November 2006 elections, they had a sweep. They had hoped to win control of one house. They won control of both houses of Congress. Since their first session, 894 US service members have been announced dead in Iraq. Since the Democrats were handed control, Byron W. Fouty and Alex R. Jimenez went missing. They were part of a group that was slaughtered. (By Iraqis waived through checkpoints, for those who've forgotten.) Hopefully, they are still alive. But they went missing May 12th. (They are two of four missing since the start of the illegal war. Keith M. Maupin went missing April 16, 2004 and Ahmeda Qusai al-Taei went missing right before the November elections, October 23, 2006. Ahmeda Qusai al-Taei is the US soldier who married an Iraqi and was captured while visiting her in Baghdad, outside the Green Zone.) The count doesn't include the deaths from physical wounds following the departure from Iraq. Five service members are known to have died after returning to the US, died from the physical injuries they received in Iraq. The number is probably higher. This year three died, from physical wounds received in Iraq, after leaving Iraq: Jack D. Richards (July 29, 2007), Gerald J. Cassidy (September 25, 2007) and Anthony Raymond Wasielewsk (October 8, 2007). In addition there are the many who have come back with mental traumas and have taken their own lives. They aren't included in the count either.
3900 is the number. And anyone thinking of themselves as being a journalist damn well should have noted it today. A century from The Progressive can put it on a calender for one of their Hidden History of the United States: "December 27, 2007, the 3900 mark was reached for the official number of US service members killed in the Iraq War. A year prior, when the 3,000 mark was hit on New Year's Eve, consumers of so-called independent media wondered whether it was the holiday or the lack of giving a damn about the illegal war. Fate decided to clarify for them in 2007 by allowing the mark to be reached on a non-holiday." For those wondering, Associated Press is covering it. The Seattle Times has attached it to a Washington Post report as a sidebar: "The U.S. military said two soldiers were killed in fighting Wednesday in Ninevah province in the north. As of Wednesday, at least 3,900 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war." There are other examples. Where's Little Media?
3900 thrice betrayed. Betrayed by the executive branch of the federal government that sent them to die in vain in an illegal war based on lies. Betrayed by the Democratic leadership in Congress who took over control of both houses in January 2007 but did nothing to end the illegal war. Betrayed by so much of Little Media which just doesn't give a damn and, besides, they've got an election to 'win' for Barack Obama. Michael Schwartz (US Socialist Worker) observed this month of the illegal war, "So the U.S. is trying to coerce the Middle East into pumping the oil far more quickly than it would do if left alone. That coercive process isn't going to end with a war in Iraq. They're going to have to coerce Iran, they're going to have to coerce Kuwait, they're going to have to coerce Saudia Arabia. The Democrats and Republicans have signed on for a long-term project of international bullying by the United States, which will involve small and large wars, gutting our economy in order to maintain the huge military presence, and then all the consequences of global warming. This is the numb of the disaster -- the real consequences of the American presence in the Middle East. Fortunately, the people of Iraq are doing a fairly good job of resisting right now, but the people of the United States have to force a change in American foreign policy at its very base."
Noting the Baquba bombing yesterday, Damien Cave (New York Times) notes the death toll increased to four dead (three was the number in the snapshot yesterday) and that the collaborators' deaths follow "Tuesday, [when] several members of an Awakening group were killed by a suicide truck bomber near a checkpoint outside the Baiji oil refinery, in nothern Iraq." On the Tuesday car bombing, Anne Penketh (Independent of London) also notes that the Sunnis collaborating with the US were targets and observes, "Although the US has trumpeted its success in Anbar province and Baghdad, where al-Qa'ida has been marginalised by the US military 'surge' and local tribal chiefs turning on the insurgents, US officials say the network is regrouping in the north."
Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports two Baghdad roadside bombings that claimed 1 life and left eleven wounded and five Diyala Province roadside bombings -- "a health care center, market area, the mayor's office . . . a house in town" and "a police vehicle".
Shootings?
The US military announces 11 people were killed in Al Kut and states they were "terrorists" which required "fire, and . . . supporting aircraft". The US military also announces 12 'kills' from December 22 to 25th in Diyala Province and, again, tosses around the term 'terrorists'. AFP notes, "Iraq officials said the dead included two civilians." Some of the dead are thought to be conected to the Mahdi Army (but estranged from Muqtada al-Sadr in various reports -- and we used "thought to be," nothing is known). CBS and AP ponder the effects the deaths could have on the "six-month freeze on activities that the Mahdi Army leader -- radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr -- called in August and has signaled in the past week he might extend."
Kidnappings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an attack on two min-buses that led to "22 passengers" being kidnapped.
Corpses?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 4 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Friday Naomi Klein will be on PBS' The Charlie Rose Show. Klein's new book is The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism. Also Friday on PBS, NOW with David Brancaccio, the program "investigates the partnership of a Republican congressman and the Idaho Conservation League to protect a vast swath of the state's natural environment. Does their compromise legislation come at too high a price? The legislation, the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act (CIEDRA), transfers some public land -- land Americans across the country pay for -- to private local ownership in exchange for protection of nearby wilderness. It also leaves land bordering the wilderness open to further recreational use, especially involving off-road vehicles." Among those speaking out on the program against the sell-out of public lands is Carole King -- King of Goffin & King in the 60s (chronological sixties), writing the music to more charting hits than may be humanly possible, easing into a group at the tail end of that decade (The City), going solo in the seventies, releasing the landmark album Tapestry, etc., still writing, still performing and working on the issue of the ecology for many, many years.
In reality based humor, The Christmas Coup Comedy Players (CCCP)'s latest broadcast aired on WBAI yesterday featured CCNN (Christmas Chaos Nostradamus Network) predicting ten events that will happen in 2008 which included, at number four, "President Bush will announce every day next year that we are winning in Iraq and that we need more troops in Iraq to keep winning." The program is archived at WBAI and featured Janet Coleman, David Dozer, John McDonagh, Marc Kehoe, Scooter, Moogy Klingman and (Wally's favorite) Will Durst.
Turning to the topic of getting rich off the war, on this week's Law and Disorder (which airs first at 10:00 a.m. EST on WBAI Mondays), Prison Legal News' Paul Wright, co-author Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass incarceration spoke with hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith (Dalia Hashad and Michael Ratner are also co-hosts of the program)
Heidi Boghosian: There's a chapter on how prison labor supports the military. Can you briefly explain that?
Paul Wright: Yes, UNICOR is the trade name of Federal Prison Industries and Federal Prison Industries was originally set up during the 1930s as a job-training program for federal prisoners -- also to give government agencies items at a lower cost than they'd otherwise get. It was supposed to be a win-win benefit: prisoners got job training earn a little bit of money -- and when I say a little bit we're talking fourteen-cents to I think their salary maxes out at a dollar, a dollar and five cents an hour, so "little" is the operative word. Government agencies are able to buy products at below market costs. As things have evolved, it turns out the Department of Defense is one of the biggest buyers of UNICOR made products and federal prisoners make everything for the military from uniforms to helmets, to retro-fitting Humvee jeeps with blast armor, to the cables for . . . missile launchers, to cluster bomb casings and a whole bunch of other stuff. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have kind of ramped up sales from UNICOR to the Department of Defense have increasingly gone up and we're talking 700, 800 million dollars a year in sales of items made by federal prisoners to the Department of Defense.
Michael Smith: Paul, that's really extraordinary, what you've described: So they're exploiting prison labor at home to make arms for soldiers to exploit colonial people abroad at the same time they're cutting back on education so they can use money to build the prisons where they exploit the labor. So what you have really is a system that you could only call a decadent system. And it reminds me, really of --
Paul Wright: (laughing) You're being too generous!
Michael Smith: (laughing) If you've got a better word, I'd like to hear it. We interviewed Marnia Lazreg who wrote a book called Torture and the Twilight of Empire in the light of I think what you've been telling us about the whole prison industrial complex and who profits from it is just another chapter in the decline of empire.
As Boghosian and Wright noted, Prison Profiteers is on sale now at Prison Legal News and will be available starting next month at bookstores and online at book dealers. The book is published by The New Press and Wright co-wrote it with Tara Herivel. Lazreg was a guest on the program that began airing December 17th (Law and Disorder airs throughout the week on many stations and you can see the website if you're interested in getting the one-hour, weekly program on the air in your area) and was noted in the December 17th snapshot.
Also featured on this week's broadcast is co-host Michael Smith's speech at the Brecht Forum on the police state. Not noted on the broadcast but of interest in terms of Iraq is 1992's Notebook of a Sixties Lawyer: An Unrepentant Memoir and Selected Writings by Smith -- Michael Steven Smith -- which has significant portions on the GI Rights Movement during Vietnam that can be applied to today.
