gore vidal, robert parry

late in blogging and blame c.i. and the care packages. another arrived today and it included a dvd of rough footage for a documentary a friend of c.i.'s is doing. i don't know that the documentary even has a title yet (i'm sure it at least has a working title) but flyboy and i popped that into the dvd player tonight. c.i. had noted in the letter that we'd probably enjoy it. we did.

even with just rough footage, it was very powerful. so powerful, we watched it again as soon as it went off. it didn't even have a real soundtrack at this point but this is going to be an amazing and powerful documentary. i asked c.i. on the phone tonight, 'is it okay to note it?' and c.i. asked me how much i was planning to write about it? i was thinking 3 or 4 paragraphs and c.i. suggested that if i want to write about it, i do so for maria, francisco and miguel's new newsletter. i hadn't even thought about that.

they are working so hard on that (and doing a great job). i called maria and told her about the documentary and how i wanted to write up a short thing on it and wondered if they were interested? she said absolutely and noted that they would translate it for me if i wasn't able to. i'm not but flyboy knows spanish and had already agreed to translate it.

but i want to note that because i really hadn't thought about contributing to that newsletter. not because it's not good but because i don't really speak spanish. (not very well.) maria, franciso and miguel are busting their rears on it and ava and c.i. are doing weekly tv commentaries that they really don't have time for just to help raise awareness on the newsletter. in addition diana does a wonderful column (flyboy reads it to me in english) and you've got isaiah doing 2 to 3 comics for it each week. people are really pitching in on that and i should have thought to do so.

in case there are any community members who haven't thought to do so, if language is the issue, maria, francisco or miguel will translate it for you. if you're just thinking no 1 would be interested, they would be. if you're not signed up for it, c.i.'s been doing an explosive column each week. maria said c.i. was hitting especially hard to try to raise interest in the newsletter.

the community supports it and it has a number of members signed up but since it is in in spanish (because that's what it's geared to, our spanish speaking members), it's not getting as much attention as it might otherwise. ava's aunt proposed that they run a spanish piece and an english translation side by side. (with isaiah's comics that he's doing in spanish, they'll just translate the words into english underneath it.) it's supposed to serve the spanish members but ava's aunt thinks providing english translations alongside the spanish pieces will allow non-spanish speaking members to follow the issues and topics that are important to other members.

every 1 is working so hard on that. i asked maria if she'd be interested in me writing about my pregnancy? that's the only thing i'm not really doing here. (despite complaints from the professional asshole that i am doing that.) she said she'd love that because she is interested in it and she knows other members are as well.

it may just be a paragraph or 2, but starting this sunday and every sunday after until the baby is born, i will be doing that. so if you're a community member who hasn't signed up for it and you're interested in that, you should sign up now. francisco, maria and miguel's e-mails are printed in polly's brew and gina & krista round-robin each week and you can also write c.i. (or me) and we'll forward it to francisco, maria or miguel.

they started up after i learned i was pregnant and i have just been focused on that. i should have been doing something to help them. after i got off the phone with maria, i was talking to flyboy and he is very well versed in spanish and said he'd let her know he would participate in a round-table for this issue they're working on now. so we called her back and she was very happy about that.

if you talk to gina, krista or polly, they will tell you those things are very hard until you get in your groove. maria told me i could pass on that west is taking spanish this year and starting sunday, he's doing a few lines of poetry. his father's going to help him with that, to make sure he has the right word and noun and verb agreement. but west is stepping up and if you've got the time to spare, please consider doing so. diana, billy, eddie and dallas all contributed their photos from the 3,000 rally outside the dallas city hall to the new newsletter to help them out so there are all sorts of ways you can contribute.

that's my plug for tonight and it's a deserved 1. i am sorry that i haven't done more. elaine wrote about their feelings that it was still jelling back in december. it still is.

i'll add 1 more thing because members know c.i.'s busy with speaking and the common ills and the third estate sunday review. despite that, despite doing a column already for polly's brew and 1 for the gina & krista round-robin, c.i.'s doing a column for this newsletter and c.i. and ava are doing tv commentaries. that's every week. if c.i. can make the time, you might consider doing so as well. if you've read it, you know that maria, francisco and miguel are doing a very strong job. you contributing will take some of the burden off them and allow them to work more as editors of the newsletter the way that gina, krista and polly are able to.

so please check your schedules and see if you have time or can make time. it doesn't have to be an every week thing. even contributing a piece of writing or a photo or drawing or whatever for 1 week will be 1 less thing that they end up having to come up with on their own. i know gina, krista and polly are trying to steer people to sharing their as well, so let me join their voices on that.

francisco's been answering questions and, for that feature, members have been participating. they have plenty of questions each week. they also have plenty of people signed up for it. both of those things demonstrate interest and support for the newsletter but if we could bump it up a notch, it would really help francisco, maria and miguel. (and isaiah who, maria fears, is about to burn out doing 2 to 3 comics for the newsletter each week to try to keep interest high in it.)

at krista's suggestion, sunday will also offer the 1st poll which they hope will let all members signed up for it understand that this is geared to service the spanish speaking members but it is a newsletter for all.

i'd called gina for a comment and she just got my message so i had to stop a second to talk to her. she says that spanish speaking members have always been supportive or her and krista and of polly. it's the same thing. this is a newsletter for all but it is geared towards spanish speaking the same way that the other 2 are geared towards english speaking member and the same way that gina & krista gear their's towards the united states and polly gears her newsletter towards the european members. 'all are welcome, is the point,' gina said.

i just read this post to flyboy and he responded, 'oh hell, i'll write a column until the baby's born.'
so think about what you can do, even if it is just a 1 time thing.

billie e-mailed me about a program that aired on her local pbs station. it's texas monthly, and i don't get it here. but she said it had an amazing interview with gore vidal. i wish i could have seen that and think billie's e-mail on it could (hint, hint) easily be translated to spanish. but what i can do is note saul landau's 'Gore Vidal in Havana' (counterpunch):

After 9/11, George Bush began firing fear-loaded spitballs at Congress and the media, which reacted by being frightened. Five years and three months later, Gore Vidal in Havana countered W’s discords of panic with chimes of truth.
On December 12, at the University of Havana, Vidal dismissed "our little President" ("presidentcito," said the interpreter) and mocked him into proper perspective -- the worst and most dangerous president in US history: "I'm a wartime president." The audience of students and professors laughed at Vidal's imitation.
Three days before, on the evening of December 9, Culture Vice Minister Ismael Gonzalez and Book Institute President Iroel Sanchez greeted met Vidal at the Jose Marti International Airport. His entourage included former South Dakota Senator James Abourezk (D) and former President of the California Senate, John Burton (D) as well as San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, myself and a small group of Gore’s friends and admirers. The Cuban press quickly grabbed him.
"What brings you to Cuba?" a Prensa Latina reporter inquired.
"I came to Cuba with my broken knee to help break 40 years of embargo." He had not accepted previous invitations because "I lost one of my knees the last time and I almost sent my knee to you, and it would have been more interesting than myself."
A few reporters giggled. "But I have an artificial one," Vidal became serious, "and could come here to see the beginning of the end of colonialism in the Western Hemisphere."
He told the media that he "worried about the collapse of the Republic. We have lost habeas corpus and the Constitution that we inherited from England 700 years ago. Suddenly, we were robbed of it. The current regime has done it, and the legal bases of our Republic have gone with it, and as I am one of the historians of that Republic, I am not happy."
How did he see Cuban reality as opposed to what the US government reported? "They never told us why we should hate the Cubans. I think Kennedy and his compatriots were motivated [in their aggressive anti-Castro policies] by vanity"” He said, "My friend John F. Kennedy was running for president," (1960) and he foolishly allowed the CIA’s Bay of Pigs invasion to take place. "Vanity has played a large role in the relationship," he added, referring to the terrorist war aged by the brothers Kennedy against Cuba after the April 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Vidal paused and jumped backward in time. "When we invaded Cuba [in 1898] it was only a pretext to start the war against Spain and end up taking the Philippines, as we did in the end." The Cuban reporters taped and wrote. "I hate to say it," Vidal continued with a smile, "but you were just a step for the United States to reach Asia, although we always had our eyes on the Caribbean."

gore vidal is always worth reading (and hearing) and i think there's a 2nd part to this interview (billie put the above into her e-mail). i'll look for it tomorrow.

mike and elaine both asked this weekend if they should start picking up robert parry to help me out. i didn't realize i hadn't noted him in so long. it's usually because i'm tired (like right now) and i'm thinking, 'i'm not in the mood to go through and change punctuation.' robert parry's punctuation isn't wrong. but i have to change it all because we use different fonts and if i don't change it, quotes, for instance, become squares. so usually, i'm so tired and don't have the strength to face going through and changing. but i should be noting him and i'll try to do a better job of that. scooter libby's trial will be starting soon. today, they were picking jurors - 2 were disqualified for being 'anti-bush.' on the scooter libby trial, here's robert parry's 'Scooter Libby's Time-Travel Trial' (consortium news):

The trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is being billed by the Big Media as a case study of a favorite Washington cliché -- "it's not the crime but the coverup" -- a smugly delivered line suggesting that Libby committed no real offense beyond trimming a few facts when questioned by overzealous investigators.
But the major U.S. news media is again missing the point. The real significance of the Libby trial is that it could demonstrate how far George W. Bush went in 2003 to shut down legitimate criticism of his Iraq War policies as well as questions about his personal honesty.
In that sense, the trial could be a kind of time machine for transporting America back to that earlier era of not so long ago when Bush and his team felt they controlled reality itself and were justified in tricking the American people into bloody adventures overseas.
It was a time when President Bush swaggered across the political landscape, a modern-day king fawned over by courtiers in the government and the press -- and protected by legions of followers who bullied citizens who dared to dissent.
Libby may be going on trial for five felony counts of lying and obstructing justice, but the essence of his criminal behavior was his work as a top enforcer responsible for intimidating Americans who wouldn’t stay in line behind the infallible Bush.
Though many Iraq War skeptics -- from the Dixie Chicks to longtime U.S. allies in Europe, such as France -- were punished for disagreeing with Bush, Libby’s most notable target was former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Wilson attracted the White House's wrath in mid-2003 because he was one of the first Washington insiders to question the official consensus about Bush’s wisdom, courage and integrity.
Just months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as Bush basked in stratospheric poll numbers, Wilson went public with first-hand evidence that Bush had "twisted" intelligence to frighten Americans about the prospects of Iraq developing a nuclear bomb.
The former ambassador's heresy was countered by administration officials who leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, covert CIA officer Valerie Plame. They also enlisted Bush's defenders in both the right-wing and mainstream media to wage an unstinting attack on Wilson's credibility.


now we get to c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot' and i want to note before it that agustin is right on the mark when he says 'when you know better, you do better' and that requires something more than what mike and wally were laughing at this weekend as 'e-activism' and 'online activism'. (they weren't laughing at agustin - just at people who think signing a petition makes them big, strong and brave and more so than war resisters who stand up and say 'no' publicly to an illegal war).
here's the snapshot:

Tuesday, January 16, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, the United Nations issues a report that seems to go unread (or maybe the news industry has decided, yet again, to ignore Iraqi women?) , US war resister Agustin Aguayo has been charged by the US military, Bully Boy explains to 60 Minutes that the ten words last week were meaningless, the US military announces the death of four US soldiers, and the New York Times is going to have actually report on the chaos and violence in tomorrow's paper because with over 100 dead in Baghdad alone today even the desperate to sell the war Timid can't look the other way.

Starting with war resistance within the military, US war resister Agustin Aguayo, a medic with the US army, gave his reasons for refusing to redeploy to Iraq for a second tour in a statement to the US Court of Appeals in DC which was preparing to hear his appeal to be designated a conscientious objector:


With or without non-combatant status I will not deploy to Iraq. I have been to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom II, and I know what to expect. I know what will be expected of me. And because of this first-hand knowledge, I simply cannot take part in this deployment. Some people might think that a fear of death is the reason for refusing to deploy. But that is incorrect. I have to be true to myself and do what is right. Even though I deployed as a non-combatant in 2004-05 I still carry guilt from my participation. While there as a non-combatant, I was still required to do guard-duty, although I chose to carry only an unloaded gun. While there as a non-combatant, I was still required to patch-up, treat, and help countless soldiers for "sick-call" in order to facilitate their prompt return to combatant duties. While there as a non-combatant, I was asked to drive soldiers around on patrols, patrols which could have been deadly to Americans and Iraqis alike. I regret involvement in those activities, because ultimately I was contributing to the war mission and enabling others to do what I oppose. By doing guard duty, appearing to be armed, even without bullets, I gave the false impression that I would kill if need be. I am not willing to live a lie to satisfy any deployment operation. By helping countless soldiers for "sick-call" as well as driving soldiers around on patrols I helped them get physically better and be able to go out and do the very thing I am against -- kill. This is something my conscience will not allow me to do. Although I myself did not pull the trigger, I now realize that what I did as a non-combatant nonetheless supported and enabled these missions. I cannot carry that burden on my conscience. When you know better you do better.


Aguayo self-checked out of the US military on September 2nd and turned himself at Fort Irwin on September 26. Aguayo has argued that his Last Friday, Kevin Dougherty (Stars & Stripes) reported that the US military has charged Aguayo with desertion and missing movement and that conviction on both charges "could receive a maximum prison term of seven years". The charge of desertion is interesting in that (a) Aguayo turned himself in, (b) he was gone less than 30 days, and (c) the US Court of Appeals was set to hear his case. Also of interest is that, though no date's been set for the trial/court-martial, the military's decided to announce charges when his claim for c.o. status still awaits a ruling from the US Court of Appeals.

Turning to other war resistance news, Iraq Veterans Against the War started Camp Resistance to show their support for Ehren Watada who faces a court-martial February 5, 2007. damon reports that they intend to stay "outside the gates of Fort Lewis and on the streets across the nation" in order "to make an impression large enough to influence the outcome of the trial". What do they need? They need:

financial support for getting IVAW members here at Fort Lewis, particularly on the day of the trial. Also, we envision Camp Resistance FOBs (Forward Operating Base) starting all over the country; in front of recruiter's offices, military bases, etcetera. When we got kicked out of our campsite, we came to the realization that Camp Resistance is not a physical place, but a place within our hearts and minds. If your heart is filled with resistance to this illegal war and Love for LT, you can start a daily vigil in your local area or join us here at Fort Lewis.

They also need attention -- make sure your friends know and start demanding that media, big and small (also known as Useless & Useless) cover Camp Resistance.


Agustin Aguayo and Ehren Watada are part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Kyle Snyder, Ivan Brobeck, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Mark Wilkerson, Joshua Key, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.

Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.


Meanwhile Bully Boy does his War Dance In The Pants and claims, that as "The Destroyer," this dance is tyrant's choice. Appearing Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes (pre-taped, Bully Boy doesn't do live well), Bully Boy again attempted to pump his ten word teeny, tiny, little culpa into a thing of significance. Scott Pelley asked Bully Boy about the ten words -- the 'mistakes were made' shrug that the press thought was just AMAZING all last week. ["Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."] It wasn't. And for the fools who didn't grasp it in real time, Bully Boy demonstrated in Sunday night's broadcast.

PELLEY: You mention mistakes having been made in your speech. What mistakes are you talking about?
BUSH: You know, we've been through this before. Abu Ghraib was a mistake. Using bad language like, you know, "bring them on" was a mistake. I think history is gonna look back and see a lot of ways we could have done things better. No question about it.
PELLEY: The troop levels . . .
BUSH: Could have been a mistake.
PELLEY: Could have been a mistake?
BUSH: Yeah. [General] John Abizaid, one of the planners, said in front of Congress, you know, he thought we might have needed more troops. My focus is on how to succeed. And the reason I brought up the mistakes is, one, that's the job of the commander-in-chief, and, two, I don't want people blaming our military. We got a bunch of good military people out there doing what we've asked them to do. And the temptation is gonna find scapegoats. Well, if the people want a scapegoat, they got one right here in me 'cause it's my decisions.

A scapegoat is someone wrongly blamed. Before anyone points to the obvious (Bully Boy has had a highly abusive relationship with the English language), let's note that you don't go to the well on the Bible as often as the Bully Boy has publicly without being expected to know the story Aaron. Bully Boy knows full well what a scapegoat is and, Sunday on 60 Minutes, he was revealing the obvious, his ten words were sop tossed out and not heartfelt. But thank you, US press, for wasting nearly a week promoting it as ground-breaking news. It's not as though anything better couldn't have been covered in that time, is it?

In the same 60 Minutes interview, Bully Boy rejected the notion that he might "owe the Iraqi people an apology" for not doing "a better job in providing security after the invasion" with "Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant."

Shh, don't wake the tyrant. In the real world the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq has released a report and, yes, it declares that 34,452 Iraqis died in 2006 with 36,685 wounded. The report also states that: "Armed operations by MNF-I continued to restrict the enjoyment of human rights and to cause severe suffering to the local population" -- MNF being the US led 'coalition'.

The tyrant thinks he 'liberated' does he? The UN report also covers the realities for Iraqi women -- new realities, post-invasion realities, brought to them by Bully Boy Inc. That includes vanishing rights, women's rights are disappearing and they "are reportedly living with heightened levels of threats to their lives and physical integrity, and forced to conform to strict, abritrarily imposed morality codes" which allows them new 'role' -- unclaimed corpse. Women are kidnapped and abused, sexually and then murdered, their corpses don't get buried by the families because to note that is your daughter, your sister, etc. would be to risk family shame. Those women who have been 'liberated' to mass sexual assault and abuse but aren't murdered? Well they have the option of 'honour killings' which, the UN report tells us, led to, in the first months of 2006, 239 women attempting to kill themselves -- burning yourself to death may be among the most popular 'roles' for Iraqi women in the public sphere. Thanks, Tyrant Bush.


Turning to today's violence which claimed over 100 lives in the capital alone.

Bombings?

CNN reports a coordinated attack on the Mustansiriya University involving two bombs (bomb vest and car bomb) with one "at the back entrance of the school" and the other at the "main gate under a pedestrian bridge where students and employees get public transit." Claudia Parsons and Alastair Macdonald (Reuters) note that at least 65 are dead and "many of them young women students". CNN notes that the count rose to 70 dead and at least 169 were wounded.

Also in Baghdad, Reuters notes a roadside bomb and a motorcycle bomb claimed the lives of at least 15 and left at least 70 wounded in an attack "near a Sunni mosque"; another roadside bomb claimed four lives and left ten more wounded in an attack on a police patrol, while a "bomb inside a car" left six dead and at least 11 wounded in the Sadr City section of Baghdad.

Mohammed al Awsy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports five mortars left 10 people wounded in west Baghdad and notes that bomb that exploded inside a car in the Sadr City section of Baghdad "exploded inside a KIA minibus".

Shootings?

Reuters notes a person shot dead in Hawija and three were shot down in Mosul. CNN reports that "gunmen on motorcycles opend fire on a maketplace in the Mehdi Army-controlled Bunouk area of eastern Baghdad and killed 12 civilians. Seven others were wounded."

Corpses?

The BBC reports that 25 corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes that two corpses were discovered in Diwaniya.

Not covered in the above is the fact that the slaughter of Haifa Street (a residential street -- or residential before the slaughter began) continues. Nancy A. Youssef and Zaineb Obeid (McClatchy Newspapers) report: "Eight days after a joint U.S.-Iraqi offensive began to take control of the Haifa Street area in central Baghdad, residents said they had no water and no electricity and that people seeking food had been shot at random. They said they could see American soldiers nearby, but that the Americans were making no effort to intervene."

In addition, Mohammed al Awsy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports: "according to a medical source from karbala health directorate, the directorate yesterday received 80 anonymous bodies from Baghdad morgue with the help of sadr office. those bodies were found 3 months ago in Baghdad and were not be able to be recognized by their families. usually after 3 month of the bodies being at Baghdad morgue if nobody claim them are sent to karbala grave yard to be buried but now the period have been lessen to one month only. this grave yard in karbala is called the anonymous grave yard. also today 85 anonymous bodies were received from Baghdad morgue to be buried at karbala anonymous grave yard."


Meanwhile the US military announces: "Four Task Force Lightning Soldiers assigned to the 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division were killed Monday as a result of an improvised explosive device while conducting operations in Ninewa province, Iraq."


Addressing the escalation, Ron Jacobs (CounterPunch) observes that the escalation is Bully Boy's plan and the US, not Iraqis, are in charge:

Initial reports from the US powers running the war explain that the first neighborhoods to be attacked will be primarily Sunni in makeup. Once these neighborhoods are pacified--gunships attack, soldiers come in, the men rounded up and the areas locked down and fenced in, the remaining residents will be issued identification cards which will most likely include retina scans and will be limited in their travels outside of the region assigned to them by the US command. The plan then apparently calls for a similar effort in the Shia areas of Baghdad, including the area known as Sadr City. This is when the Green Zone regime of al-Maliki will be challenged. Will he give in to US demands and support the almost certainly bloody raids into this part of the city? Will he accept the US plan to turn the Shia regions of Baghdad into the equivalent of the Vietnam war's strategic hamlets? Since it is quite unlikely that Muqtada al-Sadr or his followers will, if al-Maliki were to do so, he would most certainly lose the support of this important bloc of Iraqis. If he opposes US attacks and lockdowns of Shia areas of the city, then he would most likely lose his job.
The scenarios outlined above do enough to prove that it is Washington that really runs the war in Iraq. The major difference between the situation before Mr. Bush's speech and now is that the post-speech plan strips away even the pretense that the Iraqi Green Zone government is in control. What this means on the ground is that the US command will no longer even pretend to ask the Green Zone government for permission to conduct its activities. This change was graphically illustrated almost immediately after Mr. Bush's speech when US troops raided the Iranian diplomatic mission in Irbil and hijacked six Iranian consular officials. No Iraqis even knew about this raid until after the fact. In fact, the Kurdish military units guarding the region almost killed some US troops trying to enter the region because they were unaware of their intentions. We will surely see more examples like this in the coming weeks and months.


Turning to financial news, Sunday, Stephen Foley (Independent of London) reported the GOP donor Bearing Point was having problems which included "falling more than a year behind in reporting its own financial results, prompting legal actions from its creditors and shareholders". Who is Bearing Point? A company that the US administration has been very happy to give contracts (and tax dollars) to for their work on Iraq ("on" being key). On Sunday's The KPFA Evening News, Antonia Juhasz (author of The BU$H Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time) noted that among the contracts Bearing Point currently has one for privatizing Iraq and one of their own employees sitting on Iraq's Oil Ministry. Juhasz explained:

Bearing Point has played the role on the ground in Iraq as the company tasked with the job of making sure that Iraqi's new oil law is passed. So essentially there's been a Bearing Point employee who's had no other job but to make sure that Iraq passes an oil law that supports the Bush administration's agenda for Iraq which is to get Iraq's oil as privatized as possible and into US corporate hands. And that has been Bearing Point's job and it seems that BP has done that job quite well. Bearing Point has essentially been the workhorse on the ground and also the constant threat the constant presence of the Bush administration on the ground in Iraq, doing nothing but focusing on getting this law completed and potentially passed in Iraq. [. . .] The Bechtels and the Halliburtons and the oil companises, Chevron, Exxon , Connoco, and Marathon. Those companies have all been beneficiaries of policies that Bearing Point helped develop and Bearing Point was developing policies that simply, again, serviced the Bush administration's interests. It's definitely just a tool of the administration whereas the other companises definitely had their own agendas that the administration in some ways was a tool servicing their interests like, in particular, the oil companies.

media reform?

The media's collapse, said actor and activist Jane Fonda in an earlier speech, shielded the government's own failures.
Telling the story of Abeer Qasim Hamza, a 15-year-old Iraqi who was raped and murdered by U.S. soldiers, Fonda criticized the news media's impotence in covering the war.
"The cold-blooded murder of Abeer and her family is a tragedy," Fonda said. "But it's almost as great a tragedy when her story and all the other stories that are difficult to hear and difficult to accept are buried in the back of news pages and quickly shuffled off the nightly news." She added: "A truly powerful media is one that can stop a war, not start one."
A founder of the Women's Media Center, which advocates for greater representation of women in media and in newsrooms, Fonda said American journalism takes pride in balance but "forgets that the world is not divided only by right and left."
"During the coverage of the 2004 elections," she added, "journalists were more than twice as likely to turn to a male source than a woman."

The above, noted by Cindy, is from Trevor Aaronson's "Fonda Wraps up Media Conference: Advocate for women in newsrooms says journalism forgets divide not just right and left" (Memphis Commerical Appeal via Common Dreams). That's a jumpoing off point for a joint entry. Participating are:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and, me, Jim;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
and Wally of The Daily Jot


Fonda's comments strike at the heart of the problems with media today. They address the issue of Abeer, Iraq, and the portrayal of the 'other' (anyone who's non-White, non-middle-aged, non-straight, and non-White). As Rebecca has argued, Abeer's story is the story of Iraq.And what did the media do with it?

Independent media ignored it. Early on (June), it looked like there might be some interest in but that was quickly dropped as independent media marched off elsewhere. It never really bothered to pick up the story after it was done completely ignoring Iraq. No article in The Nation ever ran on Abeer or has run as of today. A fourteen-year-old girl was gang raped, murdered, her five-year-old sister was murdered, her parents were murdered and the initial blame for the war crimes was 'insurgents.' The reality was that the war crimes were committed by non-Iraqis. In November, James P. Barker admitted to his involvement in the war crimes (he entered the home as part of a plan to rape Abeer and kill her and others in the house). His court confession also included the actions of others. Since they've yet to be tried, or to confess, you can toss "alleged" in front of their names if you like.

But Abeer was raped and killed and where was the media when the details emerged?

The Washington Post, the Associated Press, Off Our Backs and Robin Morgan were accounted for, they weighed in. Where was everyone else?

The New York Times specialized in a funny sort of reporting. Before the defense could present their legal argument in an Article 32 hearing that was held in August, the New York Times, supposedly presenting objective reporting, managed to run an opinion piece as reporting and somehow managed to argue the defense's case. In a piece published before the defense had presented their case. In a defense that a military legal expert said had no known basis in legal history. Wow. Those New York Times reporters (Carolyn Marshall and Robert F. Worth) are certainly amazing. They predicted it all -- and without any help from the defense! What seers are they.

The New York Times specialized in another kind of reporting on the war crimes -- never mentioning Abeer's name. To name the victim would be to give a face to her and since their own 'reporting' had already crossed the line into advocacy journalism (not anything wrong with advocacy journalism but the paper self-presents as 'objective') it was very clear that their interest wasn't in the truth, wasn't in reporting what happened, but in rendering Abeer and what happened to her invisible. How do you, as reporters at the paper repeatedly did, cover the trial of men accused of gang raping and murdering Abeer and never manage to mention her name?


You do it very carefully when you're interests are in managing and mitigating public opinion. Better to make her a faceless victim if you're interested in continuing to sell the illegal war which the paper is interested in doing.


Now the paper's actions should have been called out. So you might think you got that. You didn't. If in no other way, The Nation could have covered Abeer as a media topic. There media columnist could have addressed the way the paper of record rendered Abeer invisible. But he wasn't interested in that. AlterPunk was interested in useless articles such as his lengthy take on why the New York Times shouldn't run unsigned editorials -- a column that ran in a magazine (The Nation) which runs unsigned editorials.

He was interested in getting upset that he'd recently learned the New York Times' policy on quoting from comments on websites was questionable. In a piece where they rushed to lynch Janet Jackson -- a piece riddled with inaccuracies, only a few of which resulted in corrections by the paper -- it was apparently okay to 'doctor' a quote from a website. The paper is aware of the docotring -- at every level -- and they issued no correction on that. If AlterPunk wants to feign shock about the Times' 'quoting' from websites, he might do better to know the paper's history on it. Altering quotes, failure to research your articles, presenting half-baked theories that blow up with the most basic examination and not even grasping that just because you say something was or wasn't a number one doesn't make it true didn't result in the arts section's version of Judith Miller being banned from the paper for anyone interested. We could also touch on the topic of allowing people to create titles for themselves and the paper running with them. That started in the arts section and then, as the Times well knows up through the editorial offices -- carried over to the front page of the news section. The defense on that, expressed by the editor responsible for the front page piece, was that the executive in question didn't like his actual title so he preferred to use a title that doesn't exist. That may be the executive's wish but if the company wanted him to have that title, they'd give it to him. (They haven't and his being billed by a title he doesn't hold has caused anger at the company and caused those still expressing disbelief to note that when you're 'friends' with writers at the paper you can write your own ticket in what passes for 'objective' reporting.) Maybe the Cindy Brady of the faux left can next tackle that?

Probably not because it's safer for all involved (safer translates as coverage and book reviews) to offer up useless topics (unsigned editorials? A pressing issue in the bull pens of high school papers, no doubt) .

And independent media played 2006 safe and cowardly with few exceptions.

Today, John Nichols and Katrina vanden Heuvel write of Dr. Martin Luther King. It may be less than generous to note that the magazine's choosing to note him on the federal holiday in his honor. It's pointing the obvious to note that the passing last year of Coretta Scott King produced no article -- in print or 'online exclusive.' So it strikes us as a more than apalling that the same magazine who didn't appear to give a damn about Coretta Scott King now rushes pieces on MLK to their website.


Like Abeer, Coretta Scott King meets the defnition of an 'other.' African-American, a woman, she couldn't get any traction. The media critic for The Nation couldn't even note that the paper of little record didn't editorialize about her passing -- though, in the same week, they could note a playwright (and personal friend of Gail Collins) who died. Her passing didn't rate a column either. The closest to a column, and the only mention in the editorial section, was Bob Herbert's tacked on one paragraph noting she had died.

What does that say? What does the above say?

Quite a lot and if people want to address media reform, they better do seriously. The Nation is the left magazine with the largest circulation so we'll focus on it.

In 2006, when both Katha Pollitt and Naomi Klein were on leave while they worked on books, two prime spots were open to be temporarily filled. When two strong voices are absent and they happen to be female, you might think The Nation would fill those spots with women. But apparently having nearly wall to wall contributions from male writers wasn't quite enough for "Nobody Owns The Nation," they needed more male voices.

This operating belief goes a long way towards explaining why a freelancer placed her article on Abu Ghraib last year not with The Nation but with a fashion magazine (Marie Claire). The Nation should be leading and it isn't. That's in terms of what gets covered and who gets to cover it. (Already in 2007, their appalling low number of pieces written by women threaten to match the disgraceful numbers for 2006.)

Is the nation White, male, middle aged and straight in all regards? No, but if you got that impression from reading The Nation in 2006, your mistaken beliefs were certainly supported by the magazine.

Alternative media is supposed to provide an alternative, to present what media could be. (On a lower budget, granted.) Offering what the mainstream provides (often the worst it provides -- such as handicapping political races as though they were horse races) but with a left/Democratic spin (for many in independent media, the 'left' view is determined by what the DNC decides it is) isn't an alternative. It's a negative, a photographic negative, it's the bizarro world, it's just not an alternative.

An alternative requires providing an alternative. That requires covering topics that the mainstream isn't interested in. That requires creating the kind of media that demonstrates what is wrong with the current system.

If the extent of 'wrong' is that more Republican hacks are tossed on the airwaves than Democratic hacks, then The Nation is doing a wonderful job. If being a party organ for the Democratic Party is an alternative, congratulations to The Nation.

That would explain why coverage of students qualifies in the magazine as covering what an Iowan poli-sci student deemed "Eisnhower Democrats." Look, they're War Hawks, well funded one with the usual crowd of useless names speaking to them and funding them! Oh, look, here's another piece about 'activists' who are overjoyed by their 'success' (they farmed out volunteers to Congressional campaings) and who explain that sometimes you have to stop 'hugging a tree,' 'put on a suit,' and get down to business. Such business doesn't include serious concern over the environment as the dismissive 'tree hugging' reference telegraphs.

Meanwhile, in the real world, students organize to end the war, organize to rebuild in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, organize to halt the imprisonments at Guantanamo, organize (and lead!) on the immigrations rights issue.

The immigration rights issue? "Alternative" coverage apparently means you go down to the deep south and speak to White people opposed to immigrant rights. You also toss in a male (of course male) activist. You avoid the students who led the protests, who woke a sleeping nation.You avoid their bravery and maybe you even offer a slap to them that the Mexican flag shouldn't be carried at a protest. Now those words generally come from people who didn't participate in any of the protests so the words are as useless as the owners of the mouths uttering them.

Where is the place at the table for people of ethnicities and color, for women and LBGTs?

The Nation is looking for a publicity director. That's not going to change the opinions of students opposed to the magazine, students who see it as useless and judgmental of them, students who see their own work and the issues that matter to them ignored.

A new publicity director won't conceal the fact that 'equality' has a funny meaning at The Nation. Equality doesn't mean when two female columnists are on leave, you fill their posts with other male voices. Equality does seem to mean that you demonstrate how fair you are by criticizing Harry Belafonte. At last! African-Americans can be slammed equally at The Nation! (If undeservedly.) Now they can't get covered, Coretta Scott King's death demonstrates that, but they've 'achieved' enough at the magazine that they can be slammed.

Will a publicy director speak to the staff about how they conduct themselves in on air interviews?

We think she or he should. We think that's now a requirement after Laura Flanders was called everything but stupid on air. (Flanders an astute journalist, critic and broadcaster.) That hostile, patronizing, impatient and dismissive treatment didn't come from a guest billed as being on the right, it came from a Nation staffer (and Lyndon La Rouche refugee). We think that interview, the hostitility expressed towards Flanders, says a lot. How does anyone at the magazine come to believe it's okay to treat Flanders, or any woman, in such a manner? (It was bullying. Flanders stood her ground.)

Well it helps when the culture is predominatley male, predominatley straight, and predominately White. And we're speaking of the culture at the magazine. Media reform is suddenly an issue (for a week or so) and we're reminded of the 2006 issue on media reform which played like celebrity even if it didn't make for good reading. Having something to say wasn't apparently a requirement, just name value. (Which led to it playing out like the what-are-they-reading feature in Vanity Fair -- though in fairness to Van Fair, that's a tiny item in the magazine, not something they provide for pages and pages.)

Margaret Kimberley (Black Agenda Report) is very popular with this community, so let's get practical: when does she get invited to the table?

Or does she have to blindly cheer every Democrat to be included?

If impeachment was a topic worthy of a January 2006 cover, why is it a topic dropped when Nancy Pelosi announcing she is pulling it off the table? Last time we checked, she wasn't listed on the masthead of The Nation.

Independent media needs to show some independence. That's independence in thought and in coverage. Talk of media reform is meaningless if alternative outlets aren't willing to provide an alternative currently.

As 2006 drew to a close, CounterSpin finally found a woman they could interview for the full program (a practice common with male guests). We see that and her topic (the way the press covers war) as a big step in the right direction. But having lived through one of the worst years for independent media (2006), we're not about to act like media reform is something required of the mainstream and that the bulk of independent media has done a good (or even an okay) job in the last year. It hasn't.

It has not reaffirmed the core of democracy (that would require covering actions that included more than running for office or urging that readers vote). It has not practiced anything resmembling Brown v. Board in their own coverage. And we're all dying for the moment where a host (male or female) of a panel has the guts to stop a male, who repeatedly cuts off a female guest, by pointing out just how dismissive he's treating the woman and asking him why he thinks that treatment is acceptable? We're also dying to get something other than The Elector.

We're not interested in The Elector and we're not interested in linking to sop. A perfect example would be an article that David Enders has written. Does the writing qualify for sop? No. It's well written. But The Nation feels it's only worthy of 'online exclusive' status -- implying that they grade outside writers much more harshly than they do insiders. (Possibly they're under the mistaken belief that their print editions are awash with Iraq coverage?) While we're glad that both John Nichols and Katrina vanden Heuvel chose, on the MLK federal holiday, to note MLK, we're not interested in linking to the articles because of the magazine's own silence on Coretta Scott King. In fact, community wide we probably won't to link to anything from The Nation other than Naomi Klein or Katha Pollitt. Why?

Why bother? Why bother to link to a magazine that refuses to cover war resisters? They can't get ahold of Kyle Synder? (Puts them in the minority.) No, they just don't want to. They've demonstrated that throughout 2006 and the slam they printed on Ehren Watada is so offensive and does not pass the 'free speech' phrase that's used as a bully club.

Isn't it funny how free speech lets in Christopher Hitchens, La Rouche refugees and sexual predators but it doesn't let in people of color, it doesn't let in women, it doesn't let in coverage of peace activists and demonstrations, and it doesn't let in war resisters.

Ehren Watada's beliefs about the illegality and the immorality of the war could be backed up with citations from (much earlier) coverage of Iraq that The Nation provided. So he takes a stand and they play dumb. That's not cutting it. At some point, when you know the war is wrong, you have to take a stand. Ehren Watada has done that. The Nation reads like its unsure. A war resister is a cover story, not a sidebar and especially not a sidebar after you've just printed a useless (unneeded and uninformed) quote from a man slamming Watada. That a magazine which says it is opposed to the illegal war continues to be unable to offer one editorial or column in support of Watada or any of the other war resisters to go public in the summer of 2006, while filling pages of the magazine week after week with useless trash like AlterPunk's nonstop shout outs to various men (someday he'll prove he's a real boy, just like Pinochio!) (and when that happens, he still won't correct his lie that Naomi Klein was a fashion consultant to the Gore campaign).

We're tired of it and we think media reform is a useless topic until independent media is willing to practice some of it themselves.

trevor aaronson
jane fonda
media reform
ehren watada
margaret kimberley
the common ills
like maria said paz
kats korner
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
trinas kitchen
the daily jot
cedrics big mix
mikey likes it
thomas friedman is a great man
the third estate sunday review

the friday chatty post

i read c.i.'s entry this morning and called to kid 'you have sympathy pains!' (c.i. wrote 'my stomach is killing me' this morning.) my stomach was weird for the bulk of the day. just normal pregnancy stuff (believe me, flyboy was on the phone to the doctor immediately) and getting used to further stages of the pregnancy. but i was so tired today.

t had visited and i am so glad my friends get along with each other because she ended up talking to ruth after i nodded off in the middle of the conversation. even with that unexpected nap, i was still tired this evening. as soon as mike and elaine arrived, i apologized to them and explained i needed to take a nap. they were very nice about it and said they'd take 1 as well. so we were all snoozing this evening and only recently woke up. flyboy's fixing something in the kitchen that ruth's taught him and it smells very good.

i wonder how much of the sleepy comes from being housebound? i know that the body goes through changes and when you're pregnant as late in the game as i am, that's probably more so - or feels it because you don't have that youth ability to bounce back from everything. but i mention that because although the 2 weeks i'm on right now were a mutual decision between the doctor and myself, i'm thinking of extending it a bit.

that's partly due to betty's phone call last night. the gang is going to d.c. for the big demonstrations on the 27th. i was supposed to go before i found out i was pregnant. obviously, i won't be going now. (that's not, for any 1 passing by, to suggest that pregnant women do not belong at demonstrations. they do. that is to note that i have a history of miscarriages and i have had to slow everything down considerably for this pregnancy.) so betty called and let it slip that she would be visiting that weekend. that was such wonderful news.

i knew something was up. because i kept hearing from every 1 that i was going to have fun that weekend without them. betty wanted this noted, so let me note it, c.i.'s taken care of the ticket. when it was time to book, c.i. called betty and asked if she and her kids would prefer to go to d.c. or come out here to visit me? betty said she'd love to visit me but couldn't afford it and c.i. said 'i was calling to discuss money.' so betty and her kids will be out here that weekend.

it will be fun for me but i'm not sure how much fun for them. betty and i'll just talk and hang out and we'll have a blast but i was concerned about her kids being bored but she said they'd never been on a ferry and were excited about that and flyboy will take them for fun stuff along the beach so there should be enough, even with big, immobile me around, to make it so that they're not thinking, 'can we go home yet?'

i love betty and am so excited about seeing her. i warned her that i was now a red head. t did that earlier this week. i hated my hair and was begging her to cut it all off. i've never had short hair and she wisely talked me out of it. instead she brought some henna products with her that are natural and used them to turn my blonde hair red. i love it.

and am so glad she didn't let me talk her into cutting it off. but being here day after day, i needed some sort of change and going red perked me up. flyboy says he likes it and i hope that's true but, honestly, i don't care. i just needed to do something that was a change for me.

so why the decision then to stay housebound a bit longer? as i start feeling the changes going on with my body, i get a little nervous and start realizing how much i'm like a 'system' right now.

i love c.i. but that's not me. i do not get things accomplished regardless. c.i. really was in pain in this morning and still went ahead and made a speaking engagment. i would've cancelled, even before my pregnancy. i mean, i stub my toe and it's a major trauma where i have to stop to care for the boo-boo. so i think i'll probably extend it through the month, staying around the house. i know it may not be necessary and that the critical mark has been passed. everything's going well and no 1 needs to worry. but i just want to take it slow this month and get used to what's going on inside my body.

flyboy's taken a leave of absence from work. (i could suggest that he quit right now and he would agree because i can get anything right now; however, i'm trying to avoid using my 'powers' for my personal gain.) i was talking about this with ruth and she said it was understandable and talked about how in her 1st pregnancy she started grasping all these vulnerabilities as she was in the 1/2 way mark. she made me feel that what i was thinking was normal - hopefully, it is but if not, i don't give a damn. to steal from kat, it is what it is.

as soon as ruth learned i was pregnant, she started coming out here and it's been wonderful but when we were discussing this, i told her she didn't have to come out every day, monday through friday. but she swears (she lies good) that she and her grandson are enjoying it so they're going to continue through the end of the month. it's been a big help - she has everything so organized - but it's also been great to know, each morning, that she would be coming.

she can make me laugh. flyboy tries and often suceeds but, for instance, this morning, when i was going on about my stomach, she just looked at me and asked, 'did you think it wasn't going to expand?' just the way she said it made me stop whining and start laughing. i'm now preparing myself for major back pain later in the pregnancy because i'm sure i'm going to end up bigger than a house. and spending the day eating peter pan crunchy, from the jar, probably didn't help any. but the 2nd i woke up friday morning, i was just craving peanut butter and ended up eating it, off and on, throughout the day.

peanut butter and pickles have been the 2 big things this week. i have gone through 3 jars of vlasic kosher dill spears this week. in fact, the 3rd 1, which only has 3 pickels left in it, is by my bed. i have kept the pickles on the little end table next to the bed because i will wake up in the middle of the night just in need of a pickle. if i get out of bed, i'll wake flyboy and if i wake him, he'll say he would have gotten them for me so it's just made more sense to keep a jar on the end table by me so i can just reach for 1 when i wake up in the middle of the night.

so that's the exiting days and nights of rebecca. now let's turn to this by lisa farnio and medea benjamin, 'peace is possible in iraq' (common dreams):

What would it take to create peace in Iraq? On August 2, 2006, a delegation of American citizens--including YES! board member Dal LaMagna and Code Pink cofounders Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, and Gael Murphy--met with fifteen Iraqis in Amman, Jordan to find out. The American activists spent two days listening to a variety of Iraqi citizens, including five Iraqi parliamentarians from the major Shi'a, Sunni, and secular parties, as well as Iraqi intellectuals, torture victims, professionals, and religious leaders.
The American Delegation summarized the views of this diverse group of Iraqis in the Iraq Reconciliation Plan, a concrete plan for ending the violence in Iraq. The plan's ten points are items identified by the Iraqis themselves as essential to restoring peace.
YES! Magazine Associate Editor Lisa Farino spoke with Medea Benjamin about this initial meeting. Medea Benjamin is cofounder of Global Exchange and Code Pink. This interview is the first part of a three-part series about practical strategies for creating peace in Iraq. Sign up for our newsletter to hear about the next installment.
Lisa: What were some of the main things you learned from the Iraqis during these discussions?
Medea: We learned that there were major differences among the different groups but also some major commonalities. The biggest commonality is that they were all anxious to find a way for the U.S. troops to leave. Some of them said they should have been gone yesterday and tomorrow wouldn't be soon enough, and some thought that their departure had to be part of a slower, broader peace process so that things would not get worse. It was very interesting for me to learn that some Iraqis felt that the presence of the US troops was the only ace they had to negotiate with the United States for things like money for rebuilding their country because as soon as the troops left, they felt the U.S. would wash its hands of its financial responsibilities. And so they wanted the troops to stay while an agreement was worked out with the United States around its obligations. So there was a variety of opinions about when and how U.S. troops should leave, but all Iraqis we met with not only wanted all the foreign troops to leave but also wanted a fixed timetable for that process to happen.
They also told us that many Iraqis have been working seriously on a peace and reconciliation process since November, 2005, when they had their first reconciliation meeting in Cairo. This was underreported in the U.S. press, but it's very important to understand that the Iraqis are not sitting around waiting for the U.S. to end the violence. They are meeting intensely to come up with their own peace plan. But a precondition of that peace plan is setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. In the U.S., we are hearing a lot of blame being put on the Iraqis themselves-- "they're not stepping forward to fix their own country", "we're doing our part but they're not doing theirs." That is just such garbage. Iraqis have been actively trying to stop the sectarian violence and end the occupation, but their efforts are being thwarted by the Bush administration.

i'd love to tell you i read yes! all the time. i really only read the magazine when c.i. passes it on (in fact, i believe there's a copy in this week's care package that arrived in thursday's mail.) so, if you're like me, let's all make a point to pick up the magazine because that summit in jordan did matter. even if our better known left media couldn't be bothered to cover it (then or now).

that's going to be it for me except for 1 thing. liang e-mailed wondering about the nursery? we'd just done the redecorating, just finished it, when i found out i was pregnant so, no, we don't have a full nursery yet. my mother and my mother-in-law have been buying things for it and flyboy thinks betty's boys might have fun helping him put together a crib so that'll happen on the 27th. but, no, it's not up and running yet. we're still trying to figure out if we want to know ahead of time the gender. i think i'll last about a month more on that (as soon as i think 'no,' my second thought is 'yes, i want to know!') so we'll probably start doing more once we know. also, by then, i'll probably be more than ready to get out - which means we can get it painted as a nursery. my mother-in-law found these wonderful blue and red curtains that we'll be using (boy or girl) because they're so wonderful. my mother's found a wonderful lamp. they've both brought over some nice artwork to hang in the room. when i start going out in february, i'll probably start shopping.

here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


Friday, January 12, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq; after the Bully Boy's Wednesday speech offering no 'benchmarks,' US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reveleals the 'plan' also offers no timetable; Anthony Arnove and Howard Zinn talk the importance of withdrawal and combat the latest wave of Operation Happy Talk; US war resister Ehren Watada prepares for a public speech this weekend; and Antoni Juhasz addresses what an escalation means for US troops.
Today on KPFA's The Morning Show, Andrea Lewis spoke with Anthony Arnove and Howard Zinn about Iraq and comparisons to Bully Boy's dreamed of escalation in Iraq to Vietnam. Zinn felt it was very important to note that the Iraqi people do not want US forces in their country. On the 'new' 'plan' and it's talk up as well as the way Iraq is addressed, Howard Zinn pointed out:

When they talk about making a difference, they keep using the words 'victory' and 'success' and how do we 'win'? It seems to me this is missing a very, very critical point, Iraq is not our country to 'win' -- to be successful in, to be victorious in. We simply don't belong there. And Bush's 'surge' is exactly the opposite of what we need to do. Well Anthony's book Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal lays out the argument for the simple statement that I'm making now, that instead of surging in Iraq, we should be withdrawing as fast as we can from Iraq. And not only that, we should be questioning the larger principle involved and that is should the United States be sending troops anywhere in the world -- whether it's Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else -- should we think we could solve any problems with military solutions? And, in fact, is this the motive of the administration to solve problems for the people of these other countries? Iraqis don't want us in Iraq, that's clear. The American people don't want us in Iraq. Even the Iraqi government, which was really put in in a kind of fake election with American control excercise, even the Iraqi government is very embarrassed by the idea of having more American troops in Iraq. So what Bush is proposing is a violation not only of self-determination of Iraqis and the will of the American people and world opinion, it's a continution of the whole idea of US military dominace in the world which we should do everything we can to bring to an end.


Andrea Lewis asked about the statements that if the US pulls out it will lead to chaos in Iraq.

Anthony Arnove: I think we have to acknowledge that people who raise that point raise it two different ways. The cynical group of people who make that argument, pundits, politicans, to say we can never pull out, to justify the US remaining as an occupying power in Iraq for years to come, to justify setting up military bases, permanent bases, in Iraq, to justify the role that the United States wants to play in Iraq projecting its power in the entire Middle East and globally, as Howard mentioned. But then there's also decent people who have a concern for the consequences of the Iraqi people. And I think we have to acknowledge their fears and their concerns for what would happen to Iraq? And we're not saying abandon the Iraqi people -- "This is some kind of isolationist position, we don't care what happens to them." We're saying the opposite. Our point is that every day that the United States continues in Iraq as an unwanted, foreign, occupying power, it makes the situation worse for ordinary Iraqis. It's not ending sectarian conflict in Iraq, it's actually fueling sectarian conflict. It's not ending violence, it's actually fueling violence. The United States occupation is the greatest source of instability in the country. And after every benchmark that we've been told would change the situation there --elections, the constitution, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the execution of Saddam Hussein -- things just get worse. Iraq right now is the world's largest refugee crises in the world. Inflation has skyrocketed, unemployment has skyrocketed, there's less electricty, less safe drinking water, less security for Iraqis which is why poll after poll shows that that they say their life is getting worse and they want the United States to leave and so if we claim that we're bringing democracy well democracy would dictate that we let the Iraqi people determine their own future. But we should support them. We should pay reperations. We owe them a tremends debt, not just for the harm caused by the occupation, but all of the years before that the United States imposed sanctions on the country and, before that, supported Saddam Hussein as he carried out his worst crimes.

Zinn discussed how the same arguments for the US remaining in Iraq were the ones his book Vietnam: The Logic for Withdrawal were "greeted with the same claims that are made today" -- e.g. chaos, violence, civil war in Vietnam. "The truth is that we were creating the chaos," observed Zinn. Anthony Arnove's book, Iraq: The Logic for Withdrawal, has just been released in paperback and he will be appearing on the following dates:

January 17, 7 pm,
New York, NY (with Michael Schwartz)
16 Beaver
http://www.16beavergroup.org/monday/
January 20, 7 pm,
Chicago, IL (with Jeff Engelhardt)
University of Illinois-Chicago
Contact: Adam Turl, 773-567-0936, adamcturl@yahoo.com
January 27, 5 pm,
Washington, DC (with Kelly Dougherty)
Busboys and Poets
http://www.busboysandpoets.com/blog_events.htm
February 1, 7:30 pm,
Pasadena, CA
Voices of a People's History of the United States
with Mark Ruffalo, Q'Orianka Kilcher, Benjamin Bratt, Marisa Tomei, Josh Brolin, and Alfre Woodard.
All Saints Episcopal Church
http://www.icujp.org


Appearing as part of a panel discussion yesterday on Kris Welch's program, KPFA's Living Room , Antonia Juhasz (author of The BU$H Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time) noted two points regarding the US troops in Iraq. First, she noted, "On this issue of the troops increase . . . Bush wanted significantly more troops but the military said we don't have anywhere to get them for you, there aren't anymore troops. So the troops that are the addition of the 20,000 is simply going to be extending the tours of troops that are there speeding up the redeployment of troops that have already served. We have to be really clear about who the soldiers are that are part of this increase."
She then spoke of what their role would be and what is wanted from Iraq.

Antonia Juhasz: This is . . . the critical moment to make our demands very, very clear to the Democrats and one of those demands has to explicity be that this is a war for oil that cannot be allowed to continue and that what the administration is hoping for is that it will suceed in its economic transformation of Iraq which at this point has nearly reached fruition -- which is a new law developed way before the war in the US State Department, then pushed by US corporations, pushed by the successive appointed governments of Iraq by the US government following the invasion -- for a new law that is now, the al-Maliki govenrmenet has now said that it will put this new law forward to the Iraqi parliament that creates an unprecedented oil victory in Iraq. So what it does is give the government of Iraq nominal control and ownership of their oil but every function of the oil industry would then be privatized and turned over to foreign companies and the foreign companies would get a form of contract called a Production Sharing Agreement which is not used anywhere in the Middle East not used anywhere in oil rich countries in fact that gives first 30 years, 30 year contract, and then according to the UK Independent, that the intial contract would give 75% of initial profits to the private companies leaving only 25% for the Iraqis. [. . .] Iraq can best be understood as a pimple of oil that has yet to be plucked. It has certainly the second largest oil reserves in the world possibly larger. It has 80 known oil fields but only 17 have even begun to be developed. It is those undeveloped oil fields which are all completely within the realm of the new law and then the debate, that the president mentioned in his speech, is over a constitutional amendment to address the existing fields, which are now divided between the Shia and the Kurds in the north and the south, and to bring the control of the existing fields back into the central gover of al-Maliki. And what I believe is that the Bush administration is going to hold onto the occupation and make it larger and make it as big as he can until the law passes and US companies sign contracts and then they have to get work. And they need a security force to do that and that is our troops.

While Juhasz addressed the realities of US troops in Iraq, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, testifying before the US Senate Armed Service Committee, revealed a reality of his own. BBC reports that Gates, speaking of Bully Boy's new 'plan' for Iraq, stated that there was no timetable for the puppet government to achieve any of the non-defined benchmarks. Susan Cornwell and Kristin Roberts (Reuters) observe that Gates threw out the usual sop of troop withdrawal on the conditional 'if' (always the same 'if' -- if a corner is turned and it never is) and they write that "Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who heads a House panel overseeing defense spending, said he would try to attach restrictions to a $100 billion 'emergency' request for new war money that Bush will request in February. Those restrictions could include a prohibition on spending money for the additional troops, Murtha said. They could also include immediately closing Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and the Guantanamo Bay detention center at a U.S. base in Cuba."
Yesterday, US military forces stormed an Iranian diplomatic consulate and arrested six diplomatic staff. The Kurdish government in northern Iraq responded by insisting that diplomatic staff be released immediately (Iran has long had a consulate in Iraq's Kurdish territory). KUNA reports that the US, via White House flack Tony Snow, continues to dismiss concerns and attempt to downgrade a recognized diplomatic headquarters while the Foreign Minister of Iraq, Hoshyar Zebari, continues to state that it was a consulate and that, in addition, "U.S. forces tried to seize more people at the airport in Irbil, 220 miles north of Baghdad, prompting a confrontation with Kurdish troops guarding the facility that was resolved without casualties. " The BBC notes that the consulate has been "operating for years" and the Mikhail Kamyin ("Russing foreign ministry spokesman") declared, "It is absolutely unacceptable for troops to storm the consular offices of a foreign state on the territory of another state . . . It is also not clear how this fits in with American statements that Washington respects the sovereignty of Iraq."
In other Iraq news . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed al Awsy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that, near Baquba, a mortar attack killed "one primary school teacher and one student," while a child was killed in Muqdadiyah by an IED and, in Baquba, an Iraqi soldier was killed by a bomb and three more wounded.
Shootings?
Mohammed al Awsy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that in the Diyala Province, "American forces killed a woman and a child and injured another woman with another child (all from the same family)" while 4 Shi'ites were shot dead "near ARAB SHOKA area near hibhib area in khalis town" as well as their driver.
Corpses?
Reuters notes that 10 corpses were discovered in Baghdad, seven in Mosul, three in Basmaia.
Turning to news of war resistance, Ehren Watada became the first officer (June 2006) to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq and now faces a February 5th court-martial. He is scheduled to speak tomorrow at the Coupeville Recreation Hall, 901 NW Alexander ST., Whidbey Island in Coupeville, Washington at 1:00 pm. Also tomorrow, there will be a benefit performance for him Corvallis, OR when Crooked Kate and the Childers-Carson Duo take the stage of the Sunnyside-Up (116 N.W. Third St.) at six pm. In addition, later this month A Citizens' Hearings is being convened January 20-22 at Evergreen State College to address the illegality of the war. In addition, Iraq Veterans Against the War are staging Camp Resistance in support of Watada. Writing at the blog they've set up for Camp Resistance, dockyne reports:

www.kboo.fm The oldest public radio station in the states hosted IVAW Deployed and had Darrell [Anderson] and Dennis [Kyne] on Friday morning for one hour and a half. Discussing Darrell's experience in this illegal war and his 18 months in exile to Canada, as well as the fact that thousands of other soldiers are refusing to deploy to this illegal war. Hosted by Ani and Melody on their weekly progam (7:30-9 am) Absolutly revolting.
This interview was in depth...it covered the draft, the anti war movement, depleted uranium and allowed multiple callers to learn about the Gulf War, which the VA handbook of benefits states began on 2 Aug 1990 and will end on a date to be determined by congress. When will they end it? We discussed the court martials of Suzanne Swift and Ehren Watada...and the support from Portland, Oregon is massive. Darrell stated, "this is the most radical community I have been too."


Dennis Kyne, writing at U.N. Observer, gives the details on Camp Resistance:

Please support this move....as troops are gathering to support Ehren Watada in his stand against the lies that have gained our nation nothing more than death and despise. Purple Heart, 'Winner' Darrell Anderson returned from 18 months in hiding when he heard that Lt. Watada had refused to deploy. Darrell Anderson would have deployed to his third tour had he not gone north. Anderson asked me to get on the ( http://www.ivawdeployed.org ) with him and get to Fort Lewis to open up Camp RESISTANCE!!!
We are here, in the mud. It is not warm here
...nor dry
.....however, you should stand with us
....in support of a man who stands up against the military mahine and a nation of millions who don't have the foggiest notion that our troops do not want to serve in this war. Lt. Watada is speaking for thousands of enlisted soldiers like Darrell Anderson and myself, a fifteen year veteran of the Army. Watada is a true leader.....leading and doing
....he knows he should never ask enlisted soldiers to do things he would never do
....that is part of the requirement. NEVER ask nor order your troops to do things that you wouldn't do. There are more violators of this rule in the military now, than ever (or at least in my 15 years.) Lt. Watada is not one of them
...and with that, the soldiers, who have always followed good leaders
....will follow Lt. Watada.. Mike, Damon, Ethan and I, slept on the rig last night
...it was night one of Camp RESISTANCE!!!There is a RESISTANCE!!! going on. Thousands of troops are refusing to deploy
....please let everyone know we are here
.....working from the wi fi hot spot, let them know they should stand here too. If not for a month as we will, than for a day or even an hour. We are at off ramp 119, gates of Fort Lewis.
We are meeting up at the gates of Fort lewis to support the Lt. Why? We have had enough
...we want the war to stop....we want the government to stop using the troops as pawns in their game. If you know of a veteran who is opposed to this war, please help them get here....if you are ok with the weather, please get here also.
I, personally, will always think it an honor and a privilege to have served the United States people
...I know Ehren does too. It is with that same pride and honor that I, personally, ask you to do something for this man

....who has, without question stood, with more integrity in his little pinky, than most of these Generals have in their entire skin. I am honored to know his family, they are a wonderful display of family values


...something we don't see a lot of.


To support him


.... ( http://www.thankyoult.org ) you will find the news to follow the days up to the trial......


Meanwhile, John Powell writes to the Capital Times to weigh in on the argument that Watada signed a contract and any responsibilities he had for war ended right there: "Perhaps Piek has never served in the military, but I remember the oath I took when I was inducted into the Army as a lowly buck private in 1968. The oath for soldiers is virtually the same as the oath taken by the president of the United States and every other official of every level of government in the country: an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. There is nothing in that oath about obeying orders. In fact, the Geneva Convention and the Uniform Code of Military Justice make it clear that a soldier's duty is to disobey illegal orders. Watada alleges that the Iraq war is unconstitutional and therefore illegal, and that he is duty-bound to refuse to serve in it. This should be the issue - not whether he refused to obey orders (clearly he did), but whether those orders were legal."
Watada is part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Kyle Snyder, Ivan Brobeck, Darrell Anderson (noted abovein the Camp Resistance post), Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Key, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.

Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.

Finally, on yesterday's KPFA's Flashpoints, Dennis Bernstein provided military families with the opportunity to weigh in on Bully Boy's announced intent to escalate. This included a couple with five children and grandchildren serving in the military who ask that people write Congress and say "no" to the escalation. In addition to utilizing either previous link for an archived broadcast, Rebecca wrote about the broadcast yesterday.