"It’s Not A Mandate – It’s A Tax!" (Hillary Is 44):
Yesterday, while Obama and his Dimocrats were celebrating on board the Titanic, a bipartisan group of 13 Attorneys General from across the nation filed legal challenges to the Obama health scam. [Read the legal complaint in a PDF file HERE]
The bipartisan group of 13 Attorneys General filed their opposition on behalf of Americans who reject the Obamination health scam. A brand new poll, published today, states:
“Americans remain skeptical about the health-care overhaul even after the U.S. House passed landmark legislation that promises to provide access to medical coverage for tens of millions of the uninsured.”
The poll is a batch of bad news for Obama Dimocrats who think they will get a “bump” in the polls they can then exploit with hoop -te-do publicity stunts and turn the “bump” into a permanent “bump” that will forestall electoral disaster in November. It was not so long ago that these same Dimocrats promised and swore that the 2010 and 2012 elections would expand Obama Dimocratic dominance for generations to come. Now it is just “avoid disaster” in the iceberg electoral sea.
Americans applaud the lawsuit again the Obama health scam. The bipartisan groups of 13 Attorneys General filed suit in Pensacola, Florida.
Sill-eee-yiiii-yiiii.
That's Deniece Williams at the end of her classic "Silly." I don't think many girls from the 80s and 90s don't know that song. It was a hit in my aunts' day and it carried on over to my days. We loved that song.
And how could you not with it's two musical motifs going on. The hestiant, skip like beat, a little like a merry go round but pulling you in and pushing you back just a little like you were spinning in circles while holding hands with your fellow. And then the chorus riff.
And Niecie singing so beautifully. Hitting notes so high you swore you'd sit still all during church if the choir director could get that out of you even just once. (Never happened for me. I wasn't a soprano.)
It was just such a beautiful song musically and vocally and that's before you got into the lyrics which were soap opera for every girl just learning about love.
It seemed so mature, so adult. And it was the song that we'd use to piece together what we were going through as we tried to get whomever to notice us back.
I used to dance around my bedroom to that song. My oldest sister would say (with a loud sigh), "Leave her alone. She's in Silly-land."
If you've never heard the song (I find that hard to believe), click here for a YouTube video featuring the song.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Wednesday, March 24, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, Nouri wants a recount, a RECOUNT!!!!!, the US media coverage is examined, DoD lies to Congress again, Iraq's LGBT community remains under attack and more.
We'll start with the topic of the Iraqi elections. The latest Listening Post (Al Jazeera, began airing Friday) included a recollection that the American media -- Big and Small -- didn't make time for in their seven year anniversary coverage.
Richard Gizbert (Listening Post anchor): As the Iraqi polls closed last week, we at the Listening Post analyzed election coverage in the country and the state of the media there. This week, we're looking at the same story but switching our focus to the narrative on Iraq in the American media. It is fair to say that US news outlets have, in editorial terms, been all over the place on the Iraq War. Even the so-called liberal media were hawkish during the run-up, then many outlets turned against the war when it was going badly. But now some of them and their opinion makers are changing their tune. They're going back to where they started. We're zeroing in on two pieces in particular: A cover story on Newsweek magazine that talked of victory in Iraq and a column by Thomas Friedman, a foreign policy expert at the New York Times. Our starting point this week is Baghdad. With a story that's being scripted in Washington, DC and being told in America and around the world. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times was not the only editorial voice in America to support the Iraq War. He was just one of the most influential because of who he is and where his work is published.
Michael Hastings: Many of the columnists -- the Thomas Friedmans, the Fareed Zakarias, the George Packers of The New Yorker, you know, these guys are supposed to be these genius foreign policy thinkers, right, and they got the biggest foreign policy question of their generation completely wrong.
Richard Gizbert: As the Times' foreign policy columnist, Thomas Friedman is considered a must-read for many Americans -- particularly policy makers in Washington.
Matthew Duss: He's been able to transform himself into kind of a condenser of the conventional elite wisdom on the Middle East.
Michael Hastings: What Thomas Friedman writes helps shape the debate in Washington, DC, helps shape the debate policy makers are having.
Richard Gizbert: In the column he published on the Iraq election entitled "It's Up to Iraqis Now. Good luck." Friedman wrote, "Of all the pictures I saw, my favorite was the Iraqi expatriate mother, voting in Michigan, holding up her son to let him stuff her ballot into the box. I loved that picture." But Michigan is a long way and a far cry from Baghdad.
Matthew Duss: I do see some irony in the fact that Tom Friedman chose a picture of Iraqi refugees voting in Detroit. It just brings to mind that there is a huge refugee situation -- 5 million people, it's estimated, were displaced this policy of invasion and occupation is now one that's going to be validated no matter what people like Tom Friedman would like to believe.
Jason Linkins: It's a fitting example of the distance of his thinking. What's a woman in Michigan got to worry about. She's not going to be facing the consequences of what's gone on there -- she lives in Michigan. All the people that live in Baghdad, in Barsra, in Kirkuk, they live with these things daily and to Friedman it's all one grand abstraction.
Richard Gizbert: Friedman went on to write: "President Bush's gut instinct that this region craved and needed democracy was always right. Some argue that nothing that happened in Iraq will ever justify the cost. Historians will sort that out.
Matthew Duss: Tom Friedman's column is unfortunately, I think, symbolic of the generally caviliar attitude he's had about this from the very beginning. The American people understand that we cannot go about the world just starting wars, invading and occupying countries; however, our elite media, Tom Friedman and others being the perfect example, seem to think that we can.
Richard Gizbert: Friedman talks a lot about democracy in the column but nowhere does he mention the Weapons of Mass Destruction that were never found or the 9-11 attacks that precipitated the war even though back in 2003 terrorism was in the forefront of Friedman's thinking and his writing.
Thomas Friedman (speaking to Charlie Rose in 2003 clip): The Terrorism bubble that basically built up over the 1990s saying "Flying airplanes into the World Trade Center? That's okay. Having your preachers say that's okay? That's okay." And what they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad. Uhm and basically saying: "You think this bubble fantasy, we're just going to let that go? Well suck on this."
Jason Linkins: The problem of course with the thinking there is that there wasn't anyone in any homes from Basra to Baghdad who had anything to do at all with the 9-11 attacks. You may as well have been kicking in the doors of people in Minneapolis.
Thomas Friedman (speaking to Charlie Rose in 2003): We could have hit Saudi Arabia. It was part of that bubble. Couldda' hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.
Jason Linkins: This, I think, correctly represented the way that the Bush administration viewed the world and it represented an unfortunate tendency of many in the media to react to 9-11 in a very defensive and a vey belligerant manner.
Richard Gizbert: The New York Times has a reputation in the US for being ideologically liberal. So does Newsweek magazine whose cover story and splashy headline also attracted attention -- not all of it good.
Michael Hastings: I thought Newsweek magazine's cover that said "Victory At Last" was just very embarrassing for the magazine to even put up there. I don't use the word propaganda lightly but it seemed to me that was propaganda. What it was meant to do was to tell Americans, "Hey, look guys, we won even though the facts don't really back that case up at all.
Richard Gizbert: The Newsweek article was not quite as triumphal as the headline. But it's Newsweek.
[MSNBC anchor]: Your cover of Newsweek -- "Victory At Last"
Richard Gizbert: So it caught the attention of news channels that, back in 2002, 2003, also backed the war.
Newsweek's Jon Meacham: Our reporting has shown that in fact there is a level of stability and a kind of political culutre taking hold. What General Petraeus did and what President Bush came to, seems to have worked.
MSNBC Bobble Head: It's a stunning story.
Jon Meacham: It really is.
Richard Gizbert: However, the Newsweek editor did face on challenging question. Just one.
Panel Pundit: What happens if three or four months down the road, they can't put a government together?
Jon Meacham: Then we will say victory still to come.
[War Hawk Daughter Mika Brzezinski braying uncontrollably, with far less grace than a donkey.]
Richard Gizbert: That was just a joke but it contained a disturbing element of truth. Some of the American media took a one day exercise in Iraq democracy and turned it into much more than that.
Ned Parker and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) report, "Senior politicians from Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's ruling coalition warned Tuesday that Shiite Muslim-dominated southern Iraq could severly loosen its ties with Baghdad if the nation's electoral commissionf ailed to meet its demand for a manual recount of ballots in parliamentary elections." With Nouri's desire to circumvent rulings, it's a good idea to examine past history and, most recently, that includes his reaction when Sunni candidates were 'unbanned' which was to threaten that violence would result and then unleash his thugs in select cities in order to frighten the commission into changing their judgment. Late to the party? We'll drop back to February 7th for catch up:
Wednesday an Iraqi appeals court ruled that the 500 plus candidates being banned by Iran via the extra-legal Accountability and Justice Committee would be allowed to run. This did not sit well with the thug of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki. As one of the many chicken s**t exiles who pulled the world into a war they were too cowardly to fight on their own, Nouri knows a thing or two about perception management even if Reuters doesn't. Helen Long (Reuters) plays fool or whore -- you decide in a video 'report' on 'thousands' of Shi'ite protesters 'offended' that suspected Ba'athists were running. Helen hopes you are so stupid you aren't aware that Ba'athists included Shi'ites during Saddam Hussein's reign. She's also hoping you don't realize how many Shi'ite exiles were Ba'athist. Most of all, she hopes she don't get your information from anywhere else. Especially not Germany's DPA which tells you what Helen refused to: " Thousands of supporters of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawaa Party demonstrated outside the house of parliament in Baghdad on Sunday, to call for the exclusion of 'Baathist' candidates from the March polls." Who were these 'typical' protestors? The governor of Baghdad was among them. Helen whores it and prays the whole world is stupid and doesn't catch on. Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) reports, "Tensions over the dispute flared elswhere, as thousand of protesters attended anti-Baathist rallies in Baghdad and Basra organized by Mr. Maliki's political oranization, the Dawa Party. The Baghdad rally was broadcast at length on state television, showing Mr. Maliki's aides denoucning those sympathetic to the Baath Party". You get the idea that, given the chance, Helen Long would insist to you that the April 2003 US PSY-OPS operation in Firdos Square where the US military brought down the statue of Hussein amidst a small group of exiles just brought back into the country (by the US) (as well as marines and 'reporters') was a 'legitimate' and 'real' protest by Iraqis. Helen really hopes you're as stupid as she believes you are and that you don't notice, for example, that these 'average Iraqi protestors' are carrying handmade flags . . . Iraqi flags? No, like any 'normal' and 'average' Iraq, they're carrying home made US flags. Yeah, that's believable. (Also note that the women are covered from head to toe but the men were track suits, dress suits, pullover shirts, etc. while few sport any kind of a bear let alone one would that would demonstrate devout religious beliefs -- translation, Nouri stands for more even more suppression of women's rights.) For those who have missed the combined 'reporting' of Michael Gordon and Judith Miller, breathe easy, Helen Long is on the scene.
Something similar wouldn't be surprising especially as Friday approaches when 100% of the vote is supposed to be released. Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) covered the announcement yesterday that Nouri's State of Law would refuse to recognize any results as legitimate without a recount. Even more predictable was today's 'protest' in Basra. CNN reports a hundred or so members of Nouri's political party mobbed the streets demanding a recount. As Alice Fordham (Iraq Oil Report) observes, Nouri's demands were "spurring supporters" into just that action.
Ned Parker, because the Los Angeles Times works so very closely with US military brass, offers the US military's projections of the votes -- votes that the Iraq elecotral commission hasn't even released (they are supposed to release their results on Friday). Parker and Raheem Salman add, "Sami Askari, a member of Maliki's inner circle and his State of Law election slate, described the electoral commission as a U.N. puppet. He also accused the CIA and elements of the State Department of working to bring Allawi, who has ties to the U.S. intelligence community, back to power." Meanwhile Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reports that (if initial results hold), the 'kingmakers' may likely be the Sadr bloc and the Kurds. 'Kingmakers' was tossed around over and over in the lead up to Parliamentary elections and in the gas baggery that followed the first week of the vote (like Kat, I wonder Where have you gone Quil Lawerence, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you?). It was an easy call and it may turn out to have been a wrong call. Fadel reports:"The Sadrists had political and military power that surpassed that of the government, but they misused it and ended up in jails and in exile," said political analyst Ibrahim al-Sumaidaie. "Now, they have mastered their political power. They will find that the political game will give them more power and a wider role than their guns." In 2006, the Sadrists played a part in choosing Maliki, a Shiite, as prime minister. Two years later, Maliki relented to U.S. pressure and deployed the Iraqi military to target the Sadrist militia, the Mahdi Army, in a successful offensive. But instead of disappearing, the Sadrists regrouped, shifting their focus from armed struggle to political strategizing. In advance of this year's elections, the Sadrists were among the only blocs in Iraq to educate voters about the nation's complex electoral system. Although they nominated only 52 candidates out of the more than 6,000 who ran nationwide, they were shrewd in deciding which seats to target. As a result, they are expected to win as many as 40 seats in the next parliament, with their Shiite allies probably taking just over 20. There are 325 seats in the new parliament.
What is known is that women will hold seats in the Parlimanet. Hannah Allem (Christian Science Monitor):
In an electoral process full of complicated equations, the allocation of seats for women is one of the most arcane. Few of the female candidates can explain the math, but they bristle at being put down as just quota appointees or "political decor," as Nada al Abidi, a candidate from the rural southern Wasit province, put it.
"As long as there is a quota, people perceive women as gap-fillers and not deserving members of parliament," said Damlouji, who's still unsure if she'll get a seat. "The perception of a man is as an individual, but for women it's as a bloc. So if one woman failed, it's as if the entire womanhood has failed."
Delilah Jean Williams (All Voices) reports on the women running for office and explains:
One candidate, Feyruz Hatam from Baghdad, made history by campaigning without wearing the traditional head-to-toe abayas and black clothing. Her head and face were uncovered and she wore make-up in her personal appearances and when she posed for her poster photographs.
Hatam is determined to be a face that helps to change how Iraqi society views women.
"The mentality of Iraqi voters has changed. I'm happy because my photo conveys the message that times have changed," says Hatam, whose brown pantsuit made her stand out from other Iraqi National Alliance candidates.
Feyruz Hatam and other courageous Iraqi women were an unexpected surprise during the campaign, with uncovered faces in all forms of media, advertisements, posters, and television appearances.
Iraqi women are among the targeted in Iraq. They can be straight or gay and they will be targeted. Iraq's LGBT community has been targeted repeatedly and you actually don't have to be gay to be targeted, you just have to be suspected or mistaken of being gay. To call Iraq 'stable' today requires that you ignore the persecution of Iraq's LGBT community (or the Christian community or . . .). On the LGBT community:
The UK government through its Border Agency has decided not to give priority to the asylum application of Iraqi LGBT leader Ali Hili, in exile in London. The application has been outstanding for nearly three years and while it is outstanding, Ali cannot travel. This decision directly impacts not just on Ali but on harshly persecuted Iraqi lesbians and gays through the reduced ability of their sole visible leader to raise their profile internationally.
Can you help?
As you may be aware, numerous human rights organisations and journalists have documented the pogrom against lesbians and gays in Iraq. Iraqi LGBT estimates that over 700 LGBT have been assassinated over the past few years. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has advised 'favourable consideration' for asylum claims because of the situation. As the public leader of the only group representing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people both inside Iraq and in the diaspora, Hili has received a fatwa from inside Iraq as well as numerous threats in London which have forced him to move. He is under the protection of the Metropolitan Police. US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin spoke last month of their concerns for LGBT both in Iraq and as refugees, in a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton co-signed by 64 other Congresspeople. Hili has received many requests to speak about the situation in Iraq internationally, including from US-based groups such as the Gay Liberation Network and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Campaign, which he has been unable to pursue. His solicitor, Barry O'Leary, wrote to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) in August 2009 that: "he desperately wishes to do this [travel] in order to further the aims of his organisation, that is, supporting lesbians and gay men in Iraq and bringing the world's attention to their plight." Six months later, the UKBA told O'Leary that:
the assistance given by Hilli to the Foreign Office "does not count"
the fatwa does not mean that Hilli "falls within the classification of clear and immediate vulnerability"
that the delay in deciding Hilli's asylum case (since July 2007) "is not in itself an exceptional circumstance"
his case is not "compelling"
Peter Tatchell says of Ali:
"It was Ali Hili of Iraqi LGBT who first alerted the world to the organised killing of LGBT people in Iraq - way back in 2005. For a long time, he was a lone voice." "Mr Hili was also the person who set up the 'underground railroad' and safe houses inside Iraq, to give refuge to LGBT people on the run from Islamist death squads and to provide escape routes to neighbouring countries - which saved the lives of many Iraqi LGBTs.
Ali must travel!
The UK Foreign Office Human Rights Report for 2009 specifically names Iraqi LGBT over other NGOs as a key source of information. Hili has met with them numerous times. The report quotes Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell condemning persecution of LGBT in Iraq. Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant wrote in his blog on Feb. 24: "I know some people dismiss LGBT rights as something of a sideshow in international relations, but I am proud to say that the FCO has argued for a decade that human rights are a seamless garment." Yet the same government through the Home Office is effectively aiding that persecution through the failure of government recognition to Iraqi LGBT's leader.
We want the UK government to expedite Ali Hili's asylum claim so he is properly able to tell the world about what is happening to LGBT in Iraq.
How you can help
Sign the international petition
Write to the UK Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, to ask that he intervene in Ali's case that his asylum application be prioritised. Please mention Ali's Home Office reference which is S1180507/7. (Get a standard letter - please personalise and remember to sign it)
Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP, Home Secretary, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF Telephone: 020 7035 4848 public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk Write to UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to ask that they ask Johnson to intervene in Ali's case. Please mention Ali's Home Office reference which is S1180507/7. (Get a standard letter - please personalise and remember to sign it)
The Prime Minister, 10 Downing Street, London, SW1A 2AAEmail the Prime Minister's Office Write to your MP to ask that they ask Johnson to intervene in Ali's case. If you are outside the UK, ask politicians, prominent persons and organisations to invite Ali to your country and make Brown and Johnson aware of this request. Ask those politicians, prominent persons and organisations to issue their own public statement in support of Hili's asylum prioritisation from the UK government.Write to newspapers, write blog posts in support of Ali, tell people about Ali. Please copy any letters to the campaign in support of Ali Hili to gayasylumuk@gmail.com
Join the Facebook page ~~~~~~~Visit our website, LGBT asylum news (formally Save Medhi Kazemi)http://www.medhikazemi.comTwitter http://twitter.com/LGBTAsylumNews
Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Reuters notes a Mosul roadside bombing injured five people, another Mosul roadside bombing injured one person, a Mosul mortar attack which left four children and three adults injured, a third Mosul roadside bombing which claimed 1 life and left two people injured, a Muqdadiya roadside bombing which claimed 1 life and a Baghdad roadside bombing which injured three people.
Shootings?
Reuters notes Iraqi forces in Baghdad killed 1 person (another injured). Timothy Williams (New York Times) reports 5 Iraqi soldiers were shot dead in a Baghdad "by a group of men in three cars as they passed through a checkpoint".
DoD lie of the day: "I promise that going forward, we-we will be as open as we possibly can and candid about the -- the uh -- what's going on in this program." DoD lies, where does it take place? Congress. The House Armed Services Air and Land Forces Subcommittee and Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcomittee held a joint-hearing today. US House Rep Adam Smith Chaired the hearing and he raised the issue of the spending, of the costs that keep rising. He is Chair of the Air and Land Forces Subcommittee and Roscoe Bartlett is the Ranking Member. Bartlett also raised the issue of soaring coasts and how Congress is not kept up to date on the spending. And we'll note this section of his opening remarks:
I also share my colleagues' concern over the health of the Joint Strike Fighter program. This is an enormously expensive program that promises a great deal of capability, but I'm frankly concerned that cost growth will render it unaffordable in the long term. In my eighteen years in Congress, I have seen program after program in which the cost grows, the production is reduced to fit inside a fixed budget, and the program ends in a spiral that leaves the services well short of their inventory requirements.
US House Rep Gene Taylor is the Chair of the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee and Todd Akin is the Ranking Member. In his opening remarks, in the first sentence of his opening remarks, Akin called for Congress to be kept informed as to "affordability challenges." He outlined, at length, with hard numbers, how the Department hadn't been very good with numbers.
The soaring costs would come up repeatedly in the hearing but Bartlett bore down on the issue. For the record, Congress controls the purse. Congress controls all spending. Congress is supposed to be kept informed of any cost increases for programs they authorize (they authorize but which the tax payers fund). Bartlett is speaking with the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.
US House Rep Roscoe Bartlett: Are there regulations, written or unwritten, in the building that precludes including us as a partner in those discussions?
Ashton Carter: Uh -- I have to get back to you on the technicality of that. Certainly uh-yuh as a general matter, no, we try promptly to keep this Committee informed of important developments in programs that are in -- are in your purview. As I said when I uh earlier, because of the particular timing of the jet estimate and the Department's deliberations which were in the December-January period, leading up to the release of the president's budget -- It wasn't until the president's budget was released that the uh-uh jet estimate was -- which was included in that budget -- was uh-uh available. We did however -- It's my understanding that the jet estimate, even back in 2008, was made availabe uh to the Committee.
US House Rep Roscoe Bartlett: Thank you. Your statement goes on to say that program management contractors and the department need to surface candidly and openly issues with this program as they arise so that Congress is aware of them and they can be addressed." In the spirit of that statement, it would have been nice, I think, if we'd been part of that two month discussion between November and January. Would you agree?
Ashton Carter: I promise that going forward, we-we will be as open as we possibly can and candid about the -- the uh -- what's going on in this program.
Yesterday's snapshot and Kat's "Military Personnel Subcommittee hearing" covered a hearing of the House Armed Service's Military Personnel Subcommittee. Kat noted, "You've got a woman over 80-years-old but for her to receive the monies she's owed, she needs to drop her widow status and remarry." A visitor e-mails the public account to ask if that's hyperbole? No. Suzanne Stack testified, "Ms. Kozak of Jacksonville, Florida, needs to receive her SBP in full but does not want to start dating and remarry at age 85." I'm not sure that "Kozak" is the spellling, it may be "Kozack." But it was part of Stack's testimony. The woman does not receive her Survivor Benefit Pay and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation monies in full. Because she is eligible for both, her SBP is reduced. That's not fair but there is a way around that. She can, after the age of 57 (and she's 85), remarry and she'll get both payments in full. An 85-year-old widow being told to remarry to get the money she's owed and the money her husband assumed she would receive. SBP today, this was one part of the testimony, is not being explained accurately to service members who are signing up and thinking that the payments will be full. They take this out, it's a policy. Then they die and their wife or husband may or may not receive the full payments.
In the US over the weekend, demonstrations against the wars were held around the country. Sam Waite and Michael Chase (US Socialist Worker) report today:
In Washington, D.C., thousands turned out to a demonstration, called by International ANSWER, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan across the street from the White House early in the afternoon. Well-known antiwar activists such as Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney and members of Iraq Veterans Against the War took the stage to denounce the Obama administration's continuation of George Bush's "war on terror." "We can't make more excuses for the government," said Sheehan. "We can't make any more excuses for the president, no matter what party that president comes from."The sentiment was widely shared by demonstrators. "Obama is the president. He's the leader of this war effort, and we're going to oppose it," said Bruce Wolf of U.S. Labor Against the War. Wolf has organized a weekly vigil outside Walter Reed Memorial Hospital since 2005. Jessica Rua, who came from Atlantic City, N.J., agreed, saying that Obama's election had "no effect at all" on the prospect of ending the wars. "Our kids don't deserve this hell," said Rua, whose brother is missing in action in Afghanistan.The crowd was notable for its diversity. Veterans of antiwar movements since the Vietnam era mixed with a sizeable student contingent. Immigrant rights activists took part, as did Muslim and Arab American organizations.
Samuel Davidson (WSWS) reports on the DC actions:
On the official website of the demonstration, www.march20.org, there is little of Obama. His name did not even appear on the website's home page. Only a few of the more than two dozen updates on the website calling for people to attend the rally and reporting on support mention the Obama administration.Outside of a few homemade signs, none of the official mass-produced placards mentioned Obama and the role of the Democrats in promoting the war.As for the speakers, one had the strange feeling that you could have heard the exact same speeches at the rallies held two years ago when George W. Bush was still president. One had to wonder if Obama's name was censored from their remarks. However, it is more likely that the silence on Obama was self-imposed, a reflection of the fact that most of those who addressed the rally had either endorsed Obama in the 2008 elections or had adopted the more general "anybody but Bush" line promoted by the protest groups as a shamefaced form of backing the Democrats.Brian Becker, the National Coordinator for the ANSWER coalition did not mention Obama at all, and gave no explanation for the growing militarization of American life.
John Catalinotto (Workers' World) has a strong article but we're grabbing on Los Angeles because there's been little coverage of that action:
In Los Angeles, thousands, including many youth of color, gathered at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine and marched down Hollywood Blvd. to the rally site at Highland Ave. There they listened to speakers prominent in left and progressive movements demand an end to U.S. militarism and money for human needs at home and abroad.
Martin Steiner files what may be the lengthiest report on the Los Angeles action and she files it (audio report) for KPFK's Uprising. We'll note this from a male speaker in her report:
As students, we are gathering from all around the state to say, Mr. President, we are the future! And we need education! As veterans, we are saying today, Mr. President, we will not fight your battles anymore! We will not spill our blood for you anymore! We will not give our lives for you anymore! And for the profit of these corporations that run these wars and then profit off of the deaths of our brothers and sisters every single day in the war! Today, let us stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with the people of Iraq, with the people of Afghanistan and with the homeless men and women and children of America and say that today we will stand up and we will form a movement and we will be back in the streets every day until we get our demands!!!
The report features many other speakers and it also features interviews with people taking part. 8 people were arrested at the DC protest including Cindy Sheehan. Jon Gold (Peace of the Action) writes of the arrests:
Cindy Sheehan, myself, and others walked through the crowd until we reached the barrier closest to those laying down on the sidewalk. As you can see in this video, the barrier failed, and Cindy Sheehan walked across. As soon as she entered the "arrest zone," the Park Police immediately grabbed her, and handcuffed her. They were literally manhandling her.
This made me angry, and I yelled at the Park Police to "let her go!" Before I knew it, the barrier was back up. I tried to push through the barrier, but the Park Police pushed back. I managed to push two Park Policeman back until one of them grabbed for something on their side to use against me. It was probably mace, but it could have been anything. I stopped pushing. I walked around to the side where the police tape was, that failed, and I found myself within the "arrest zone." I decided that I was going to allow myself to be arrested in order to keep an eye on Cindy. One of the Park Police grabbed me by my arm, and placed me next to Matthew and the others.
When I sat down next to Matthis, he said to me, "you're on the right side of the line," and I said, "I know." One of the Park Police walked over to me, and said to another officer, "he crossed the line, arrest him." That Park Policeman lifted me up, and put me in regular metal cuffs. As I stood up, I screamed as loud as I could, "THIS ARREST IS DEDICATED TO 9/11 VICTIM FAMILY MEMBER ROBERT MCILVAINE JR.!!!" and part of the crowd cheered. As they walked me away I could see Ann Wright waving her fist at me with a big smile on her face as if to say, "RIGHT ON!"
iraq
al jazeerarichard gizbertlistening post
true/slantmichael hastings
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the times of londonthe new york timessteven lee myers
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the los angeles timesned parkerraheem salmanthe washington postleila fadel
the socialist workersam waitemichael chasewswssamuel davidson
workers worldjohn catalinotto
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Step bravely
"Titanic Health Care Victory" (Hillary Is 44):
The Titanic sailed off today. The pompous, celebrity addicted Captain has been warned of the icebergs in the stormy sea. But still the Titanic sails at full speed.
There was a “signing ceremony” publicity stunt this morning of the Senate bill which supposedly is hated by House Dimocrats, unions, PINOs, the “creative class” clueless” and of course Independents and Republicans. You would not know that the Senate bill is hated from all the celebrations and drinking of Hopium filled Champagne bottles by Dimocrats. The same Dimocrats who admit the health bill is really a health insurance bill. A health insurance bill which transfers trillions of taxpayer dollars to Big Insurance and turns Americans into human money batteries similar to those in the Matrix movies.
The mindless of the Big Media Dimocratic commentariat are even celebrating the death of “Clintonism” today. Recall “Clintonism” and Clinton? – the only guy since FDR in the 1940s who won election twice and left office with 64% popularity and who killed the debt and deficit vampires, as well as helped the nation live in a period of wonderful peace and prosperity. The death of that peace and prosperity era is celebrated and the Age of Fake is celebrated by these callow PINO windbags.
On the day after the Big Insurance and Big PhaRma “Save Obama” vote in the House we expected a much more triumphalist reception on the front pages and broadcasts of Obama’s Big Media masters. But instead of cheers, there was caution. Instead of wild carousing, there were iceberg sightings.
I don't know about you, but I can picture drama queen Barry imagining himself as Rose and searching for his Leonardo.
Mainly, I think (and hope!) there's a good chance that the whole thing sinks them. As it should. When you refuse to listen to the people, when you seend that message, why should anyone believe you about anything?
I firmly believe that this is the end for the Dems and they brought it on themselves. (Join me in voting Green this November.)
They stood for nothing.
And if you don't want to be like that you can join me in voting Green this year. What if we turned the whole country Green?
What if we showed how much popularity and support the Green Party could have?
I bet the Dems would get the message that they need to move to the left then. (Even if it meant not pulling Barry's ass from the fire every ten minutes.)
I'm just so tired of being forced into something.
I voted for Ralph in the 2008 election and that's still the vote I'm proudest of. So I think I'll just continue down that road and encourage you to join me. Just for 2010. You can do whatever you want in 2012. But 2010, we can vote for positions we believe in. So let's take a step towards bravery this fall.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Tuesday, March 23, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, the US Congress hears about service members' needs and they hear about the neglect military widows (and widowers) and their family suffer from the US government while left to answer questions such as "'Mom does it hurt to drown?'; 'Why couldn't the Marines save Daddy if they could save the others?'; and 'Was I the last thing he thought of?'"
Starting in the US where the Iraq War has not ended despite claims from some. Chris Durden (Kansas CW) reports that some members of the Kansas Army Reserve have learned they're deploying to Iraq and a send-off ceremony will take place this Saturday at two p.m. (3130 George Washington Blvd, Wichita, Kansas). Sending Reserves and Guards out of the US? The National Guard is supposed to protect the US, right? Bush threw that to the wind and Barack's continued to do so.
Which is a good time to shift into these comments from this morning.
Retired Master Sgt Michael Cline: The [National] Guard and Reserve are unique. A lot of the benefit programs that are in place for them -- even though they have improved over the last ten years are still relics of the Cold War. And as we rely more and more on the Guard and Reserve to be an operational force, we've already been told from fairly high ranking officers that the Guard's mission in Iraq is going to continue well into the future. We will become the peacemakers in Iraq. Not only that but we have the Sinai mission, Africa, Bosnia -- you name, we're there, along with the Afghan mission. And 90% of the air sovereignty of the United States is flown by Air National Guard pilots. And if we don't do something to retain these people and, as the economy gets better, we're going to start losing real good people. And then what's going to happen is recruiting and retention budgets are going to go up and then we're going to have to spend $100,000 per soldier, per air man to get them retrained. And so we have to find a balance. We have to bring the operational reserve force into the 21st century with pay and benefits. And when we -- when Congress gave the Reserve retirement program, they started it on January 28, 2008. You said from those people who served from 9-11 to that time, "Your service don't count." And yet you still want them to go. We have units right now in Minnesota that are on their fourth rotation to either Iraq, Afghanistan or Bosnia. And, you know, these people are being taken away from their civilian jobs, they're losing their 401Ks, putting stress on the families. Bankruptcy is becoming an important thing in the Guard and Reserve community. So things have to change. We realize it's stressing the budget but, you know, it's not uncommon to see the rules waived to provide things. We've seen it with the GI Bill. We've seen it with Tri-Care for life.
Cline informs that the Guard and Reserves will continue to shoulder the burden of Iraq -- guess Iraq really is a US colony now, that this screws with their own lives, their own families, their own financial security at present and when they retire. And he provides that to the House Armed Service's Military Personnel Subcommittee which is chaired by US House Rep Susan Davis. Joe Wilson is the Ranking Member. Chair Davis explained at the start of the hearing, "Today the subcommittee will focus on the legislative priorities of military associations and the implications of direct spending on the ability of the Congress to meet these priorities. It has been the tradition of this subcommittee to hear from the beneficiary and the advocacy organizations at the start of the legislative season so that the Subcommittee has a better understanding of the many issues of interest to service members and their families."
Cline was part of the first panel which also included The Retired Enlisted Association's Deidre Parke Holleman, Retired Col Steve Strobridge, CBO's Sarah Jennings and Retired Master Chief Petty Officer Joseph Barnes.
Since, as Davis noted, the point was to hear about the issues, we'll again go to Cline who was speaking of the disparities in pay.
Retired Master Sgt Michael Cline: Well I think it would go a long way in solving any future retention problems that we have. You know anytime that we have a deployment, we have soldiers that come home, air man that come home, sailors and marines that come home and their families have said, "I've had enough, you know, I'm tired of you being gone." The employers are starting to get riled up. These service members are looking at their civilian careers and they're saying, "Every time I'm deployed, I'm losing money out of my 401 K. I'm losing part of my future retirement. The start of January 28, 2008 for that retroactivity, that was a great start. Your idea of for every two years of service, you get a year early retirement --
Ranking Member Joe Wilson: [Every year] Over 20.
Retired Master Sgt Michael Cline: You know, we've been fighting, I've been doing this for 21 years and for 21 years we have been trying to get the H55 retirement. You know, every place you go -- in fact, I talked to a group of chief master sergeants yesterday, and that's the first thing out of their mouth -- the retroactively or the early retirement. "When are we going to see this?" And unfortunately the public doesn't understand mandatory spending and discretionary spending. When they see $750 billion given to banks and auto makers, or $3 billion in three weeks to clear carlots, a trillion dollars for health care -- they don't understand that it's a different pot of money. We do because we work it every day and try to explain it to our members. But they're the tax payers, they're the voter, they're sitting there saying, "Hey, I've done my service but you're not recognizing me. You know, I've rotated twice before Januay 28, 2008 and you're not recognizing my service." It's like you're sticking them in the side with an ice pick.
There were two panels that the Subcomittee heard from and the second panel was composed of Gold Star Wives Suzanne Stack and Margaret McCloud. Kat's grabbing some of Suzanne Stack's testimony (at her site tonight) so we'll go with Margaret McCloud for the snapshot.
Margaret McCloud: Good morning. I am Maggie McCloud, proud widow of Marine Lt Col Joseph Trane McCloud who was killed in Iraq over three years ago. Thank you very much, Madame Chairwoman, Congressman Wilson and members of the Committee for allowing us to speak to you today regarding our personal narrative regarding the elimitation of the offset which affects 54,000 military surviving spouses, 94% of whom are survivors of retirees who pay premiums [. . .] and 6% like me who are survivors of active duty deaths. My husband paid for it with his life, the retiree paid for it with premiums and now we are both being denied it. As Suzanee has said and I will echo, Congress has set precedents in removing offsets to military retired pay such as the penalty for military retirees working as federal civilians, concurrent receipt of disability compensation and retirement pay for severely disabled retirees and the Social Security offset to SBP at age 62. The president's budget restores full military retiree pay to all other disabled retirees and therein lies my confusion. Why can't we find the money to fund this offset, one that effects 54,000 military widows, if we are able to find the money to fund these other most worthy benefits? We are told over and over again, year after year that the issue is cost not the principle but the reality has been that finding the funding has not been a priority. Elimination of this widows' tax was included in the GI bill of Rights for the 21st Century. Congress acknowledged this inequity by creating the Special Survivor's Indemity Allowance. Additional money was found last year in the tobacco legislation. Small progress for which we are grateful but recognition of the injustice created by the off-set. In explaining it's opposition to removal of the off-set, OSD has stated an inequity would be created with one select group receiving two survivor annuities. There are already groups receiving two benefits, widows who remarry after age 57 and widows like me who forfeited their SBP annuity to their children to ensure adequate resources to raise our families now and surviving spouses of federal civilians. The vast majority of military retirees did not die of their service but rather they retired and went on to have second careers. My husband did not enjoy the opportunity to have a second career and help raise his children and the DIC should be added to, not subtracted from, his retirement annuity. As it should, the administration has shown its strong support for our military members and veterans for whom the fighting has ended. Well the fighting has ended for our loved ones as well. Whether they fought on the beaches of Normandy, in the jungles of Vietnam, the desert of Iraq or the countless other places where brave Americans have fought and died. But we their survivors are still struggling each day. And now I also have to answer such questions as "Mom does it hurt to drown?"; "Why couldn't the Marines save Daddy if they could save the others?"; and "Was I the last thing he thought of?" These are the questions the families of the fallen have to face while carrying on and holding our families together. In conclusion, my family continues to support our military service members in any way we can. You need only look at my living room in December when it was filled with Boy Scout popcorn to send to our troops or currently the hundreds of boxes of Girl Scout cookies that I have yet to mail. It is very important to me to show our support for our military members who willingly leave their families and lay their lives on the line every day to protect and defend our freedom. As a country, don't we have a responsiblity to support their survivors when they don't come home or when they die later from that service ? How can't our government find the money to fix this widows' tax? Thank you so very much.
SBP is Survivor Benefit Pay. We'll note that Suzanne Stack's husband, SGM Michael Stack, also died serving in Iraq.
Ranking Member Joe Wilson: The American people need to know what the widows' tax is. Ms. Stack, you did an extraordinary job explaining the net. That's horrifying to think that somebody would get a four dollar check, a fourteen dollar check -- that-that -- And so, we have a time constraint here but I really am interested if you could -- both of you -- explain again what the Survivor Benefit Plan is briefly and who administers it and what it's intent, and then the indemnity -- dependency and indemnity compenstation, who administers that and then, without being totally specific, you take a number, you subtract a number and then you come back. The American people need to know this.
Suzanne Stack: I'll start. Thank you so much. It's hard to begin. The SBP is a annuity, it's something that is purchased at retirement when a military person does retire and they make a choice to have a certain portion of their retirement income provided to their spouse if they should die. It also has now been opened up to active duty deaths which is where both Ms. McCloud and I will fall and we receive that same benefit. That is usually figures as a percentage. Our husbands would be considered 100% disabled at a thirty year mark. If they -- My husband entered the service earlier than 1980, so his retirement pay would be based on the last base pay that he had received. I think Ms. McCould's started after that period so hers would be based on the high three. And then there's an average. And you take 75% of that and then 55% of that is what the SBP is based on. I don't know if that's clear, but it's easier when you have a chalk board.
Ranking Member: Joe Wilson: No, no, no. But that's good. And then the offset?
Suzanne Stack: Well the DIC [Dependency and Indemnity Compensation] is from the -- the SBP comes from the DoD, the DIC comes from the VA.
Ranking Member Joe Wilson: The VA.
Suzanne Stack: And for the two of us, we are provided the DIC on a flat -- rate, flat rate, excuse me, I couldn't think of what it was. A flat rate amount. Again, prior to that, it would be rank based. And if you receive both of SBP and DIC then the SBP is off-set by the DIC. For some people, as you saw in my remarks, they receive nothing. There is a great number that receives absolutely nothing. And that tends to be the E6 and below -- widows and widowers, we do have some widowers. And that can be very, very difficult and very hard -- very much a hardship on their families. [To McCloud] Can you think of anything that I've left off?
Margaret McCloud: Well what I would like to add -- and I appreciate your comment about trying to get this story out -- first of all, to all the people from the first panel who spoke so strongly and elequently on our behalf this morning thank you so very much. The military coalition has been a wonderful advocate on our behalf for years now. But the fact remains that as far as who this off-set truly effects, it's 54,000 military widows -- largely elderly women scattered across the country and they keep telling me I'm a young woman, I'm a young widow -- I have to say I feel like I've aged in dog years the past three years -- but so you're asking elderly ladies throughout the country who are in frail health themselves. They gave up so much over the years during their spouses own military career, they followed them around, they gave up their opportunity frequently to work themselves and generate their own retirement income. Then their spouse became ill and they spent year after year after year caring for them at great physical cost to themselves. And then you have the "young widow" such as myself. I'm not a whiner but our plates are very full. We hold down jobs. We do the work of both parents. My husband was an operational officer -- Operations Officers for the Second Batallion, Third Marine Regiment out of Kaneohe Bay Hawaii and I would like to think he would be in awe of the operation plan that I have to have in effect every day to raise three children by myself, to get them to school, Scouts, church, after school requirements, band. For fun last week, I just had to do a wonderful father-daughter event with my five-year-old daughter because I didn't want her to be there alone. That's what we have to do. Our plates are very full. And then we're told Congress has agreed the benefit in principle this is wrong , it's simply a matter of funding and we need to get the word out. Well we're trying but it's very discouraging and hard to keep coming at this year after year after year and hear: "We support you in principal but we just can't find the money."
Ranking Member Joe Wilson: And something -- and my final point -- this effects a family like a thousand dollars a month.
McCloud: Yes.
Ranking Member: Joe Wilson: And so raising small children or people of age, hey, that's a lot of money. And it can be quality of life. So thank you very much for being here today.
Chair Susan Davis: Thank you both. I would say it's not just the dollar [. . .] -- it's not just the dollars, it's also the idea that you're fighting for and I think that we certainly acknowledge and recognize.
And Iraqis have, of course, suffered. A point David Corn raised in debating Michael Rubin on today's Talk of the Nation (NPR). No transcript or excerpt. Rubin's far too touchy and I'm not in the mood for "--" to note Corn being cut off or the other nonsense. Short version: Rubin tried to surf a wave of Operation Happy Talk and David Corn stayed factual. If they could provide Corn as a monologue, it would make for a nice listen but Rubin's too touchy and too eager to stretch the truth -- stretch to the point that it has runners throughout and finally breaks. Corn is with Mother Jones now. We will note one caller (whom even Rubin knew better than to attack):
I don't think we're better off because of the war. My son was killed in September 2007 in Iraq and the only ones I can see that've gained on this is like Exxon-Mobile and Shell who are now drilling for oil over there and it moved the price of oil from $20 a barrel to $147 during this war.
On the oil issue, Antonia Juhasz and Joseph Juhasz tackle it at Iraq Veterans Against the War. Last week, Aamer Madhani (USA Today) noted some of the scars Iraqis suffer from:
The soldiers said they had received tips that Senaa's husband and her sister's husband were insurgents against the government in Iraq. Senaa and her four children were hustled outside.
When they were let back in, they found her husband on the kitchen floor, his bloody body full of bullet holes. Senaa's brother-in-law was dead in the living room.
"I was sitting on the couch the other day, and all I could do was cry and wish that I was dead," says Abid, recalling her distress as her four young children played nearby.
"I know my psychological situation is fragile," she says. "I am always thinking about committing suicide, but there is a voice inside my head that tells me my responsibilities are too big to leave this world."
Today Reporters Without Borders notes that journalists Muayad al-Lami and Maytham al-Ahmed both recently escaped assassination attempts:
"The Iraqi authorities must take all necessary measures to put a stop to the violence and to ensure that both attacks are properly investigated," Reporters Without Borders said. "Parliament's delay in adopting a law protecting journalists is prolonging the situation of impunity and seems to be the main reason why attacks on the press are continuing."
Gunmen opened fire on Al-Lami's car as he was travelling through Baghdad's Qadisiya district at about 9:30 p.m. on 21 March, seriously wounding his driver but failing to hit Al-Lami, who sustained no injuries. Al-Lami was previously the target of a murder attempt in September 2008, when a dynamite charge was set off outside the building that houses the union.
In Basra, two men on a motorcycle -- one in a policeman's uniform and one in civilian dress -- threw a grenade into the garden of Al-Ahmed's home on 17 March, seriously injuring his brother's daughter but no one else. The target was clearly Al-Ahmed himself, who is the manager of radio Sindibad and editor of the independent weekly Al-Amani.
Reporters Without Borders has meanwhile learned that the Basra press is currently refusing to cover the activities of the US and British military forces in protest against the way soldiers manhandled journalists during a news conference at which work permits were supposed to have been issued. A number of journalists were detained for several hours after the incident. A US military spokesman has sent a letter of apology to the Basra media.
Reuters notes Iraq saw two Baghdad roadside bombings leaving six people injured.
And they are still counting the ballots in Iraq. Alsumaria TV offers these projections: "After counting 95% of polling centers, State of Law Coalition is expected to occupy 92 seats followed by Al Iraqiya with 89 seats. Iraqi National Alliance is expected to occupy 64 seats and Kurdistan Alliance 42 seats while Accordance List is expected to occupy six sears and Iraq's Unity Coalition three seats." Those are projections, they are not official results. Catholic News Agency reports that Kirkuk's Archbishop Louis Sako declares himself to be "very optimistic" regarding the vote: "The elections were carried out very well. During the campaign period, the political parties debated their programs in a very civilized way. The last election in 2005 was much more sectarian. Now people have chosen more secular parties, not like last time. Whatever happens, it will be a good result. I am very optimistic about that." Suadad al-Salhy (Reuters) reports that talks are ongoing between Nouri's political party and the Iraqi National Alliance -- the two largest Shi'ite parties -- in an attempt at a power-sharing coalition which would "sideline [the political party of] secularist former premier Iyad Allawi, whose cross-sectarian Iraqiya coalition won strong support from minority Sunnis." Actually, Allawi's political party most likely (there are no knowns until the count is official) received Sunni support. It also received non-Sunni support. And the party presented itself as a non-sectarian party with a slate of candidates (many of whom ended up banned) who were Shia and Sunni. On those banned candidates, we'll note Robert Dreyfuss (The Nation):
Today, however, I want to focus on the fortunes of the Great de-Baathification Machine, namely, Ahmed Chalabi and Ali al-Lami, whose provocative purge of more than 500 candidates -- nearly all of whom were associated with anti-Iran and secular, nationalist movements -- polarized Iraq in the weeks before the vote. (Those who've seen "The Green Zone," the thriller starring Matt Damon, saw Chalabi's role as an exile who lied about Iraq's weapons program portrayed beautifully.)
Among other things, it appears as if the anti-Baath purge boosted Sunni turnout and turned more moderate Shiite voters away from, rather than toward, Chalabi, Lami, and the Shiite religious coalition that they created.
Lami, who was Chalabi's ally and head of the Justice and Accountability Commission, got only about 900 votes in the election, according to Visser's count, meaning that he likely won't be elected to parliament. Chalabi, who ran as a stalwart -- indeed, the organizer -- of the Iranian-backed Iraqi National Alliance, the Shiite coalition of religious parties, will take a seat in the next parliament. As Visser reports, the INA -- which included the former Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Sadrists, and other Shiite parties -- won 16 seats in Baghdad province, and among them Chalabi finished ninth.
Yesterday Warren Olney (PRI's To The Point) spoke with the Center for American Progress' Brian Katulis about the election
Warren Olney: With 5% of the vote still uncounted, the party of Prime Minister al-Maliki is behind the slate led by Ayad Allawi. Both men are Shi'ites but Allawi's support comes largely from Sunnis. al-Maliki claims fraud and says if there's not a manual recount, there could be violence. The electoral commission has refused his request. Brian Katulis is a fellow at the Center for American Progress, he is co-author of The Prosperity Agenda: What The World Wants From America and What We Need In Return. Good to have you on our program.
Brian Katulis: Thanks for having me on, Warren.
Warren Olney: You've spent time in Iraq, you're familiar with the parties involved and, of course, with the dynamics there -- particularly between sectarian factions. How -- how concerned are you about this warning from al-Maliki invoking his role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces that there might be violence if there isn't a recount.
Brian Katulis It's cause for serious concern. I've-I've said in advance of these elections that these elections were a stress test of Iraqi politics, whether the institutions and the various leaders would actually respect the results. And I think this is a worrisome time. We need to watch it carefully. I don't think he's done anything, as yet, to use security forces or anything like this, but the tone of this -- and I know many US officials are concerned about it -- raises a lot of questions about what might happen in the next coming days when results are finally tabulated -- we think by the end of this week. [. . .] I think it's important to keep in mind that the overall popular vote doesn't matter that much because if you think our electoral college here in this country is complicated, Iraq has a very complicated election system and figuring out how many seats each party gets according to the number of votes is a complicated formula. And I think we'll -- I'll suspect we'll see a lot of disputes over the next coming days -- especially after the results are announced.
Addressing the complicated system is Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) who explains:
In an electoral process full of complicated equations, the allocation of seats for women is one the most arcane. Few of the female candidates can explain the math, but they bristle at being put down as just quota appointees or "political decor," as Nada al Abidi, a candidate from the rural southern Wasit province, put it.
"As long as there is a quota, people perceive women as gap-fillers and not deserving members of parliament," said Damlouji, who's still unsure if she'll get a seat. "The perception of a man is as an individual, but for women it's as a bloc. So if one woman failed, it's as if the entire womanhood has failed."
In close races, some male candidates who thought they'd narrowly won a seat will learn that they were bumped to accommodate women who didn't get nearly as many votes. By law, women will make up a quarter of the next parliament -- 82 seats in the 325-member legislature -- but the algorithm for assigning seats is so complex that one diplomat likened it to orbit mechanics.
Trudy Rubin is a Phildelphia Inquirer columnist (and she's syndicated elsewhere) who has long covered Iraq and visited it often. Her latest column is an open letter to Nouri al-Maliki which opens:
I'm writing you at a time when the outcome of Iraq's election is still uncertain. Your political bloc may get a plurality of votes - or not. Even if you win the most parliamentary seats, you will have to struggle to form a governing coalition, which may take months.
But it's not too early for you (or any other leader who seeks your job) to respond to this question: What kind of Iraq do you want? An Iraq in which Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds are at each other's throats? An Iraq where decent people are jailed for sectarian revenge?
Or an Iraq in which all who are loyal to their country, irrespective of sect, have a role to play?
I have a personal reason for asking. My Iraqi driver and friend, Salam, has been in a Baghdad jail for 15 months because he believed in an Iraq that rises above sect. That belief could cost him his life.
As noted in yesterday's snapshot, at the DC action Saturday, eight people were arrested including Cindy Sheehan who questions the motivations behind the arrest at her website (Cindy's Soapbox):
Was it a coincidence that Camp OUT NOW had two major actions over the weekend to try and hold our campsite that I missed due to being jailed? I don't think so
Well, those two days were some of the most miserable days of my life! We were taken to a lock-up and Elaine and I were put into a freezing room and I had a t-shirt and flip-flops on, being unprepared to be arrested. For four women, our cell had one cement block bench that was about 7-8 feet long, so at least one of us always had to be on the stone-cold floor. Sleeping was fitful as it was very chilly all night -- and very noisy!
Thirty-six hours, and eight bologna-like and cheese-substitute sandwiches later, we were taken to the court for our arraignment and stayed in that cell for seven hours and were finally released at 5pm after we all pled "not-guilty" and were scheduled for a trial on June 9th.
Basically, six of us stayed in jail for 50 hours for an offense that ends up to be the equivalent of a traffic ticket and we even had to go to traffic court to be arraigned. I am positive that everyone in DC who gets a traffic ticket and is from "out-of-town" does not have to stay over night. Then, I found out that the penalty for my charge "Crossing a police line" doesn't even carry any jail time. I spent two nights in jail on an offense with no jail time! The maximum penalty is $300! Boy, I will be even more pissed if I go through a trial and have to pay $300 dollars after I have already spent two nights in jail.
To make matters even worse, I was the only one who was forced to come back for a trial even though Elaine has more DC arrests than I do. The other seven have chosen to go to trial with me, but they were given the option to "pay and forfeit" which means to pay the fine and forfeit your right to a trial.
The icing on the entire crappy cake came when the eight of us were given a "stay away order" from the White House -- I asked the Judge how could that be legal because we weren't convicted of anything, but the Judge assured me that conditions could be placed on our release. I also think this is very suspicious considering our Camp OUT NOW actions were focusing on the White House.
Yesterday's snapshot also noted Daniel Ellsberg's speech at the San Francisco peace action Saturday. Before speaking there, he spoke with trade unionists in the Bay Area.
Jonathan Nack (OpEd News) reports:"I think there is no prospect that we will achieve anything of any benefit to anyone in Afghanistan, or to us, by our efforts in Afghanistan," Ellsberg told the audience."Obama said " he will be withdrawing troops 15 months from now, 18 months from now. Gates [Secretary of Defense] has said maybe 24 months from now, and maybe it won't be too fast... The implicit promise is that that's a ceiling, that we'll be drawing down from that," said Ellsberg. "I don't think there's any chance of that," he declared. Based on his evaluation of the insurgency, Ellsberg predicted that, "there will be more troops in Afghanistan in two years, and still more in four years."Regarding Iraq, Ellsberg said that, "it's taken for granted in everything I read that Obama is going to carry out his promise to get all American troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011 - all combat troops earlier than that, maybe this year. I don't think there's any chance of that." Ellsberg accused President Obama of intending to maintain U.S. Military bases in Iraq for much longer, "not just as long as he's alive, not just as long as he's in office as long as his children are alive!" Ellsberg said he expects there will still be 30,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq by the end of Pres. Obama's second term. "I'm saying that Obama is lying in the same way, and to the same degree, as my former President Lyndon Johnson did," accused Ellsberg.
At MakeThemAccountable, Caro notes an article in which Brent Budowsky proclaims the female century (yes, I'm doubtful but he's offering more than a 'year of the woman'):
With the House of Representative's passage of the healthcare bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has cemented her standing as one of the great Speakers in modern history.
Receiving her Academy Award for Best Director for the brilliant and important motion picture "The Hurt Locker," Kathryn Bigelow shattered another glass ceiling and brought warmth to the hearts of Americans who honor the men and women who serve our country...
With official Washington unpopular throughout the nation, first lady Michelle Obama has earned sky-high levels of trust and good will from Americans across the political spectrum.
Regarding the scandals of Wall Street and finance, how many perp-walks have involved women? Meanwhile, the National Venture Capital Association recently selected Kate Mitchell, a leading venture capitalist, to be its chairman, making Mitchell a national leader among risk-takers and job-creators.
TV notes. NOW on PBS begins airing Friday on most PBS stations (check local listings):
In the debate over energy resources, natural gas is often considered a "lesser-of-evils". While it does release some greenhouse gases, natural gas burns cleaner than coal and oil, and is in plentiful supply -- parts of the U.S. sit above some of the largest natural gas reserves on Earth. But a new boom in natural gas drilling, a process called "fracking", raises concerns about health and environmental risks. On March 26 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW talks with filmmaker Josh Fox about "Gasland", his Sundance award-winning documentary on the surprising consequences of natural gas drilling. Fox's film -- inspired when the gas company came to his hometown -- alleges chronic illness, animal-killing toxic waste, disastrous explosions, and regulatory missteps. Drilling down to the truth about natural gas. Next on NOW.
David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which won the CLR James Award. Bacon can be heard on KPFA's The Morning Show (over the airwaves in the Bay Area, streaming online) each Wednesday morning (begins airing at 7:00 am PST). We'll close with this from Bacon's "Immigration Reform: We Need a Better Alternative:"
OAKLAND, CA (3/19/09) - Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham announced Thursday their plan for immigration reform. Unfortunately, it is a retread, recycling the same bad ideas that led to the defeat of reform efforts over the last five years. In some ways, their proposal is even worse. Schumer and Graham dramatize the lack of new ideas among Washington powerbrokers. Real immigration reform requires a real alternative. We need a different framework that embodies the goals of immigrants and working people, not the political calculations of a reluctant Congress. What's wrong with the Schumer/Graham proposal? 1. It ignores trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA, which produce profits for U.S. corporations, but increase poverty in Mexico and Central America. Since NAFTA went into effect, income in Mexico dropped, while millions of workers lost jobs and farmers their land. As a result, six million Mexicans had to leave home and migrate north, looking for work. If we do not change U.S. trade policy, millions of displaced people will continue to come, no matter how many walls we build. 2. People working without papers will be fired and even imprisoned under their proposal, and raids will increase. Vulnerability makes it harder for people to defend their rights, organize unions and raise wages. That keeps the price of immigrant labor low. Every worker will have to show a national ID card, (an idea too extreme even for the Bush administration). A problematic ID would mean getting fired, and maybe jailed.This will not stop people from coming to the U.S. But it will produce more immigration raids, firings, and a much larger detention system. Last year over 350,000 people went through privately-run prisons for undocumented immigrants. That number will go up.
iraq
alsumaria tvcatholic news agency
robert dreyfuss
trudy rubinthe philadelphia inquirer
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usa todayaamer madhani
cindy sheehan
jonathan nack
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david bacon
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The Titanic sailed off today. The pompous, celebrity addicted Captain has been warned of the icebergs in the stormy sea. But still the Titanic sails at full speed.
There was a “signing ceremony” publicity stunt this morning of the Senate bill which supposedly is hated by House Dimocrats, unions, PINOs, the “creative class” clueless” and of course Independents and Republicans. You would not know that the Senate bill is hated from all the celebrations and drinking of Hopium filled Champagne bottles by Dimocrats. The same Dimocrats who admit the health bill is really a health insurance bill. A health insurance bill which transfers trillions of taxpayer dollars to Big Insurance and turns Americans into human money batteries similar to those in the Matrix movies.
The mindless of the Big Media Dimocratic commentariat are even celebrating the death of “Clintonism” today. Recall “Clintonism” and Clinton? – the only guy since FDR in the 1940s who won election twice and left office with 64% popularity and who killed the debt and deficit vampires, as well as helped the nation live in a period of wonderful peace and prosperity. The death of that peace and prosperity era is celebrated and the Age of Fake is celebrated by these callow PINO windbags.
On the day after the Big Insurance and Big PhaRma “Save Obama” vote in the House we expected a much more triumphalist reception on the front pages and broadcasts of Obama’s Big Media masters. But instead of cheers, there was caution. Instead of wild carousing, there were iceberg sightings.
I don't know about you, but I can picture drama queen Barry imagining himself as Rose and searching for his Leonardo.
Mainly, I think (and hope!) there's a good chance that the whole thing sinks them. As it should. When you refuse to listen to the people, when you seend that message, why should anyone believe you about anything?
I firmly believe that this is the end for the Dems and they brought it on themselves. (Join me in voting Green this November.)
They stood for nothing.
And if you don't want to be like that you can join me in voting Green this year. What if we turned the whole country Green?
What if we showed how much popularity and support the Green Party could have?
I bet the Dems would get the message that they need to move to the left then. (Even if it meant not pulling Barry's ass from the fire every ten minutes.)
I'm just so tired of being forced into something.
I voted for Ralph in the 2008 election and that's still the vote I'm proudest of. So I think I'll just continue down that road and encourage you to join me. Just for 2010. You can do whatever you want in 2012. But 2010, we can vote for positions we believe in. So let's take a step towards bravery this fall.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Tuesday, March 23, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, the US Congress hears about service members' needs and they hear about the neglect military widows (and widowers) and their family suffer from the US government while left to answer questions such as "'Mom does it hurt to drown?'; 'Why couldn't the Marines save Daddy if they could save the others?'; and 'Was I the last thing he thought of?'"
Starting in the US where the Iraq War has not ended despite claims from some. Chris Durden (Kansas CW) reports that some members of the Kansas Army Reserve have learned they're deploying to Iraq and a send-off ceremony will take place this Saturday at two p.m. (3130 George Washington Blvd, Wichita, Kansas). Sending Reserves and Guards out of the US? The National Guard is supposed to protect the US, right? Bush threw that to the wind and Barack's continued to do so.
Which is a good time to shift into these comments from this morning.
Retired Master Sgt Michael Cline: The [National] Guard and Reserve are unique. A lot of the benefit programs that are in place for them -- even though they have improved over the last ten years are still relics of the Cold War. And as we rely more and more on the Guard and Reserve to be an operational force, we've already been told from fairly high ranking officers that the Guard's mission in Iraq is going to continue well into the future. We will become the peacemakers in Iraq. Not only that but we have the Sinai mission, Africa, Bosnia -- you name, we're there, along with the Afghan mission. And 90% of the air sovereignty of the United States is flown by Air National Guard pilots. And if we don't do something to retain these people and, as the economy gets better, we're going to start losing real good people. And then what's going to happen is recruiting and retention budgets are going to go up and then we're going to have to spend $100,000 per soldier, per air man to get them retrained. And so we have to find a balance. We have to bring the operational reserve force into the 21st century with pay and benefits. And when we -- when Congress gave the Reserve retirement program, they started it on January 28, 2008. You said from those people who served from 9-11 to that time, "Your service don't count." And yet you still want them to go. We have units right now in Minnesota that are on their fourth rotation to either Iraq, Afghanistan or Bosnia. And, you know, these people are being taken away from their civilian jobs, they're losing their 401Ks, putting stress on the families. Bankruptcy is becoming an important thing in the Guard and Reserve community. So things have to change. We realize it's stressing the budget but, you know, it's not uncommon to see the rules waived to provide things. We've seen it with the GI Bill. We've seen it with Tri-Care for life.
Cline informs that the Guard and Reserves will continue to shoulder the burden of Iraq -- guess Iraq really is a US colony now, that this screws with their own lives, their own families, their own financial security at present and when they retire. And he provides that to the House Armed Service's Military Personnel Subcommittee which is chaired by US House Rep Susan Davis. Joe Wilson is the Ranking Member. Chair Davis explained at the start of the hearing, "Today the subcommittee will focus on the legislative priorities of military associations and the implications of direct spending on the ability of the Congress to meet these priorities. It has been the tradition of this subcommittee to hear from the beneficiary and the advocacy organizations at the start of the legislative season so that the Subcommittee has a better understanding of the many issues of interest to service members and their families."
Cline was part of the first panel which also included The Retired Enlisted Association's Deidre Parke Holleman, Retired Col Steve Strobridge, CBO's Sarah Jennings and Retired Master Chief Petty Officer Joseph Barnes.
Since, as Davis noted, the point was to hear about the issues, we'll again go to Cline who was speaking of the disparities in pay.
Retired Master Sgt Michael Cline: Well I think it would go a long way in solving any future retention problems that we have. You know anytime that we have a deployment, we have soldiers that come home, air man that come home, sailors and marines that come home and their families have said, "I've had enough, you know, I'm tired of you being gone." The employers are starting to get riled up. These service members are looking at their civilian careers and they're saying, "Every time I'm deployed, I'm losing money out of my 401 K. I'm losing part of my future retirement. The start of January 28, 2008 for that retroactivity, that was a great start. Your idea of for every two years of service, you get a year early retirement --
Ranking Member Joe Wilson: [Every year] Over 20.
Retired Master Sgt Michael Cline: You know, we've been fighting, I've been doing this for 21 years and for 21 years we have been trying to get the H55 retirement. You know, every place you go -- in fact, I talked to a group of chief master sergeants yesterday, and that's the first thing out of their mouth -- the retroactively or the early retirement. "When are we going to see this?" And unfortunately the public doesn't understand mandatory spending and discretionary spending. When they see $750 billion given to banks and auto makers, or $3 billion in three weeks to clear carlots, a trillion dollars for health care -- they don't understand that it's a different pot of money. We do because we work it every day and try to explain it to our members. But they're the tax payers, they're the voter, they're sitting there saying, "Hey, I've done my service but you're not recognizing me. You know, I've rotated twice before Januay 28, 2008 and you're not recognizing my service." It's like you're sticking them in the side with an ice pick.
There were two panels that the Subcomittee heard from and the second panel was composed of Gold Star Wives Suzanne Stack and Margaret McCloud. Kat's grabbing some of Suzanne Stack's testimony (at her site tonight) so we'll go with Margaret McCloud for the snapshot.
Margaret McCloud: Good morning. I am Maggie McCloud, proud widow of Marine Lt Col Joseph Trane McCloud who was killed in Iraq over three years ago. Thank you very much, Madame Chairwoman, Congressman Wilson and members of the Committee for allowing us to speak to you today regarding our personal narrative regarding the elimitation of the offset which affects 54,000 military surviving spouses, 94% of whom are survivors of retirees who pay premiums [. . .] and 6% like me who are survivors of active duty deaths. My husband paid for it with his life, the retiree paid for it with premiums and now we are both being denied it. As Suzanee has said and I will echo, Congress has set precedents in removing offsets to military retired pay such as the penalty for military retirees working as federal civilians, concurrent receipt of disability compensation and retirement pay for severely disabled retirees and the Social Security offset to SBP at age 62. The president's budget restores full military retiree pay to all other disabled retirees and therein lies my confusion. Why can't we find the money to fund this offset, one that effects 54,000 military widows, if we are able to find the money to fund these other most worthy benefits? We are told over and over again, year after year that the issue is cost not the principle but the reality has been that finding the funding has not been a priority. Elimination of this widows' tax was included in the GI bill of Rights for the 21st Century. Congress acknowledged this inequity by creating the Special Survivor's Indemity Allowance. Additional money was found last year in the tobacco legislation. Small progress for which we are grateful but recognition of the injustice created by the off-set. In explaining it's opposition to removal of the off-set, OSD has stated an inequity would be created with one select group receiving two survivor annuities. There are already groups receiving two benefits, widows who remarry after age 57 and widows like me who forfeited their SBP annuity to their children to ensure adequate resources to raise our families now and surviving spouses of federal civilians. The vast majority of military retirees did not die of their service but rather they retired and went on to have second careers. My husband did not enjoy the opportunity to have a second career and help raise his children and the DIC should be added to, not subtracted from, his retirement annuity. As it should, the administration has shown its strong support for our military members and veterans for whom the fighting has ended. Well the fighting has ended for our loved ones as well. Whether they fought on the beaches of Normandy, in the jungles of Vietnam, the desert of Iraq or the countless other places where brave Americans have fought and died. But we their survivors are still struggling each day. And now I also have to answer such questions as "Mom does it hurt to drown?"; "Why couldn't the Marines save Daddy if they could save the others?"; and "Was I the last thing he thought of?" These are the questions the families of the fallen have to face while carrying on and holding our families together. In conclusion, my family continues to support our military service members in any way we can. You need only look at my living room in December when it was filled with Boy Scout popcorn to send to our troops or currently the hundreds of boxes of Girl Scout cookies that I have yet to mail. It is very important to me to show our support for our military members who willingly leave their families and lay their lives on the line every day to protect and defend our freedom. As a country, don't we have a responsiblity to support their survivors when they don't come home or when they die later from that service ? How can't our government find the money to fix this widows' tax? Thank you so very much.
SBP is Survivor Benefit Pay. We'll note that Suzanne Stack's husband, SGM Michael Stack, also died serving in Iraq.
Ranking Member Joe Wilson: The American people need to know what the widows' tax is. Ms. Stack, you did an extraordinary job explaining the net. That's horrifying to think that somebody would get a four dollar check, a fourteen dollar check -- that-that -- And so, we have a time constraint here but I really am interested if you could -- both of you -- explain again what the Survivor Benefit Plan is briefly and who administers it and what it's intent, and then the indemnity -- dependency and indemnity compenstation, who administers that and then, without being totally specific, you take a number, you subtract a number and then you come back. The American people need to know this.
Suzanne Stack: I'll start. Thank you so much. It's hard to begin. The SBP is a annuity, it's something that is purchased at retirement when a military person does retire and they make a choice to have a certain portion of their retirement income provided to their spouse if they should die. It also has now been opened up to active duty deaths which is where both Ms. McCloud and I will fall and we receive that same benefit. That is usually figures as a percentage. Our husbands would be considered 100% disabled at a thirty year mark. If they -- My husband entered the service earlier than 1980, so his retirement pay would be based on the last base pay that he had received. I think Ms. McCould's started after that period so hers would be based on the high three. And then there's an average. And you take 75% of that and then 55% of that is what the SBP is based on. I don't know if that's clear, but it's easier when you have a chalk board.
Ranking Member: Joe Wilson: No, no, no. But that's good. And then the offset?
Suzanne Stack: Well the DIC [Dependency and Indemnity Compensation] is from the -- the SBP comes from the DoD, the DIC comes from the VA.
Ranking Member Joe Wilson: The VA.
Suzanne Stack: And for the two of us, we are provided the DIC on a flat -- rate, flat rate, excuse me, I couldn't think of what it was. A flat rate amount. Again, prior to that, it would be rank based. And if you receive both of SBP and DIC then the SBP is off-set by the DIC. For some people, as you saw in my remarks, they receive nothing. There is a great number that receives absolutely nothing. And that tends to be the E6 and below -- widows and widowers, we do have some widowers. And that can be very, very difficult and very hard -- very much a hardship on their families. [To McCloud] Can you think of anything that I've left off?
Margaret McCloud: Well what I would like to add -- and I appreciate your comment about trying to get this story out -- first of all, to all the people from the first panel who spoke so strongly and elequently on our behalf this morning thank you so very much. The military coalition has been a wonderful advocate on our behalf for years now. But the fact remains that as far as who this off-set truly effects, it's 54,000 military widows -- largely elderly women scattered across the country and they keep telling me I'm a young woman, I'm a young widow -- I have to say I feel like I've aged in dog years the past three years -- but so you're asking elderly ladies throughout the country who are in frail health themselves. They gave up so much over the years during their spouses own military career, they followed them around, they gave up their opportunity frequently to work themselves and generate their own retirement income. Then their spouse became ill and they spent year after year after year caring for them at great physical cost to themselves. And then you have the "young widow" such as myself. I'm not a whiner but our plates are very full. We hold down jobs. We do the work of both parents. My husband was an operational officer -- Operations Officers for the Second Batallion, Third Marine Regiment out of Kaneohe Bay Hawaii and I would like to think he would be in awe of the operation plan that I have to have in effect every day to raise three children by myself, to get them to school, Scouts, church, after school requirements, band. For fun last week, I just had to do a wonderful father-daughter event with my five-year-old daughter because I didn't want her to be there alone. That's what we have to do. Our plates are very full. And then we're told Congress has agreed the benefit in principle this is wrong , it's simply a matter of funding and we need to get the word out. Well we're trying but it's very discouraging and hard to keep coming at this year after year after year and hear: "We support you in principal but we just can't find the money."
Ranking Member Joe Wilson: And something -- and my final point -- this effects a family like a thousand dollars a month.
McCloud: Yes.
Ranking Member: Joe Wilson: And so raising small children or people of age, hey, that's a lot of money. And it can be quality of life. So thank you very much for being here today.
Chair Susan Davis: Thank you both. I would say it's not just the dollar [. . .] -- it's not just the dollars, it's also the idea that you're fighting for and I think that we certainly acknowledge and recognize.
And Iraqis have, of course, suffered. A point David Corn raised in debating Michael Rubin on today's Talk of the Nation (NPR). No transcript or excerpt. Rubin's far too touchy and I'm not in the mood for "--" to note Corn being cut off or the other nonsense. Short version: Rubin tried to surf a wave of Operation Happy Talk and David Corn stayed factual. If they could provide Corn as a monologue, it would make for a nice listen but Rubin's too touchy and too eager to stretch the truth -- stretch to the point that it has runners throughout and finally breaks. Corn is with Mother Jones now. We will note one caller (whom even Rubin knew better than to attack):
I don't think we're better off because of the war. My son was killed in September 2007 in Iraq and the only ones I can see that've gained on this is like Exxon-Mobile and Shell who are now drilling for oil over there and it moved the price of oil from $20 a barrel to $147 during this war.
On the oil issue, Antonia Juhasz and Joseph Juhasz tackle it at Iraq Veterans Against the War. Last week, Aamer Madhani (USA Today) noted some of the scars Iraqis suffer from:
The soldiers said they had received tips that Senaa's husband and her sister's husband were insurgents against the government in Iraq. Senaa and her four children were hustled outside.
When they were let back in, they found her husband on the kitchen floor, his bloody body full of bullet holes. Senaa's brother-in-law was dead in the living room.
"I was sitting on the couch the other day, and all I could do was cry and wish that I was dead," says Abid, recalling her distress as her four young children played nearby.
"I know my psychological situation is fragile," she says. "I am always thinking about committing suicide, but there is a voice inside my head that tells me my responsibilities are too big to leave this world."
Today Reporters Without Borders notes that journalists Muayad al-Lami and Maytham al-Ahmed both recently escaped assassination attempts:
"The Iraqi authorities must take all necessary measures to put a stop to the violence and to ensure that both attacks are properly investigated," Reporters Without Borders said. "Parliament's delay in adopting a law protecting journalists is prolonging the situation of impunity and seems to be the main reason why attacks on the press are continuing."
Gunmen opened fire on Al-Lami's car as he was travelling through Baghdad's Qadisiya district at about 9:30 p.m. on 21 March, seriously wounding his driver but failing to hit Al-Lami, who sustained no injuries. Al-Lami was previously the target of a murder attempt in September 2008, when a dynamite charge was set off outside the building that houses the union.
In Basra, two men on a motorcycle -- one in a policeman's uniform and one in civilian dress -- threw a grenade into the garden of Al-Ahmed's home on 17 March, seriously injuring his brother's daughter but no one else. The target was clearly Al-Ahmed himself, who is the manager of radio Sindibad and editor of the independent weekly Al-Amani.
Reporters Without Borders has meanwhile learned that the Basra press is currently refusing to cover the activities of the US and British military forces in protest against the way soldiers manhandled journalists during a news conference at which work permits were supposed to have been issued. A number of journalists were detained for several hours after the incident. A US military spokesman has sent a letter of apology to the Basra media.
Reuters notes Iraq saw two Baghdad roadside bombings leaving six people injured.
And they are still counting the ballots in Iraq. Alsumaria TV offers these projections: "After counting 95% of polling centers, State of Law Coalition is expected to occupy 92 seats followed by Al Iraqiya with 89 seats. Iraqi National Alliance is expected to occupy 64 seats and Kurdistan Alliance 42 seats while Accordance List is expected to occupy six sears and Iraq's Unity Coalition three seats." Those are projections, they are not official results. Catholic News Agency reports that Kirkuk's Archbishop Louis Sako declares himself to be "very optimistic" regarding the vote: "The elections were carried out very well. During the campaign period, the political parties debated their programs in a very civilized way. The last election in 2005 was much more sectarian. Now people have chosen more secular parties, not like last time. Whatever happens, it will be a good result. I am very optimistic about that." Suadad al-Salhy (Reuters) reports that talks are ongoing between Nouri's political party and the Iraqi National Alliance -- the two largest Shi'ite parties -- in an attempt at a power-sharing coalition which would "sideline [the political party of] secularist former premier Iyad Allawi, whose cross-sectarian Iraqiya coalition won strong support from minority Sunnis." Actually, Allawi's political party most likely (there are no knowns until the count is official) received Sunni support. It also received non-Sunni support. And the party presented itself as a non-sectarian party with a slate of candidates (many of whom ended up banned) who were Shia and Sunni. On those banned candidates, we'll note Robert Dreyfuss (The Nation):
Today, however, I want to focus on the fortunes of the Great de-Baathification Machine, namely, Ahmed Chalabi and Ali al-Lami, whose provocative purge of more than 500 candidates -- nearly all of whom were associated with anti-Iran and secular, nationalist movements -- polarized Iraq in the weeks before the vote. (Those who've seen "The Green Zone," the thriller starring Matt Damon, saw Chalabi's role as an exile who lied about Iraq's weapons program portrayed beautifully.)
Among other things, it appears as if the anti-Baath purge boosted Sunni turnout and turned more moderate Shiite voters away from, rather than toward, Chalabi, Lami, and the Shiite religious coalition that they created.
Lami, who was Chalabi's ally and head of the Justice and Accountability Commission, got only about 900 votes in the election, according to Visser's count, meaning that he likely won't be elected to parliament. Chalabi, who ran as a stalwart -- indeed, the organizer -- of the Iranian-backed Iraqi National Alliance, the Shiite coalition of religious parties, will take a seat in the next parliament. As Visser reports, the INA -- which included the former Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Sadrists, and other Shiite parties -- won 16 seats in Baghdad province, and among them Chalabi finished ninth.
Yesterday Warren Olney (PRI's To The Point) spoke with the Center for American Progress' Brian Katulis about the election
Warren Olney: With 5% of the vote still uncounted, the party of Prime Minister al-Maliki is behind the slate led by Ayad Allawi. Both men are Shi'ites but Allawi's support comes largely from Sunnis. al-Maliki claims fraud and says if there's not a manual recount, there could be violence. The electoral commission has refused his request. Brian Katulis is a fellow at the Center for American Progress, he is co-author of The Prosperity Agenda: What The World Wants From America and What We Need In Return. Good to have you on our program.
Brian Katulis: Thanks for having me on, Warren.
Warren Olney: You've spent time in Iraq, you're familiar with the parties involved and, of course, with the dynamics there -- particularly between sectarian factions. How -- how concerned are you about this warning from al-Maliki invoking his role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces that there might be violence if there isn't a recount.
Brian Katulis It's cause for serious concern. I've-I've said in advance of these elections that these elections were a stress test of Iraqi politics, whether the institutions and the various leaders would actually respect the results. And I think this is a worrisome time. We need to watch it carefully. I don't think he's done anything, as yet, to use security forces or anything like this, but the tone of this -- and I know many US officials are concerned about it -- raises a lot of questions about what might happen in the next coming days when results are finally tabulated -- we think by the end of this week. [. . .] I think it's important to keep in mind that the overall popular vote doesn't matter that much because if you think our electoral college here in this country is complicated, Iraq has a very complicated election system and figuring out how many seats each party gets according to the number of votes is a complicated formula. And I think we'll -- I'll suspect we'll see a lot of disputes over the next coming days -- especially after the results are announced.
Addressing the complicated system is Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) who explains:
In an electoral process full of complicated equations, the allocation of seats for women is one the most arcane. Few of the female candidates can explain the math, but they bristle at being put down as just quota appointees or "political decor," as Nada al Abidi, a candidate from the rural southern Wasit province, put it.
"As long as there is a quota, people perceive women as gap-fillers and not deserving members of parliament," said Damlouji, who's still unsure if she'll get a seat. "The perception of a man is as an individual, but for women it's as a bloc. So if one woman failed, it's as if the entire womanhood has failed."
In close races, some male candidates who thought they'd narrowly won a seat will learn that they were bumped to accommodate women who didn't get nearly as many votes. By law, women will make up a quarter of the next parliament -- 82 seats in the 325-member legislature -- but the algorithm for assigning seats is so complex that one diplomat likened it to orbit mechanics.
Trudy Rubin is a Phildelphia Inquirer columnist (and she's syndicated elsewhere) who has long covered Iraq and visited it often. Her latest column is an open letter to Nouri al-Maliki which opens:
I'm writing you at a time when the outcome of Iraq's election is still uncertain. Your political bloc may get a plurality of votes - or not. Even if you win the most parliamentary seats, you will have to struggle to form a governing coalition, which may take months.
But it's not too early for you (or any other leader who seeks your job) to respond to this question: What kind of Iraq do you want? An Iraq in which Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds are at each other's throats? An Iraq where decent people are jailed for sectarian revenge?
Or an Iraq in which all who are loyal to their country, irrespective of sect, have a role to play?
I have a personal reason for asking. My Iraqi driver and friend, Salam, has been in a Baghdad jail for 15 months because he believed in an Iraq that rises above sect. That belief could cost him his life.
As noted in yesterday's snapshot, at the DC action Saturday, eight people were arrested including Cindy Sheehan who questions the motivations behind the arrest at her website (Cindy's Soapbox):
Was it a coincidence that Camp OUT NOW had two major actions over the weekend to try and hold our campsite that I missed due to being jailed? I don't think so
Well, those two days were some of the most miserable days of my life! We were taken to a lock-up and Elaine and I were put into a freezing room and I had a t-shirt and flip-flops on, being unprepared to be arrested. For four women, our cell had one cement block bench that was about 7-8 feet long, so at least one of us always had to be on the stone-cold floor. Sleeping was fitful as it was very chilly all night -- and very noisy!
Thirty-six hours, and eight bologna-like and cheese-substitute sandwiches later, we were taken to the court for our arraignment and stayed in that cell for seven hours and were finally released at 5pm after we all pled "not-guilty" and were scheduled for a trial on June 9th.
Basically, six of us stayed in jail for 50 hours for an offense that ends up to be the equivalent of a traffic ticket and we even had to go to traffic court to be arraigned. I am positive that everyone in DC who gets a traffic ticket and is from "out-of-town" does not have to stay over night. Then, I found out that the penalty for my charge "Crossing a police line" doesn't even carry any jail time. I spent two nights in jail on an offense with no jail time! The maximum penalty is $300! Boy, I will be even more pissed if I go through a trial and have to pay $300 dollars after I have already spent two nights in jail.
To make matters even worse, I was the only one who was forced to come back for a trial even though Elaine has more DC arrests than I do. The other seven have chosen to go to trial with me, but they were given the option to "pay and forfeit" which means to pay the fine and forfeit your right to a trial.
The icing on the entire crappy cake came when the eight of us were given a "stay away order" from the White House -- I asked the Judge how could that be legal because we weren't convicted of anything, but the Judge assured me that conditions could be placed on our release. I also think this is very suspicious considering our Camp OUT NOW actions were focusing on the White House.
Yesterday's snapshot also noted Daniel Ellsberg's speech at the San Francisco peace action Saturday. Before speaking there, he spoke with trade unionists in the Bay Area.
Jonathan Nack (OpEd News) reports:"I think there is no prospect that we will achieve anything of any benefit to anyone in Afghanistan, or to us, by our efforts in Afghanistan," Ellsberg told the audience."Obama said " he will be withdrawing troops 15 months from now, 18 months from now. Gates [Secretary of Defense] has said maybe 24 months from now, and maybe it won't be too fast... The implicit promise is that that's a ceiling, that we'll be drawing down from that," said Ellsberg. "I don't think there's any chance of that," he declared. Based on his evaluation of the insurgency, Ellsberg predicted that, "there will be more troops in Afghanistan in two years, and still more in four years."Regarding Iraq, Ellsberg said that, "it's taken for granted in everything I read that Obama is going to carry out his promise to get all American troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011 - all combat troops earlier than that, maybe this year. I don't think there's any chance of that." Ellsberg accused President Obama of intending to maintain U.S. Military bases in Iraq for much longer, "not just as long as he's alive, not just as long as he's in office as long as his children are alive!" Ellsberg said he expects there will still be 30,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq by the end of Pres. Obama's second term. "I'm saying that Obama is lying in the same way, and to the same degree, as my former President Lyndon Johnson did," accused Ellsberg.
At MakeThemAccountable, Caro notes an article in which Brent Budowsky proclaims the female century (yes, I'm doubtful but he's offering more than a 'year of the woman'):
With the House of Representative's passage of the healthcare bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has cemented her standing as one of the great Speakers in modern history.
Receiving her Academy Award for Best Director for the brilliant and important motion picture "The Hurt Locker," Kathryn Bigelow shattered another glass ceiling and brought warmth to the hearts of Americans who honor the men and women who serve our country...
With official Washington unpopular throughout the nation, first lady Michelle Obama has earned sky-high levels of trust and good will from Americans across the political spectrum.
Regarding the scandals of Wall Street and finance, how many perp-walks have involved women? Meanwhile, the National Venture Capital Association recently selected Kate Mitchell, a leading venture capitalist, to be its chairman, making Mitchell a national leader among risk-takers and job-creators.
TV notes. NOW on PBS begins airing Friday on most PBS stations (check local listings):
In the debate over energy resources, natural gas is often considered a "lesser-of-evils". While it does release some greenhouse gases, natural gas burns cleaner than coal and oil, and is in plentiful supply -- parts of the U.S. sit above some of the largest natural gas reserves on Earth. But a new boom in natural gas drilling, a process called "fracking", raises concerns about health and environmental risks. On March 26 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW talks with filmmaker Josh Fox about "Gasland", his Sundance award-winning documentary on the surprising consequences of natural gas drilling. Fox's film -- inspired when the gas company came to his hometown -- alleges chronic illness, animal-killing toxic waste, disastrous explosions, and regulatory missteps. Drilling down to the truth about natural gas. Next on NOW.
David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which won the CLR James Award. Bacon can be heard on KPFA's The Morning Show (over the airwaves in the Bay Area, streaming online) each Wednesday morning (begins airing at 7:00 am PST). We'll close with this from Bacon's "Immigration Reform: We Need a Better Alternative:"
OAKLAND, CA (3/19/09) - Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham announced Thursday their plan for immigration reform. Unfortunately, it is a retread, recycling the same bad ideas that led to the defeat of reform efforts over the last five years. In some ways, their proposal is even worse. Schumer and Graham dramatize the lack of new ideas among Washington powerbrokers. Real immigration reform requires a real alternative. We need a different framework that embodies the goals of immigrants and working people, not the political calculations of a reluctant Congress. What's wrong with the Schumer/Graham proposal? 1. It ignores trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA, which produce profits for U.S. corporations, but increase poverty in Mexico and Central America. Since NAFTA went into effect, income in Mexico dropped, while millions of workers lost jobs and farmers their land. As a result, six million Mexicans had to leave home and migrate north, looking for work. If we do not change U.S. trade policy, millions of displaced people will continue to come, no matter how many walls we build. 2. People working without papers will be fired and even imprisoned under their proposal, and raids will increase. Vulnerability makes it harder for people to defend their rights, organize unions and raise wages. That keeps the price of immigrant labor low. Every worker will have to show a national ID card, (an idea too extreme even for the Bush administration). A problematic ID would mean getting fired, and maybe jailed.This will not stop people from coming to the U.S. But it will produce more immigration raids, firings, and a much larger detention system. Last year over 350,000 people went through privately-run prisons for undocumented immigrants. That number will go up.
iraq
alsumaria tvcatholic news agency
robert dreyfuss
trudy rubinthe philadelphia inquirer
david corn
npr
talk of the nation
usa todayaamer madhani
cindy sheehan
jonathan nack
pbsnow on pbs
david bacon
hannah allemmcclatchy newspapers
Monday, March 22, 2010
Next?
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The nail biter"
I love Isaiah's comics and he was working like a dog doing a comic (at least one) for the gina & krista round-robin and El Spirito (the first one published Friday, Saturday and Sunday; the second on Saturday, Sunday and today). And he was hoping that Bambi Care would fail. When it didn't, C.I. and Wally figured out how to change it just a bit and make it work. (That's paint on the second part of Rahm's statement -- I believe Wally did that.) Isaiah cleared it, gave his okay. But he was bummed because he really thought the bill was going to die.
On that awful legislation . . .
"Barack Obama Celebrates Women’s History Month" (Hillary Is 44):
Big Media will defend Obama and say that Obama is in the “sweet spot of the middle” because both sides hate the Obamaination. But forced payments of taxpayer dollars to Big Insurance will prove as popular and as viable as forced feedings and forced busing.
“Democrats are afraid of failure and nervous about what success could bring. They fear substantial losses in November, with their majorities in the House and Senate possibly at risk if the country turns even more negative toward the administration and its policies. Republicans vow to continue challenging the program at the state and national levels.”
Social Security and Medicare and Civil Rights legislation passed with bipartisan majorities. Not so with the Obamination betrayal of last night. Republicans and Independents are now fully invested in ceaseless war on a program true Liberals know stinks like the Chicago stockyards of Obama and Rezko.
“The House approved the Medicare bill on a vote of 313 to 115, including 65 Republicans — nearly half the GOP caucus at the time. The Senate approved the measure by 68 to 21, including 13 of the 27 Republicans.
Social Security passed the House in 1935 by 372 to 77. On that vote, 77 Republicans joined the majority and 18 Republicans opposed it. In the Senate, the vote was 77 to 6, with five of 19 Republicans in opposition.”
* * * * * *
March is National Women’s History Month. As the month began we quoted the aims of this year’s National Women’s History Month theme: “The overarching theme for March 2010 is Writing Women Back into History.”
Barack Obama wrote women back into history by finally doing something Hillary could not do: sign an executive order on abortion which betrays every principle of what used to be a “core Democratic value”.
It's over. Barack killed his political career in order to serve his Corporate Buyers. And Democrats killed their own future. I'm so glad I'm voting Green this November. Can't wait. Never been so eager for an election in my life.
Want to see Dems get what they've earned and hoping like heck that some Greens get into local offices.
2010 could be a real game changer. It could be looked back upon as the year the Greens began their ascendacy as one of the two major parties.
That's what I'm hoping for anyway. That some positive can come out of all of this.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Monday, March 22, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, the race in Iraq is still too close to call, but some call already for a recount, protests took place around the US over the weekend, a US House Representative states the actual wounded (US service members) are being miscounted (intentionally miscounted) and more.
On the latest installment of Inside Iraq (Al Jazeera, began airing Friday), one of Jasim's guests was the author Jurgen Todenhofer (former member of the German Parliament, Christian Democratic Party) and we're excerpting so as to note his remarks.
Jasim al-Azzawi: Jurgen Todenhofer, explain the enagmatic title of your book, Why Do You Kill, Zaid? Who is Zaid? And why are you asking him "why do you kill"?
Jurgen Todenhofer: The reason why I ask this question and why I make this trip to Iraq and sometimes also to Afghanistan is that the Western people, the people from the United States and from my country don't understand the Muslim world. They don't understand why these people are fighting, why they want to be friend. And I didn't want to give the answer. I wanted to ask a young student who lives in Ramadi and he was fighting against Americans and he has destroyed a tank. And I wanted to ask him why did you kill? And I spent a week with him in Ramadi and he told me his story and just a story of a young student, a student like all the students all over the world, he wanted to study and he didn't want to fight. And then his brother was killed and then he decided together with his youngest brother to continue to study and not to fight. And then the Americans killed his second brother. And he saw his second brother dying in front of their house, he couldn't go outside because there was heavy shooting. He saw through the window how his little brother died and, this night, he decided to fight. And he became a fighter. He became a fighter not to revenge but to free his country and that's his story. And when I ask, "Why do you kill, Zaid?" -- he gave me the answer. And it was a very sad answer.
[. . .]
Jasim al-Azzawi: You did something very unusual, Jurgen Todenhofer, you went an actually covered the war from the perspective of the Iraqi resistance. You went and saw exactly what they were doing. Were they fighting the Americans? Were they fighting al Qaeda? Who were they fighting against?
Jurgen Todenhofer: They were fighting for the freedom of their country and they were fighting for the pride of their country. But I -- Juan [Cole], I think there are still secrets in Iraq because the Iraq images, the images that we see from Baghdad are not the truth. I was in Iraq again in spring last year, in August last year, and this legendary city of 1001 Nights has turned into a gloomy fortress of thousands of shooting towers, of thousands of heavily armed checkpoints. And you can perhaps now, because you were a little bit optimistic, you can perhaps now vote freely -- I say perhaps -- but you can't move freely anymore. And I had a team -- a camera team -- because I am making a film about kids in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I ask my camera team, "Please film these concrete walls, film these-these towers, film these surveillance balloons over the city." And they said, "We cannot." And I asked them ten minutes, fifteen minutes and then they said, "Yes, okay, we try." And in the evening, I got the information they were arrested, they were beaten up. The camera was confiscated, the material was confiscated and the laptop was destroyed. And the reason why we don't see the real image is that this actual government doesn't want us to see the truth of this country. And, for example, I was in the German Embassy and I spoke to the German ambassador and I wanted to discuss the situtation in Baghdad but these people are unable to tell you anything about Baghdad because the German diplomats and their embassy are not allowed to leave the Embassy one single minute the same holds true with the members and diplomats of the American Embassy.
[. . .]
Jurgen Todenhofer: Yeah, Juan, for those who are informed and I'm very happy that you are informed. Other people? But when I read the comments on the elections in the Western press, when I read that now a new chapter is open and when I see the reality in this country, the sadness. The US didn't liberate this country, they broke it. And, as an example, in August last year, I want to Sadr City to a Sheik. He's a Shi'ite Sheik, he's the leader of one of the biggest tribes in Iraq, he's 29. He's now the leader of the tribe because 12 members of his family have been killed. And I said, "Now you are a Shia Sheik. Are you better off? You're liberated from Saddam Hussein." And he said, "Never in the history of our country, there was such a mess than under the American occupation." And in the six and-a-half-years, it was last August, of the American occupation, more civilians have been killed than under the hard 35 years of Saddam.
[. . .]
Jurgen Todenhofer: We have to find a way for reconciliation in this country. And you have mentioned -- Juan has mentioned -- that we have excluded the elite of the army. Paul Bremer was the guy who did this very, very silly thing. We have excluded the elite of the administration. And we have to reconciliate this country like we did it in South Africa or like we did it in Germany. This means also that in the future political process has to be included the resistance, the leaders of the resistance, the whole resistance and this is not only Sunni resistance, this is also a Shi'ite resistance. I think we have also to include Ba'athists, those that didn't commit crimes.
Todenhofer is a voice with a view point not heard in the US media -- Big or Small -- so we've focused on him at the expense of an overexposed guest in the West who didn't even have the manners or good grace to say, "It was a pleasure to speak to you as well."
Over the weekend in the US, protests took place against the wars. They started Friday and continued through Sunday. In San Francisco, the protest I attended, you could follow the pink road, follow the pink road. I'm referring to a large ground banner which was pink and asked: "Where is our change? Where is our hope?" People began gathering for the rally a little before 11:30 in the morning (you could tell it was about to start as about 20 visible police officers were joined by 16 additional visible police officers just arriving) and, approximately an hour later, the march began ending a little after two o'clock. Chants included "Hey, hey, hey, ho/ The occupation has got to go!" and "Money for jobs and education! Not for wars and occupations!" Signs called out the occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and drew links to where the US money went and where it didn't. I saw no signs regarding Columbia but I probably missed them. A speaker, Cristina Gutierrez, spoke on the issue and "even under the so-called liberal Obama administration, they still call our freedom fighters 'terrorists' regardless of whether they are in Columbia or Palestine." She gave a powerful speech on how change has not come, with a wide range of supporting evidence including that it is Barack's administration that continues to imprison Lynne Stewart and has "taken over 7 of the 12 military bases in Columbia."Cristina Gutierrez: We are hear to ask you to stop your government from destroying the aspirations of the people of the world for justice and freedom. We are hear not to ask you not to raise money for us not to commit solidarity with our people but we are here to ask you stop the military budget, to stop the wars and to demand that the money be spent on education, creating jobs, housing and health care of all in this country.It was a large group -- especially considering that there were demonstrations all over California (Los Angeles and San Diego being only two others). The people were diverse -- in terms of race and ethnicity, economic classification and age. Among the speakers were Daniel Ellsberg.Daniel Ellsberg: . . . 40 years ago, 41 years ago, in 1969, there was a group and a movement called the moratorium. And they called it the moratorium rather than call it a "general strike" because that seemed too inflamatory. But what it was was, like today, demonstrations all over the country being counted not just in one city. There was 75,000 in indeed in San Francisco, 100,000 in New York. But here were ten here, twenty there, a thousand there, all over the country adding up to 2 million. And the difference was that it was on a weekday. They took off for the day for this so it really was a general strike. They thought it had no effect. They were wrong, the people who ran that and the people who took part in it. Nixon had threatened the North, through Russia and China, that he was going to escalate on November 3, 1969. He was threatening and planning to use nuclear weapons. And, also, as well, to invade Laos and Cambodia, North Vietnam, hit the dikes, hit Hai Phong, All the things that he did do later in the invasion of North Vietnam. Ellsberg called for more actions like the ones today across the US and a general strike to send the message to DC that we can't "afford one or two trillion dollars away from our infrastructure, our education and our health to kill people". KPFA's Evening News' report on Saturday featured some of A.N.S.W.E.R.'s Richard Becker's speech. Jonathan Nack (Indybay Media -- link has text and photos) reports on the San Francisco action, "The mobilzation was notable not only for its greater size, which organizers estimated at 5,000, but also for its diversity. The crowd was both younger and more multiracial."
DC was the main focal point in the US. Cuba's Periodico reported that gathering rallied "at Lafayette Park on the north side of the White House. The rally was followed by a march that made stops at Halliburton, the Washington Post, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Veterans Administration. Organizers said it was the largest demonstration to date opposing the Barack Obama administration's decision to expand the war in Afghanistan with tens of thousands more U.S. occupation troops." AP quoted Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan wondering if "the honeymoon was over with that war criminal in the White House," while Ralph Nader felt the only difference demonstrated between Bush and Barack was "Obama's speeches are better." Narayan Lakshman (The Hindu) added, "While the protest drew a smaller crowd than the tens of thousands who marched during the final years of the Bush administration, the ANSWER coalition, the main organiser, said momentum was building due to disenchantment with President Obama's troop surge decision for Afghanistan. Other participating groups included Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out and the National Council of Arab Americans and activists such as Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan." Russia Today offers video of the DC protests. The Times of India quoted Iraq War veteran and Iraq Veterans Against the War member Matthis Chiroux stating, "Obama policies in Iraq and Afghanistan are as criminal as Bush's. The US machine produces war regardless of who is president. We are killing innocents." David Rosenberg (The KPFA Evening News) reported Saturday, "At least eight people, including activist Cindy Sheehan, were arrested by US Park Police at the end of the march after laying coffins at the fence outside the White House." Katherine Shaver (Washington Post) quotes A.N.S.W.E.R.'s Brian Becker stating, "A huge part of the antiwar movement has been focused on the Bush administration and its policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush is gone. Millions of people thought his exit would mean an end to these wars. Instead, after one year of real-life experience, they're far from ending." Also reporting on DC's action is Kosta Harlan (Fight Back!):Military veterans gave a powerful condemnation of the occupation, and two speakers with Military Families Speak Out and Iraq Veterans Against the War ripped their dog tags and badges off of their uniforms and threw them off the stage, in a symbol of their rejection of the immoral, unjust, and criminal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.Many of the protestors were youth and new to the antiwar movement, and are committed to rebuilding a broad movement to force the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq.AP and NBC New York write that the Manhattan protest against the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars today only generated "a few dozen people." I call out the New York leadership in this entry Saturday (and I admit there and here that I was oh so wrong -- that entry was written when a friend and LA peace activist bet me the NYC protest would be miniscule). Good for those who demonstrated. Joan Wile is the author of Grandmothers Against the War. She and Edith Cresmer are members of the Granny Peace Brigade and they wrote the following regarding the NYC action:
On Saturday, March 20, 2010, a beautiful unseasonably warm day, the eighth year of our occupation of Iraq began. Although we are told that officially we are no longer fighting there, that we have pulled back our forces, nevertheless our soldiers continue to die there. And so do many more Iraqis. It is way past time for us to pull out, and yet we remain. Why?
To commemorate the end of our seven years of illegal and immortal attack and occupation of Iraq a compendium of 10 New York City peace groups called the Seven Years Too Many Coalition gathered at the Times Square Recuriting Center to protest the continuation of the war and to call for an end of all wars.
Cheryl Wertz, Exec, Director of Peace Action New York State (PANYS) introduced the speakers -- Councilwoman Gale Brewer, and Vietnam vet Chaplain Hugh Bruce of Veterans for Peace. They discussed some of the terrible effects of war on people at home -- lost jobs, libraries, fire companies, and teachers -- and even worse effects on the people of Iraq and on our G.I.s. Literature was handed out with facts about the terrible results and the absurdity of war.
Demonstrators chanted: What is the cost of War? How Many? and How Much? And answered Too Many, too Many . . . and Too Much, too Much.
Good for all the groups who participated, good for all the individuals. But don't think for a moment that we forget who was silent. That's an NYC action. Where the bulk of Little Media is based. As Elaine pointed out Friday, Little Media wasn't realyl concerned with the Iraq War (forget the kiss ass article you saw at Al Jazeera). As we noted at Third in "Editorial: Barack is killing the left," Saturday morning, NYC Indymedia had nothing on their home page about the demonstration, WBAI didn't have it on the home page or on their monthly calendar. Praise for the Granny Peace Brigade and others who participated but grasp that if the word had gotten out, the number present would have been higher. But 'leaders' weren't interested. Chicago saw action on Saturday. Matt Muchowski (Gapers Block) explains, " On March 17, 2010 over a thousand people rallied at Federal Plaza and marched on Michigan Ave. It came as President Obama is intensifying the war in Afghanistan. The protesters seemed to be mocking Mayor Daley's challenge, 'Where are the anti-war people? They disappeared! They stopped marching!' No, we never did stop marching, even as Daley has continued to antagonize us." CBS reports Chicago activists dyed the Chicago River red and stated, "Most college students can now say that more than one quarter of their lives have been lived while the U.S. has been at war." Melissa Allison (Seattle Times) reports that they gathered "near Westlake Center . . . before marching for an hour through downtown streets." While, according to AP, the people of Raleigh were apathetic as indicated by the lethargic Chris Skidmore who "sipped a drink on the artificial lawn" and stated, "Honestly, with everything that's going on in my personal life, it slipped my mind." AP notes that Albuquerque saw over 100 (local estimates are 120) gathered to protest the continued wars on Saturday. Jake Begun (Badger Herald) reports that Madison, Wisconsin saw 200 gather Saturday for rally and he notes, "Iraq Veterans Against the War Madison Chapter President Todd Dennis said his aim in attending the day's events was to show solidarity with the various groups present and his own friends who have served. The war itself, and veterans' services are lacking, he said. By raising awareness through actions like Saturday's rally and march the issues facing those who fight the country's wars can be better represented." Charles Purnell (Daily Titan) reported on the Los Angeles action and noted Tamara Khoury "was a lead organizer and stage manager at the anti-war protest and peace march. Khoury is also a member of Act Now to Stop War and Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.), the organization that put on the event. Formed September 14, 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, A.N.S.W.E.R. has grown to encompass branches in nearly every major city across the country and has organized some of the largest demonstrations in recent years, including the annual March 20 multi-city marches."
On the protests, Justin Raimondo (Antiwar.com) offers:
Even among those who attended the protests, there were some whose opposition to this administration's foreign policy is squishy at best. The same AP article cites one Shirley Allan of Silver Spring, Md., who "carried a sign that read, "President Obama We love you but we need to tell you! Your hands are getting bloody!! Stop it now."
Ms. Allan's sign says more about her than it does about the issue she purports to address. To confess to loving a political leader whose hands are even a little bit bloody is quite a revealing statement to make, and it just about sums up why the crowd was smaller than on previous occasions. The hate-Bush crowd has quickly morphed into the love-Obama cult of personality, and the so-called progressives have deserted the antiwar movement in droves. Our multiple wars just aren't an issue inside the Democratic party.
On the non-Marxist left, the triumph of the Obama cult is complete. Only the old-fashioned Leninists, such as the main organizers of the ANSWER rallies, have come out in visible opposition to Obama's wars. Even the Marxist left, however, is not immune to Obama-mania: the other major antiwar coalition, United for Peace and Justice, led by veterans of the old Communist Party, USA, issued a euphoric statement upon Obama's election and has been essentially moribund as an active antiwar organization ever since.
It was in this kind of political atmosphere, then – one of near complete political isolation – that rally attendees heard Cindy Sheehan wonder whether "the honeymoon was over with that war criminal in the White House." Sheehan's remark was met, according to AP, with merely "moderate applause." Ms. Allan was not among the applauders:
Many in the media spent the weekend ignoring the anniversary. Bob Schieffer (Face The Nation, CBS News -- link has text and video) didn't, he commented on the anniversary of the start of the Iraq War:Washington has always been a one-story town. And for the last few weeks -- months, really -- the story has been health care reform. It's all we've been talking about. Which is probably one reason a rather important anniversary passed almost without notice: March 19. Ring a bell? Probably not. But March 19 was the seventh anniversary of the Iraq invasion, which began our longest war.
Turning to Iraq where the counting never stops. March 7th, Iraqis completed their voting in Parliamentary elections. Today is March 21st and the votes are still being counted. Rania El Gamal and Khalid al-Ansary (Reuters) report that 95% of the votes have been counted and that the results of the 100% count (unofficial count) would not be publicly revealed until Friday; however, Ayad Allawi's political party is at the top of the seesaw currently. One minute the unofficial count has Allawi in the lead and then, as more votes are counted, the lead switches to Nouri al-Maliki's political party. Then it switches again. At this rate, if the official count is anything like the current count, either political party could become the ruling party depending upon which one is able to enter a power-sharing coalition soonest. Sunday Martin Chulov (Guardian) reported, "Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has invoked the spectre of renewed violence if there is no recount of all ballots cast in the general election as its chaotic aftermath appears to increasingly threaten his grip on power." When in doubt, Nouri always screams violence is coming. Of course, when it actually comes, he's forever caught by surprise. Margaret Coker (Wall St. Journal) reports, "Iraq's electoral commission on Sunday brushed aside increased pressure from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other politicians demanding a recount in the close parliamentary race that could unseat the incumbent leader and other officials who have dominated Iraq's transition to democracy." If you're thinking of Nouri and how he loves to scream violence to get his way, you may be aware of step two: He stages protests. Hannah Allam and Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy's Miami Herald) report that already Nouri's supporters have taken to the streets in Najaf to 'protest.' The two reporters quote political analyst Haider al-Musawi stating, "The situation may well deteriorate into a state not unlike what happened in Iran. This would be catastrophic for the political process. Iraqis have started to believe that their votes could make a difference. If they see their votes turned around, God only knows where that would lead us -- maybe to violence once again."
Ned Parker and Caesar Ahmed (Los Angeles Times) also sought out an analyst, "Kenneth Katzman, an analyst on Iraq for the Congressional Research Service, warned Sunday that Maliki could be building the foundations for a non-democratic regime. 'Especially with this language of defending the constitution, setting themselves up as the protectors of the constitution, that is how authoritarian parties usually justify what they do,' Katzman said. 'It's ominous'." Meanwhile another voice joins Nouri's. Timothy Williams and Zaid Thaker (New York Times) explain Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq, has joined in the cries for recounts -- but then, as he did in July's elections, he's sunk his own political party again and is demanding recounts to shift the focus away from his lousy leadership. Talabani is a Kurd. He got himself into trouble not with charges of corruption (though those exist) but by failing to understand his own people. He called a Kurdish land in Iraq "a dream" that would never come true. When he made that statement, he destroyed his own power-base and his party. The Ahrar Party is also calling for a recount and they issued this statement on Friday:
Iraq election results being fixed - call for election recount
The leader of the Ahrar Freedom Party in Iraq today called for a nationwide recount of the results in the recent General Election held on 7 March.
Ayad Jamal Aldin said, "We have sound evidence of nationwide corruption in the election results presently being declared across Iraq. A large number of smaller parties are being deliberately squeezed out of the election result. Thousands of votes are being stolen and transferred to the larger parties, within the Malaki, Allawi and Hakim camps.
"Our Ahrar Party was polling fourth in a large number of governorates and
regions across Iraq and we have evidence that our, and other parties', votes are being excluded and not declared in the results so far.
"We have no confidence in the fairness and honesty of the election counting process. We call for international observers, including the United Nations and
US Vice President Joe Biden to intervene and support an independently
monitored recount of all the votes cast on 7th March. The people of Iraq are
being cheated out of a fair election result. No one has anything to fear from
a fairly conducted recount but if the present election results are allowed to
go unchallenged, Iraq will descend again into conflict rather than benefiting
from a free and fair electoral process."
For further information, contact:
Ahrar Media Bureau Tel: +964 (0)790 157 4478 / +964 (0)790 157 4479 / +964 (0)771 275 2942 press@ahrarparty.com
About Ayad Jamal Aldin:
Ayad Jamal Aldin is a cleric, best known for his consistent campaigning for a
new, secular Iraq. He first rose to prominence at the Nasiriyah conference in March 2003, shortly before the fall of Saddam, where he called for a state free
of religion, the turban and other theological symbols. In 2005, he was elected
as one of the 25 MPs on the Iraqi National List, but withdrew in 2009 after becoming disenchanted with Iyad Allawi's overtures to Iran. He wants complete independence from Iranian interference in Iraq. He now leads the Ahrar party
for the 2010 election to the Council of Representatives, to clean up corruption
and create a strong, secure and liberated Iraq for the future.
Li Laifang (Xinhua) reminds, "Analysts believe the process of forming a new government
will be tough with much bargaining among blocs and may even take months. The formation of the current government took four months after the December 2005 election." What if the prime minister is neither Allawi nor al-Maliki? It's more than possible. Not only is Ahmed Chalabi said to have arranged for himself to be installed should State of Law prevail in the elections but it's also true that Nouri is a divisive figure. Sami Moubayed (Asia Times) looks at those rumored to be waiting in the wings:If neither Maliki nor Allawi makes it to the premiership, Iraqis will need to search for a prime minister who is acceptable to both parties. Two names that originally surfaced were Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Adel Abdul Mehdi, both members of the Iran-backed Iraqi National Alliance (INA), which is currently placed third in the poll and is likely to win 68 seats. Jaafari was immediately written off by Sunnis, since he failed to bring security to Iraq during his 2005-2006 tenure as prime minister. He was unable to control civil strife after terrorists struck at a holy Shi'ite shrine in February 2006, three months before he was replaced by Maliki. Abdul Mehdi, although acceptable to Iran, is also an unconvincing candidate due, mainly due to objections to him from within the INA. Mehdi's greatest opponents are his own allies, men like Jaafari who have their own eyes on the premiership, or Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who has always seen Mehdi as an Iranian stooge. One compromise candidate is Jaafar al-Sadr, a member of the State of Law Coalition who has excellent relations with both his cousin, Muqtada al-Sadr, and the prime minister. Muqtada has made it clear that he will not support Maliki gaining a second term, saying: "During his years in power, Maliki worked for his own personal benefit, not for the people of Iraq." The count is still preliminary. It is also partial. 95% of the preliminary count is known. Friday, 100% of the vote is supposed to be known. Whether a recount will take place or not is currently up in the air with the election body stating that they will only review charges of fraud and not conduct a recount. That may change as Nouri ramps up the rhetoric. But these are not official results, remember. Turning to official (in that it was reported) violence today . . .
Bombings?
Reuters notes a Baghdad roadside bombing which injured six people and a Kirkuk car bombing which wounded one police officer.
Shootings?
Reuters notes a Baghdad shooting which claimed the lives of 2 police officers, a Baghdad shooting which claimed the lives of 2 Sadr City council members and left one person injured and, dropping back to Sunday, a Baghdad shooting which attacked "the convoy of Muaid al-Lami, the chief of the Iraqi Journalists' Syndicate, and wounded his driver "
The Iraqi wounded get little attention. Do the US wounded get that much more? Not according to US House Rep Bob Filner who appeared this morning on Connect the Dots with Lila Garrett (KPFK) and explained that the government is hiding the number of US wounded in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.
US House Rep Bob Filner: [. . .] in understanding this war, you have to understand the costs both in the material costs and the human costs. Our official statistics for Iraq and Afghanistan is that over 5,000 have been killed, almost 40,000 injured. Now take that 40,000. Compare that with almost a million veterans of this war who have already come to the Veterans Administration hospital seeking care for injuries and conditions suffered in the war. I mean, compare a million versus 40,000. I mean, that's not just a rounding error, that's a deliberate attempt to mislead us on the nature of the war and its cost. And out of that million who have come to the VA, several hundred thousand who have brain injury, several hundred thousand have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and they were not diagnosed before they left the battlefield. And that's a purposeful ommission. If we don't evaluate them, then we don't know. And by the way, Lila, even earlier in the war when they were evaluating people, they deliberately changed the diagnosis from PTSD to what's called Personality Disorder. And a Personality Disorder means that you had this before you entered the armed services and therefore we didn't give it to you and, in fact, we don't even have to take care of you. Now that's a terrible crime perpetrated on these young men and women who have volunteered for service. When they get mental injuries, they're not recognized.
US House Rep Bob Filner is the Chair of the House Veterans Committee. In other news, we'll note this from Debra Sweet's "Two Days Into the 8th Year of the Iraq War: What do we Do Next?" (World Can't Wait):
What are you being asked to give money towards, in this Anti-War Offensive fundraising drive? We have a plan to stop the war - but you are needed.The We Are Not Your Soldiers tour is getting ready to hit schools in Ohio this weekend, with more requests coming in from Seattle, Massachusetts and Connecticut. This tour brings Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to the schools to talk to students about the on-the-ground reality of the wars and the need for students to stop military recruiters.
We want recruiters out now and we want to turn schools into hot spots of resistance, creating a situation where military recruiters are met with daily protest by the students themselves in all areas where they recruit. There is great need and a demand for this from teachers, parents and students. Watch some of the previous presentations:
Coming up soon, March 29th and March 30, Liz, a World Can't Wait activist, and Anthony Wagner, an Iraq War veteran, will be traveling from Chicago to Cleveland, Ohio, where they have been asked by teachers to reach out to 2 schools and at least 200 students. Then, on March 31, they have been asked to travel to Columbus, Ohio to speak in multiple classes to 110 students!
David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which won the CLR James Award. Bacon can be heard on KPFA's The Morning Show (over the airwaves in the Bay Area, streaming online) each Wednesday morning (begins airing at 7:00 am PST). We'll close with this from Bacon's "MARCHING FOR CALIFORNIA'S FUTURE THROUGH TODAY'S DESOLATION" (New American Media):As the March for California's Future heads up the San Joaquin Valley towards Sacramento, participants are coming up hard against the reality of the economic crisis in rural California. The march began in Bakersfield, the day after widespread protests swept through the state's schools and universities on March 4. It is a protest against the impact of state budget cuts on education and social services, and marchers are finding that Valley communities are among those that feel their effects most strongly. "Watsonville has a 27% unemployment rate," says Jenn Laskin, a teacher at Renaissance Continuation High School there. "It's the strawberry capital of the world, and strawberries are a luxury. In a recession, people stop buying them, so workers no longer have a job in the fields. I have many students who have both parents out of work, who grow food in our school garden for their families." But in the Central Valley, she thinks, things seem worse. "The towns we've been passing through feel a lot more desolate," Laskin explains. Those include the small farm worker communities of Shafter, McFarland, Delano, Pixley and Tulare. "I see a lot of fields with nothing planted at all. I was in a Mexican restaurant in Pixley and there was not a Mexican in sight. The problems I see in Watsonville might even be sharper here. I see more need here, and I'm guessing probably fewer services." She's not far off. The official unemployment rate in December in Kern County was 16%. Since Bakersfield, a major urban area, has a lower rate, towns like Shafter and McFarland have even more jobless. Crossing into Kings and Tulare Counties, unemployment jumps to over 17% in each.
al jazeera
inside iraq
jasim al-azzawi
antiwar.com
the kpfa evening newsdavid rosenberg
reutersrania el gamalkhalid al-ansarythe guardianmartin chulovthe wall street journalmargaret cokermcclatchy newspapershannah allammohammed al dulaimythe los angeles timesned parkercaesar ahmed
joan wileedith cresmergranny peace brigade
the world cant waitdebra sweet
cbs newsface the nationbob schieffer
the washington postkatherine shaverthe seattle timesmelissa allisonindybay mediajonathan nackthe badger heraldjake begunthe daily titancharles purnell
david bacon
I love Isaiah's comics and he was working like a dog doing a comic (at least one) for the gina & krista round-robin and El Spirito (the first one published Friday, Saturday and Sunday; the second on Saturday, Sunday and today). And he was hoping that Bambi Care would fail. When it didn't, C.I. and Wally figured out how to change it just a bit and make it work. (That's paint on the second part of Rahm's statement -- I believe Wally did that.) Isaiah cleared it, gave his okay. But he was bummed because he really thought the bill was going to die.
On that awful legislation . . .
"Barack Obama Celebrates Women’s History Month" (Hillary Is 44):
Big Media will defend Obama and say that Obama is in the “sweet spot of the middle” because both sides hate the Obamaination. But forced payments of taxpayer dollars to Big Insurance will prove as popular and as viable as forced feedings and forced busing.
“Democrats are afraid of failure and nervous about what success could bring. They fear substantial losses in November, with their majorities in the House and Senate possibly at risk if the country turns even more negative toward the administration and its policies. Republicans vow to continue challenging the program at the state and national levels.”
Social Security and Medicare and Civil Rights legislation passed with bipartisan majorities. Not so with the Obamination betrayal of last night. Republicans and Independents are now fully invested in ceaseless war on a program true Liberals know stinks like the Chicago stockyards of Obama and Rezko.
“The House approved the Medicare bill on a vote of 313 to 115, including 65 Republicans — nearly half the GOP caucus at the time. The Senate approved the measure by 68 to 21, including 13 of the 27 Republicans.
Social Security passed the House in 1935 by 372 to 77. On that vote, 77 Republicans joined the majority and 18 Republicans opposed it. In the Senate, the vote was 77 to 6, with five of 19 Republicans in opposition.”
* * * * * *
March is National Women’s History Month. As the month began we quoted the aims of this year’s National Women’s History Month theme: “The overarching theme for March 2010 is Writing Women Back into History.”
Barack Obama wrote women back into history by finally doing something Hillary could not do: sign an executive order on abortion which betrays every principle of what used to be a “core Democratic value”.
It's over. Barack killed his political career in order to serve his Corporate Buyers. And Democrats killed their own future. I'm so glad I'm voting Green this November. Can't wait. Never been so eager for an election in my life.
Want to see Dems get what they've earned and hoping like heck that some Greens get into local offices.
2010 could be a real game changer. It could be looked back upon as the year the Greens began their ascendacy as one of the two major parties.
That's what I'm hoping for anyway. That some positive can come out of all of this.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Monday, March 22, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, the race in Iraq is still too close to call, but some call already for a recount, protests took place around the US over the weekend, a US House Representative states the actual wounded (US service members) are being miscounted (intentionally miscounted) and more.
On the latest installment of Inside Iraq (Al Jazeera, began airing Friday), one of Jasim's guests was the author Jurgen Todenhofer (former member of the German Parliament, Christian Democratic Party) and we're excerpting so as to note his remarks.
Jasim al-Azzawi: Jurgen Todenhofer, explain the enagmatic title of your book, Why Do You Kill, Zaid? Who is Zaid? And why are you asking him "why do you kill"?
Jurgen Todenhofer: The reason why I ask this question and why I make this trip to Iraq and sometimes also to Afghanistan is that the Western people, the people from the United States and from my country don't understand the Muslim world. They don't understand why these people are fighting, why they want to be friend. And I didn't want to give the answer. I wanted to ask a young student who lives in Ramadi and he was fighting against Americans and he has destroyed a tank. And I wanted to ask him why did you kill? And I spent a week with him in Ramadi and he told me his story and just a story of a young student, a student like all the students all over the world, he wanted to study and he didn't want to fight. And then his brother was killed and then he decided together with his youngest brother to continue to study and not to fight. And then the Americans killed his second brother. And he saw his second brother dying in front of their house, he couldn't go outside because there was heavy shooting. He saw through the window how his little brother died and, this night, he decided to fight. And he became a fighter. He became a fighter not to revenge but to free his country and that's his story. And when I ask, "Why do you kill, Zaid?" -- he gave me the answer. And it was a very sad answer.
[. . .]
Jasim al-Azzawi: You did something very unusual, Jurgen Todenhofer, you went an actually covered the war from the perspective of the Iraqi resistance. You went and saw exactly what they were doing. Were they fighting the Americans? Were they fighting al Qaeda? Who were they fighting against?
Jurgen Todenhofer: They were fighting for the freedom of their country and they were fighting for the pride of their country. But I -- Juan [Cole], I think there are still secrets in Iraq because the Iraq images, the images that we see from Baghdad are not the truth. I was in Iraq again in spring last year, in August last year, and this legendary city of 1001 Nights has turned into a gloomy fortress of thousands of shooting towers, of thousands of heavily armed checkpoints. And you can perhaps now, because you were a little bit optimistic, you can perhaps now vote freely -- I say perhaps -- but you can't move freely anymore. And I had a team -- a camera team -- because I am making a film about kids in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I ask my camera team, "Please film these concrete walls, film these-these towers, film these surveillance balloons over the city." And they said, "We cannot." And I asked them ten minutes, fifteen minutes and then they said, "Yes, okay, we try." And in the evening, I got the information they were arrested, they were beaten up. The camera was confiscated, the material was confiscated and the laptop was destroyed. And the reason why we don't see the real image is that this actual government doesn't want us to see the truth of this country. And, for example, I was in the German Embassy and I spoke to the German ambassador and I wanted to discuss the situtation in Baghdad but these people are unable to tell you anything about Baghdad because the German diplomats and their embassy are not allowed to leave the Embassy one single minute the same holds true with the members and diplomats of the American Embassy.
[. . .]
Jurgen Todenhofer: Yeah, Juan, for those who are informed and I'm very happy that you are informed. Other people? But when I read the comments on the elections in the Western press, when I read that now a new chapter is open and when I see the reality in this country, the sadness. The US didn't liberate this country, they broke it. And, as an example, in August last year, I want to Sadr City to a Sheik. He's a Shi'ite Sheik, he's the leader of one of the biggest tribes in Iraq, he's 29. He's now the leader of the tribe because 12 members of his family have been killed. And I said, "Now you are a Shia Sheik. Are you better off? You're liberated from Saddam Hussein." And he said, "Never in the history of our country, there was such a mess than under the American occupation." And in the six and-a-half-years, it was last August, of the American occupation, more civilians have been killed than under the hard 35 years of Saddam.
[. . .]
Jurgen Todenhofer: We have to find a way for reconciliation in this country. And you have mentioned -- Juan has mentioned -- that we have excluded the elite of the army. Paul Bremer was the guy who did this very, very silly thing. We have excluded the elite of the administration. And we have to reconciliate this country like we did it in South Africa or like we did it in Germany. This means also that in the future political process has to be included the resistance, the leaders of the resistance, the whole resistance and this is not only Sunni resistance, this is also a Shi'ite resistance. I think we have also to include Ba'athists, those that didn't commit crimes.
Todenhofer is a voice with a view point not heard in the US media -- Big or Small -- so we've focused on him at the expense of an overexposed guest in the West who didn't even have the manners or good grace to say, "It was a pleasure to speak to you as well."
Over the weekend in the US, protests took place against the wars. They started Friday and continued through Sunday. In San Francisco, the protest I attended, you could follow the pink road, follow the pink road. I'm referring to a large ground banner which was pink and asked: "Where is our change? Where is our hope?" People began gathering for the rally a little before 11:30 in the morning (you could tell it was about to start as about 20 visible police officers were joined by 16 additional visible police officers just arriving) and, approximately an hour later, the march began ending a little after two o'clock. Chants included "Hey, hey, hey, ho/ The occupation has got to go!" and "Money for jobs and education! Not for wars and occupations!" Signs called out the occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and drew links to where the US money went and where it didn't. I saw no signs regarding Columbia but I probably missed them. A speaker, Cristina Gutierrez, spoke on the issue and "even under the so-called liberal Obama administration, they still call our freedom fighters 'terrorists' regardless of whether they are in Columbia or Palestine." She gave a powerful speech on how change has not come, with a wide range of supporting evidence including that it is Barack's administration that continues to imprison Lynne Stewart and has "taken over 7 of the 12 military bases in Columbia."Cristina Gutierrez: We are hear to ask you to stop your government from destroying the aspirations of the people of the world for justice and freedom. We are hear not to ask you not to raise money for us not to commit solidarity with our people but we are here to ask you stop the military budget, to stop the wars and to demand that the money be spent on education, creating jobs, housing and health care of all in this country.It was a large group -- especially considering that there were demonstrations all over California (Los Angeles and San Diego being only two others). The people were diverse -- in terms of race and ethnicity, economic classification and age. Among the speakers were Daniel Ellsberg.Daniel Ellsberg: . . . 40 years ago, 41 years ago, in 1969, there was a group and a movement called the moratorium. And they called it the moratorium rather than call it a "general strike" because that seemed too inflamatory. But what it was was, like today, demonstrations all over the country being counted not just in one city. There was 75,000 in indeed in San Francisco, 100,000 in New York. But here were ten here, twenty there, a thousand there, all over the country adding up to 2 million. And the difference was that it was on a weekday. They took off for the day for this so it really was a general strike. They thought it had no effect. They were wrong, the people who ran that and the people who took part in it. Nixon had threatened the North, through Russia and China, that he was going to escalate on November 3, 1969. He was threatening and planning to use nuclear weapons. And, also, as well, to invade Laos and Cambodia, North Vietnam, hit the dikes, hit Hai Phong, All the things that he did do later in the invasion of North Vietnam. Ellsberg called for more actions like the ones today across the US and a general strike to send the message to DC that we can't "afford one or two trillion dollars away from our infrastructure, our education and our health to kill people". KPFA's Evening News' report on Saturday featured some of A.N.S.W.E.R.'s Richard Becker's speech. Jonathan Nack (Indybay Media -- link has text and photos) reports on the San Francisco action, "The mobilzation was notable not only for its greater size, which organizers estimated at 5,000, but also for its diversity. The crowd was both younger and more multiracial."
DC was the main focal point in the US. Cuba's Periodico reported that gathering rallied "at Lafayette Park on the north side of the White House. The rally was followed by a march that made stops at Halliburton, the Washington Post, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Veterans Administration. Organizers said it was the largest demonstration to date opposing the Barack Obama administration's decision to expand the war in Afghanistan with tens of thousands more U.S. occupation troops." AP quoted Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan wondering if "the honeymoon was over with that war criminal in the White House," while Ralph Nader felt the only difference demonstrated between Bush and Barack was "Obama's speeches are better." Narayan Lakshman (The Hindu) added, "While the protest drew a smaller crowd than the tens of thousands who marched during the final years of the Bush administration, the ANSWER coalition, the main organiser, said momentum was building due to disenchantment with President Obama's troop surge decision for Afghanistan. Other participating groups included Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out and the National Council of Arab Americans and activists such as Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan." Russia Today offers video of the DC protests. The Times of India quoted Iraq War veteran and Iraq Veterans Against the War member Matthis Chiroux stating, "Obama policies in Iraq and Afghanistan are as criminal as Bush's. The US machine produces war regardless of who is president. We are killing innocents." David Rosenberg (The KPFA Evening News) reported Saturday, "At least eight people, including activist Cindy Sheehan, were arrested by US Park Police at the end of the march after laying coffins at the fence outside the White House." Katherine Shaver (Washington Post) quotes A.N.S.W.E.R.'s Brian Becker stating, "A huge part of the antiwar movement has been focused on the Bush administration and its policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush is gone. Millions of people thought his exit would mean an end to these wars. Instead, after one year of real-life experience, they're far from ending." Also reporting on DC's action is Kosta Harlan (Fight Back!):Military veterans gave a powerful condemnation of the occupation, and two speakers with Military Families Speak Out and Iraq Veterans Against the War ripped their dog tags and badges off of their uniforms and threw them off the stage, in a symbol of their rejection of the immoral, unjust, and criminal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.Many of the protestors were youth and new to the antiwar movement, and are committed to rebuilding a broad movement to force the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq.AP and NBC New York write that the Manhattan protest against the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars today only generated "a few dozen people." I call out the New York leadership in this entry Saturday (and I admit there and here that I was oh so wrong -- that entry was written when a friend and LA peace activist bet me the NYC protest would be miniscule). Good for those who demonstrated. Joan Wile is the author of Grandmothers Against the War. She and Edith Cresmer are members of the Granny Peace Brigade and they wrote the following regarding the NYC action:
On Saturday, March 20, 2010, a beautiful unseasonably warm day, the eighth year of our occupation of Iraq began. Although we are told that officially we are no longer fighting there, that we have pulled back our forces, nevertheless our soldiers continue to die there. And so do many more Iraqis. It is way past time for us to pull out, and yet we remain. Why?
To commemorate the end of our seven years of illegal and immortal attack and occupation of Iraq a compendium of 10 New York City peace groups called the Seven Years Too Many Coalition gathered at the Times Square Recuriting Center to protest the continuation of the war and to call for an end of all wars.
Cheryl Wertz, Exec, Director of Peace Action New York State (PANYS) introduced the speakers -- Councilwoman Gale Brewer, and Vietnam vet Chaplain Hugh Bruce of Veterans for Peace. They discussed some of the terrible effects of war on people at home -- lost jobs, libraries, fire companies, and teachers -- and even worse effects on the people of Iraq and on our G.I.s. Literature was handed out with facts about the terrible results and the absurdity of war.
Demonstrators chanted: What is the cost of War? How Many? and How Much? And answered Too Many, too Many . . . and Too Much, too Much.
Good for all the groups who participated, good for all the individuals. But don't think for a moment that we forget who was silent. That's an NYC action. Where the bulk of Little Media is based. As Elaine pointed out Friday, Little Media wasn't realyl concerned with the Iraq War (forget the kiss ass article you saw at Al Jazeera). As we noted at Third in "Editorial: Barack is killing the left," Saturday morning, NYC Indymedia had nothing on their home page about the demonstration, WBAI didn't have it on the home page or on their monthly calendar. Praise for the Granny Peace Brigade and others who participated but grasp that if the word had gotten out, the number present would have been higher. But 'leaders' weren't interested. Chicago saw action on Saturday. Matt Muchowski (Gapers Block) explains, " On March 17, 2010 over a thousand people rallied at Federal Plaza and marched on Michigan Ave. It came as President Obama is intensifying the war in Afghanistan. The protesters seemed to be mocking Mayor Daley's challenge, 'Where are the anti-war people? They disappeared! They stopped marching!' No, we never did stop marching, even as Daley has continued to antagonize us." CBS reports Chicago activists dyed the Chicago River red and stated, "Most college students can now say that more than one quarter of their lives have been lived while the U.S. has been at war." Melissa Allison (Seattle Times) reports that they gathered "near Westlake Center . . . before marching for an hour through downtown streets." While, according to AP, the people of Raleigh were apathetic as indicated by the lethargic Chris Skidmore who "sipped a drink on the artificial lawn" and stated, "Honestly, with everything that's going on in my personal life, it slipped my mind." AP notes that Albuquerque saw over 100 (local estimates are 120) gathered to protest the continued wars on Saturday. Jake Begun (Badger Herald) reports that Madison, Wisconsin saw 200 gather Saturday for rally and he notes, "Iraq Veterans Against the War Madison Chapter President Todd Dennis said his aim in attending the day's events was to show solidarity with the various groups present and his own friends who have served. The war itself, and veterans' services are lacking, he said. By raising awareness through actions like Saturday's rally and march the issues facing those who fight the country's wars can be better represented." Charles Purnell (Daily Titan) reported on the Los Angeles action and noted Tamara Khoury "was a lead organizer and stage manager at the anti-war protest and peace march. Khoury is also a member of Act Now to Stop War and Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.), the organization that put on the event. Formed September 14, 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, A.N.S.W.E.R. has grown to encompass branches in nearly every major city across the country and has organized some of the largest demonstrations in recent years, including the annual March 20 multi-city marches."
On the protests, Justin Raimondo (Antiwar.com) offers:
Even among those who attended the protests, there were some whose opposition to this administration's foreign policy is squishy at best. The same AP article cites one Shirley Allan of Silver Spring, Md., who "carried a sign that read, "President Obama We love you but we need to tell you! Your hands are getting bloody!! Stop it now."
Ms. Allan's sign says more about her than it does about the issue she purports to address. To confess to loving a political leader whose hands are even a little bit bloody is quite a revealing statement to make, and it just about sums up why the crowd was smaller than on previous occasions. The hate-Bush crowd has quickly morphed into the love-Obama cult of personality, and the so-called progressives have deserted the antiwar movement in droves. Our multiple wars just aren't an issue inside the Democratic party.
On the non-Marxist left, the triumph of the Obama cult is complete. Only the old-fashioned Leninists, such as the main organizers of the ANSWER rallies, have come out in visible opposition to Obama's wars. Even the Marxist left, however, is not immune to Obama-mania: the other major antiwar coalition, United for Peace and Justice, led by veterans of the old Communist Party, USA, issued a euphoric statement upon Obama's election and has been essentially moribund as an active antiwar organization ever since.
It was in this kind of political atmosphere, then – one of near complete political isolation – that rally attendees heard Cindy Sheehan wonder whether "the honeymoon was over with that war criminal in the White House." Sheehan's remark was met, according to AP, with merely "moderate applause." Ms. Allan was not among the applauders:
Many in the media spent the weekend ignoring the anniversary. Bob Schieffer (Face The Nation, CBS News -- link has text and video) didn't, he commented on the anniversary of the start of the Iraq War:Washington has always been a one-story town. And for the last few weeks -- months, really -- the story has been health care reform. It's all we've been talking about. Which is probably one reason a rather important anniversary passed almost without notice: March 19. Ring a bell? Probably not. But March 19 was the seventh anniversary of the Iraq invasion, which began our longest war.
Turning to Iraq where the counting never stops. March 7th, Iraqis completed their voting in Parliamentary elections. Today is March 21st and the votes are still being counted. Rania El Gamal and Khalid al-Ansary (Reuters) report that 95% of the votes have been counted and that the results of the 100% count (unofficial count) would not be publicly revealed until Friday; however, Ayad Allawi's political party is at the top of the seesaw currently. One minute the unofficial count has Allawi in the lead and then, as more votes are counted, the lead switches to Nouri al-Maliki's political party. Then it switches again. At this rate, if the official count is anything like the current count, either political party could become the ruling party depending upon which one is able to enter a power-sharing coalition soonest. Sunday Martin Chulov (Guardian) reported, "Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has invoked the spectre of renewed violence if there is no recount of all ballots cast in the general election as its chaotic aftermath appears to increasingly threaten his grip on power." When in doubt, Nouri always screams violence is coming. Of course, when it actually comes, he's forever caught by surprise. Margaret Coker (Wall St. Journal) reports, "Iraq's electoral commission on Sunday brushed aside increased pressure from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other politicians demanding a recount in the close parliamentary race that could unseat the incumbent leader and other officials who have dominated Iraq's transition to democracy." If you're thinking of Nouri and how he loves to scream violence to get his way, you may be aware of step two: He stages protests. Hannah Allam and Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy's Miami Herald) report that already Nouri's supporters have taken to the streets in Najaf to 'protest.' The two reporters quote political analyst Haider al-Musawi stating, "The situation may well deteriorate into a state not unlike what happened in Iran. This would be catastrophic for the political process. Iraqis have started to believe that their votes could make a difference. If they see their votes turned around, God only knows where that would lead us -- maybe to violence once again."
Ned Parker and Caesar Ahmed (Los Angeles Times) also sought out an analyst, "Kenneth Katzman, an analyst on Iraq for the Congressional Research Service, warned Sunday that Maliki could be building the foundations for a non-democratic regime. 'Especially with this language of defending the constitution, setting themselves up as the protectors of the constitution, that is how authoritarian parties usually justify what they do,' Katzman said. 'It's ominous'." Meanwhile another voice joins Nouri's. Timothy Williams and Zaid Thaker (New York Times) explain Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq, has joined in the cries for recounts -- but then, as he did in July's elections, he's sunk his own political party again and is demanding recounts to shift the focus away from his lousy leadership. Talabani is a Kurd. He got himself into trouble not with charges of corruption (though those exist) but by failing to understand his own people. He called a Kurdish land in Iraq "a dream" that would never come true. When he made that statement, he destroyed his own power-base and his party. The Ahrar Party is also calling for a recount and they issued this statement on Friday:
Iraq election results being fixed - call for election recount
The leader of the Ahrar Freedom Party in Iraq today called for a nationwide recount of the results in the recent General Election held on 7 March.
Ayad Jamal Aldin said, "We have sound evidence of nationwide corruption in the election results presently being declared across Iraq. A large number of smaller parties are being deliberately squeezed out of the election result. Thousands of votes are being stolen and transferred to the larger parties, within the Malaki, Allawi and Hakim camps.
"Our Ahrar Party was polling fourth in a large number of governorates and
regions across Iraq and we have evidence that our, and other parties', votes are being excluded and not declared in the results so far.
"We have no confidence in the fairness and honesty of the election counting process. We call for international observers, including the United Nations and
US Vice President Joe Biden to intervene and support an independently
monitored recount of all the votes cast on 7th March. The people of Iraq are
being cheated out of a fair election result. No one has anything to fear from
a fairly conducted recount but if the present election results are allowed to
go unchallenged, Iraq will descend again into conflict rather than benefiting
from a free and fair electoral process."
For further information, contact:
Ahrar Media Bureau Tel: +964 (0)790 157 4478 / +964 (0)790 157 4479 / +964 (0)771 275 2942 press@ahrarparty.com
About Ayad Jamal Aldin:
Ayad Jamal Aldin is a cleric, best known for his consistent campaigning for a
new, secular Iraq. He first rose to prominence at the Nasiriyah conference in March 2003, shortly before the fall of Saddam, where he called for a state free
of religion, the turban and other theological symbols. In 2005, he was elected
as one of the 25 MPs on the Iraqi National List, but withdrew in 2009 after becoming disenchanted with Iyad Allawi's overtures to Iran. He wants complete independence from Iranian interference in Iraq. He now leads the Ahrar party
for the 2010 election to the Council of Representatives, to clean up corruption
and create a strong, secure and liberated Iraq for the future.
Li Laifang (Xinhua) reminds, "Analysts believe the process of forming a new government
will be tough with much bargaining among blocs and may even take months. The formation of the current government took four months after the December 2005 election." What if the prime minister is neither Allawi nor al-Maliki? It's more than possible. Not only is Ahmed Chalabi said to have arranged for himself to be installed should State of Law prevail in the elections but it's also true that Nouri is a divisive figure. Sami Moubayed (Asia Times) looks at those rumored to be waiting in the wings:If neither Maliki nor Allawi makes it to the premiership, Iraqis will need to search for a prime minister who is acceptable to both parties. Two names that originally surfaced were Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Adel Abdul Mehdi, both members of the Iran-backed Iraqi National Alliance (INA), which is currently placed third in the poll and is likely to win 68 seats. Jaafari was immediately written off by Sunnis, since he failed to bring security to Iraq during his 2005-2006 tenure as prime minister. He was unable to control civil strife after terrorists struck at a holy Shi'ite shrine in February 2006, three months before he was replaced by Maliki. Abdul Mehdi, although acceptable to Iran, is also an unconvincing candidate due, mainly due to objections to him from within the INA. Mehdi's greatest opponents are his own allies, men like Jaafari who have their own eyes on the premiership, or Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who has always seen Mehdi as an Iranian stooge. One compromise candidate is Jaafar al-Sadr, a member of the State of Law Coalition who has excellent relations with both his cousin, Muqtada al-Sadr, and the prime minister. Muqtada has made it clear that he will not support Maliki gaining a second term, saying: "During his years in power, Maliki worked for his own personal benefit, not for the people of Iraq." The count is still preliminary. It is also partial. 95% of the preliminary count is known. Friday, 100% of the vote is supposed to be known. Whether a recount will take place or not is currently up in the air with the election body stating that they will only review charges of fraud and not conduct a recount. That may change as Nouri ramps up the rhetoric. But these are not official results, remember. Turning to official (in that it was reported) violence today . . .
Bombings?
Reuters notes a Baghdad roadside bombing which injured six people and a Kirkuk car bombing which wounded one police officer.
Shootings?
Reuters notes a Baghdad shooting which claimed the lives of 2 police officers, a Baghdad shooting which claimed the lives of 2 Sadr City council members and left one person injured and, dropping back to Sunday, a Baghdad shooting which attacked "the convoy of Muaid al-Lami, the chief of the Iraqi Journalists' Syndicate, and wounded his driver "
The Iraqi wounded get little attention. Do the US wounded get that much more? Not according to US House Rep Bob Filner who appeared this morning on Connect the Dots with Lila Garrett (KPFK) and explained that the government is hiding the number of US wounded in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.
US House Rep Bob Filner: [. . .] in understanding this war, you have to understand the costs both in the material costs and the human costs. Our official statistics for Iraq and Afghanistan is that over 5,000 have been killed, almost 40,000 injured. Now take that 40,000. Compare that with almost a million veterans of this war who have already come to the Veterans Administration hospital seeking care for injuries and conditions suffered in the war. I mean, compare a million versus 40,000. I mean, that's not just a rounding error, that's a deliberate attempt to mislead us on the nature of the war and its cost. And out of that million who have come to the VA, several hundred thousand who have brain injury, several hundred thousand have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and they were not diagnosed before they left the battlefield. And that's a purposeful ommission. If we don't evaluate them, then we don't know. And by the way, Lila, even earlier in the war when they were evaluating people, they deliberately changed the diagnosis from PTSD to what's called Personality Disorder. And a Personality Disorder means that you had this before you entered the armed services and therefore we didn't give it to you and, in fact, we don't even have to take care of you. Now that's a terrible crime perpetrated on these young men and women who have volunteered for service. When they get mental injuries, they're not recognized.
US House Rep Bob Filner is the Chair of the House Veterans Committee. In other news, we'll note this from Debra Sweet's "Two Days Into the 8th Year of the Iraq War: What do we Do Next?" (World Can't Wait):
What are you being asked to give money towards, in this Anti-War Offensive fundraising drive? We have a plan to stop the war - but you are needed.The We Are Not Your Soldiers tour is getting ready to hit schools in Ohio this weekend, with more requests coming in from Seattle, Massachusetts and Connecticut. This tour brings Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to the schools to talk to students about the on-the-ground reality of the wars and the need for students to stop military recruiters.
We want recruiters out now and we want to turn schools into hot spots of resistance, creating a situation where military recruiters are met with daily protest by the students themselves in all areas where they recruit. There is great need and a demand for this from teachers, parents and students. Watch some of the previous presentations:
Coming up soon, March 29th and March 30, Liz, a World Can't Wait activist, and Anthony Wagner, an Iraq War veteran, will be traveling from Chicago to Cleveland, Ohio, where they have been asked by teachers to reach out to 2 schools and at least 200 students. Then, on March 31, they have been asked to travel to Columbus, Ohio to speak in multiple classes to 110 students!
David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which won the CLR James Award. Bacon can be heard on KPFA's The Morning Show (over the airwaves in the Bay Area, streaming online) each Wednesday morning (begins airing at 7:00 am PST). We'll close with this from Bacon's "MARCHING FOR CALIFORNIA'S FUTURE THROUGH TODAY'S DESOLATION" (New American Media):As the March for California's Future heads up the San Joaquin Valley towards Sacramento, participants are coming up hard against the reality of the economic crisis in rural California. The march began in Bakersfield, the day after widespread protests swept through the state's schools and universities on March 4. It is a protest against the impact of state budget cuts on education and social services, and marchers are finding that Valley communities are among those that feel their effects most strongly. "Watsonville has a 27% unemployment rate," says Jenn Laskin, a teacher at Renaissance Continuation High School there. "It's the strawberry capital of the world, and strawberries are a luxury. In a recession, people stop buying them, so workers no longer have a job in the fields. I have many students who have both parents out of work, who grow food in our school garden for their families." But in the Central Valley, she thinks, things seem worse. "The towns we've been passing through feel a lot more desolate," Laskin explains. Those include the small farm worker communities of Shafter, McFarland, Delano, Pixley and Tulare. "I see a lot of fields with nothing planted at all. I was in a Mexican restaurant in Pixley and there was not a Mexican in sight. The problems I see in Watsonville might even be sharper here. I see more need here, and I'm guessing probably fewer services." She's not far off. The official unemployment rate in December in Kern County was 16%. Since Bakersfield, a major urban area, has a lower rate, towns like Shafter and McFarland have even more jobless. Crossing into Kings and Tulare Counties, unemployment jumps to over 17% in each.
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