1/20/2011

i don't think an apology was necessary

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) is insisting that he didn’t mean to call his Republican colleagues Nazis for their opposition to the health care reform law, but nonetheless is apologizing to anyone offended by what he said on the House floor earlier this week.

In a statement released midday Thursday, Cohen said he wants “to be clear that I never called Republicans Nazis.” Rather, he said, he referred to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels in a Tuesday night floor speech because he considers Republicans to be peddling “propaganda” in their opposition to health care reform.


jennifer epstein (politico) reports the above. 1st off, steve cohen, that is calling republicans in congress "nazis." don't try to split hairs, it makes your apology seem less than sincere.

and that apology?

who needs it.

cohen called it like he saw it. stand by what you said.

i called bully boy bush a nazi all the time.

that's why i've never had a problem with republicans who call barack a nazi.

i'm not a hypocrite. why wouldn't i want people to speak freely?

and i don't think people are lying when they call barack a nazi, i think they genuinely believe it. i meant it when i called bush a nazi. i still think he is 1, in fact. he's an awful person. that's my honest opinion.

if you have the honest opinion that some 1 is a nazi, that's your opinion. even if you think, 'that rebecca, she's a real nazi,' if that's what you feel, that's what you feel.

so i wish steve cohen hadn't apologized. if that's what he felt, it's what he felt.

was he right or wrong in feeling that way?

it's what he felt.

and it didn't require an apology for me.

i'm not saying i think the g.o.p. is nazis, i don't know about half the republicans members in congress. but i know steve cohen generally says what he feels. which is why i wish he hadn't issued his apology.



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


Thursday, January 20, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, more deadly suicide bombings slam Iraq, Tony Blair prepares to again face the Inquiry, the Inquiry releases a page of testimony which states Blair declared he wanted to go to war and then it was declared that no notes would be kept on that session, calls continue for Tony to release his private correspondence with George W. Bush, a woman from the right wonders where feminists are on the war (and she's correct to wonder), an hour of finger-pointing offers no illumination, and more.
Once again this week, Iraq is slammed with suicide bombings. Despite that, as Mark Leon Goldberg (UN Dispatch) points out, "It hasn't quite made the top of the news here in the United States, but Iraqi is in the midst of a very violent week. On Tuesday, at least 49 people were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a line of police recruits in Tikrit. Yesterday, a suicide bomber driving an ambulance killed 15 people in Diyala. They were also lined up a recruiting station for security forces." And today? First up, Reuters notes a suicide bomber attacked a police station in Baquba. Counting 3 dead (plus suicide bomber) and twenty-seven wounded, Xinhua reports, "A suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into the checkpoint of the main entrance of the provincial headquarters of Diyala police and blew it up, causing severe damages to the surrounding buildings at the scene, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity." Aseel Kami and Rania El Gamal (Reuters) add that "the attack took place in the centre of the city near government buildings, including police headquarters." Ali al-Tuwaijri (AFP) reports that 2 of the dead were police officers and the third was female Iraqi journalist "Wejdan Assad al-Juburi, [who] had been a reporter for the Iraq al-Mustaqal (Independent Iraq) newspaper.)" AFP adds, "A total of 255 journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003, according to the Baghdad-based Journalism Freedoms Observatory." Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) explains the death toll is now at 4 and the number injured at thirty-three and reports another bombing: "Separately, a Shiite pilgrim was killed and nine others were wounded in southern Baghdad's al-Dora district Thursday when a roadside bomb struck a procession of Shiite pilgrims, who were making a three-day trek by foot to Karbala for Arbaeen, police said."
However, those bombings were quickly overshadowed by suicide bombings in Karbala. Xiong Tong (Xinhua) reports twin suicide bombers took their own lives, one after the other, as well as the lives of 45 Shi'ite pilgrims with another one-hundred-and-ten people injured. AFP states the bombers were in cars. John Leland (New York Times) counts three cars. BBC News has a photo essay here. Salar Jaff and Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) note that the death toll has risen to 56 and they quote survivor Ghassan Hashim explaining, "I turned and saw my wife covered with blood and she lost her leg! I lost control and fainted. I don't know where my wife is now. It was a mess and crowds were crying everywhere. It was like doomsday." Shashank Bengali and Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy's Miami Herald) give the death toll as 63 and cite hospital officials and they observe, "The spate of attacks, which began Tuesday with a suicide bombing that killed 60 people outside a police recruitment center in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, mark the first major spike in violence since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unveiled a new government in December." Jim Muir (BBC News) warns, "The sudden flare-up of violence over the past three days is bad news for the fledging Iraqi government, for several reasons." Martin Chulov (Guardian) gets right to the point: "The sharp upswing in violence has happened as Iraq remains without ministers to fill the posts of defence, national security and the interior. They are regarded as the most critical positions in the government, yet the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is reluctant to name names more than three weeks after he formed a government and almost 11 months since a national election was held." Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) adds, "Al-Maliki serves as acting defense, interior and national security minister." Dan Murphy (Christian Science Monitor) attempts to offer analysis but something's missing in his article or something's missing in his observations. He's commenting on Iraq's civil war (ethnic cleansing) of 2006 and 2007.
Could today's attack have that kind of impact? Probably not by itself. As recently as July of 2009, five Shiite mosques were simultaneously bombed in Baghdad, claimed 29 lives, and it didn't prompt major reprisals.
Today, Iraq has a fully sovereign government, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is a Shiite, and the party of the assassinated Ayatollah Hakim (since renamed the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq) has a major voice in government. Militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militiamen committed many of the atrocities on Sunnis during the worst of Iraq's fighting, has muted his rhetoric. Last week, in his first major speech since returning home from religious schooling in Qom, Iran he denounced sectarian violence and is giving signs that he wants to focus on a political route to power, at least for now.
Still, the symbolic power of the time and place of this bombing can't be ignored. Millions of Shiite pilgrims are descending on Karbala for Arbain, the culmination of a 40-day mourning cycle for Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad [. . .]
Do you see what's missing? He's saying a renewed civil war is not possible. Why? Because Shi'ites are in control of the government? I'm confused. Who was in charge in 2006 and 2007? Oh, right, same groups. It's not as if Sunnis were in charge then. And, oh, yeah, Sunnis the ones he leaves out when explaining (or 'explaining') why a civil war can't take place today. (And, no, his second to the last paragraph in the article doesn't explain 'right' the article.)
In addition, Reuters notes a Kanaan roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 pilgrim and left two more injured while, overnight, Baghdad "celebratory gunfire" resulted in thirteen people being wounded and Kirkuk "celebratory gunfire" resulted in two people being wounded. "Celbratory gunfire"? Omar al-Jawoshy (New York Times) explains that Nouri's outlawed it -- but apparently it's not enforced -- and quotes Nael al-Aboid insisting, "It is our tradition, to shoot our guns at all celebrations. Guns and swords represent the power of the tribes and the person himself. It is showing happiness, with a touch of manhood." Maybe there's been a little too much touching of manhood in Iraq?
Still on macho posturing, in England on Friday, former prime minister, forever poodle and eternal War Hawk Tony Blair is set to reappear before the Iraq Inquiry to offer additional testimony after his testimony last year just didn't appear to add up.
Stop the War UK is organizing protests against War Criminal Tony Blair.


Reasons to protest when Tony Blair is recalled to give evidence to the Iraq Inquiry on 21 January:

JOIN THE PROTEST 21 JANUARY
QEII Conference Centre 8am-2pm
London SW1P 3EE

(Tube Westminster or St James's
Please publicise as widely as you can
Tim Shipman (Daily Mail) reports, "David Cameron yesterday called on the public to pressurise Tony Blair into disclosing his secret letters to George Bush from 2002 promising to go to war in Iraq. Downing Street insisted the former prime minister should drop his demands for secrecy when he testifies at the Iraq Inquiry tomorrow." From yesterday's snapshot:

Rosa Prince (Telegraph of London) notes today that the letters are quoted in recent books by Alastair Campbell (his published diary) and Jonathan Powell and she notes: "Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Liberal Democrat leader, criticised the ban. He said: 'It is a bit thick that Mr Blair and Mr Bush have been able to draw on these documents for their own memoirs and to be entirely selective in the use to which they have put them'." Rosa Prince goes on to demonstrate just how much Bush and Blair have quoted from the (private) letters in their books.


David Cameron is the current Prime Minister. With Gordon Brown (who was prime minister between Blair and Cameron) in the office, Blair might have hoped for some cover. Without him, Cameron is making very clear that this is not a "state's secrets" issue and that there is no reason the documents should be hidden from the public. Nigel Morris (Independent of London) reports:

The questions facing Tony Blair at tomorrow's Iraq inquiry hearing are piling up. It emerged last night that parts of Mr Blair's conversations with the United States President George Bush in the build-up to war were expunged from Whitehall records.
Sir John Chilcot's team also heard yesterday from a senior civil servant that Downing Street ignored Foreign Office warnings over publishing the infamously exaggerated dossiers on the threat from Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons arsenal.
Mr Blair's private secretary at No 10 routinely deleted any mention of his correspondence with Mr Bush from the Government minutes, the inquiry has found out. The disclosure will fuel anger over the failure to release the memos between the two leaders in the run-up to war, which could fill in gaps for when Mr Blair took key decisions over the war. David Cameron, challenged over the refusal to publish the memos, said that he was powerless to order their release.
At 4:30 a.m. EST, Tony Blair will be testifying and CSPAN 2 is supposed to carry it live. Before that happens, there's another revelation. Tim Shipman reports, "Downing Street ordered a cover-up after Jack Straw made an 11th-hour attempt to stop Tony Blair going to war in Iraq, it was claimed last night [it's morning in the UK]. Explosive anonymous evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry said Mr Blair responded to his Foreign Secretary by insisting that he wanted to go to war. Officials at Number 10 then allegedly ordered that no record was kept of the confrontation." PDF format warning, the document is here. And it is anonymous to the public but the Inquiry knows whose testimony it is.
In the US, Kelly B. Vlahos (Antiwar.com) weighs in on the talk of a move towards women being in combat officially:
Combat is considered the "final frontier" for women in the military, though they have already been serving, albeit unofficially and off the books, in combat-related roles throughout the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. It will be interesting to see if it again it becomes a cause célèbre for feminists at the level of say, the 1990s, when women like Democratic Rep. Pat Schroeder and Sara Lister battled openly against the he-skeptics in the Republican Party over gender discrimination in the ranks. The debate became a mostly academic, glass ceiling affair, and eventually opened up many new military positions for women, but not combat.
But that was then -- peacetime -- and this is now -- wartime -- and the feminists have, up to now, been pretty distant from the issue of women in the Global War on Terror, though women now make up some 14 percent of the total Armed Forces and 255,000 of veterans who have served overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq. Truth is, without a draft, the military would not have been able to fight the Long War without them. Women have been flying combat aircraft and serving as military police, gunners, interrogators and prison guards -- as close as it gets to the action.
"It's something whose time has come," said retired Navy Capt. Lory Manning of the Women's Research and Education Institute. She said ending the ban on women in combat would be "a logical outcome of what women have been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the Army and Marines have been essentially ducking the policy."
Indeed, everything looks "logical" on its face. Why wouldn't anybody want to be recognized and rewarded for the work they are already doing? No doubt women are missing out on valuable promotions and short changed in so many other areas. However, as the war zone has been going through a 10-year "shock integration" that they had themselves set into motion, feminists and many proponents of full combat equality for women have been rather quiet about all the bad things that have happened to women precisely because of their desire to be treated "just like men" in war.
Unlike Kelley B. Vlahos, I am a feminist. I have not advocated for full combat rights. If asked, I've stated of course women should be equal. Equality doesn't mean happiness. (Nor does it mean unhappiness. Happiness come from within.) Equality should mean fairness. Equality is a goal we should strive for. As Kelley notes in her title, combat is the "meat grinder." I don't know exactly what she wants feminist to have said or not said on this issue and that's not sarcasm. As she notes "feminists have, up to now, been pretty distant from the issue of women in the Global War on Terror". Off Our Backs did a great issue on these very issues and then, shortly afterwards, stopped publication. Once upon a time a number of feminists spoke out against the Iraq War. Robin Morgan, where did you go? Jane Fonda, am I wrong or did you say "Silence is no longer an option" when speaking in DC at the January 2007 rally? Did you not end with, "So thank you for being here and we'll continue to be here as long as necessary. God bless."? We'll continue to be here as long as necessary?
In less than a week 4 US soldiers have died in Iraq, another was injured, the way the week's shaping up the death toll for Iraqis could easily reach 200 or more by Saturday. Does that sound like the war ended? Because it doesn't from where I'm looking.
I'd love to be able to write, "Kelley, you're dead wrong." But when feminists -- especially when the very few that spoke out to begin with -- have nothing to say about the ongoing wars, they're abdicating a seat at the table that a lot of us marched, fought and suffered to have. So in the future, when you want to speak on an issue, how about letting us know if there's a sell-by-date? As in, "I'm saying 'you have me forever' in my speech because it's such a good line but I really just mean as long as a Republican's in the White House." Just give us a little truth in advocacy, please.
I can point to the strong feminists in this community and we're still outraged and calling out the wars. But outside of this community, where could I possibly point? CODEPINK? Antiwar.com remembers their Afghan waffle and they won't take them seriously. Arianna Huffington doesn't claim to be a feminist (and I'll never forget when Cass Ellliot told Arianna how wrong she was on that issue) so we can't count her but she hasn't forgotten the Iraq War and hasn't stopped speaking out against it, to give her credit. Ms. magazine? Let's be kind and ignore the magazine (you're not missing anything -- except Ms. allowing a War Hawk-Council on Foreign Relations to preach what they're calling 'success' in Afghanistan) and turn instead to the tired magazine's very lively blog.
Here's one, Kelley! A feminist is writing at Ms. blog about this issue and her name . . . Well, his name. His name is Kyle Bachan. Good for you, Kyle and I firmly believe men can be feminists. But it is rather disappointing that a woman couldn't or wouldn't grab the topic.
We'll also give credit to Michaela A. Null. To the best of my knowledge, Michela doesn't sponsor or co-sponsor V-Day. She doesn't work with at risk young women. But she still found time -- while many who sponsor V-Day didn't -- to call out the nonsense attacks on the two women who may have been raped -- the nonsense attacks launched non-stop by Naomi Wolf these days. At the Ms. blog, Michaela A. Null rejects Naomi Wolf's latest which is to call for the names of rape victims to be circulated in the press:
Wolf suggests that shielding rape victims is outdated because, well, it's not like we live in the Victorian Era! This is a silencing argument that women hear all the time -- something to the tune of, "There has been so much progress for women. I mean, you can vote, what are you bitching about?" That would be like me saying to Naomi Wolf, "Worrying about government corruption is so outdated, it's not like we live in the McCarthy Era!" Of course, the McCarthy Era is a shameful piece of our history, but it does not mean the government never does anything wrong or unethical now and that people shouldn't be up in arms about wrongdoings.
So, according to Wolf-think, it's of little matter that those who make rape accusations are often re-victimized and harassed and vulnerable to further violence. To shield them from that is to treat them as though they are children! Equity, though -- as distinguished from equality -- is not about infantilizing a group of people and patting them on their heads: Equity is for grownups, based on the idea that in order to achieve a fair and just society, you have to account for the fact that some groups of people are oppressed, disadvantaged and do not have the same access to, say, bodily integrity, justice or safety that other groups of people have.
[. . .]
But for right now we don't live in that ideal world. We still live in a place where women's issues are seen as secondary and where victims of sexual assault are often treated dismissively, disdainfully and even violently. In order to do justice to women and to all victims of sexual assault, we must listen to them. Instead, Wolf is dead set on ignoring the voices of women and victims of sexual assault, publicly condescending to them and asserting over and over that her "23 years of experience" -- a phrase used so repetitiously it became the hashtag #23yrs on Twitter -- means she knows what's best for them and they don't.
I wrote at length about Katha Pollitt's ''Naomi Wolf: Wrong Again On Rape' (The Nation) in Polly's Brew. I'm not sure I ever noted it here. If not, Katha deserves credit -- big credit -- for that column. And for the previous one as well (which I did already note). But the reality is that, with very few exceptions (Katha being one of them), those that are supposed to be voices and leaders are no where to be found on these very important issues. In fact, Katha is the only "name" feminist to have called it out. (That is not meant as a slap in the face to Jill who does great work at Feministe or Jessica Valenti or Amanda Marcotte or any other strong women who became well known on the web and have not allowed their fame to silence them. When I say "name," I'm referring to the hiearchy roll call that exists in feminism -- which we usually pretend doesn't exist, but we all know does.) One publication that has not forgotten the wars or felt the need to fall silent because lefty men might not say nice things about you is Womens eNews and today they publish attorney and professor Wendy Murphy's analysis of what Naomi's calling for:
In a truly just world, no type of crime victim would have their name revealed without their consent. This would help redress growing concerns about threats and intimidation tactics from criminals who hope to escape responsibility for their violence by terrorizing victims into silence.
It's hardly a gender-specific problem, which disposes of Wolf's argument that concealing the identities of rape victims is a form of sexism.
But there is a valid reason to put a thumb on the scale for rape victims. The very nature of sexual violence, indeed the location of the "crime scene" on a woman's body, is such that a public trial is certain to reveal things that are not only highly personal but likely to be protected by statute, common law and even constitutionally-based privacy rights. Unlike robbery cases, rape prosecutions involve the revelation of things like whether the victim became infected by HIV or became pregnant or had an abortion. Because such facts are highly relevant, they must be revealed during the public trial.
Anonymity policies, therefore, are not about "protectionism" so much as due process. They make up for the fact that disclosure of private facts at trial involving a victim--who is not a party to the litigation and thus cannot even argue against disclosure--causes unavoidable harm to fundamental rights. Anonymity polices mitigate the harm by allowing disclosure of private facts without attaching those facts to a publicly-identifiable individual.
These are serious issues, they belong in the public sphere. But let's about the wasting of our public sphere. The polluting of it. On Morning Mix (KPFA's morning show), Mickey Huff and Adam Bessie kicked things off -- and into the gutter -- with a lot of huffing and finger pointing. Excerpt:
Adam Bessie: As you know, anyone with a thought and a connection to the computer can get onto the participatory networks -- Facebook, MySpace and so on. And what was fascinating in the research that we found, in a section called Junk Food News Feed is that [Bessie now yammers away about a male celebrity -- we're not interested] was covered less than the decision to pull out of Afghanistan by Obama [what decision was that Adam Bessie, you moron?] . However, when you looked at what people were talking and writing about on social networks and by the cooler, they were talking more about [male celebrity] according to a Pew study at that time. So basically what we found with the internet, again, was basically unprecious, anybody and everybody can get on there, is that people are really becoming what they eat and after years of consuming junk food news, now they go on social networks and you can create your own junkfood news. Instead of having to watch [female celebrity] on The Today Show, you can have your friend be [mispronounces female celebrity's name] or you can be [again mispronounces female celebrity's name] and write about the trials and travails of your own life or somebody else. And you can also write about celebrities. And so we're now -- The sea change I think we're seeing is that we're participating in this infotainment society.
You think? Adam Bessie surely is participating in it. First off, how is it news that many people are concerned with their own lives? Most people are concerned with their own lives. The Confessions was not Saint Augustine writing about Descartes, it was Augustine writing about himself. The idea that people would write about their own lives should not be shocking to an English professor -- even a junior college English professor. Second, Barack didn't announce he was pulling out of Afghanistan, he announced a troop "surge" into Afghanistan. Sorry professor, your example, which you bring up? You damn well better know what you're talking about. Third, the male celebrity? A sports star. Covered in the sports press during the 'scandal' but Adam Bessie forgets them, doesn't he?
Adam Bessie? Did he have anything to contribute other than a whiney voice and a lot of stupid? Nope. He and Mikey blathered away forever about Barack being compared to Hitler. They did this on January 20, 2011. Point? It was the exact same remarks and 'findings' Bessie already wrote about in this bad December 1, 2008 column at OpEdNews. Who's wasting time? Who's oversaturated with infotainment? (And, as usual, Bessie ignored that Bush was compared to Hitler during the eight years he occupied the White House.)
Then what did we get? Another junior college professor. This one couldn't pronounce "suggest" -- but for some reason included the term in the copy he wrote for himself to read aloud. Robert Abele offered commentary which was snide and ugly and his attempts to link Sarah Palin with the Tuscon shooting were appalling. He 'shaded' throughout. For example, he said right-wing radio is responsible for a number of Republicans believing Barack Obama is Muslim. But Abele didn't explain who was responsible for Democrats believing that. In fact, he didn't even acknowledge that the poll he was referring to found only 46% of Democrats stated Barack was a Christian. Take any of Abele's items and check Bob Somerby's archives at The Daily Howler -- you'll usually see how Abele shaded one thing after another with his half-the-story approach. And why the heck isn't Bob Somerby invited on the program to begin with? Oh, that's right, he's not condemning the people.
"It's so hard," huffed Kristina Borjesson, "to try and get these people to understand that there's a whole universe of information that they should be looking at . . ." And if you're feeling smug and thinking, "Yeah, Tina, sock it to those right-wingers!" . . . Well, you might want to pause. She was referring to the public. You know, "these people." So frustrating, so uninformed. Way to win people over, Borjesson. She then insisted she didn't watch TV news anymore because, in her opinion, "they've made themselves irrelevant with ranting [. . .] opinion journalism." Thanks for sharing your opinion which was opinion -- maybe even ranting? -- but wasn't news. Finger Pointer, condemn thyself.
"In the meantime," she called out from her high horse, "what's going on in Afghanistan? What's going on in Iraq?"
What is going on in either? You didn't find out from her or from the hour long Morning Mix. You know what? That's an hour of radio that we need. What you offered? We don't need that at all. Don't need it, don't want it. You had nothing to offer for a full hour. While slamming the MSM for wasting people's time, you had nothing to offer.
I can sit here all day and call out this outlet and that outlet for not covering Iraq but if I'm not covering it here, I'm a hypocrite because I'm in charge of what goes on here.
By the same token, they are in charge of what they do each Thursday on Morning Mix. Today they were full of themselves and how other people don't cover Iraq . . . as they refused to cover Iraq. Borjesson was insisting that even now we need to be covering the lies that got the US into Iraq. Well, Borjesson, where's that going to take place? You didn't go into those lies, Mickey didn't. But you finger wagged at everyone else, now didn't you?
Land of snap decisions
Land of short attention spans
Nothing is savored
Long enough to really understand
-- "Dog Eat Dog," words and music by Joni Mitchell, from her album of the same name
Which brings us to professional liar Greg Mitchell. (Liar? Changing your errors online after they're called out and 'forgetting' to note your changes makes you a liar.) Greggy wants credit for, well, let's let him tell it: "As I've done for more than seven weeks, I will be updating news and views on all things WikiLeaks all day, with new items added at the top." Oh, is he covering WikiLeaks' revelations? Writing about those?
He's not writing a damn thing. If you were generous, you'd call his bits and pieces "Tweets." It's basically a glorified gossip column with a dozen items.
Nothing is savored long enough
To really understand
Our focus is Iraq. When WikiLeaks did their Iraq release in October, we covered it for two weeks here (here and here) every day. At Third, Ava and I wrote "TV: The WikiLeaks reports" and "TV: Media of the absurd" on the media coverage in real time. The Nation and Greg Mitchell weren't interested in covering the Iraq leaks. Greg Mitchell's still not interested in actually covering anything. He's Louella Parsons offering chatty, breezy gossip items. Or, if you prefer, he's like a character in Heathers, rushing in insisting, "Did you hear? School's cancelled today because Kirk and Ram killed themselves in a repressed homosexual suicide pact."
Greg Mitchell showed up on Antiwar.Radio and the real decay of journalism is hearing the former Crawdaddy writer thinking his gossip blog on WikiLeaks is somehow covering something. He was bragging about how popular the tweets are. And that now he's turning "the live blog" into a book. How about you do something of value right now instead of finger pointing that "The media forgot about it" [WikiLeaks revelations]. And how awful that Scott Horton said that Greg was "doing great work." (In fairness to Scott Horton, he clearly hasn't read the "live blog" Greg Mitchell is doing.) What Mitchell does most days is a Julian Assange watch -- with the same whiff of sexism that was there in his Crawdaddy work and which he carried all through his career.
In every culture in decline
The watchful ones among the slaves
Know all that is genuine will be
Scorned and conned and cast away
-- "Dog Eat Dog"
And be sure that Greg will continue to scorn and con and cast away that which is genuine as he does his bad gossip column. (Which is not a "live blog." Someone explain the term to him. You live blog a trial. He could "live blog" the Iraq Inquiry. But just blogging during the day really doesn't count as "live blogging.") The interview with Mitchell is frightening for just what a condemnation it is of so-called independent media. Around the time Greg's confessing, "Frankly, I don't have time read everything I link to," you realize how little standards he ever had.
Since we're addressing Project Censored (the Morning Mix Thursdays on KPFA is a Project Censored broadcast), KPFA's Women's Magazine Blogspot outlined one of Project Censored's biggest problems back on January 3rd:
The Project Censored List of Top 25 Censored Stories of 2009-2010 includes not one story related to a women's or gender issue. NOT ONE! Does that mean women's issues get lots of attention? We don't think so. Instead, it points to the masculinist bias of even the progressive media and media watchdogs.
So producer Kate Raphael has produced her own quite inexhaustive list of censored or underreported stories related to women and gender in the last year. See what you think. If you want to comment on one of her choices or suggest one of your own, please email us at kpfawomensmag@gmail.com.
Listen to the show, which also includes memorial tributes to Dorothy Height, Wilma Mankiller and Mary Daly.
The list below is not in ranked order, though Kate feels that Iraq does belong at the top.

-- The impact of 7 years of occupation on Iraqi women (Malihe Razazan of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa comments)

-- Sexual assault in the military hits epidemic proportion (includes excerpt of report by Scott Shafer of KQED TV)
For the full list click here.

Posted by at

1/19/2011

how fat is naomi klein?

look, i know naomi klein is about 40 to 50 pounds heavier - and she's not a tall woman -- than she was in 2004 but how obsessed with food is the big girl?

i ask that because she's got a new (and bad) article at znet and it's as if she's saying 'fatty wants food! fatty wants food!' doubt me? here's 1 example:

dispersants into bite-size morsels for oil-eating microbes, which would, after their petroleum feast, promptly and efficiently disappear—no negative side effects foreseen.


generally speaking, when some 1 gets that food obsessed, there's no more magic in the bedroom and they're using food as a substitute for love and for sex.

her food obsession is all the way throughout the article. need another example? '... velvety smooth and, according to the tests ...'

you sort of picture her at the laptop cramming heshey bars into her mouth, chocolate streaks all over her hands and face, sweat pouring down her forehead and out of her armpits and she chews vigorously and looks nervously around to see if any 1's caught on to her sneak binge yet.

and when she starts going on about shrimp. crabs, bluefins, you start worrying for the ocean's population - not from pollution (which is a real danger) but from naomi's zestful appetite.

you sort of picture her lumbering around her kitchen mouthing 'big girl got to eat.'

poor naomi, she's written another (bad) article about the gulf oil disaster but she still can't find a way to call out barack obama.

maybe when she looks at him she thinks of a chocolate easter bunny and forgets everything but CANDY! CANDY! nomi must have CANDY!



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

Wednesday, January 19, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, another suicide bombing leads to mass casualties, though Tony Blair's people insist they weren't on a path to war documents released from 2000 and 2001 tend to indicate otherwise, the US Army brass talks suicides, and more.
This morning at the Pentagon, Gen Peter Chiarelli, Maj Gen Ramond Carpenter and Lt Gen Jack Stultz held a press conference on suicides in the Army. Chiarelli noted at the top that the statistics being used "includes soldiers from the Guard and Reserve [. . .] So when I say 'active component,' I also include members of the Army Reserves and the Army National Guard who are mobilized during that year." The take away the military wanted to emphasize was a small dip (Chiarelli called it a "modest decrease") in the number of suicides last year from the last five and not the news that the Guard and Reserve saw a doubling in the number of suicides for non-active duty members in 2010 (from 82 suicided to 122 in 2010). If you don't divide the numbers -- sequester? -- as the military wants you to do, you notice that theme is the number of suicides increased in 2010. That is the bottom line and one that escaped Chiarelli even when he claimed to be providing context, "And I just, you know, to try to put this in context, we're talking about 343 suicides here. But some of the numbers that I've seen in the country last year, the numbers could be as high as 35,000. So we're talking less than 1% of that total number. And it will be interesting when the CDC catches up -- if they ever do catch up -- to then go back and --"
Stop. Chiarelli is counting on people just nodding along. I don't know why he does this sort of thing. He knows he's full of it everytime he does. He is saying that 343 isn't that high because he's heard there might have been as many as 35,000 suicides in the general population in the US. Do the math. He claims 1.1 million is the Army population and, out of that 1.1 million (we're using his figures), 343 committed suicide in 2010. (Not attempted, these people took their own lives.) And he wants you to believe that, golly, gee, that's not such a big number because, in the total population for the US, (his number) it's 35,000 for 2010. Now we have to provide a non-Chiarelli number. The 2010 census found that the US population was 311,919,805. Do you see the problem? Yes, 35,000 is a larger number than 343. It's approximately 10 times greater, in fact. But 311,919,805 is approximately 300 times greater than 1.1 million. His little number exercise did not prove what he thought it did.
Chiarelli stressed a number of factors he credited for the decrease in suicides among active duty soldiers including marriage and family life counselors and he noted the need for substance abuse counselors which he insisted the military had the money for but they were short on them to demands of the market ("It's not a money issue. It's a supply issue.") He said, "It seems like everytime I hire ten, I lose ten and it's not because" they get hired somewhere else as substance abuse counselors it's because they become behavioral life counselors. That is because of the licensing requirements for counselors. A substance abuse counselor -- in most states -- is lower ranked (therefore requiring less hours of education and training) and most of them (for their own education, fulfilment and for money desires) get additional training and education which allows them to move up to higher license or certificate. Some are ideally suited for substance abuse and perfectly content in that field but it's not at all surprising that some people would choose to move up the accreditation ladder.
Noting the number of hours any soldier will be spending with their families, Lt Gen Jack Stultz insisted that "We've got to make the suicide prevention plan a family plan." They would the ones, he pointed out, that would first see "the signs, the high-risk behavior."
Gen Peter Chiarelli: The bottom line is that this is a significant issue and clearly there is much to be done. But I am confident many of our nation's very best and brightest men and women from academia, industry, the medical community, DoD and government as a whole are working tirelessly in this seminal area. I assure you, we remain committed to finding further ways to promote resiliancy, reduce the incidents of high risk behavior, improve the quality of family and soldier support programs and eliminate the stigma associated with seeking and receiving help across our force of 1.1 million and beyond to include our department of the Army's civilian and family members.
If anyone's wondering Carpenter spoke about "high risk" behavior like motorcycle riding. He had an analogy he kept circling but never parked the car by.
Charley Keyes: I was wondering if you can share your own personal reaction and level of frustration as the suicide numbers became clear over the course of the year and also identify any particular installation -- maybe Fort Hood, for instance -- has taken particular steps to combat the suicides.
Gen Peter Chiarelli: What you learn when you do this over time -- it's been two years now -- is that every year there's going to be one post that has more than any other post, that's just the nature of the business and that's how we keep track. And Fort Hood was our highest post this year. And do you immediately go back and say, "Well wait a second now, we had the events of November 5, 2009 is there any link to that and what occurred?" And I can tell you of the 21 suicides we had at Fort Hood last year, we only know of one individual who was remotely uhm associated with that horrific event and that was an individual that was being seen in the emergency room for something totally different at the time that people were being brought into the emergency room. So we were watching Fort Hood very, very carefully and as the numbers started to go up at Fort Hood we were, in every single case, trying to see if there was any connection between those two events and -- or the event of the individual suicide and what happened November 2009. And there clearly wasn't.
November 2009? What's he talking about? The Fort Hood shooting. Charley Keyes brought up Fort Hood because it's had the highest number of suicides in 2010. He didn't bring up the 2009 shooting. Chiarelli did and somebody needs to tell him: Name and claim.
If you're going to talk about therapy and tools and blah, blah, blah, you damn well better be able to name and claim because while talking about the need to be upfront and address anguish and a crisis, if you yourself can't even say "the Fort Hood shooting," you've got problems and you're conveying problems to others. Charley Keyes has a write up at CNN here. He does not note the question he asked or Chiarelli's curious response.
Yesterday a suicide bombing in Tikrit resulted in at least 60 deaths with over one hundred-and-fifty more left injured. AP reports today that the death toll has risen to 65. Since The NewsHour (PBS) couldn't get the death toll accurate yesterday, possibly they will tonight? Today's big bombing in the Iraq War is in Baquba. Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reports a suicide bombing involving a vehicle attack on Baquba's Force Protection Services resulted in at least 13 deaths with seventy people left injured while, "south of Baquba," a suicide bomber possibly targeting Sadiq al-Husseini ("deputy head of Diyala's provincial council") injured al-Husseini and fourteen other people and claimed the lives of 2 people (in addition to the life of the suicide bomber). Independent Television News notes, "An Iraqi police training centre has been attacked by a suicide bomber driving an ambulance killing 12 people and wounding more than 50." Aseel Kami, Ahmed Rasheed, Suadad al-Salhy and Waleed Ibrahim (Reuters) quoted an unidentified police officer stating, "I can see hands and legs of dead policemen sticking out from under the rubble." Ali al-Tuwaijiri (AFP) reports that the hospital notes 14 deaths and 120 injured and quotes Sumaya Sabr, "I was on my way to the market close to the building when I saw the ambulance arrive at the entrance. The guards tried to speak to the driver, and when they got close to the ambulance, it blew up. I can't remember anything else -- I woke up in the hospital." BBC News reports, "Two attackers were thought to have been involved. One stepped out of the ambulance and opened fire on guards at the entrance of the city's special security police centre before the vehicle was driven into the compound and detonated, reports said." Ned Parker and Salar Jaffe (Los Angeles Times) add that "the bomber had sped his car inside the headquarters compound of the Facilities Protection Service, a special force responsible for guarding public buildings and smaller state offices. The blast flattened the building in Baqubah, Diyala's capital."
John Leland (New York Times) notes, "The three-month gap since the last major attack, a siege on a Baghdad church that left nearly 60 people dead, demonstrates the progress made by Iraq security forces as American troops prepare to withdraw at the end of this year, said Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, deputy commanding general for operations of American forces in Iraq." No, it doesn't. And it's really sad if that's the best thinking the US military can offer.
First, it's not a three month gap -- don't they teach the brass how to count -- and second it's completely predicatable and you only have to look 2009's major attacks to see that pattern. How stupid is the brass or are they just lying for public consumption? And if they still can't figure it out, they can start by examining the pattern of the late summer through fall 2009 attacks. If you don't remember -- and apparently the US military doesn't . . .
You had the "Bloody Wednesday" -- Baghdad bombings (two) August 19, 2009 that claimed at least 100 lives (over 600 people wounded -- Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) sums up, "At the site of the deadliest Baghdad bombing in 18 months, Iraqi faith that their security forces could protect them lay shattered in the wreckage."). This was followed (next massive bombing) by "Bloody Sunday" -- the two Baghdad suicide bombings of October 25, 2009 which claimed at least 155 lives (over 700 injured -- Eleanor Hall (Australia's ABC's The World Today -- link has text and audio) explained, "Twin suicide bombers targeted the Iraqi Ministry of Justice all but destroying the government department's headquarters, which are just outside the high-security 'green zone' in the centre of Baghdad."). That was followed by "Bloody Tuesday" -- the December 8, 2009 multiple bombings in Baghdad which claimed at least 120 lives (over 400 injured -- Natalia Antelava (BBC News -- link has text and video) emphasizes, "All five explosions targeted symbols of this state. Not only ministries but also a university and Baghdad's Institute of Fine Arts."). Three months apart, insists Lt Gen Robert W. Cone today, "demonstrates the progess made"? No, demonstrates 2011 is not all that different from 2010. There is no progress and I'm so sorry, Lt Gen Robert W. Cone, my home edition of Let's All Play Stupid* didn't arrive in the mail yet so you'll have to play that board game all by yourself. [*Trademark and patent pending.] Or, as Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) puts it, "But what is clear is that despire official claims of major progress, the insurgnecy remains able to launch major attacks against security forces."
Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) also reports, "south of Baquba," a suicide bomber possibly targeting Sadiq al-Husseini ("deputy head of Diyala's provincial council") injured al-Husseini and fourteen other people and claimed the lives of 3 people (in addition to the life of the suicide bomber -- and the three were Shi'ite pilgrims). Ali al-Tuwaijri (AFP) notes this attack took place in Ghalbiyah and "Mr al Husseini was visiting with worshippers as they gathered ahead of commemorations for Arbaeen, which marks 40 days since the anniversary of the death of the revered seventh century Shiite Imam Hussein." Liz Sly (Washington Post) explains, "It was not immediately clear whether the bomber was targeting the official or the pilgrims, who are frequently attacked by Sunni extremists. Attacks on pilgrims are expected to escalate in the coming days as people set out to participate in commemorations for the Shiite religious holiday of Arbaeen next week."
In other violence . . .
Bombings?
Reuters notes a Mosul roadside bombing injured two civilians. Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) notes a Taji bombing wounded five Sh'ite pilgrims.
Shootings?
Reuters notes 1 person was shot dead outside his Mosul home, police shot dead 2 Mosul bombing suspects.
Coming to Iraq? WRAL reports that an estimated 750 Fort Bragg soldiers are headed to Iraq for "a yearlong deployment." Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick is quoted stating, "The Iraqis will be the ones to determine whether we vacate or not. It's not going to be us." In addition, WMAZ reports that the Macon-based 352nd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion is sending 120 reserve members to Iraq.


While the US continues sending troops to Iraq, Sweden continues forcibly deporting Iraqis. DPA reports, "Swedish police Wednesday briefly detained 25 activists who attempted to block the entrance to an asylum centre to prevent a pending repatriation of some 20 Iraqi refugees. About 50 activists took part in the protest, police said. The Iraqi asylum seekers were taken to Stockholm's Arlanda Airport." Iraq is not safe and the United Nations has repeatedly called out forced deportations. Yesterday in Geneva, UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming stated:



UNHCR is very concerned by reports that Sweden plans to send around 25 Iraqis back to Baghdad tomorrow, Wednesday 19th January. We understand that a number of those scheduled for return belong to religious and ethnic groups targeted by violence in Iraq. They, and others slated for return, appear to have profiles that would warrant protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention or the European Union's Qualification Directive.
We are troubled that our advice, including on the situation of minorities in Iraq, is not sufficiently taken into account by Sweden when reviewing negative decisions that were made in 2008 and 2009. We believe that the recent deterioration in the situation of minorities in Iraq has not been adequately taken into account.
UNHCR has frequently appealed to states to ensure that asylum applicants originating from Iraq's central governorates of Baghdad, Diyala, Ninewa and Salah-al-Din, as well as from Kirkuk province, benefit from international protection in the form of refugee status under the 1951 Convention or another form of protection depending on the circumstances of the case. We understand that many of those being returned on Wednesday come from these areas.
Our position reflects the volatile security situation and the still high level of prevailing violence, security incidents, and human rights violations taking place in these parts of Iraq. UNHCR considers that serious – including indiscriminate – threats to life, physical integrity or freedom resulting from violence or events seriously disturbing public order are valid reasons for international protection.
UNHCR offices in Syria, Jordan and Turkey have recently registered a number of Iraqi refugees who left Iraq after they have been forcibly returned by European countries. One Christian man fled again after he narrowly escaped an attack on a church in Baghdad in October 2010, shortly after being sent back by Sweden. We are pleased that Sweden has now agreed to re-admit him.
In England on Friday, former prime minister, forever poodle and eternal War Hawk Tony Blair is set to reappear before the Iraq Inquiry to offer additional testimony after his testimony last year just didn't appear to add up. Stop the War UK is organizing protests against War Criminal Tony Blair.

Reasons to protest when Tony Blair is recalled to give evidence to the Iraq Inquiry on 21 January:

JOIN THE PROTEST 21 JANUARY
QEII Conference Centre 8am-2pm
London SW1P 3EE

(Tube Westminster or St James's
Please publicise as widely as you can
Today the Iraq Inquiry heard from Tom McKane (held the post of Deputy Head of Defense & Overseas Secretariat from 1999 to 2002) and Stephen Wall (Prime Minister's Adviser on European Issues and Head of the Cabinet Office's European Secretariat, 2000 - 2004). Before we get to an exchange from McKane's testimony, we need to note a few documents the Inquiry published today. All are PDF format. First, a letter from Alan Goulty (Director Middle East and North African Department) dated October 20, 2000 to McKane. Most important part is: "Containment, but a looser version, remains the best option for achieving our policy objectives towards Iraq. International support is vital if this is to be sustained. SCR 1284 delivered the balanced package envisaged in the May 1999 DOP paper. Need for some tactical adjustments to make policy sustainable in the medium term."
SCR 1284 is United Nations Security Council Resolution 1284. Of the five permanent Security Council members, only the US and England voted for it. (France, Russia and China chose not to vote. Had any one of them voted against it, it would not have passed.) This turns weapons monitoring duties over to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. Previously, United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) had done the monitoring. (In March of 1999, Barton Gellman reported for the Washington Post that "United States intelligence services infiltrated agents and espionage equipment" in UNSCOM.) The October 20, 2000 letter from Alan Goulty notes that international support for SCR 1284 is weakening but calls it "the best means of pursuing our policy objectives" and insists "It would get us off the hook of responsibility for the humanitarian situation. It provides Iraq -- and us -- with an exit route out of sanctions. But its shelf life is limited. If there is no progress by next summer, SCR 1284 is likely to lose credibility, lending to growing pressure for a change of approach." The British government -- as evidenced by the letter -- assumed that whomever emerged as the Oval Office occupant in 2001 (Al Gore or George W. Bush), it wouldn't make a difference and the US would maintain a hard position against Iraq:
Most commentators (inside and outside the Administration) point out that either a Gore or a Bush Administration could be expected to be 'tougher' on Iraq. Bush's team includes noted hawks, and Gore (with [Leon] Fureth, his National Security Adviser) has consistently been at the harder end of the spectrum within the Clinton Administration. But neither has come up with specific policy directions. Bush attacks Clinton/Gore for failing to get rid of Saddam for eight years, but under the rhetoric, he goes no further than Clinton's stated red lines for military action, and he has avoided endorsing the "rollback" (regime change) philosophy of some of his advisers. Gore has made a big show of backing the Iraqi Opposition, but has also stressed continued containment, along the lines pursued by the current Administration.
Regardless of who wins, the letter cautions, "We cannot wait until the new Administration beds down to tackle them on Iraq policy. We need to get in early, before they make too many public policy statements from which it would be difficult to draw back, and be prepared to press them hard." Why? International support is waning, "sanction busting" is increasing.
February 15, 2001, McKane wrote John Sawers and noted, among other things, that sanctions were in danger of losing support because "there is an increasing sense that economic sanctions are unfair to the Iraqi people, ineffective as a means of pressuring the regime, and indeed counter-productive because Saddam and his cronies benefit disproportionately from the smuggling which undermines the sanctions." Now from today's hearing.
Committee Member Martin Gilbert: In February 2001 on the eve of the first meeting between the Prime Minister and the newly elected President Bush you were asked to produce a note by officials to highlight the key issues.
Tom McKane: Yes.
Committee Member Martin Gilbert: That were going to be settled in the course of the review of Iraq policy in order to basically inform the Prime Minister for the meeting. That note has been published today. Can you tell us who contributed to.
Tom McKane: It was the same group of people who had been engaged in the discussions on the Foreign Office's draft paper the previous autumn. So it would have been pulled together and coordinated in the Secretariat, but it would have included contributions from the Foreign Office and from the Ministry of Defence principally, but others would have seen the draft, other departments around Whitehall.
Committee Member Martin Gilbert: Were suggestions being put forward by Number 10?
Tom McKane: there was a sense in Number 10 I think that the official machine was running too much along well-worn tracks and that it needed a bit of a jolt, that, you know, there was -- that the way the options had been reviewed in the first draft of the paper looked too much like a regurgitation of what we'd been doing up until then. So the paper was sharpened up at the request of Number 10, although my memory is that they were not the only people who thought the first draft was deficient, and it was quite frequent in that job to find quite a lot of comopetitive drafting going on, departments offering their version of the paper that you were trying to produce. That was a perfectly normal part of the way we did our business, but the end result, which I suppose is then encapsulated in the 7th March note, still is focusing on a policy of containment, not a policy of regime change.
And he keeps insisting that throughout his testimony. However, they knew sanctions were "increasingly" unpopular as was the UN Security Council resolution and they knew the No-Fly Zones patrols were also unpopular (one plan was to suggest to the US that British military fly them only) so for all of his talk about regime change not being a policy, you see that they are walling themselves off -- intentionally or not -- from maintaining what they had and, as for what replaces, it, they really only see war. That's most obvious in the sections of the February 20, 2010 letter which are edited out but indicate that, for example, to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait would require war and, specifically, the military of a neighbouring country (the country is whited out).
New developments also emerged (in the press, not from the Inquiry) on the private correspondence of Bush and Blair. From yesterday's snapshot:
Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) reports, "Britain's top civil servant, Sir Gus O'Donnell, is preventing the official inquiry into the Iraq invasion from publishing notes sent by Tony Blair to George W Bush -- evidence described by the inquiry as of 'central importance' in establishing the circumstances that led to war. O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, consulted Blair before suppressing the documents, it emerged tonight." John Chilcot is the Chair of the Iraq Inquiry and, in his opening statement at today's session, he commented on the efforts to keep things from the public: [. . .]
Rosa Prince (Telegraph of London) notes today that the letters are quoted in recent books by Alastair Campbell (his published diary) and Jonathan Powell and she notes: "Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Liberal Democrat leader, criticised the ban. He said: 'It is a bit thick that Mr Blair and Mr Bush have been able to draw on these documents for their own memoirs and to be entirely selective in the use to which they have put them'." Rosa Prince goes on to demonstrate just how much Bush and Blair have quoted from the (private) letters in their books.
Moving to the US, on Antiwar Radio, Scott Horton spoke with John V. Walsh and we'll note this section (we're editing Horton's use of term because we don't allow any deity's name to be used in vain):
Scott Horton: And it really is just amazing how you can have Barack Obama who we all know for a fact with no exceptions -- every single one of us knows -- that this guy kills people every day. And then he can go and give this speech and cry all of these crocidile tears about "Oh my G**! An employee of the State was on the receiving end of some violence one day." And according to all the polls and TV and the newspapers and whatever this has really done good for him and given him a bump in the polls and he needs to exploit this tragedy the way Bill Clinton did the Oklahoma City bombing, a Democratic strategist told the Politico. And apparently it's working. In fact -- I'll say one more thing before I turn it back over to you, John -- I only heard a small bit of Obama's speech in Arizona. And the small bit I heard, all I heard from him was blah, blah, blah, whatever. But what was interesting to me was the audience. They were whooping and cheering and whistling and celebrating and clapping and acting like it was a campaign appearance. "Oh my G**! There he is in real life!" Like he's a TV star or whatever. And here he is trying to eulogize the dead and exploit this tragedy and they're sitting there like literally whistling and yelling "WOO!" and things at him.
John V. Walsh: Well actually, I would also say that in the antiwar sentiment that we see on the left and the right, I have been impressed that there is much -- if I read the Antiwar.com or the Future Freedom Foundation or Lew Rockwell, there's much more concern about the loss of human life in war than I see very often on the left, I'm sad to say. Because very often the left is talking about the cost of the war and how we could have more if only we weren't killing people over there. But that's true. We're a pretty wealthy country to begin with, that's true. But it certainly is not as important -- important though it may be -- as the loss of innocent life, the loss of life in general. Probably a million in Iraq alone. Certainly hundreds of thousands, there's no question about it. And people displaced by the millions -- four million in Iraq. Who knows what is going on? So there has to be some morality and concern for life attached to this. And it's kind of outside the discourse of the mainstream media. And it really almost has to be if we're going to continuing waging war because too much attention on that is going to distrub the average person. And so it's almost that we've fallen into a culture of -of irreverance for human life. It almost follows from having an empire. And that's very sad, it's of our own doing. Actually, in the Boston area, there's a syndicated NPR program called On Point and it's a talk show and you know, they have been, the host Tom Ashbrook, has been over -- all over this [Tuscon] story and the concern about guns and the Congresswoman's life. Yes, all of that is terrible. But it took him, I think, until something like 2006 before he ever had on his program anybody who was against the war.
Scott Horton: Huh.
John V. Walsh: He had experts that were for it in various ways. But not until well after there was a majority against the war did you ever one voice. And you rarelyl hear it anymore.
[Break]
Scott Horton: Welcome back to the show. This is Antiwar Radio. We're talking with John V. Walsh of CounterPunch and Antiwar.com about the permanent crisis and, I guess, the partisanship that is at the root of why we can't seem to get anything about it done. I mean, you think back, John, to the antiwar, anti-Bush rhetoric of the last decade and it wasn't just, "Well geez, we don't like this guy because he pretends to be a hick even though he's from Connecticut and we want power, not him." The criticism was that he's tapping our phones, he's murdering people, he tells lies all day, he's spending way too much money and breaking the dollar and real criticism. Yet when Barack Obama does all of these exact same things -- including killing kids like, I don't know, right this minute -- "Oh, no, we still love him. We woop and cheer and whistle." Just like the idiots who loved George Bush.
John V. Walsh: Yes. Well, you know, actually that brings me to another thing I wanted to mention while I was here. And that is one of the guarantees to make sure that this does not become a partisan issue -- that backing Obama or backing Bush or whatever -- doesn't take precedence over opposing war is to have -- as Antiwar.com has been pushing for for a long time -- is to have a right-left coalition against war. And I just wanted to mention, I don't know if you've had this on yet or not, but you know that a year ago there was the conference in Washington, DC. There were about 40 of us, people who write and talk and do some organizing with respect to war -- to oppose war. And we came from left and right and there is now a book out called Come Home America and it's a book of essays from the people who participated from the left and from the right. I have a piece in there. Justin Raimondo has a piece in there. Ralph Nader has a piece in there. The editor of The Nation who was not as enthusiastic as the people on the right about this project but nevertheless she came. And the editor of the
American Conservative and so on and so on.
Scott Horton: Is David Beito's piece in there?
John V. Walsh: I'm not, I don't recall. [C.I. note, Beito's piece is on the American Anti-Imperalist League and it is in the book.]
John V. Walsh: I need to get a copy of that book soon.
John V. Walsh: It is available. And if people want to get it you can find it -- well, you can find it on Amazon. But I would recommend you buy it from another source.

Scott Horton: Right. Agreed.
John V. Walsh: But if you write the -- it's a little tricky to get the title. It's Come Home America all one word or if you write it in three words it's Come Home America.US. And there are the rationales and the ideas of people who want to do this and I think it's right-on. There are people who blame Bush -- and I would say that's -- antiwar people who blame Bush and cannot bring themselves to utter a word against Obama. Or if they do, it is so gentle and so muted and so in the vein of "Well he really means well, he just can't do anything about it." Which is baloney. He has the power to stop the conflict at once. Just like Dwight Eisenhower had the power to stop the Korean War and was elected to do that and did it.
Scott Horton: Right.
John V. Walsh: So you can't say -- which, by the way, was the first undeclared [by Congress] war -- you can't say it is impossible. It is quite possible and, as a matter of fact, that was the reason that a lot of people -- not myself because I never believed it -- went out and worked for Obama because they thought they would get peace.
ComeHomeAmerica features many essays including one by Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan. It came out at the end of 2010, don't accidentally confuse it with Will Grider's 2009 book Come Home, America. For more from John V. Walsh on the topic you can refer to his "Sarah Palin's Cross Hairs -- and Obama's."
MFSO has partnered with Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) and other ally organizations for a weekend of actions, training, and lobbying in Washington DC to mark the 8th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Join us and make your voice heard!
A brief overview of the schedule....
  • Saturday, March 19th - actions to mark the anniversary of the Iraq War, TBD
  • Sunday, March 20th - MFSO meet-up and issue-area trainings
  • Monday, March 21st - lobbying, media, and organizing trainings
  • Tuesday, March 22nd - opportunity for lobby visits, and we will be delivering 20,000 postcards to members of Congress with the message "Bring our troops & tax dollars home!"
Some logistical info (more details coming soon)...
  • Housing - we are working to find homestays and affordable housing for as many Military Families and Gold Star Families as possible. Please indicate below if you need housing, can offer housing in DC, or already have a place to stay.
  • Travel - Please indicate below if you need financial assistance to get to DC. We will have limited scholarships available for Military Families and Gold Star Families.
  • Trainings - the trainings are being organized by FCNL for a small fee of $20 (this price includes lunch and refreshments on Sunday and Monday)
Using the link will allow you to find more information and also to sign up if you'd like to.
Posted by at

1/18/2011

brothers & sisters

brothers & sisters. it aired sunday night on abc.

justin and his girlfriend broke up. big surprise. i told you there was no spark there.

tommy, the oldest son, came home. with his latest girlfriend. i was not interested.

he and sara were arguing from the start and only made their peace about 2/3rds in. sara really helped the episode.

sally field's nora didn't because they really didn't give her anything to do.

if that was due to kitty, i'd say okay. i think nora's the best character on the show - layered and rich - but calista does run a close 2nd with her kitty.

but kitty's out of town. (remember, i told you i thought the cancer was back.)

so it was justin, sara and tommy and their dates.

where was kevin? where was scotty? they were working on their family and apparently don't get invited to dinner unless kitty's there.

that's not true, my last sentence, but it makes about as much sense as not having them there. i have no idea how that happened.

it made no sense.

what did make sense was nora being used so little. it looks like next week nora's going to move front and center for several episodes.



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

Tuesday, January 18, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, Tikrit rocked by bombings, over the holiday weekend the US military announces multiple deaths, some Iraqi leaders speak out against the violence aimed at Iraq's Christians, the time is running for US servicemembers to receive their stop-loss back pay, and more.
Today Tikrit was slammed with a bombing in the latest news from the ongoing Iraq War. AFP calls it the worst bombing in Iraq since October 31st while Liz Sly (Washington Post) terms it "the bloodiest incident since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the formation of a new government in December". Xiong Tong (Xinhau) reports police recruits were queued up when a suicide bomber in their midst detonated. Laith Hammoudi and Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) quote police spokesperson Hatem Akram stating, "We have a lot of unemployment. All those people are poor people trying to find a job." Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) notes, "Local television reports have urged people to donate blood for victims." Tang Danlu (Xinhua) reported this morning that the death toll had climbed to 60 with at least one hundred and fifty injured and reports:

A doctor named Mustafa in Tikrit hospital told Xinhua that dozens of patients were taken to the hospital and there were very dangerous situations.
"We tried best to save lives of those wounded people," he said.
Charles Stratford (Al Jazeera -- video and text) explains, "Tikrit's hospital couldn't cope with the number of casualties An Interior Ministry official says some were being rushed to hospitals in Baghdad and other cities." BBC News has video of the blood stained ground as well as some of the wounded at the hospital. Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) quotes Abu Muhammad outside the Tikrit hospital stating, "My brother was there between the recruiters. I don't know if he is still alive or dead." Ned Parker and Salar Jaff (Los Angeles Times) provide this context, "Militants from Iraq's onetime Sunni elite have long opposed efforts to recruit members of their sect to position in the new security forces, and have used intimidation and violence to keep them away." Charles McDermid and Nizar Latif (Time magazine) points out, "The latest is almost certainly going to increase pressure on al-Maliki, who rode to re-election on a strongman persona and promises to restore stability. But the Prime Minister has not yet appointed anyone to the nation's top security posts; he is running the departments himself in the interim." Ned Parker and Hameed Rasheed (Los Angeles Times) report these numbers: 60 dead and 160 wounded. They also quote Mohammed Ahmed Jaboori (possibly speaking for many Iraqis) stating, "This explosion shows the big security infiltration and violation. They cannot control all of these poples. They don't have any observation or inspections."
In other reported violence today, Reuters notes 1 police offficer was injured in a Baghdad shooting, 1 Iraqi soldier and 1 bystander were injured in a Baghdad shooting and 3 Baghdad roadside bombings left eleven people injured.
The Economist wonders about the violence and feels, for Iraqis, Moqtada al-Sadr's call for them not to attack one another might prevent another sectarian war, "Instead, says Al-Sadr, they should resist 'the occupation through armed, cultural and all kinds of resistance'. That implies a worrying year ahead for the 50,000 or so American troops who have remained in Iraq after the official departure last summer of America's combat troops."
Saturday three US soldiers were killed, a fourth died on Monday. DoD issued the following yesterday: "The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers who were supporting Operation New Dawn. They died Jan. 15 in Mosul, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an Iraqi soldier from the unit with which they were training shot them with small arms fire. They were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. Killed were: Sgt. Michael P. Bartley, 23, of Barnhill, Ill. [and] Spc. Martin J. Lamar, 43, of Sacramento, Calif. For more information on this release, media may contact the Fort Hood public affairs office at 254-287-9993." And they issued this yesterday as well: "The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation New Dawn. Spc. Jose A. Torre, Jr., 21, of Garden Grove, Calif., died Jan.15 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with a rocket-propelled grenade. He was assigned to the Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Advise and Assist Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan. For more information related to this release, the media may contact the Ft. Riley Public Affairs office at 785-239-2022." When DoD updates the count -- today around ten a.m. EST -- the number will rise from at 4435 to 4438. They haven't yet announced Monday's death so they won't include it in their count (unless they make an announcement before they issue the count).
While The Economist sees a civil war as unlikely, libertarian Ivan Eland (Antiwar.com) has another view:
The lull in Iraqi mayhem was mainly achieved by the U.S. bribery of Iraqi Sunni tribes (the "Awakening") to fight against their foreign-led Sunni brethren from al-Qaeda. The bribery worked because even Sunnis were shocked at the over-the-top brutality of al-Qaeda against civilians, including Sunnis; these ruthless foreigners were eventually perceived as being worse than even an American occupation. A similar outcome occurred in Malaya from 1948 to 1960, as majority Malayans hated the minority Chinese (perceived foreigners) more than the British occupation. It enabled Britain to tactically defeat the largely Chinese insurgency and adroitly exit Malaya.
Despite the likely ephemeral nature of the respite in Iraq, the United States should similarly withdraw its remaining 50,000 troops from Iraq and not be suckered by any Iraqi government requests to stay longer. The longer U.S. forces stay, the more likely they are to be engulfed in any renewal of ethno-sectarian violence.
Neighboring Iran wielded its now significant influence in Iraq to end the nine-month post-election stalemate, allowing the return of the fiercely anti-American critic Muqtada al-Sadr. The United States, even with its remaining troop presence, was eclipsed by Iran in ending the political gridlock. Al-Sadr's triumphant return as a key pillar in support of Nouri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government means the pressure for a full U.S. withdrawal will increase. Thus, a seemingly hidden goal of the George W. Bush administration for invading Iraq in the first place -- gaining access to Iraqi military bases to safeguard Persian Gulf oil, replacing those in Saudi Arabia that were lost -- would need to be abandoned. With al-Sadr back in the country and acting as a power broker in al-Maliki's governing coalition, an Iraqi request for U.S. forces to stay past their end-of-2011 withdrawal date is less likely.

Iraq's Christians have been targeted throughout the Iraq War. The latest wave of targeting began October 31st with the assault on Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad. Al Mada reports today that Jalal Talabani, Iraqi President, met with EU ambassadors whose countries are accredited to Iraq and stated that at the forefront of the challenges facing Iraq are terrorism and the targeting of Christians. He noted that he met with Muslim and Christian religious officials about the targeting on Friday and Talabani spoke of a "new Iraq" where Iraqis live with one another "in harmony and peace" and live with their neighboring countries and the world "in harmony and peace." KRG President Massoud Barzani also met with religious leaders. Al Mada reports he met with offiicals from the Chaldean Culture Society, National Council, the Assyrian Democratic Movement, the Chaldean Democratic Forum, the Federation House of Mesopotamia and others to discuss the targeting of Iraqi Christians. Barzani told the "delegation that he will always ben an advocate and strong supporter for the Christian brotherhood."
Friday's snapshot included the following:
However, approximately at the time Talabani was speaking to reporters, the Christian Association of Ashurbanipal in Baghdad was under attack and their property was damanged by unknown assailants and by, according to eye witness, Baghdad police officers. Abdul-Karim, speaking for the police, denied that they were connected to the attack. One eye witness reports that the Baghdad police could be seen with the assailants and exclaiming, "We are an Islamic state!" and "No place for Christians and Yazidis in Baghdad!" Iraqi Christians have long been targeted throughout the Iraq War and the latest wave of attacks started October 31st with the assault on Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad leading to the deaths of approximately 70 people with approximately 70 others left injured.
Saturday John Leland (New York Times) reported on the raid (but states it took place Thursday night) and quotes Christian Association of Ashurbanipal in Baghdad board member Sharif Aso stating, "They came in and said, 'You are criminals. This is not your country. Leave immediately." From Leland's article:
The intruders wore civilian clothes, said Mr. Aso and others at the organization, but their arrival was preceded by three police vehicles that blocked off the street. He said the men stole his ring and bashed him ont he leg with a pistol.

Tunring to news of basic services, Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Yahya Barzanji (AP) report on Abdul-Rahman Mustafa, Governor of Tamim Province, and his decision to stop supplying Baghdad with electricity while his capital (Kirkuk) makes do with less than four hours of electricity each day. Marwan Ibrahim (AFP) adds, "Rizgar Ali, chairman of Kirkuk's provincial council, said the procedure of separating from the national grid was completed on Tuesday evening." An unnamed US embassy official expresses concern and remind, "We saw riots last summer . . . that's a concern." Al Rafidayn terms it a "secession" and notes local demonstrators ("dozens") protested between Kirkuk and Erbil over the fact that they have daily power outages in excess of twenty hours. Al Sabaah reports that Monday saw over 1,000 people demonstrate in Diyala Province's Khan Bani Saad over the poor services and the deterioration of edcation offered -- on the latter, specific complaints include that the sole school was so small and "built with mud" and has over 1300 students enrolled in it.
In England, they're gearing up for War Hawk Tony Blair's testimony this Friday before the Iraq Inquiry and Mark Townsend (Guardian) has reported that "Tony Blair is set for fresh embarrassment over the Iraq War this week when he is cross-exmined about contradictions relation to the manipulation of intelligence before the invasion." Brian Brady (Independent of London) adds, "Members of the five-strong Chilcot inquiry have grave doubts over the truthfulness of statements the former prime minister made to them last January and in his memoirs, published last autumn. The Independent on Sunday understands that the inquiry is concerned over Mr Blair's evidence on the legal advice he received before agreeing to join the invasion, and the timing of the decision to go to war. He also faces claims that he misrepresented the findings of a report from international inspectors sent into Iraq following the invasion to look for evidence that Saddam Hussein had been building an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)." If you're late to the Iraq Inquiry, the Guardian has a tongue-in-cheek overview here. The Daily Telegraph reports:

In written evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry into the war, Lord Goldsmith said statements made by the ex-prime minister in the months before the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein were incompatible with the guidance he had given.
On January 14 2003 the Attorney General advised Mr Blair that UN Security Council resolution 1441 was not enough on its own to justify the use of force against Iraq.

The Inquiry has published Goldsmith's written statements questioning Tony Blair's testimony of events. The Iraq Inquiry might be taken more seriously were it not for the WikiLeaks revelation that the British government told the White House that they'd ensure the US wasn't embarrassed by the revelations. Add in that Tony Blair played the committee for fools last January and what needs to be proven on Friday is that the Inquiry is truly independent. That's even more difficult when they've just lost a power struggle. Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) reports, "Britain's top civil servant, Sir Gus O'Donnell, is preventing the official inquiry into the Iraq invasion from publishing notes sent by Tony Blair to George W Bush -- evidence described by the inquiry as of 'central importance' in establishing the circumstances that led to war. O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, consulted Blair before suppressing the documents, it emerged tonight." John Chilcot is the Chair of the Iraq Inquiry and, in his opening statement at today's session, he commented on the efforts to keep things from the public:
The Inquiry will always seek to take evidence in public unless there are specific grounds under our protocols why it cannot do so. The Inquiry is determined to be as transparent as possible in its work. I thought that was important when I took on the role of Chairman and our commitment to make public as much as possible continues. Yesterday we published the transcripts of five of our private evidence sessions on the Inquiry website. In places, extracts have been redacted in accordance with the protocol with the government. We are pleased that we have been able to make so much public. We will continue to publish further transcripts and declassified documents in the coming weeks to assist the public understanding of our work.
There is one area where, I am sorry to say, it has not been possible to reach agreement with the government.
The papers we hold include the notes which Prime Minister Blair sent to President Bush and the records of their discussions. The Inquiry recognises the privileged nature of those exchanges but, exceptionally, we sought disclosure of key extracts which illuminate Prime Minister Blair's positions at critical points. The Cabinet Office did not agree this disclosure. On 10 December last year, in accordance with the Protocol, I asked the Cabinet Secretary to review that decision. I also made it clear that, if we could not reach agreement, I would publish the correspondence between us. I am doing so today.
The Inquiry is disappointed that the Cabinet Secretary was not willing to accede to its request. This means that in a narrow but important area the Inquiry may not always be able to publish as fully as it would wish the evidential basis for some of its comments and conclusions.
The Inquiry is free to say what it thinks. We shall complete our task and make our own independent judgements about the UK's involvement in Iraq.
Rosa Prince (Telegraph of London) emphasizes, "He made clear that it would be more difficult to question the former prime minister when he gives evidence for a second time on Frdiay without reference to the letters and notes." Gonzalo Vina (Bloomberg News) notes Steve Field, spokesperson for UK Prime Minister David Cameron, stating today that the decision to censor did not come from his boss, "It's very much the Cabinet secretary's decision." [Labour Party Tony Blair was replaced as Prime Minister by Gordon Brown who was replaced last year by Conservative Party David Cameron.] Tony Blair's questioning is already thought to be difficult since so much of what he testified to has been contradicted by other witnesses. AP notes that Peter Goldsmith, Blair's then Attorney General, rejects the claims Blair made to the Inquiry about his legal advice. Blair groupie Glen Oglaza (Sky News) words it this way: "Lord Goldsmith, former Attorney General, has made an astonishing claim in written evidence to the Inquiry: That on January 14th 2003, he advised the Prime Minister that invading Iraq would be illegal without a second UN resolution, but the very next day, January 15th, Mr. Blair stood up in the House of Commons and told MPs that such an invasion would be LEGAL under the existing UN Resolution 1441. Asked if that was compatible with his advice, Lord Goldsmith wrote: 'No', and went on to say he felt 'uncomfortable' watching the Prime Minister's performance." Stop the War UK is organizing protests against War Criminal Tony Blair.

Reasons to protest when Tony Blair is recalled to give evidence to the Iraq Inquiry on 21 January:

JOIN THE PROTEST 21 JANUARY
QEII Conference Centre 8am-2pm
London SW1P 3EE

(Tube Westminster or St James's
Please publicise as widely as you can
In the US, Gregg Zoroya (USA Today) reports that approximatley 35,000 US Army soldiers are entitled to stop-loss pay but have not applied for it. To be clear, claiming the pay does not mean you are going to be stop-lossed. This is pay for people who were stop-lossed. Stop-loss is popularly known as the back door draft. It's where you have enlisted, you serve your agreed upon time, you prepare to leave the military and the government informs you that you're not leaving, that they've extended your contract. Those who experienced this are entitled to additional pay and that's what 35,000 soldiers have yet to claim. The deadline to apply has been extended to March 4th. You can visit this DoD page for more information including:

Apply Now for Retroactive
Stop Loss Special Pay

The following service-specific sites provide more information and allow you to begin the RSLSP claim process.


Army


Navy


Marine Corps


Air Force


Turning to the topic of Iraq War veteran Bradley Manning. Monday April 5th, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7th, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." Manning has been convicted in the public square despite the fact that he's been convicted in no state and has made no public statements -- despite any claims otherwise, he has made no public statements. Manning is now at Quantico in Virginia, under military lock and key and still not allowed to speak to the press. Paul Courson (CNN) notes Bradley is a suspect and, "He has not admitted guilt in either incident, his supporters say."

The Law Office of David E. Coombs (Bradley's attorney) offers:

The defense has raised its objection to the documented confinement conditions of PFC Bradley Manning on multiple occasions with the Quantico confinement facility and the Staff Judge Advocate's (SJA) Office. On 5 January 2011, the defense filed a formal complaint with the commander of the Quantico Brig. On the same day, PFC Manning also filed a formal complaint through the confinement grievance process. Both complaints requested that the confinement facility remove PFC Manning from Prevention of Injury (POI) watch and that his classification level be reduced from "Maximum" to "Medium Detention In." The confinement facility did not respond to either complaint.
Due to the lack of response from the confinement facility, the defense, pursuant to the provisions of Rule for Courts-Martial (R.C.M.) 305(g), filed a request earlier today with the Garrison Commander to direct the release of PFC Bradley Manning from pretrial confinement. This request is based upon the fact that the confinement conditions currently being endured by PFC Manning are more rigorous than necessary to guarantee his presence at trial, and that the concerns raised by the government at the time of pretrial confinement are no longer applicable. Further steps to address PFC Manning's confinement conditions will be taken, if necessary.

Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), a non-profit organization of psychologists committed to social change and social justice, has written a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, protesting "the needless brutality of the conditions to which 23-year-old PFC Bradley Manning is being subjected" at the Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Virginia. He has been accused of unauthorized access to classified material, some of which he allegedly downloaded to his computer, as well as other computer and security-related charges.

It is widely speculated that these charges relate to materials turned over to the Wikileaks website, including a video of an Apache helicopter attack civilians in Baghdad, the Iraq War logs, and thousands of State Department diplomatic cables. The military charge sheet accuses Manning of "wrongfully introducing more than 50 classified United States Department of State cables onto his personal computer, a non-secure information system." It also alleges he downloaded a Powerpoint presentation, and "a classified video of a military operation filmed at or near Baghdad, Iraq, on or about 12 July 2007."

Manning was held for approximately three weeks at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait before being transferred to Quantico, where he has remained in solitary confinement since late last July. In an article last month, I reported on PFC Manning's current psychological state, as best as I could determine from speaking to David House, who had just visited him, and on the deleterious effects of solitary confinement in general. PsySR's letter speaks at length also about the harsh conditions of solitary, and notes "no such putative risk can justify keeping someone not convicted of a crime in conditions likely to cause serious harm to his mental health."



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