dems, nyt, hillary, britty, etc.

the democrats yet again sold out the voters who put them into office. Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "A Bully Boy and Pelosi Christmas" captures it perfectly:



nancy pelosi (and harry reid) plays santa clause with our monies. we are the tax payers and we are opposed to the illegal war. but the democrats keep funding it. they keep promising 'not again' and they keep doing it.

liars.

reuters is reporting that the white house has been informed that the visitor logs are not private and must be turned over. this administration has operated in secret and a large reason for that has been an ineffective democratic party in congress. through all their inaction, they claimed 'if we had control of just 1 house, things would change!' they got control of 2 houses in the november elections and nothing much has happened, has it? (and they controlled the senate until january 2003.)

have you heard about the hate crime at princeton? the right's been in a lather over it. they've been whining that when 1 of their own gets beaten, every 1 goes silent. i wouldn't know about it if fox 'news' hadn't been at the top of google's news page presenting their not-so-fair and not-so-balanced view. the most recent was a commentary by britty hume who got himself worked up into a lather called 'little outrage over student beating at princeton university' in which he claimed that a mormon trying to lead 'a morality movement' and he quotes a princeton alumni whining, 'there would rightly be outrage had the student been part of some other minority on campus. i have yet to see that right now, and that's rather disappointing.' poor little boys whining in vain. turns out the student made the whole thing up.

here's ap with some reality:

A Princeton University student who argued that his conservative views were not accepted on the campus confessed to fabricating an assault and sending threatening e-mail messages to himself and some friends who shared his views, authorities said Monday.
Princeton Township police said that Francisco Nava was not immediately charged with any crime, but that the investigation was continuing.
Nava claimed to have been assaulted Friday by two men off campus, police said. But he later confessed that scrapes and scratches on his face were self-inflicted, and that the threats were his work, too, said Detective Sgt. Ernie Silagyi.
A spokeswoman for the Ivy League university said punishment, which could range from a warning to expulsion, was pending Monday.

i don't like hillary clinton. i'm not wild about bill. but the new york times ran another of their slam pieces (including a photo on the front page of bill clinton by a woman's legs looking up -- she was a runway model, i would assume every 1 was looking up at the stage) and bill clinton is right, the press is rushing to claim gaffes even when there are none. he's also right that obama's campaign is feeding this crap to the press.

i'm not going to link to the article because it's crap. but reading it this morning, i knew i'd at least mention it because, hate hillary though i do, i don't just rush to defend people i like - despite what britty hume may think.


'Kat's Korner: Smashing Pumpkins, tilted windmills' is a must read as is ruth's latest 'Ruth's Report.' i read ruth's piece and thought 'damn! i heard all that with her last week and couldn't have pulled it all together like that.'

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Monday, December 17, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the Turkish military attacks northern Iraq, the US military announces a death, the British levae Basra and more.

Starting with war resistance. Today, from eight p.m. to ten p.m. at NYC's The Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery at Bleecker St.) Jazz for Peace -- Radam Schwartz & Conspiracy For Positivity will perform for the amazingly low price of $8 admission with a one drink minimum and the proceeds going to Peace Action NY and the War Resisters League. The War Resisters League started in 1923 and advocates action (such as tax resistance), "war resistance and individual conscience." Among their many efforts are the War Resisters League Youth and Countermilitarism Program. Also on a musical and resistance note, Different Drummer Cafe (12 Paddock Arcade, Watertown, NY) will host the opener of Greene Reveal and Forever Falls Through's national tour on December 27th (that's a Thursday) starting at 7:00 p.m. Different Drumer is the first and, thus far only, GI coffeehouse in the country. You can click here to see a YouTube music video of Greene Reveal and here for an interview with the band on YouTube.

Meanwhile, Aimee Allison and David Solnit address resistance in terms of the young people in their amazing book Army Of None which Emily Drabinski (Left Turn) reviews the book and notes that "Allison, a veteran, and Solnit suggest that counter military recruitment campaigns offer a concrete way to challenge the military at its base-the individual soldier" and concludes, "Allison and Solnit insist on the importance of offering an alternative vision of the world. They don't color in that vision here, but give readers the necessary tools to begin the process themselves. Army of None is, above all, a hopeful book. Poetry and visual art are included throughout the text, along with success stories from activists who have helped young people stay out of the war machine. In a time of increasingly oppresive public and political life, Allison and Solnit's conviction that counter recruitment work will lead to a better world is refreshing." Also working with today's young people is Agustin Aguayo. Madeline Chambers (Reuters) reports that he is now working to get "the grim realities of war" to young people "before they join the military" and quotes Aguayo as stating, "I want to bring young people awareness. We ask them to sacrifice so much yet we don't educate them about the realities of war." Aguayo is currently engaged in a battle to be awarded CO status that he deserves. Aguayo was wrongfully denied CO status by the military which refuses to operate under its own stated purpose. Aguayo clearly fits the religious critieria. The US military stated he did not because they refuse to recognize the fact (though the military's policy does) that someone's religious beliefs can grow -- not just start -- when they engage in a war. Serving in Iraq strengthened Aguayo's religious beliefs. (And to be clear, religion is not a requirement for CO status. The criteria for religion is what Aguayo fits, however.) Chambers notes that Aguayo is appealing the CO refusal to the Supreme Court -- as he should. The US military's actions with denying COs during this illegal war are appalling period. However, in terms of Aguayo, the militay is not only refusing to follow their own written policies, they are creating barriers that they are not allowed to and since this involves religion (and potential discrimination), the Supreme Court is the venue to address the issues and hopefully they will grant cert and hear the case.

Turning to Canada, Great Britain's Socialist Worker reports on war resister Phil McDowell's testimony to the Canadian Parliament's Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration noting, "McDowell joined the army in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks on the US. He served a year in Iraq, ending his tour of duty in March 2005. But a month and a half after being discharged, he was ordered back into the army under the notorious 'stop-loss' policy which allows the US army to re-enlist former soldiers. Disillusioned with the war, McDowell fled to Canada in October 2006 where he joined a growing number of soldiers who have refused to join the illegal occupation. He told a recent anti-war rally that 'thousands of soldiers in the military have told me that they feel the same way'." War Resisters Support Campaign's Michelle Rodibdoux says of the resolution now sent on to the House of Commons, "I want to make sure that nobody leaves thinking that this is won. It's very important that we understand that now the work begins." In terms of e-mailing, where the pressure needs to be currently is on the these three: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. That's because the Parliament is now on break until February and because many are expecting elections to be called. Action from the Parliament is necessary due to the fact that on November 15th, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeals of war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Aaron Glantz covered that in real time (one of the very few) and if you missed his report then, you can read "No refuge for U.S. war resisters in Canada" at The Final Call.com News. The Boggs Center's Shea Howell (The Michigan Citizen) notes "Every day more soldiers are voting with their feet. According to an Associated Press report released in mid-November, the number of AWOL Army soldiers has increased 80 percent since March of 2003. The Army says 4,698 soldiers deserted their posts in fiscal year 2007, an increase of over 2,000 from 2006. GI rights advocates the number is far higher. Of course, soldiers go AWOL for many reasons, and the majority of them don't denounce the war. However an increasing number publicly oppose the war, even though this could mean harsh punishments or jail time."

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 15th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation. Shea Howell (The Michigan Citizen) observes, "These soldiers, along with survivors of the war from both countries, will provide public testimony of what they saw and experienced."

Over the weekend, Kelly Kennedy (Army Times) reported on a platoon's revolt in Iraq following tremendous losses, lack of support and a host of other issues including the suicide of Master Sgt. Jeffrey McKinney. Captain Cecil Strickland explains, "If my guys had stayed at Adhamiya, they would have taken the gloves off. We were afraid somebody was going to get in trouble." Kennedy reports, "They decided as a platoon that they were done, DeNardi and Cardenas said, as did several other members of 2nd Platoon. At mental health, guys had told the therapist, 'I'm going to murder someone.' And the therapist said, 'There comes a time when you have to stand up,' 2nd Platoon members remembered. For the sake of not going to jail, the platoon decided they had to be 'unplugged'." After intimidation, warnings and threats didn't work, the brass broke up the platoon. That was the third report. For the first report click here, for the second here and for part four here.

Also over the weekend, Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) continued to cover the issue of the Iraqi refugees: "One in five Iraqi refugees in Syria has been tortured or suffered from other violence, and more than a third fled their homeland between July and October, at the height of the U.S. troop buildup that was intended to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad, preliminary data from a new United Nations study show." On Sunday, Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) reported on the topic and noted that both the US military and the United Nations "reacted with horror" to the central (puppet) government in Baghdad bussing in and buying off refugees and quotes Iraqi Kareem Sadi Haadi (who did return to Baghdad) objecting to claims "that the country is secure" and bus rides back because, "They are misleading Iraqis 100 percent. Eighty percent of those who want to come back is because of residencey complications in Syria."

The Turkish military launched an attack on villages in northern Iraq over the weekend. Ali al Basri and Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) report that "Turkish military planes hit Kurdish border towns in a three-hour attack aimed at the Kurdistan Workers Party, a violent separatist movement that seeks to establish a Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey. One woman was killed, a local mayor said, and hundreds of families fled their homes." Noting that an average of 100,000 Turkish troops remain on the border of northern Iraq, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) observed the attack was "Turkey's most aggressive action against Kurdish rebels in years. Turkey's military chief said the United States gave the go-ahead for the attacks and opened Iraqi airspace for the bombing raid. Turkish ground forces continue to shell areas of Northern Iraq in its fight against the Kurdistan Workers Party. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to continue attacks on northern Iraq." On Sunday there were disputes as to what the US government knew ahead of time and what they didn't as well as what they'd said. Reuters reported Sunday that Turkish General Yasar Buyukanit ("head of Turkey's military General Staff") stated the bombings took place with US approval, "America last night opened Iraqi airspace to us. By opening Iraqi airspace to us last night America gave its approval to the operation." The US denied any approval was granted; however, Sherko Raouf (Reuters) noted that while denying granting approval, "The United States said only that it had been informed in advance of the operation." Today, citing "[a] press attache at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara," CNN noted "that the United States had been told about the plans for the strikes and reiterated that it is Turkey's decision on whether to carry out such actions." AFP reports that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey, has hailed the military attack as a "success" and quotes US State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack declaring that the US "welcomes such efforts by Turkey's leaders to resolve the PKK problem and eliminate terrorism. The United States supports Turkey in its efforts to end the PKK terrorist threat to its citizens and will continue to use all diplomatic, military, and intelligence means to do so." Sabrina Tavernise (New York Times) informs, "The commander of the Turkish Army, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, said the United States had helped the operation by offering intelligence and clearance to enter Iraqi airspace Saturday night." CBS and AP note that the Iraqi parliament issued a statement today: "We condemn this outrageous attack on Iraq's ssovereignty."

Marnia Lazreg is the author of Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad. On this week's Law and Disorder (which aired on WBAI this morning), she spoke with hosts Michael Ratner, Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian.

Marnia Lazreg: The whole explanation of the war in Iraq, the whole fight against "the insurgency," establish a democracy in Iraq, and explaining that, you know, to establish a democracy, you actually have to do certain things. You have to expertate out of the society all of these subversive elements and we are always told that they're really foreigners, you know, they come from outside of Iraq -- which is a good way of making the war popular but one would need to know whether on the ground you're really dealing only with outside elements or whether there is not a home grown opposition to the, you know, invasion. Even the guys who are on our side, the Kurds, see we don't tend to think about them as Muslims but we always outlining the fact that you have the Shia and the Sunni and the Sunni were the bad guys. And, in fact, we are helping the bad guys on the Shia side to control the government and we're also partitioning the country, you know along secetarian lines. It's not ethnic really, that's sectarian. They have Shia, Sunni and the only ethnic really is the Kurds.

Bombings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 Baghdad roadside bombings that claimed 2 lives and left fifteen wounded and a Mosul truck bombing which "targeted Mosul dam bridge" which was "fully destroyed. The bridge connects west Mosul and Syria with east Mosul and the other governorates," and a Diyala mortar attack that claimed 1 life and left four people wounded and a Diyala roadside bombing targeting attorney "Muslim Lateef Al-Shaibani". Reuters notes that Mosul truck bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer and left another wounded. Reuters also notes a Balad Ruz bike bombing that claimed the lives of 4 people and left twenty-three wounded.

Shootings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1person shot dead in Basra with two more wounded and an attack in Baquba that claimed 3 lives and left four wounded. Reuters notes armed clashes in Baiji left 2 police officers dead and "four Awakening members were wounded" while, in Baquba, the same left 3 "neighbourhood patrol members" dead with four more injured.

Corpses?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 9 corpses discovered in Baghdad and 1 in Dhuluiya.

Today the US military announced: "A U.S. Soldier died as a result of a non-combat related injury in the vicinity of Camp Taji, Iraq, today."

Meanwhile in the US the Democrats again caved. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) explained this morning, "On Capitol Hill, the Democratic-led Senate has authorized another $189 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate approved the spending by a vote of 90 to 3. The only Senators voting against the war funding were Democrats Robert Byrd and Russ Feingold and independent Bernie Sanders. None of the Democratic Senators running for president were in Washington for the vote. The bill also expands the size of the U.S. Army by 13,000 soldiers." As we noted at The Third Estate Sunday Review yesterday, also not voting were Republican John McCain who is running for the GOP presidential nomination and Democratic senators Barbara Boxer and Daniel Inouye. Isaiah's take on it was Nancy Pelosi dressed as Santa Clause providing Bully Boy with everything he wanted. For those who have forgotten, US Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were going to stand firm this time -- according to them. The caving comes as Peter Spiegel and Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times) report that US "commanders in Iraq have decided to keep their forces concentrated in Baghdad when the buildup strategy ends next year, removing troops instead from outlying areas of the country." That is most likely due to the fact that the US can't 'control' Iraq and focusing on Baghdad protects the puppet government and also allows reporters (MSM is based in Baghdad) the illusion that the capital is 'safe.' The caving also comes as Reuters reports the puppet government's spokesperson Ali al-Dabbagh declared on Iraqi TV yesterday, "Of course we need international support. We have security problems. For 10 years our army will not be able to defend Iraq." Catch it? Ten more years. The puppet government needs US troops in Iraq because the puppets have no real authority and they do not represent the Iraqi people.

Yesterday, control of the Basra province was turned over to Iraq by the British. Mona Mahmoud, Maggie O'Kane and Ian Black (Guardian of London) note:

As British forces finally handed over security in Basra province, marking the end of 4½ years of control in southern Iraq, Major General Jalil Khalaf, the new police commander, said the occupation had left him with a situation close to mayhem. "They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world," he said in an interview for Guardian Films and ITV.But in the film, to be broadcast on the Guardian Unlimited website and ITV News, Khalaf lists a catalogue of failings, saying:· Basra has become so lawless that in the last three months 45 women have been killed for being "immoral" because they were not fully covered or because they may have given birth outside wedlock;· The British unintentionally rearmed Shia militias by failing to recognise that Iraqi troops were loyal to more than one authority;· Shia militia are better armed than his men and control Iraq's main port.
Finally, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted a passing today, "Meanwhile another Iraqi journalist has been killed. Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi died on Friday when Iraqi National Guard forces raided his house in Sadr City. He was reportedly shot 31 times. Al-Moussawi was a journalist working for the Iraqi video website Alive In Baghdad." Liz Gannes adds:

Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi, a 22-year-old reporter for web news program Alive in Baghdad, was killed at home in Iraq on Friday. During an Iraqi National Guard raid in his neighborhood of Sadr City, Al-Moussawi was shot 31 times in the chest and head and died at the scene, according to the Alive in Baghdad blog.


Ali Shaefeya Al-Moussawi died two days before his 23 birthday.

allan nairn, naomi wolf

sherry e-mailed me to note a segment from democracy now thursday. this is from 'US Intelligence Tapping Phones of Indonesian Civilians:'

ALLAN NAIRN: US intelligence officials in Jakarta are secretly tapping the cell phones and reading the SMS text messages of Indonesian civilians, and they're doing this from inside Indonesian paramilitary units that have been involved in arrests and attacks on civilians. And it also is the case that the US has been covertly aiding Kopassus, the most notorious unit of the Indonesian army, a unit that has been implicated in torture, disappearances, assassinations, and that the US Congress believed it had stopped aid to.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Detachment 88?
ALLAN NAIRN: Detachment 88 is supposedly an antiterrorist unit. It is advertised as going after jihadist groups, like the ones that did the bombings in Bali and Jakarta in Indonesia that killed more than 200 civilians.
But recently, Detachment 88 was involved in the seizure on the street of a human rights lawyer in West Papua, a lawyer by the name of Iwangin, and he was seized because he had received an SMS text message on his cell phone that criticized abuses that the Indonesian army was committing in Papua and criticized the president of Indonesia, General Susilo. And so, he forwarded these SMS text messages, and somehow Detachment 88 got wind of this. They snatched him off the street, and he was charged with incitement and insulting the head of state. And now we learn that US intelligence has personnel in Jakarta working inside the offices of Detachment 88, and one of the tasks is precisely to intercept SMS text messages.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you know that Americans are involved?
ALLAN NAIRN: Three sources have told me this, one of them a person who works regularly with the Indonesian security forces and who has spoken directly formally with the US intelligence people involved in the phone tapping. And the presence of the Americans was confirmed by two Indonesian officials who work inside Detachment 88.
And further, when I asked the US embassy in Jakarta today for comment, they at first issued a blanket denial, but then, twenty minutes later, revoked that denial and issued a statement which did not deny the presence of US phone tappers inside these units and did not deny US covert intelligence assistance for Kopassus.
AMY GOODMAN: In the piece you wrote, you talk about classified Kopassus manuals that talk about the technique of terror. Can you explain?
ALLAN NAIRN: Yes, in their own internal training manuals, they talk about training their people in what they describe as the "tactic and technique" of "terror" and "kidnapping." We have these manuals, because they were abandoned in East Timor in 1999 after Kopassus helped to massacre the population there after they voted for independence, and then fled the country, and they left behind some of these manuals. And they reveal that--what had long been suspected, that it is formal policy of Kopassus to commit terrorism and to kidnap civilians.
It should be noted--and this is a very important point--that although Detachment 88 is defined as an antiterrorism unit, it only claims to be antiterrorist in the sense that President Bush defines "antiterrorism," and that is Islamic jihadists who attack Westerners or the allies of Westerners. In fact, if you use an objective definition of "terrorism," actually similar to that in the USA PATRIOT Act, which is attacking civilians, killing civilians for political purposes, if you use that kind of definition, then the main terrorist threat in Indonesia is not these jihadist groups, which have killed several hundred civilians, but other [inaudible] and the Indonesian military and police themselves, who have been involved in the killing of hundreds of thousands of Indonesian civilians. They are the main terrorist threat, by any definition. So the US is giving antiterrorist aid to terrorists.

that was from thursday's broadcast and, as sherry noted, i'd noted nairn on wednesday discussing how t had brought him up. thank you to sherry for catching that because that was 1 of the many things i intended to note. in the pre-motherhood days, i could think and take as long as i wanted (or didn't) on a post. i was always smoking up a storm. these days, i'm trying to grab a post before the baby needs nursing and if i'm not finished, i am. i will type while holding the baby but it's very hard to type with 1 hand while nursing. so what happens then is i will ask flyboy to copy & paste in the snapshot and post the post. it ends when the baby needs nursing. and that means a lot of things end up not covered every day.



i'm not real impressed with the coverage of the c.i.a. destroying torture tapes thus far due to knowing what is still waiting to emerge. a reporter hinted at it on the radio today. yes, congress knew a great deal. not all members, but some did. that's probably where the story's headed especially if the white house feels the need to 'hit back.' that's not saying that makes it fine. it doesn't. that's saying that the white house had a few partners in betraying america. in terms of the think pieces written on the subject, the only 1 i've seen worth noting is naomi wolf's 'what is probably in the missing tapes' (common dreams):

As the CIA tries to spin its apparent crimes and claim that its waterboarding and other forms of criminal torture "saved lives" -- while conveniently offering no evidence to back that up, and while the administration withholds evidence to the contrary from the lawyers of the detainees -- we should bear in mind that the decades of research on torture summarized in the magisterial survey "The Question of Torture" show beyond the shadow of a doubt that prisoners being tortured will indeed "say anything." When American prisoners were tortured by the North Vietnamese, their confessions were phrased in Communist cliches.
We should note too -- as the White House tries to muddy the waters by pretending that there has ever been a "debate" about such acts as these -- that the US in the past prosecuted waterboarding itself: when the Japanese had waterboarded US prisoners they were convicted with sentences of fifteen years of hard labor.
We should also bear in mind that the Bush White House has deliberately crafted its memos and laws -- such as the Bybee/Gonzales "torture memo" and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 -- with a keen eye to seeking indemnification of its own guilt regarding having committed evident crimes, because those involved know quite well that acts committed could be criminal acts. (An historical note worth mentioning, when we consider how hyperalert the Bush White House has been to the issue of seeking retroactively to protect itself and its subordinates from prosecution for war and other crimes, is that the Nuremberg Trials eventually swept up influential Nazi industrialists such as Fritz Thyssen of IG Farben -- who relied on Auschwitz slave labor -- and with whom Prescott Bush had collaborated in amassing the Bush family millions; some of the sentences given to those industrialists found guilty in the postwar trials were severe.) For a moment postwar, the legal spotlight was also about to search out and hold accountable the several prominent US investors who had partnered with Nazi industrialists (see the exhaustively documented study of US/Nazi corporate collaboration, IBM and the Holocaust.)
Prosecution for war crimes and other criminal acts, which the administration so clearly recognizes that it may well have committed -- which its legislation so clearly shows it realized it may well commit in advance of the commission -- is the only consequence the Bush team seems to be really afraid of as it attempts its multiple subversions of the rule of law. This is why the nation’s grassroots call for a truly independent investigation into possible criminality is so very urgent and so necessary to restore the rule of law in our nation.
Mr. Mukasey could look up his own department’s files and understand that waterboarding is a war crime; not only that, the US Military prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime itself in 1902 -- it had been used against prisoners in the Phillipines -- and those Americans who had committed it received convictions from the military. It is hopeless to rely on the Justice Department.
An independent special prosecutor must be appointed. The people who are found guilty, in America, must face justice.
Let the investigations begin.



oh allan nairn has another article at counterpunch today. it's called 'shoot them on the spot:'

Last June, when President/General Susilo of Indonesia visited one of his provinces, in the Moluccas, he was greeted by local residents performing a traditional dance for him, a ritual often repeated around the world when powerful rulers travel, the implicit message being: this is us, but to you, we bow.
This time, however, something went wrong, and to the evident astonishment of the visiting democrat (Gen. Susilo was just awarded a democracy medal by the International Association of Political Consultants. See posting of November 13, 2007, "Vomiting to Death on a Plane. Arsenic Democracy."), the dancers unfurled a freedom flag with an entirely different implicit message: it was the banned four-color banner that symbolizes Moluccan independence from Indonesia.
After the performers were hauled off to jail by Indonesia's POLRI national police ("I want the performers of the dance [to] be investigated," Susilo ordered,"If the dancers have certain purposes, there should be a resolute action against them." "President Yudhoyono orders investigation into 'unscheduled dance'", Antara [official Indonesian government news agency], June 29, 2007), the area police and army commanders were both sacked for inexcusable laxness.
They had apparently let arise an atmosphere so loose that prohibited thought could not only be thought, but could be so bold as to find expression before the very eyes of the visiting sovereign.
Fortunately for national stability, as it is called in Jakarta, Washington, and elsewhere, that problem has now been cured with the appointment of regional army commander Gen. Rasyid Qurnuen Aquary who has informed his TNI (Indonesian national armed forces) troops to "act firmly against anyone engaging in separatist actions, and if need be, shoot them on the spot." (The General's spokesman, Maj. Sukriyanto, quoted in AFP, Jakarta, "Indonesia General Says Separatists Could Be Shot," Dec. 12, 2007, via Joyo Indonesia News Service).
Fortunately for those dissident dancers -- and perhaps also for the President, whose shirt might have gotten spattered red that day -- the order comes too late to have gotten them shot-on-spot (they merely sit, untried, in prison), but not too late for a bold 19 year old Moluccan man just shot by TNI troops on Saturday (he's apparently still alive) for the offense of hanging a similar flag on a tree near which they were working.
In a time and in a place where some authority was bothering to enforce the murder laws, such a public "shoot them on the spot" order against dissidents might be seen to constitute a war crime, or -- since the Moluccas are arguably not in a state of war -- an equally prosecutable, under international law, crime against humanity.

east timor is a very real issue. it's not a 'potential' issue the way iran is. the violence is going on right now. it's 1 we should be giving attention to. i will try to note stuff when i see it.

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Friday, December 14, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces deaths, the refugee crisis has new news, Nancy Pelosi tries a stand-up career and more.

Starting with war resistance, the War Resisters Support Campaign works to assist individual resisters in Canada and to fight for the rights of asylum of war resisters. They are calling for a national mobilization in Canada on January 26th. Courage to Resist is calling on people in the US to call the Canadian consulates in the US on January 24th and January 25th as well as to mobilize and with actions and vigils. Actions can take place around the world at Canadian consulates in every country.

In terms of e-mailing, where the pressure needs to be currently is on the these three:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. Brave stands need to be supported.

US war resister Aidan Delgado received CO status and was discharged. He shares his story in The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq which Forbes offered a book excerpt of after Thanksgiving:

In a larger sense, what happened to me in Iraq is completely irrelevant. The sights, the sounds, the tastes are all just curiosities that I present in an effort to paint the picture. I could give you an endless series of vignettes: what Iraq looked like, what we ate, the interesting characters in my unit, but it would all be meaningless. If you want to read about daring military exploits, there are many authors with stories more dashing than mine. It would be vain and empty merely to chronicle what happened to me, as if I were somehow so important that you needed to hear every event of my life in excruciating detail. I am not telling parlor stories.
I wrote this book because I want to share a lesson I learned in the desert, in the hope that it will inform your view of the war in Iraq, of politics, of religion, of all the choices you make as a moral person. I can't bear to hear any more stories about battles and uncompromising heroes, with flags waving gently in the background. I want this book to serve as a hanging question about what it means to be an ethical soldier, to live an honest life. I want to give you a military life in shades of gray, filled with doubt, moral courage and moral cowardice.

Delgado's book (and other books, DVDs, CDs, clothing, etc.) can be purchased via Courage to Resist (as well as at bookstores) and part of the proceeds will go towards helping the organization working to end the illegal war.

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).


The voice of war resister Camilo Mejia is featured in Rebel Voices -- playing now through Sunday December 16th at Culture Project -- this is your LAST WEEKEND to catch it -- and based on Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's best-selling book Voices of a People's History of the United States. It features dramatic readings of historical voices such as war resister Mejia, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Malcom X and others will be featured. Musician Allison Mooerer will head the permanent cast while those confirmed to be performing on selected nights are Ally Sheedy (actress and poet, best known for films such as High Art, The Breakfast Club, Maid to Order, the two Short Circuit films, St. Elmo's Fire, War Games, and, along with Nicky Katt, has good buzz on the forthcoming Harold), Eve Ensler who wrote the theater classic The Vagina Monologues (no, it's not too soon to call that a classic), actor David Strathaim (L.A. Confidential, The Firm, Bob Roberts, Dolores Claiborne and The Bourne Ultimatum), actor and playwright Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride, Clueless -- film and TV series, Gregory and Chicken Little), actress Lili Taylor (Dogfight, Shortcuts, Say Anything, Household Saints, I Shot Andy Warhol, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, State of Mind) and actor, director and activist Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Beloved, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Rainmaker, Places In The Heart, Dreamgirls, Shooter and who recently appeared on Democracy Now! addressing the US militarization of Africa) The directors are Will Pomerantz and Rob Urbinati with Urbinati collaborating with Zinn and Arnove on the play. Tickets are $41.. The theater is located at 55 Mercer Street and tickets can be purchased there, over the phone (212-352-3101) or online here and here. More information can be found at Culture Project.

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 15th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation.

Starting with legal news. Delano Holmes was sentenced today. For? Killing Iraqi soldier Munther Jasem Muhammed Hassin by repeatedly stabbing him over forty times. Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes then, after Hassin was dead, fired Hassin's gun. As Rick Rogers (San Diego Union-Tribune) notes, Holmes declared on video that, "I picked up (Hassin's) AK and fired it, as to give myself a way out ... for getting into it with this Iraqi soldier." The court-martial was a joke as was the sentencing. Holmes had a high school teacher, a foster parent and others there to speak of his good character. Where were the people speaking for the dead Hassin? Had the court-martial been held in Iraq, since Hassin was an Iraqi soldier, there might have been people who grew up with him and/or trained with him who could vouch for his character. Since the defense (and to a degree the prosecution) dependent solely on the account of Holmes as to what happened (the defense attempted to argue a fight broke out over a lit cigarette and a cellphone), it might have been relevant to know whether or not Hassin was prone to engaging fights let alone (as the defense maintained) starting them. But for that to happen, the court-martial would have had to take place in Iraq. Since the crime took place in Iraq (Falluja), the court-martial should have as well. AP reports that yesterday Holmes was found guilty "of negligent homicide" but not of "unpremeditated homicide." AP also notes the prosecution's statement regarding the alleged fight Holmes stated had ensued: "Not a scratch. Not a blemish. . . . There is not a mark on him. There is no self-defense. There can be lawful killins during a time of war. This is not a lawful killing." Despite being found guilty of two charges, NBC's KNSD reports Holmes will receive no jail time -- receiving 'credit' instead for the 10 months he was held in custody leading up to the court-martial. What 'credit' does the dead Hassin receive? Or is that life less important? Other 'punishments' for Holmes include being busted down from Lance Cpl. to private and receiving "a bad-conduct discharge." So this is 'justice' -- kill an Iraqi and the time you're jailed before the trial will count as time-served and you won't receive any additional time. Hassin is dead. No one stood up at the sentencing for Hassin. No one offered stories of what he was like as a child, no religious figure stepped forward to vouch for his good soul. Considering that the court-martial took place in California and that California has been one of the leaders in the US on allowing the families of victims to speak at sentencings, that's offensive on every level imaginable. Rick Rogers (San Diego Union-Tribune) reports, "'Wow,' Maj. Christopher Shaw, a prosecutor, said under his breath when the sentence was read in a courtroom at Camp Pendleton." Wow indeed. Rob Schneider (Indianapolis Star) notes the maximum prison sentence Holmes could have received was 8 years. Instead, he received no prison time. Hassin, however, remains dead.

In other justice or 'justice' news, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reports, "The Justice Department has announced the FBI is investigating the top official overseeing corruption and abuse in the US-led reconstruction of Iraq. Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuwart Bowen is under suspicion for a series of improprieties including tampering with employee emails. Bowen's investigations have indicted several American officials on corruption charges, documented wasteful and inept work by large contractors and found the Pentagon did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons given to Iraqi troops. The Bush administration tried to close down his office last year but backed off following Congressional opposition." Robin Wright (Washington Post) notes a number of allegations against Bowen in particular and the office in general and by the time it gets down to "Cruz threatened to put hexes on employees," readers may be skeptical whether this is an investigation or the sort of thing used by Republicans before -- see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege or read articles at Consortium News such as "Rise of the 'Patriotic Journalist':" "Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, a Republican, also encountered press hostility when his investigation finally broke through the White House cover-up in 1001. Moon's Washington Times routinely lambasted Walsh and his staff over minor issues, such as the elderly Walsh flying first class on airplanes or odering room-service meals."

Parry reports most recently on the latest wave of biometrics in Iraq which will further the targeting of Iraqis by making mobile labs which, no, do not determine guilt or innocent but may lead to more 'suspects' dying. Parry notes, "In effect, the Bush administration is transforming Iraq into a test tube for modern techniques of repression, which already include use of night-vision optics on drone aircraft, heat resonance imaging, and firepower that is both deadly and precise. The new techniques represent a modernization of tactics used in other counterinsurgencies, such as in Vietnam in the 1960s and in Central America in the 1980s. . . . The U.S. news media mostly has reacted to these developments with gee-whiz enthusiasm, like the [Washington] Post story about [Anh] Duong, which breezily depicts her complicated life as a devoted mom whose personal history as a Vietnamese refugee led her to a career developing sophisticated weapons for the U.S. government. The Post feature article expressed no alarm and no criticism of Duong's comment about shooting Iraqi suspects 'on the spot'."

Turning to the issue of Iraqi refugees, John Ross joins Robert Parry in calling out the lies of Operation Happy Talk. Writing at CounterPunch, Ross notes that the latest waves roll out as primaries approach "the usual unholy alliance of Bushites, Democrats and Big media . . . doing their damndest to skam a skeptical electorate into swallowing the lie that the surge has worked, the drawdown has begun, and the war in Iraq is just about over. . . . All this happy talk gets Bush and the Republicans off the hook for an overwhelmingly unpopular war just in time for the U.S. presidential election season. It also means that the Democrats won't have to defend their half-hearted call for withdrawal and risk being tarred as traitors on the 24 House news cycle."

Will come back to the Congress in a bit, but staying on Iraqi refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Office issues the latest findings of their studies of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Most are living on savings and assistance from relatives with UNHCR's Jennifer Pagonis explaining, "33 percent say their financial resources will last for three months or less, while 24 percent are relying on remittances from family abroad to survive." Significant numbers are suffering from illnesses and lack of medication due to money issues while 10% of Iraqi children are working. Meanwhile the UN's IRIN reports that "Jordan is now demanding that Iraqis wishing to enter the kingdom first secure entry visas, the official Jordanian news agency Petra said on 11 December." The most recent edition of RCRC The Magazine of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement notes, "In the largest population movement in the Middle East since 1948, a huge influx of Iraqis is putting pressure on services in Jordan and Syria. . . . Security in Iraq has deteriorated to such an unprecedented level, due to the international armed conflict that began in 2003 and internal fighting, that many Iraqis find it nearly impossible to live in their own country. The result is that an estimated 4.2 million Iraqis have left their homes, the largest population movement in the Middle East since more than 800,000 Palestinians fled to neighbouring countries in 1948, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)."

From harsh reality to comedy, on yesterday's PBS' NewsHour US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was yucking it up:
GWEN IFILL: I want to point out to you -- I'm sure you've seen them -- page one of today's Capitol Hill newspapers, "Dems Cave," another ones says, "Democrats set to cave on Iraq, on the budget." What do you say to people who call this a cave-in Democratic Congress?REP. NANCY PELOSI: Well, I guess they're trying to sell papers, but the fact is, is that I will never confine the hopes, aspirations of the American people, as reflected in the legislation of the House of Representatives, to what the president of the United States, George W. Bush, will sign.We set a high watermark. We negotiate. We compete. We debate for our position to be held. And I'm pleased that, when we come out of this process, our priorities will be largely intact. It won't be funded to the levels that we want, but I'll never start at the president's bottom line. We'll always start at a high watermark.Her leadership started on a "high watermark"? How very, very, very sad that is considered a personal high. The Democrats refuse to 'compete' and refuse to force a vote on Iraq every day. This isn't new or novel. The May 22nd snapshot noted the following:

Meanwhile James Ridgeway (Mother Jones via Common Dreams) explores the presidential campaign of Mike Gravel who tells Ridgeway, "What we need to do [on Iraq] is to create a constitutional confrontation between the Congress and the president. Most people have forgotten the Congress is more powerful than the president. . . The Democrats have the votes in the House to pass it. In the Senate, they will filibuster it. Fine. The Majority Leader starts a cloture vote the first day. Fails to get cloture. Fine. The next day -- another vote on cloture. And the next day, and the next day, Saturdays and Sundays, no vacation -- vote every single day. The dynamic is that now you give people enough time to weigh in and put pressure on those voting against cloture. . . . I would guess in 15 to 20 days you would have cloture and the bill would pass and go to the president. He would veto it. Wonderful. It comes back to the House and Senate. Normal thing is to try to override and fail. No guts. No leadership. So in the House and Senate. Normal thing is to try to override and fail. No guts. No leadership. So in the House and Senate every day at noon, you have a vote to override the veto. The Democrats are the leaders -- they control the calendar. It only takes half an hour to have these votes."

That's not novel, that's not unknown. Congress has used that before. Gravel's been repeatedly advocating it all this year so for Pelosi to LIE to the American people is really sad. She declares that, "We know what to do to further meet the needs of the American people with this president and the obstructionism in the United States Senate. We can only do so much." FILIBUSTER. They could force a vote over and over. They don't do what's in their power to do. "We will only do so much" is a more honest answer than "we can only do so much." But Pelosi obviously hopes we've all forgotten the repeated caves or the fact that it took people like Cindy Sheehan, Tina Richards and many others to even force them to pretend to address the illegal war. "Vote for us in 2006, we'll end the war!" They were given control of both houses of Congress and . . . did nothing. But the 2008 elections are gearing up and it's time to trot out the "Vote for us . . ." cry again. We'll return to Congress in a moment but let's note some of the reported violence in the ongoing illegal war today:


Bombings?

Reuters notes an Anbar Province that left six police officers wounded

Shootings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a village attack in Mansouriat with at least 3 people shot dead and two wounded. Reuters notes 1 person was shot dead in Kirkuk by people "posing as Iraqi army soldiers," and US forces "killed three 'terrorists'" in Baghdad.

Corpses?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 corpses discovered in Baghdad.



Today the US military announced: "A Multi-National Division -- Center Soldier died of wounds suffered when the Soldier's dismounted patrol encountered an improvised explosive device south of Baghdad Dec. 13." And they announced: "A Soldier from Multi-National Division -- Baghdad was killed Dec. 13 in a small-arms fire attack in southern Baghdad. The deceased Soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense."

Pelosi told Ifill yesterday, "But there's no question, ending the war was a -- is a high priority for us and a big disappointment to many people that we weren't able to do it." The two deaths brought the total number of US service members who have died while serving in Iraq to 3891. Pelosi wasn't quick to offer Ifill the number of how many service members have died since she assumed control. The 110th Congress was sworn in January 4, 2007 -- Democrats having control of both houses. That evening the total number stood at 3006. 885 deaths since Pelosi became the Speaker of the House and Harry Reid became the Senate Majority Leader. When voters gave Dems control of both houses in the November 2006 elections, they weren't saying, "Dilly-dally around and do con jobs on us while nearly 900 US service members die in an illegal war." They were saying "END THE WAR!" As Ron Jacobs (CounterPunch) notes:

Okay. I'm going to state the obvious here. After all, somebody needs to say it. In fact, everybody who sees it needs to say it. Are you ready? Then here goes. The men and women calling themselves Democrats and sitting in Congress are the biggest bunch of liars this country has ever seen. Given today's political situation, what with Bush and Cheney running the White House, that's a pretty big claim to make. Unfortunately for those who believed those men and women might actually stop the war in Iraq and begin getting the US military out of there, this is the only conclusion one can make.I mean, take a look. There are more troops in Iraq now than there were when the Democrats won (yeh, won) both houses of Congress a little over a year ago. If my calculations are correct, more than $100 billion have been spent to keep those troops there, keep them in supplies both lethal and otherwise, and to top it off, more troops have died since those elected "representatives" took their places than in any other year of this loathsome war and occupation. Add to this list of calamities the untold numbers of Iraqis killed, wounded and uprooted from their homes. No matter how you look at it, there is no way this can be called ending the war. In fact, not only could it be called enabling this debacle to continue, the more truthful description would be to call what the Democrats have done is conspire to commit murder.

That is reality and Pelosi can call it 'pretty' and paint it up all she wants but it is an ugly reality and one that should cause the Dems to hang in their heads in shame until they end the illegal war.

The Dems have done Americans and Iraqis no favor but in Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki's happy to play a favor game. Ali al-Fadhily (IPS) details how Iraqis are being prevented from making the yearly pilgrimage by the Iraqi government: " Iraqis who want to go on the pilgrimage say officials have issued approvals only for relatives and party members. The Iraqi government led by U.S.-appointed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is Shia dominated, and many Iraqis say selection for the pilgrimage is sectarian." al-Fadhily quotes Sheik Fadhil Mahmood explaining, "It is a shame that corruption now goes as far as the Hajj. This is the fifth year that many Iraqis are deprived of their right to go to Mecca, while those who are members of parties in power, and militiamen, go every year. Most of our pilgrims are going for political and commercial purposes." While the pilgrimage to Mecca can't be made, Basra Christians can't publicly celebrate Christmas; however, Damien McElroy (Telegraph of London) reports that if Santa can't come, the US more than likely will: "American troops may have to be sent to Basra once British force levels are halved next year" according to Major General Graham Binns.Molly Bingham and Steve Connors amazing documentary is Meeting Resistance. As Bill Stamets (Chicago Sun-Times) notes, the film starts today (Friday) at Chicago's Facets, 1517 W. Fullerton with Bingham and Connors appearing "at screenings there tongiht and Saturday, and at an added screening at 3 p.m. Sunday at Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St." Lastly, this is nothing but a stunt but if you're going to do a stunt, do it to help others and not for ratings. Ann Curry will bungee jump live Monday morning on NBC's Today Show as part of a fundraising effort for the charities Save the Children and the United Way. You can find out more information at The Today Show's website. Tonight on ABC's 20/20 there will be a report on the latest US woman to come forward about being assaulted in Iraq. ABC's Brian Ross, Maddy Sauer and Justin Rood report on the sexual assault of Tracy Barker in Iraq:The Department of Justice declined to prosecute a State Department employee who allegedly sexually assaulted a female Halliburton/KBR worker in Iraq, despite a recommendation from the State Department that he be charged, according to an internal document obtained by ABC News.Ali Mokhtare, who is still employed by the State Department, was investigated in2005 after a female Halliburton/KBR employee said he sexually assaulted her at the company-run camp in Basra, Iraq. Mokhtare was a diplomatic official in Basra who first came to Iraq as a Farsi translator interviewing detainees.The U.S. Diplomatic Security Service investigated the allegations against Mokhtare and presented the case to the Justice Department for prosecution, but "the case was declined for prosecution" states the document.

Barker is quoted stating, "I'm an American citizen being assaulted by a State Department employee and nobody cares and nothing's being done about it." Tonight, ABC's 20/20 will explore the topic further. And Barker's not to be confused with Jamie Leigh Jones whose story (gang-raped and held in a 'container') ABC also broke this week.

paul street, dems

THE LONG countdown to the Democratic presidential primaries is almost over, and the months of debates and stump speeches have added up to...well, not much.
The crisis of the Bush administration and the Republicans is so severe that the way seems clear for a Democrat to take back the White House. The scenario couldn't be better for Democrats to get up off the mat they've resided on during the Bush years, and speak up for an alternative to the discredited right-wing agenda.
Instead, virtually every candidate is sticking to the cautious, stage-managed, triangulated scripts left over from past elections.
To be sure, there's a bit of a horse race. The daily media reports chew over state poll data and fundraising figures, while top-tier candidates snipe at each other over trivia. Maybe, just maybe, Hillary Clinton's political machine won't be able to deliver an "inevitable" nominee after all; maybe Barack Obama will win early in the Iowa caucuses or New Hampshire primary.
Obama generated excitement among people fed up with politics as usual in the U.S., and he promotes himself as representing "generational change." But his campaign has been plagued--at least until recently--by the correct perception among most people that this is all style over substance. His proposals don't depart at all from the moderate-to-conservative ones pursued by mainstream Democrats over the last quarter century.

that's the opening of the socialist worker's editorial 'Promising as little as possible.' i want to stay on the topic of obama for a bit more - mainly because t said she's sick of white people asking her if she's 'thrilled' that a 'black' man is running for president - paul street's been offering truth about barack obama and been 1 of the few voices to do so. this is from his 'Barack Obama and The Audacity of Deception: The Manufacture of Progressive Illusion' (black agenda report):

But for my money the worst example of Team Obama's taste for truly audacious deception is their effort to appropriate the spirit and support for the antiwar movement.
Listen to these two sentences from the cover of a shiny new mailing that I just got from the Obama campaign in Iowa: "From the very beginning, Barack Obama said No to the War in Iraq. Join the movement to end the war and chance Washington" (Obama for America 2007).
Yes, you read that correctly. "Obama ‘08" is equating caucusing for the junior senator from Illinois with joining the antiwar movement.
Never mind some basic facts of history. In late July of 2004, for example, Obama admitted to the New York Times that he did not know how he would have voted on the 2002 Iraq war resolution had he been serving in the United States Senate at the time of the vote. Here is the relevant Times passage: "In a recent interview [Obama' declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.' But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,' Mr. Obama said. 'WHAT WOULD I HAVE DONE? I DON'T KNOW.' What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made'" (New York Times, 26 July, 2004).
Obama has never opposed the "war" (naked and one-sided U.S. imperial aggression) on the same terms as the actual antiwar movement. His much-ballyhooed "antiwar speech" in Chicago during the fall of 2002 followed much conventional wisdom in the foreign policy establishment by criticizing "dumb wars." It said absolutely nothing about the obviously criminal and imperial, oil-motivated nature of the great international and human rights transgression Cheney and Bush were preparing for Iraq and the world community.
In the part of his famous 2004 Democratic Convention Keynote Address (generally credited with producing his national celebrity) that came closest to directly criticizing the Iraq invasion, Obama suggested that the Bush administration had "fudged the numbers" and "shad[ed] the truth" about why "our young men and women" were "sent into harm's way." He added that the U.S. must "care for [soldiers'] families while they're gone, tend to the soldiers upon their return, and never go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world."
Morally cognizant and reasonably informed listeners were left to wonder about the considerably larger quantity (well into the tens of thousands) of Iraqis who had been killed and maimed and who lost income as a result of the criminal U.S. invasion of their country by the summer of 2004. What about the massive harm U.S. forces were ordered to inflict on Iraqis, considerably greater than the damage they experienced?

that hideous 2004 convention speech. it was hideous. i was there and remember looking around at every 1 cheering that crap and thinking, 'what gives?' i have no idea what they were cheering but they weren't cheering the content because they couldn't have caught it. if they had, they should have been appalled. i remember c.i. whispered 'the littlest war monger' and elaine and i both nodded. he is hideous because he's so deceptive (and street outlines many other areas of deception, i'm going with the illegal war deceptions).

by the way, cedric and wally are correct with their take and what obama's handler david axelrod doesn't grasp is the fact that this is now a big issue in the campaign. this is not a case where some 1 unearthed new details. the issue is 1 obama wrote about, drug use. and now he's the 'cokehead' until a new scandal comes along. it's also true that until he was confronted about writing of his own coke use, he was telling people - in this campaign - that he just smoked pot. and of course, a few weeks back, alexander cockburn was writing about rumors of heroin use. so david axelrod making a big deal out of something that was already written about by obama does say 'press, look here!'

i think it's also true that some people in the this country won't find a former cocaine user 'inspiring.' nothing was 'unearthed' today. and the reaction of the campaign was to scream 'foul!'

t told me she went online and found some nonsense where 'white people were saying it was racism. it's not racism, he admitted to his coke use.' t's about had it with 'black' obama and wanted me to note this from her: 'born black, raised by black parents, i'm black. obama? born to a white parent and a black parent and raised by white people? not seeing any black.' but she really found it offensive when white bloggers rushed in to say that a man now fired from the hillary campaign talking to the press about the liabilities barack could face if he got the nomination was 'racism. as if it had anything to do with race. it was about the fact that barack obama did coke and wrote about doing coke.'

1 of the biggest obama cheerleaders is the equal fraudulent katrina vanden heuvel. she wanted to scribble about the importance of the media tuesday, katrina wants to lecture about the media? the woman who killed the dianne feinstein war profiteering story? the woman who refused to run the photos the mag had about abuse of iraqis? yeah, katty, a strong media is important but you've given no indication that you know the first thing about that. bootlicker all her life, just like her daddy. or, as tori amos signs, 'star f**ker, just like your daddy, selling your baby, gonna strike a pose, make 'em feel like a congressman.' that's katty vanden heuvel for you.


let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Thursday, December 13, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the UK announces the death of a soldier, the press yawns at the topic of Iraq and more.

Starting with war resistance. Kathy Rumleski (London Free Press) reports that in Canada's London Monday night (nine o'clock showing), there will be a benefit screening of the Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep film Rendition at Hyland Cinema with the War Resisters Support Group of London recieving half the proceeds. The War Resisters Support Campaign works to assist individual resisters in Canada and to fight for the rights of asylum of war resisters. They are calling for a national mobilization in Canada on January 26th. Courage to Resist is calling on people in the US to call the Canadian consulates in the US on January 24th and January 25th as well as to mobilize and with actions and vigils. Actions can take place around the world at Canadian consulates in every country.

In terms of e-mailing, where the pressure needs to be currently is on the these three:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration.

Across the Atlantic, the UK military faces its own rebellion. Ian Bruce (Scotland's The Herald) reports that "[m]ore than 2000" members of the military "have been reported missing from their units in the first 10 months of this year." Bruce reviews the rates for the last ten years and finds the greatest increase in the Navy and air force. Bruce quotes one service member explaining the toll, "Almost back-to-back tours in units in constand demand impose tremendous strain on wives and kids. I had one mate who left because he suddenly realised his son was five and the guy hadn't been at home to spend a signle Christmas with the kid because of combat deployments. It's nonsense to say overstretch isn't a factor in the numbers going Awol. A six-month tour involves a nine-month absence from home. Soldiers are hauled off for three months' pre-deployment training before they go to hot, sandy places."

In the US, Mark Wilkerson is one of the war resisters who went public in 2006 (others from that year include Ehren Watada, Ricky Clousing and Darrell Anderson). Patrick Doyle (Denver's 5280) offers an in-depth look at Wilkerson's story -- beginning well before Wilkerson decided to self-checkout and even before he decided to enlist. Like many who came before (and many who have and will come after), Wilkerson applied for CO status and was denied (it would be great if reporters could review the US military's actual policy before writing about this topic). As he was due to return to Iraq for a second tour shortly, Wilkerson attempted an appeal but was told that the appeal would be decided while he was in Iraq. At that point, he self-checked out. At the end of the article, Wilkerson speaks of a brother in the military currently, "His experience has been different than mine. And from what he's seen, the war in Iraq is a good thing. But he hasn't been there. And I hope he doesn't go. I'd rather him disagree with me, and be a little more naive about what's going on there, than form his own opinion by going and coming back, and being miserable. Because then, he'll have seen the truth. And his world will have been ripped apart, like mine."

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).


The voice of war resister Camilo Mejia is featured in Rebel Voices -- playing now through December 16th at Culture Project -- that's ten more days -- and based on Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's best-selling book Voices of a People's History of the United States. It features dramatic readings of historical voices such as war resister Mejia, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Malcom X and others will be featured. Musician Allison Mooerer will head the permanent cast while those confirmed to be performing on selected nights are Ally Sheedy (actress and poet, best known for films such as High Art, The Breakfast Club, Maid to Order, the two Short Circuit films, St. Elmo's Fire, War Games, and, along with Nicky Katt, has good buzz on the forthcoming Harold), Eve Ensler who wrote the theater classic The Vagina Monologues (no, it's not too soon to call that a classic), actor David Strathaim (L.A. Confidential, The Firm, Bob Roberts, Dolores Claiborne and The Bourne Ultimatum), actor and playwright Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride, Clueless -- film and TV series, Gregory and Chicken Little), actress Lili Taylor (Dogfight, Shortcuts, Say Anything, Household Saints, I Shot Andy Warhol, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, State of Mind) and actor, director and activist Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Beloved, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Rainmaker, Places In The Heart, Dreamgirls, Shooter and who recently appeared on Democracy Now! addressing the US militarization of Africa) The directors are Will Pomerantz and Rob Urbinati with Urbinati collaborating with Zinn and Arnove on the play. Tickets are $41.. The theater is located at 55 Mercer Street and tickets can be purchased there, over the phone (212-352-3101) or online here and here. More information can be found at Culture Project.

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 15th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation.

Today on KPFK's Uprising Radio, Sonali Kolhatkar spoke with FAIR's Peter Hart who noted that push by big media to cover the elections as a horserace and to determine what was and wasn't an issue with Hart citing the media down-grading of the Iraq War and the media push on immigration. If you doubt the push, check out the New York Times today. Monica Davey's on the front page with an article on immigration and Iowa. Where the hell's Iraq? Not on the front page. So you have to flip A6 or A8? No. You have to flip all the way to A20. There you will find an early filed article by Damien Cave and Khalid al-Ansary -- one filed so early and that editors cared so little about that the number of Iraqis killed in the Amara car bombings yesterday is . . . 27. By yesterday morning in the United States, the number was already considerably higher than that. But the paper shows no interest. And they bury it on A20. Even with the paper's tiny, low balls, 27 dead Iraqis should qualify as significant news; however, it's buried on A20. Not even on the top of A20, it's the lower half of the paper and isn't even illustrated with a photo.

Iraq is falling off the radar and Mary Conroy (The Capital Times via Common Dreams) provides a list of losses due to the illegal war which include human lives, monies and "freedom of the press." Conroy notes the images of the dead don't make the news and that includes the many Iraqis slaughtered in this illegal war: "When we do see a photo of an Iraqi killed by U.S. troops, the media distances us by labeling the dead Iraqi 'an al-Qaida-linked militant,' or 'a militiamen loyal to Osama bin Laden.' Remember that photo of a terrorized naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack? Today she would be called 'a Vietcong guerilla' or 'a Ho Chi Minh militant'." Think Conroy is off? Sunday December 2nd, CBS 60 Minutes aired a report from Iraq. The reporter was Scott Pelley and the program is 60 Minutes -- hard hitting journalism, right? As Ava and I noted in our commentary a couple approached Pelley and the camera crew wanting to share photos of their dead children:

Taking a page from Katrina vanden Heuvel's book, Pelley goes the non-journalistic route and instead of holding the photos up to the camera, decides to 'explain' what they show. He declared they were too graphic for television.The parents didn't think so. The parents readily offered the photos which they either always carried with them or carried with them to that Sunday service because they knew a TV crew would be present. The parents wanted to get the story out and a real reporter would have assisted them.Watching Pelley grimace as he looked at the photos and then 'explain' them by merely noting the children had been shot and the photos were too graphic ("They're just too much"), we wondered if maybe Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn, reporting on East Timor today, would have to, in order to attract network attention to the massacre, say, "Well there was a lot of blood but we can't go into it because it was really, really graphic."?

And that's 60 Minutes -- the most lauded of the network news magazines, the last stand for TV network journalism. But Katrina vanden Heuvel is the editor and publisher of the independent Nation magazine and the magazine wanted a lot of credit for a July feature supposedly telling the story of Iraqis (for it to be that, the reporters would have had to speak to Iraqis) and, in the intro, slide in that the magazine had been presented with dozens of photos of abuse. Where were the pictures? It's an All Things Media Big and Small issue. The photos didn't run in the magazine (or online) and The Nation is allegedly an independent magazine. Iraq's not just sliding off the radar, it's being pushed.

Amy Goodman has repeatedly made the point about when do we get to ask questions about the illegal war? We were told not to question before it started, told not to question during. And when there is a space created by the people to honestly explore realities, our media -- big and small -- continues to fail us. A Scott Pelley or a Katrina vanden Heuvel decides to 'protect' us. The truth shall set you free? Then our media outlets must want us all in shackles and chains.

Ali al Basri and Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that the death toll from the Amarah car bombings yesterday climbed to "at least 42" while Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) notes that cell phones are not working in Amarah and that "rumors spread through the city that U.S.-led forces, bent on taking control of Maysan [Province], were to blame" for the car bombings.

In some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports three Baghdad bombings that targeted a liquor stores and a Baghdad car bombing "near the Italian embassy" claimed 1 life and left five wounded. Reuters notes a Khan Bani Saad roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 woman and injured a man, a Mosul roadside bombing that left four people wounded and, in the continued targeting of officials, a car bombing in Hit aimed that mayor which left 2 bodyguards dead and six people wounded.

Shootings?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports contractor Firas Saadi Hussein was shot dead in Baghdad, a woman was shot dead in Baquba and, in the continued attacks on educators and officials, Dr. Sabah Tariq, dean of Baghdad's Technology University, and his daughter were wounded in a shooting attack in Baghdad. Reuters notes a home invasion in which "a woman who ran a beauty shop" was shot dead in Mosul, a police officer shot dead (with four others injured) in Mosul

Corpses?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 corpses discovered in Baghdad, four in Baquba and 16 outside Muqdadiyah. Reuters notes 1 corpse discovered in Hawija and 2 ("father and son") discovered in Dour.

Meanwhile the BBC notes 1 "British soldier has died following a road accident" in Basra on Wednesday.

Staying on violence, some anthropologists think they're doing noble work by being part of the HTS. They are wrong. The topic was addressed today on Democarcy Now!:

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Why don't you lay out what this debate is?

DAVID PRICE: Well, this debate very much cuts to the core of what the appropriate uses of anthropology are, regarding warfare and regarding large ethical issues about what does it mean to have anthropologists embedded with military forces during a time of war. You know, there are large ethical issues about embedding ethnographers with troops. Basically, fundamental research ethics require that research subjects have voluntary meaningful informed consent, that they're told, you know, what's going to be done with the research, and that no harm come to those who are studied. The executive board of the American Anthropological Association weighed these and others issues and made a very strong statement against the Human Terrain program, because it saw it clearly wandering into these very ethical problematic areas and not really showing due concern for the people who are studied.

JUAN GONZALEZ: What specifically is the Human Terrain program? How did it start, and how does it typically operate now in places like Afghanistan and Iraq?

DAVID PRICE: The Human Terrain program is run through BAE, which is a contracting agency. You know, in some ways it's very similar to Blackwater in the way that it works. What they do is they take ethnographers, they take anthropologists, who may or may not have cultural expertise in the areas where they're working, and they take these ethnographers, embed them with the troops, they travel with them, and then they try and advise commanders about taking culturally appropriate action. Now, the claim by Human Terrain is that they can reduce casualties by giving more nuanced information to people in battle situations. But there's a lot more to it than that, especially in that people in the Pentagon see this as being linked to the CORDS program. CORDS program in Vietnam was used to map human terrain, to identify suspected individuals and groups that the military believed were sympathizers for the Viet Cong, who were, in the Vietnam era, targeted for assassination. Now, supposedly what's going on with Human Terrain is that, you know, it's essentially a manners lesson for people in the battlefield. But the problem is, is that there are armed ethnographers. Not all the ethnographers working for Human Terrain carry weapons, but we do know there are instances where they do. They're given the option to do so. So they travel with troops and independently in the countryside, gathering culture information that they bring back and give to the command.

Network of Concerned Anthropologists is an group of anthropologists attempting to stop the betrayal of the field.

There is no 'goodness' in the program. A similar point can be found in Anthony Arnove's discussion Naomi Klein about her new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism at the Socialist Worker where they discuss how the nonsense that Iraq is the result of 'mix ups' and intentions gone astray. Here Klein is addressing that nonsense:

Nobody really believes it's about "bringing democracy," and we know there were no WMDs and no 9/11 link. So the idea that economic ambitions for the region could have been an essential motivating force and the centerpiece of the postwar plan seems to be a logical conclusion to draw, based on the evidence we have.
It's not a secret plan. So an effort has been made on the part of analysts to downplay this in the face of overwhelming evidence that this was a priority.
I think the reasons for this are complex, and they include a need to believe in American goodness around the world--Gary Wills talks about the myth of "original sinlessness."
I've been struck in my interviews with the liberal press in this country about the need to believe in the good intentions of even those American politicians who, in every other arena, are treated as truly sinister--people like Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz, who are the butt of every late-night joke.
The point of those jokes is usually that these are really scary characters, especially Dick Cheney. But if you draw a conclusion from this that he might also be capable of being motivated by self-interest and greed, both personally and for his circle of friends, this is seen as completely conspiratorial, and then we revert to the narrative of American "good intentions."
So it's allowable to criticize the execution and criticize the management, and you can say it was ill advised. But you can't say that the intentions were bad.

From there, we'll turn to the issue of Iraq for women. Feminist Wire Daily notes US citizen Jamie Leigh Jones 2005 gang-rape by employees of KBR in Iraq and was then placed in a 'container' to keep her quiet. It took the intervention of the US State Department to get Jones freed. Yesterday, ABC's Maddy Sauer reported that US Senator Hillary Clinton was "calling for a formal government investigation into allegations that a young female American contractor was gang-raped in Iraq and cites the [warning PDF format] letter Clinton wrote to US Secretary of State Condi Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Attorney General Michael Mukasey:

As I hope you are all aware, recent news accounts indicate that Ms. Jones, a Halliburton/KBR employee in Baghdad, alleges she was gang-raped by her fellow employees and then held under guard against her will in a shipping container in order to prevent her from reporting the horrific crime. She states that she was denied food and water during her detention and told that she would be fired if she left Iraq to seek medical attention. More than two years later, news reports state that no U.S. government agency or department has undertaken a proper investigation of the incident. These claims must be taken seriously and the U.S. government must act immediately to investigate Ms. Jones' claims. These allegations implicate all three of your departments. If one of your departments has already launched a private investigation, I urge you to disclose your findings without delay. If no investigation has been started, I urge you to decide the proper course for an inquiry into these claims and to commence your investigation with the utmost urgency.

Today, ABC's Justin Rood reports that the US House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing next Wednesday on the issue. Those who remember the Congress played dumb in the case of Suzanne Swift might hope that Congress has finally decided to do their job but let's wait and see how the hearings go. Meanwhile Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reports on the armed thugs threatening Iraqi women and girls focusing on two teenagers allowed to enter "a girls' high school" in Baghdad while carrying AK-47s -- and where was the Iraqi police (oh, that's right, they're controlled by the thugs of the Interior Ministry) -- and practice armed intimidation in what is allegedly 'safe' Baghdad. Meanwhile Mark Lattimer (Guardian of London) notes the dangers for women in the Kurdish region:

They lie in the Sulaimaniyah hospital morgue in Iraqi Kurdistan, set out on white-tiled slabs. A few have been shot or strangled, some beaten to death, but most have been burned. One girl, a lock of hair falling across her half-closed eyes, could almost be on the point of falling asleep. Burns have stretched the skin on another young woman's face into a fixed look of surprise. These women are not casualties of battle. In fact, the cause of death is generally recorded as "accidental", although their bodies often lie unclaimed by their families. "It is getting worse, especially the burnings," says Khanim Rahim Latif, the manager of Asuda, an Iraqi organisation based in Kurdistan that works to combat violence against women. "Just here in Sulaimaniyah, there were 400 cases of the burning of women last year." Lack of electricity means that every house has a plentiful supply of oil, and she accepts that some cases may be accidents. But the nature and scale of the injuries suggest that most were deliberate, she says, handing me the morgue photographs of one young woman after another. Many of the bodies bear the unmistakable signs of having been subjected to intense heat.




Turning to US politics. US House Rep and 2008 Democratic presidential contender has been barred from a 'debate' taking place today. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes, "In campaign news, Congressmember and Democratic hopeful Dennis Kucinich has been excluded from today's Democratic presidential debate in Iowa. Debate sponsor the Des Moines Register told Kucinich he isn't eligible because he doesn't meet local requirements on a local campaign office and paid staff. Kucinich's Iowa field director works out of a home office. The most recent poll of likely Democratic voters shows Kucinich has one percent support in Iowa--the same as Senator Chris Dodd. Nationally, Kucinich has two percent support--the same as Bill Richardson and Senator Joe Biden. Dodd, Richardson and Biden are all taking part in today's debate. In a statement, the Kuncinich campaign called the exclusion 'arbitrary and unreasonable', saying: '[If] the Register has decided to use hair-splitting technicalities to exclude the leading voice of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, the entire process is suspect'." Another candidate running for a party's presidential nomination is Cynthia McKinney who is running on the Green Party ticket. Richard Winger (Ballot Access News) notes that she is currently the only third party candidate "who is trying to qualify for primary season matching funds". Her "Power to the People" campaign took her to Wisconsin yesterday. Judith Davidoff (The Capital Times) reports McKinney declared in her speech, "Politics was never something I wanted to do. . . . There was always something public that was calling me." Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan says of McKinney, "She has always fought against the establishment (and that is why she is not in Congress now, in fact) and she has fought for legitimate voting and for the people of New Orleans. She introduced Articles of Impeachment on her last day as a Congressperson in 2006." Sheehan is running for the US Congress from California, from the eighth district specifically. Justin Elliott (Mother Jones) reports that Sheehan campaign intends to tackle the issue of Nancy Pelosi's knowledge of CIA torture going back to 2002 and quotes Sheehan stating: "Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress should be using their Constitutional authority to end all use of torture. Acquiring information through use of torture on prisoners of war is as inhumane as it is unreliable." Elliott adds: "If I were working at the Sheehan campaign, I would be calling every political reporter in the city and pushing hard to introduce a very simple question into the news cycle: Do Bay Area progressives want to support a Speaker of the House who is personally complicit in the Bush Administration's torture policies."