  Once you’ve seen the face of god, You see that same face on everyone you meet. The true god has no face. The true Tao has no name. But we cannot identity with that until we are of a very high level of insight. Until then, the gods with faces and the Tao with names are still more worthy of veneration and study than the illusions of the world. With long and sincere training, it is possible to see the face of god. Holiness s not about scientific objectivity. It is about a deep and clear recognition of the true nature of life. Your attitude toward your god will be different than anyone else’s god—divinity is a reflection of your own understanding. If your experience differs from others, that does not invalidate your sense of godliness. You will have no doubts after you have seen. Knowing god is the source of compassion in our lives. We realize that our separation from others is artificial. We are neither separate from other people nor from Tao. It is only our own egotism that leads us to define ourselves as individuals. In fact, a direct experience of god is a direct experience of the utter universality of life. If we allow it to change our way of thinking, we will understand our essential oneness with all things. How does god look? Once you see god, you will see that same face on every person you meet. compassion 365 Tao Daily Meditations Deng Ming-Dao ISBN 0-06-250223-9
a reading list of books and interpretations of the Daodejing is available at http://www.duckdaotsu.org/dao_books.html for a meditation sent to your email address each day, please write ’subscribe tao’ in the subject line and send to lisbeth at duckdaotsu |
Saturday
dao compassion
Friday
JEREMY HINZMAN LEADS WAY FOR U.S. WAR RESISTERS IN CANADA
JEREMY HINZMAN LEADS WAY
FOR U.S. WAR RESISTERS IN CANADA
Initial Denial of Refugee Status Only a Bump in the Road
by Gerry Condon
Five days a week, Jeremy Hinzman, a native of South Dakota, doggedly rides his bicycle through the snow-laden streets of Toronto (now thawing). Since receiving his Canadian work permit, he has been employed as a bicycle messenger, a job he had “been wanting to try for eons.” Jeremy is 26 and in excellent shape. He is a long distance runner and has run a couple of marathons since he arrived in Canada in January 2004. Nonetheless, he admits to being exhausted when he arrives home from work. “It’s a good thing I started this job at the most difficult time of year,” he says. “It can only get easier from here.”
This philosophical attitude and the stamina of a long distance runner have served Jeremy well ever since August 2, 2002, when, as a soldier in the U.S. Army, he asked to be classified as a Conscientious Objector
and reassigned to a non-combat job.
It takes a lot of fortitude for a soldier to declare himself a Conscientious Objector. Although military law makes provisions for soldiers who decide they are pacifists, many soldiers are not informed of this option. Pursuing Conscientious Objector status is frowned upon, especially in a gung-ho unit like Jeremy’s – the 82nd Airborne. “C.O.” applicants are called coward and traitors. Some have even been physically and sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers.
But Jeremy had the right stuff. He had a profound commitment to seek spiritual direction in his life. And he had the courage to follow his conscience, wherever it led him. He had converted to Catholicism in high school. Even while in Army training, he was reading about the Buddhist philosophy of living. On Sundays, Jeremy and his wife attended the Quaker meeting in Fayetteville, North Carolina, next to Fort Bragg, the “Home of the Airborne.” They enjoyed the weekly group meditations and were inspired by the pacifist message of the Quakers. Jeremy, an active duty airborne troop in a time of war, came to realize that he could not in good conscience carry a weapon or kill another human being.
Despite this epiphany, Jeremy did not want to break his contract with the military. Motivated largely by his desire for higher education, he had enlisted for a 3-year tour in the Army. Most Conscientious Objectors seek to be discharged from the military. But even though he harbored doubts about the wars the U.S. was waging in Afghanistan and Iraq, Jeremy was nonetheless willing to go to war in a non-combat capacity. After all, the vast majority of military occupations do not require one to be personally involved in killing. He could be a cook, an administrative assistant, a mechanic, maybe even a medic.
The Army would have done itself a big favor if it had acknowledged Jeremy’s sincerity and granted him duty that he found compatible with his moral beliefs. But that’s not the way the Army works. On Halloween 2002, Jeremy was informed that the Conscientious Objector application he had submitted three months earlier had been “lost.” He was then ordered to ship to Afghanistan. Jeremy was dismayed but he obeyed. He shipped with his unit to Afghanistan on December 7, 2002. Before doing so, however, he resubmitted paperwork asking that he be recognized as a Conscientious Objector and assigned to appropriate non-combat duties.
Jeremy’s C.O. “hearing” in Afghanistan
Six months later at an isolated U.S. Army base in the middle of hostile Afghan territory, Private Jeremy Hinzman’s “C.O.” hearing took place. Military law requires that Conscientious Objector claimants be given non-combat duty while awaiting a decision on their claim. For six months Jeremy had been working in the kitchen, 7 days a week, 14 hours a day.
The C.O. hearing officer asked Jeremy a frequently used trick question regarding self-defense. Usually it goes like this: “If your wife and child were being assaulted by bloodthirsty rapists, would you defend them?” But Jeremy was asked about the family of fellow soldiers with whom he ate, slept, worked and played. You can’t let your buddies down, you know…. “If this base is attacked by Taliban terrorists, will you or won’t you pick up a gun to defend your fellow soldiers?” Jeremy said that he would – that he saw self-defense as very different from planning and executing aggressive military actions. “Gotcha!” the Army officer must have thought, pleased that his ploy had worked. “You are not a Conscientious Objector.”
It has been clearly established in Conscientious Objector law that self-defense is different than war, and that Conscientious Objectors have as much right to defend themselves as anybody else. Yet U.S. military officers often use this line of questioning to sabotage the claims of soldiers seeking this status. Sending a C.O. applicant to an isolated war zone and asking whether he would defend his buddies was grossly manipulative and clearly unfair.
Jeremy saw the writing on the wall. The negative recommendation of the hearing officer deterred him from further pursuing his C.O. claim. Instead he obeyed orders to resume guard duty. Today he wishes he had done otherwise. “My only regret is that I didn’t just take off my uniform and refuse all orders.”
Jeremy’s tour of duty in Afghanistan ended in July 16, 2003. He and his 82nd Airborne unit returned to Fort Bragg. Shortly afterwards, he discovered that his initial C.O. application remained in his Army personnel file, and had not been “lost” at all. The Army had lied to him before sending him to a war zone.
Moral Dilemma: Iraq or Canada?
Jeremy’s doubts about the morality of the war in Iraq were fueled by reports from the grisly battlefield. He heard that thousands of civilians – men, women and children – had died in the fighting. His concerns came to a head in December 2003 when the 82nd Airborne was ordered to Iraq. They were to leave right after the Christmas holidays.
A momentous moral decision faced Jeremy and his wife, Nga, a Vietnamese-American social worker whose family was resettled in South Dakota after the U.S. military withdrawal from Vietnam. Jeremy and Nga decided to head for Canada, where, in the 1960’s and 70’s, tens of thousands of U.S. draft resisters and deserters had found a welcome alternative to going to Vietnam or going to jail. In the first week of January 2004, they packed their 1-year-old son, Liam, and a few belongings into their compact car and headed north.
But Canadian immigration rules had tightened greatly since the Vietnam War. It was no longer possible to come to Canada as a visitor and apply for “landed immigrant status.” And it was no longer possible to show up at the Canadian border with a job offer and be immigrated within the hour. Canadian law now requires would-be immigrants to apply from outside Canada, to have needed job skills and/or a substantial bank account, and to wait up to two years or more for a decision. Clearly, this is not an option for a soldier on the run.
Jeremy is first U.S. war resister to seek refugee status in Canada
So Jeremy Hinzman became the first U.S. war resister ever to apply for political refugee status in Canada. Nobody from the U.S. has ever been granted refugee status in Canada, a close ally of the U.S. and its largest trading partner. Nonetheless, other GI’s morally opposed to the U.S. war in Iraq are following Jeremy’s lead.
Two months later, in March 2004, Brandon Hughey, 18, an Army tank driver from west Texas, arrived in Toronto. In May 2004, David Sanders, 19, a U.S. Navy cryptologist from Arizona, surfaced in Canada. Dan Felushko, a U.S. Marine with dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship, simply moved home to Toronto with his Canadian wife. Media reports of their presence in Canada and growing disenchantment with the U.S. war in Iraq are leading other GI’s to follow suit.
Recent arrivals to Canada include U.S. Army Specialist Clifford Cornell, 24, from Arkansas, and U.S. Army Specialist Darrell Anderson, 22, from Kentucky. Anderson, who already fought in the Iraq war, was injured and awarded a Purple Heart. But he did not want to return to Iraq where he might kill innocent civilians for “oil and money.” Another veteran of the U.S. war in Iraq, U.S. Army Specialist Joshua Key of Oklahoma, recently arrived in Toronto with his wife and four children, ages 8 months to 7 years. A large color photo of the entire family graced the front page of the Toronto Star newspaper on the same day that Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin was meeting President Bush at his Texas ranch. Dozens of AWOL GI’s are rumored to be laying low in several Canadian cities, even as some of their fellow soldiers are going to jail rather than to Iraq (see www.SoldierSayNo.org). According to the Pentagon, 6,000 U.S. soldiers are currently listed as “deserters,” having been AWOL for at least 30 days.
Jeremy Hinzman and all of these young war resisters are being represented by Jeffry House, a prominent Toronto lawyer who himself came to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft. Well over 50,000 young Americans did the same. 30,000 of them are now Canadian citizens, some of them quite prominent, with 10,000 estimated to be in the greater Toronto area. GI’s and family members interested in the “Canada option” frequently contact Jeffry House by email at jeffryhouse@hotmail.com, or at his Toronto office number, 416-926-9402 x152. He advises them that if they come to Canada and apply for refugee status, either internally or at the border, they will automatically receive the protections of Canadian refugee law until their claim can be heard, which could take up to a year.
“But coming to Canada is a serious decision,” says House. “People must be prepared for an extended period of uncertainty.” Before making that decision, they should seek advice in the U.S. GI’s who want out of the military have a number of options about which the military command prefers they remain ignorant. The GI Rights Hotline in the U.S., at 1-800-394-9544, is providing valuable counseling to thousands of soldiers and their families. Jeffry House believes that AWOL soldiers already in Canada but “under the radar screen” would be well advised to seek legal representation and apply for refugee status.
Canada’s Refugee Board Rules Against Jeremy Hinzman
Jeffry House is convinced that Jeremy Hinzman has a strong case for refugee status and should eventually be granted it. He cites the Geneva Conventions on War and the Nuremberg Principles, which maintain that it is a soldier’s obligation to disobey illegal orders or to participate in war crimes. The U.S. war on Iraq, being neither defensive nor approved by the U.N, is illegal. Therefore, orders to fight in Iraq are illegal. Soldiers who refuse these illegal orders are obeying international law and U.S. law too, since the U.S. Congress has ratified these international laws and treaties.
House also provided Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board with reams of documentation confirming that the U.S. military has engaged in a widespread pattern of systematic war crimes in Iraq. “If Jeremy Hinzman had gone to Iraq, he would likely have been put in a position of committing or supporting the commission of war crimes.”
After several delays, Jeremy Hinzman’s hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board took place in early December 2004. It went on for three full days and was attended by reporters from around the world. Ominously, the Canadian government intervened in the hearing, arguing that the issue of the legality of the U.S. war should have no bearing on the Refugee Board’s decision. Brian Goodman, the hearing officer, took his cue from the government and allowed no arguments on the legality of the war.
The Immigration and Refugee Board did hear much testimony, however, on U.S. war crimes in Iraq. Former U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey gave dramatic firsthand accounts of the reckless killing of civilians in Iraq. His testimony received worldwide coverage. So did the sobering words of his wife, Jackie Massey, about the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) that her husband brought home from Iraq. “He has terrible nightmares every night,” she said. “I can look at him in the morning and know what kind of day we are going to have.”
But on March 24 of this year, Goodman ruled against Jeremy Hinzman, asserting that he does not fit the definition of a refugee facing persecution for his beliefs. “This is a big mistake,” says Jeffry House. “There is no way that the legality of the war is not relevant. In fact, it is the central, key factor to be considered.” He cites the UN Handbook on Refugees, which specifically states that soldiers who refuse to participate in wars that are widely condemned by the international community should be considered as refugees.
House and Hinzman are now appealing this decision to Canada’s federal courts. “If the Court will give us a hearing,” says House, “it will likely rule in Jeremy’s favor.” Several more months will pass before the Court will decide to hear the appeal. A legal decision on the appeal might come by the end of the year.
Did a soldier from Saddam’s army pave the way for U.S. war resisters?
There are some fascinating precedents in Jeremy Hinzman’s favor. Soldiers from the armies of both Iraq and Iran have been granted refugee status in Canada. One, a Yemeni citizen serving in the Iraqi Army, had refused to participate in Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. The Iranian soldier had refused to be a party to chemical warfare. Significantly, both men were at first denied refugee status by the Immigration and Refugee Board, only to have the decisions reversed in federal court.
Will Canada’s “broken” refugee system accommodate U.S. war resisters?
Canadians of all political persuasions are concerned about the huge backlog of political refugee claimants from around the world, many of whom are thought to be economic refugees. They worry about arbitrary decisions by the political appointees on the Immigration and Refugee Board. Many consider the refugee system to be “broken,” and debate rages in the Canadian media about how best to fix it. Understandably, some Canadians don’t believe it will help matters to add U.S. military deserters into the refugee mix. But most Canadians do not want to send these young soldiers-of-conscience to prison in the U.S. That is not the Canadian way.
Canadians support war resisters
In the meantime, Jeremy Hinzman and his fellow war resisters are receiving widespread support from Canadians, most of whom strongly oppose the U.S. war in Iraq. The Canadian government spurned George Bush’s call to become part of the “coalition of the willing,” and send its troops to Iraq. Canada did, however, send soldiers to Afghanistan, and recently announced they will double the current level to 11,000 “peacekeepers.”
Prominent Canadians and sympathetic organizations have formed the War Resister Support Campaign, and thousands of Canadians have signed their online petition (see www.resisters.ca). The petition calls on the Canadian government to provide a sanctuary for U.S. war resisters, whether or not they are granted political refugee status.
Influential Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom recently opined that Canada should make a special provision for U.S. war resisters to become Canadian immigrants. “We do it for nannies,” he says. Childcare workers are welcomed into the Canadian workforce and given three years to show they are self-supporting and staying out of trouble. Then they are allowed to immigrate.
“Couldn’t we do as much for those who don’t want to kill,” says Lee Zaslofsky of the War Resister Support Campaign. Zaslofsky, who describes himself as a “proud Canadian,” is a former U.S. soldier who refused to fight in Vietnam. Remembering those days, he declares, “It's time for the Canadian government to renew[former Canadian Prime Minister] Pierre Trudeau's pledge to make Canada a "refuge from militarism."
U.S. - Canadian Tensions Complicate War Resister Decision
Whether and how Canada will once again become a “refuge from militarism” is viewed in the context of many U.S.-Canadian tensions. Canadians are upset over the U.S. ban on the importation of Canadian softwood lumber and beef. The Bush administration has expressed concern over Prime Minister Paul Martin’s proposals to legalize gay marriage and decriminalize marijuana. U.S. war resisters in Canada are already enjoying the free, universal healthcare that is anathema to Washington.
With a possible national election looming as early as June, Prime Minister Paul Martin’s minority Liberal government recently decided not to participate in George Bush’s “missile defense shield.” This was a popular decision in Canada, but it angered the White House, which had been pushing hard for Canadian political endorsement of its plans to militarize space. Some Canadian officials worry that giving a green light to U.S. war resisters may further antagonize the “elephant” next door.
A victory for Jeremy would certainly be an important precedent — the first time a U.S. war resister, or anyone from the U.S., for that matter, would be granted refugee status in Canada. Even so, the refugee claims of other U.S. soldiers will continue to be heard on a case-by-case basis. If U.S. soldiers keep coming, however, the Canadian government may find it expedient to look for a collective solution, as they have previously done with other groups of refugees. The Canadian government could follow Sweden’s example, which granted Vietnam-era deserters humanitarian asylum based on “special circumstances.” There is also a precedent for allowing failed refugee claimants to immigrate to Canada for “humanitarian and compassionate reasons” once they have established themselves in Canada.
Jeremy and the War Resisters: Still in Canada
Jeremy Hinzman is spending another day pushing the pedals of his bicycle through the busy streets of Toronto. When he comes home to Nga and Liam, he is too tired to worry about his situation. He has given scores of interviews to U.S., Canadian and international media, but he tries not to get caught up in all the fuss. On Sundays, he and his family attend the Toronto Quaker Meeting. Jeremy and Nga frequently socialize with their many friends. It seems as if they have lived in Toronto forever. Liam is working his way through the “terrible two’s,” and hoping for another ride on the back of Jeremy’s bike.
“We’ve got a life here,” says Jeremy, without any second thoughts, “and a good one too.” Because he had the courage to follow his conscience, Jeremy and his family have found a new home in Canada. Whether it will be a temporary home or a permanent one may not be known for months, even years. But his Canadian supporters are upbeat and optimistic. “We have a long way to go,” says Lee Zaslofsky. “But we're confident that Canada will not become an enforcement arm of the Pentagon. These war resisters will be staying in Canada as long as they wish.”
The War Resister Support Campaign believes the Refugee Board decision was just the first step in a long struggle. It’s a good thing Jeremy is a long distance runner. He is likely to win in the end. Some would argue he already has.
__________________Gerry Condon deserted from the U.S. Army in 1969 after refusing to fight in Vietnam. He lived for 3 years in Sweden and 3 years in Canada, before returning to the U.S. in 1975 as part of the campaign for amnesty for all war resisters. Although an Army court martial had sentenced him to 10 years in prison, he never spent a day in jail. He now serves as director of Project Safe Haven, and can be reached at projectsafehaven@hotmail.com or through the website, www.SoldierSayNo.org.
© DUCKDAOTSU MEDIA
dao readiness
  A knife keeps its edge Only with honing and proper cutting. A warrior's virtue is readiness. A sage's virtue is awareness. This life is so competitive and challenging that one must remain in constant readiness for the problems and conflicts that come with each day. That is why followers of Tao meld the way of the warrior and the sage. They want the courage and preparedness of the fighter, the luminous perception of the wise. Each day, they dedicate themselves to maintaining their characters and perpetuating their development. But how does one maintain one’s edge without blunting? There is a fable about a king who was watching his butcher. He was amazed that the man could dismember a whole ox without much effort and without dulling his knife. Seeking to learn, the king questioned his servant, who said that his secret was to insert his knife only in the spaces between muscles, thus parting the body along its natural lines. In this way, where an ordinary butcher had to grind his blade daily, he only had to sharpen his knife once a year. From this we can learn that we must first hone ourselves to a sharp edge, but the proper use of our talents is equally essential. We must remember to take action along the basic lines and seams of the day. If we do this, we can never be opposed for long. readiness 365 Tao Daily Meditations Deng Ming-Dao ISBN 0-06-250223-9
a reading list of books and interpretations of the Daodejing is available at http://www.duckdaotsu.org/dao_books.html for a meditation sent to your email address each day, please write ’subscribe tao’ in the subject line and send to lisbeth at duckdaotsu |
Thursday
“I am not going to be silenced”
Military resister Carl Webb speaks out:
“I am not going to be silenced”
THE FIRST time I went into the military was 1982. That was the U.S. Army Reserves. I had dropped out of high school. I only made it to 11th grade, and my mom said find a job, move out or go back to school. I didn’t have much luck in the employment area, and I didn’t want to go back to school. I managed to run into Army recruiters, and that was the option I took.
“I am not going to be silenced”
April 15, 2005
CARL WEBB is one of a group of military service members who have said no to George Bush’s war for oil and empire--and refused to be deployed to Iraq. Last month, he talked to Socialist Worker’s CINDY BERINGER about his decision and the struggle of the military resisters.
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WHY DID you sign up with the military in the first place?
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My first overseas tour was in 1984 when I was in the regular army. That was in Korea, and I came back to the states in 1985 and stayed in Kentucky for three years. Then I got out in 1988 and got married. That didn’t work out and I had some family economic troubles, so I went back in that same year and went to Germany. I was in Germany from l988-1990. I was actually there when the Berlin Wall came down.
WHILE YOU were in, did you witness things that might have predicted the direction the U.S. military has taken now?
DEFINITELY. THE second time I was in the regular Army, the recruitment effort was toward recruiting linguists. Farsi was at the top of the list--what they speak in Iran. Arabic was number two. The top languages were indigenous to the Middle East, so I guess they figured that’s where the next wars would be.
After I did my tour in Korea in 1984-85, I was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the home of the 101st Airborne, which was part of the Iraq Deployment Force. They were doing their training tours in the Sinai Peninsula in Eqypt.
Until I joined the Army, I had read a little bit, but until you are actually serving, you have no idea how many bases and how many troops that we have overseas. At any given time, almost one-third of the military was overseas. That’s definitely a global empire.
I signed up with the National Guard in August 2001, one month prior to 9/11. It was an okay three years. I was in a medical unit; they even sent me to EMT school. I rode around on the ambulance in Austin. Everything was okay until July 2004. I had done my last summer training at Fort Hood, and the next month would have been my last month of drill--my last weekend in the Texas Army National Guard.
Then I got this phone call. The sergeant said, “Hi, I’ve got some bad news. You’re being called up to go to Iraq.” I thought my unit had been activated, but I had been called up under the stop-loss program. Along with a few other people, I would be loaned out to another unit.
There’s always a possibility that the unit could be activated, so that’s why I was so relieved that it hadn’t been activated for three years. I was in total shock when I got the call. The first day I was in disbelief. I kept telling myself that maybe they made a mistake--maybe someone hit the wrong key on the computer, and maybe they didn’t realize that I had only one drill left.
So I went to the unit, and they told me that there had been no mistake. I immediately came home, got on the computer and sent out distress calls to Austin Against War, the local antiwar group. I talked for hours with my friend about what my options were.
Of course, in Texas, the first thing that jumps into your head, rather than going to Canada, is just drive a few hours to Mexico. It sounded kind of romantic, at first. But when you actually look into the realities of it, the potential of permanent exile was more than likely, and the idea that I would never see my family again popped into my head.
I’m not the average young soldier of 17. I’m 39. I think it was more than a decade before amnesty was given to Vietnam vets who went to Canada. I’d be like 50. My mother is 75. That just wasn’t an option for a person my age.
I didn’t know how I would survive in a foreign country living underground. At least during the Vietnam War, Canada was actually willing to accept draft dodgers. This is a different time, and Canada is like the junior partner in crime to the U.S. They have said that they aren’t going to willy-nilly accept people evading military service.
DID YOU ever consider going to Iraq?
AT SOME point, I probably considered it for about maybe 10 seconds. I even had some people in Austin Against War who said that I might as well go, because I’m a medic, and I wouldn’t be running around with a gun. I reminded him that all medics carry a gun, and that in Saving Private Ryan, the medic dies. The enemy doesn’t really make a distinction between who’s a computer operator or a soldier. They just start shooting.
Relative to combat forces, I would be a little bit more safe, but not safe enough for me. I never had any intention of going to Iraq and participating in this atrocity.
There’s also the issue that I consider even serving as a medic to be aiding and abetting the war machine. I tell people, “Put yourself in the shoes of someone in the German army during World War Two or the Confederate Army during the Civil War.” Even though you’re not a combatant, you’re part of the war machine. I’m not willing to be a part of the war machine in any way.
Via Austin Against War, I talked to someone with Nonmilitary Options for Youth and a lawyer with the National Lawyers Guild. I also did a lot of research on the Internet.
I considered applying for conscientious objector status, but I came to realize that the process wasn’t going to work for me. There are plenty of stringent criteria for granting CO status. I didn’t see how I could pass. So I chose the last option, which was just to refuse to go--and tell them, “You can either kick me out or throw me in jail.” I’d rather do a few years in jail than a few years in Iraq.
I didn’t tell them anything because they wouldn’t have let me leave the base. I was supposed to report to the Guard, and they would drive me up to my new unit. I packed my bags, announced that I was having a big going-away party, without announcing my intentions. On the day I was supposed to report, I got on the bus and left.
WHAT HAS the military’s response been?
THEORETICALLY, AFTER 24 hours missing, the military is supposed to consider you AWOL--absent without leave. In a certain amount of time--say a week--when they realize you’re obviously not coming back, they’re supposed to drop you from the roster and move your status from AWOL to desertion. Then they report you to the local authorities, who will arrest you.
So I left with the intention of waiting a week or so and then calling Fort Knox, which is one of the bases where a soldier can voluntarily turn himself back to the military. There’s actually a 1-800 number for a deserter’s hot line.
I kept calling that number and telling them I wanted to turn myself in. I asked them to check to see if my unit has dropped me from its rolls. I’ve called several times, but they still have no record of any kind of paperwork from my unit. They tell me to keep checking, keep checking--maybe the paperwork got lost.
I got an e-mail from a captain at Fort Hood that says, “You have officially been dropped from the rolls at Fort Hood; you should contact an attorney.” He even gave me the phone number to the trial defense service at Fort Hood. I thought I had finally got some closure. But when I called Fort Knox again, I got the same answer--no record of your existence.
That is still the case. A German television producer who is doing a documentary on U.S. deserters confronted my battalion commander at a NATO ceremony and asked about me. My commander said that I would be taken care of--that I would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
He also said that of 3,000 soldiers from Texas, I was the only one who didn’t show up. Evidently, he was just talking. I’ve talked to a lot of organizations like the GI [Rights] Hotline and Iraq Veterans Against War, and they say that 5,000 to 8,000 people aren’t showing up.
The Army just doesn’t have the resources to deal with them. And they’re also afraid of the publicity. A couple of shows like 20-20 and 60 Minutes have done shows on the stop-loss program.
THERE HAVE been some lawsuits filed against the stop-loss program. Do you think they’ll make a difference in your case?
I THINK all of the cases like that have lost. People are going to continue to take these cases to court, because they’re all good cases constitutionally, but they’ve all lost.
The people I’ve talked to think the military is doing their best to avoid any more bad publicity. So they’re not cracking down as hard as you would think because they know that people will continue to file suits, get lawyers and talk to the press. And they just don’t have the manpower, because they’re sending all their MPs to Iraq.
So I really think that in this particular aspect--when it comes to the media--the antiwar movement has the upper hand, because the government is obviously trying to avoid this publicity. It makes them look pretty bad.
The last thing I saw was on 60 Minutes. There was this woman who was 50 years old who had been called back up. She was 5 foot 1, and the machine gun she had to carry was bigger than she was. It hasn’t been covered that much, but there has been some media coverage of 50 year old men who are over there, having heart attacks. They got called back up, and they’re out there in 130 degrees, with heavy backpacks and guns.
The military really stepped in it this time--they put themselves between a rock and a hard place, no pun intended. They don’t want to institute a draft because they’re afraid of the reaction, so they’re keeping all the old soldiers in. It’s actually going to backfire on them; it already has.
IF YOU had called the hotline and found you had been dropped, what were you going to do next?
I WAS going to get a bus, go down and turn myself in, and request a discharge. At that time, they could decide to give me a bad-conduct discharge. That’s what they’ve been doing in most of the cases. There is the possibility that they could be really, really vindictive and want to make an example of me--as they have of some soldiers--and court-martial me and send me to jail.
But I’m in a state of limbo right now. According to Fort Knox, I don’t even exist. This has been going on since last August. That’s fine with me. I don’t like it, but I’m not going to put myself in the position where the government can tell me what to do.
I’m not going to go to Iraq. I will continue to speak out in the media as long as I can. I’m not going to be silenced because of the fear that they would be more vindictive If I’m so vocal.
WHAT DO you think the antiwar movement should do to support resisters like you?
I THINK the most important part of activism right now is outreach. I’ve always been a proponent of working with the media. This is really a battle for the hearts and minds of the nation, and the best way to keep the movement afloat and moving forward is to get as much media attention as possible.
Groups and people like you who are actually putting the news out there are what will actually build the movement. It’s going to take greater numbers. Before the war, on February 15, we had 10,000 people at the Austin state capitol. We’re going to need more marches like that, with more people.
I know that I’m inspired when I pick up any sort of alternative press, and someone is speaking out. It motivates me to do the same. So that’s what I’m trying to do. I want other soldiers out there to know that they don’t have to be silent--they don’t have to be depressed. I want them to know that they can resist.
I think the biggest part the antiwar movement can play in the struggle is keeping the resistance out there, so that more people know about it. This is what groups such as Texans for Peace, Nonmilitary Options for Youth and the International Socialist Organization, that I met while in Austin, are doing.
THE UNMAKING OF A WARRIOR
THE UNMAKING OF A WARRIOR
Navy sailor Pablo Paredes didn’t just walk away from the war.
He publicly denounced it, and now finds himself in another kind of battle
~ By DAVID ROLLAND ~
Seated in a taqueria in San Diego’s Logan Heights neighborhood, clad in jeans, a T-shirt, and a denim jacket, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Pablo Paredes doesn’t seem like he’s sitting in the center of a national firestorm over military service in Iraq. The 23-year-old sailor fidgets as he talks, frequently cocking the brim of his baseball cap from side to side, but he’s otherwise unguarded, well-spoken, exuding an air of competence. Even though he’s facing a possible court-martial and is technically restricted by a kind of military detention – what the Navy calls “disciplinary legal hold” – he manages to crack a smile when he talks about being savaged by some of his more famous critics, including none other than super-patriot and convicted felon Oliver North.
In a Washington Times commentary, North contrasted Paredes’s story with the tale of 25-year-old Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta, who, on November 15, threw his mortally wounded body onto a live grenade in a house in Fallujah, Iraq, reportedly saving the lives of several fellow Marines. North wrote: “Sgt. Rafael Peralta was the polar opposite of Pablo Paredes, the petty officer who turned his back on his shipmates and mocked his commander in chief.”
Paredes laughs. “Yeah, Oliver North – I love that. The Iran-Contra-scandal jerk himself is talking about humanity and righteousness and honor. Oliver North – beautiful!”
But North isn’t the only one who fails to see the humor in Paredes’s story. On the morning of December 6, 2004, Paredes turned up on the docks at the 32nd Street Naval Station in San Diego for the planned deployment of his ship, the U.S.S. Bonhomme Richard, which was carrying 2,000-plus Marines to the Persian Gulf. As the others queued up were getting last tearful hugs and kissing their children, however, Paredes came with TV news cameras in tow. Wearing a T-shirt that read, “Like a cabinet member, I resign,” he stood with his ship in the background and declared his objections to the U.S. military action in Iraq, saying he was refusing to board.
Resistance to the war by active military personnel is certainly nothing new, and in fact has been on the rise as the conflict in Iraq drags on. According to CBS News, the Pentagon has reported over 5,500 deserters since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq, many of whom reject the war on the grounds that there’s no connection between the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein. The military, nonetheless, is aggressively prosecuting: On April 8, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a soldier’s challenge to the military’s “stop-loss” policy, saying that Oregon National Guardsman Sgt. Emiliano Santiago was required to go to Afghanistan despite the fact that he has completed his eight-year enlistment. On March 28, a U.S. military court in Germany convicted Army mechanic Blake Lemoine of “willfully disobeying orders” by refusing to carry out duties because of religious beliefs after a year in Iraq. The number of such cases continues to mount.
But the way that Paredes did it – turning his objections into a full-blown media event – set many in the community, and in the military, spoiling for a fight. By making a show of it, he’d made himself a hero and target.
“Our group came together as an extension of peace movement work,” says Larry Christian with the San Diego Military Counseling Project, a group unaffiliated with the military that helped Paredes find legal counsel and file for conscientious objector status. “So what helps the peace movement helps us. So when someone does speak out in such a public way, we believe it helps all of us.”
The Green Party wrote an open letter in support of Parades, and organized an April 4 appearance in San Diego with Ralph Nader. On April 8, Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin made an appearance with Paredes in San Diego to help raise funds for his defense.
Critics, however, immediately attacked him, saying he surely hadn’t thought out the consequences of his action either for himself or for his shipmates. An open letter to Paredes from Citizen SMASH of the blog The Indepundit cried he’d made no impact on stopping the war, but added, “You did, however, manage to fuck up your own future.”
But Paredes had thought it out. What he did on December 6 was the culmination of a couple years’ worth of personal transformation and intellectual development and a couple weeks’ worth of agony over a decision that would change his life forever.
“Pablo’s a really bright, thoughtful guy. He knew going in that he was inviting a lot of attention, that he would be in the spotlight,” says Christian. “And he knew there would be some consequences.”
He wasn’t arrested that day – Paredes suspects the TV cameras had something to do with that – but soon thereafter, the Navy quietly declared him a fugitive. He subsequently turned himself in, and so he currently spends from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. every day (with time off for lunch) in a kind of loose house arrest, just like dozens of other wayward sailors, killing time, reading books, and awaiting his fate.
On March 25, the Navy would officially charge Paredes with being absent without leave and missing movement, charges for which he may face court-martial May 11. The potential consequences are unclear. In a best-case scenario, the judge could accept his filing for an “other than honorable” discharge in lieu of court-martial, and the whole thing would be over. In the worst, he could get a reduction in rank, loss of pay, one year in the brig, and an “other than honorable” or “bad conduct” discharge. That would give him a misdemeanor on his criminal record, which would dog him for the rest of his life.
Worse, however, might be the eternal scorn of his countrymen. The letter on The Indepundit drew tons of responses, most of them heaping coals on Paredes’s head. And the writers pulled no punches, reminding that sometimes the penalty for desertion is death.
“I guess he just wanted his 15 minutes of fame, but it will leave him with a life full of shame,” wrote one correspondent. “Hopefully nobody will have to pay the ultimate price for this fool’s cowardice and selfishness.”
“This guy is the biggest coward I’ve ever heard of,” wrote another. “He might want to think he’s a hero, but in reality, he’s just another piece of garbage who won’t honor a contract that he signed.”
A third made it more plain: “Pablo should be shot – and I’m up for the job.”
A Bronx boy’s tale
Five years ago, Paredes had never heard of Ollie North. He didn’t know the U.S. military had recently been involved in conflicts in Somalia and Kosovo. Hell, he said, “at that point, I couldn’t place none of those places on the map. I couldn’t tell you anything about foreign policy. I mean, I was completely indifferent to politics … . I could tell you my president and vice president, and was impressed that I could do that.”He smiles and chuckles a lot as he details his journey from the Bronx, New York neighborhood where he grew up, through an eye-opening, two-and-a-half-year Navy stint in Japan, and smack into the transformation that turned him into a peace activist who’d rather go to jail than support the war in Iraq.
Son to Ecuadorian father Victor Paredes Sr., a cab driver, and Puerto Rican mother Milagros Paredes, a government secretary, and younger brother to Victor Paredes Jr., who works in Latino-oriented advertising, Pablo Paredes was a typical lower-middle-class Bronx kid. “You know,” he says, “I was into hip-hop, dancin’, basketball.”
He performed in community musical theater as a hobby, acting and singing in productions such as Oklahoma, The Pajama Game, and Godspell. He had aspirations of college. ‹
His dad took a job driving a truck to make more money than he’d been pulling in driving a cab to help send his youngest son to a university, but a forklift accident left him without the use of his legs, and the family was suddenly in dire financial straits. It “put us into an even worse economic situation because there was no income coming from his side,” Paredes says. “There was a lawsuit, but it took about six years before that actually panned out, and then all he really got was his medical expenses paid back. You know, sometimes it works out that way – McDonald’s hot coffee will get you a million dollars, but negligence on the forklift operator that ruins your life will get you medical expenses.”
Paredes landed at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, a liberal-arts school in Riverdale, New York, working two part-time jobs when not attending classes. But money became tight, and he found himself reassessing his options. “I either had to get a third job or let the college thing go,” he says.
Like most economically disadvantaged teens across the country, Paredes had been approached by military recruiters “three or four times,” and some high school classmates had joined the Navy, “so that sounded like the way to go.” The plan was to learn computer technology and grab some college money, but “four and a half years later, I don’t know anything about computers,” he says.
Culture shock
Though Paredes claims he hasn’t picked up much in the way of marketable skills during his time in the Navy, it hasn’t exactly been a waste of time, either. Far from it.The first turning point in Paredes’s adult life came in Japan, where, accompanied by his young wife Vania, he was stationed for more than two years until last March. The way he tells the story, Paredes underwent a metamorphosis in the Far East which sowed the seeds of his discontent with the U.S. military.
His first shock was cultural. In Japan, he was immediately confronted by a different way to live and comport oneself than he was accustomed to in the Bronx. His perception of Japan was a whole society of people who were courteous, honest, and determined to succeed. “Everyone expects everyone to do great, and doing substandard work at any level is taboo,” he says. “I mean, you go to a coffee shop, and your service is going to be amazing.
“Finding yourself in that environment is just 180, all the way,” he continues, “because I grew up in the Bronx, where it’s like, look over your shoulder; if you don’t cheat on your taxes, you’re an idiot, because everyone on your block is doing it – it’s that kind of world, it’s dog-eat-dog, it’s do what you gotta do to survive.”
To illustrate his point, Paredes cites the mundane activity of paying train fare. When he first arrived in Japan, “I was definitely cheating on the train fare, and I was definitely doing everything I had to do in a New York way and [thinking], These guys are retarded, you know – I’m great; I’m not gonna have to spend a dime in my whole two and a half years here
“But then, after a while, it’s just, like, Man, how can I be the only one that does this? What a horrible person I am.”
At the same time, the new people Paredes was spending time with – people he met while taking Japanese-language classes, for example – were opening his eyes in a different way, forcing him to educate himself in matters of politics and current events just so he could avoid being “the moron at the table,” as he puts it. “Like, every other night of the week, having coffee and sushi or something while talking with five people that all spoke a different language, and four translators involved … it got really interesting.”
Conversation would inevitably turn to American foreign policy, an embarrassing development for Paredes, who says he knew less about his home country’s history and policies than did his new group of foreigner friends. So, he’d head back to his ship, where he and his shipmates had plenty of time to kill, to educate himself, reading books as fast as he could and researching on the Internet references brought up earlier in conversation.
“Really quickly I had to fill that void,” he says, “and I just became book hungry and Internet crazy.”
Paredes’s intellectual exploration led him to lefty thinkers like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Michael Parenti – “I got kind of addicted to these guys” – with Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent becoming something of an automatic filter into which he’d feed information he’d come across about American politics and the mainstream media.
He says he tried hard not to preach his newfound opinions to his shipmates, but he often engaged in what he refers to as “debate.” Paredes calls what happened to him in Japan “an awakening,” and it’s here where he gets philosophical.
“It involves being incredibly conscious of everything you do as an individual,” he says, “and it’s kind of an agreement between a group of individuals that we’re all going to be very conscious of what we do as individuals. And there’s nothing better in the world than when that happens to a society – because what can go wrong when every single person is just worried about doing everything they have to do, right?
“Because I decided to live my life that way, it’s not going to change every person around me. But who knows – I may affect one person. And as cliché as it sounds – better to be part of the solution than part of the problem, right? So, I had this whole change in the way I think and the way I look at my own actions.”
Looking for a way out
The upshot of Paredes’s time in Japan was that he could no longer relate to the uniform he climbed into each day. As hard as it may be for people to hear in these times of war, and as obscene as his Internet detractors may find this notion, Paredes’s job had become a source of shame for him. As a principle, war was simply not acceptable.“I understand now that I was complicit to war,” he says. “I couldn’t have peace of mind knowing that that’s what I did, knowing that that’s my job. Someday, I’m going to have to look back and accept that that’s how I got there” – wherever his life takes him.
Granted, he says, some people put the uniform on for “incredibly noble reasons,” but “the manner in which it protects the people is through violence, and I’ve gotten to a place in my life where I don’t want to solve problems that way, so it makes me very ashamed that I’m a part of a system that is designed to solve problems that way.”
Paredes has adopted the opinion of people like Cardiff scholar and foreign-policy critic Chalmers Johnson – that the United States is a modern-day empire. “Back in the days of Rome, you just had to go colonize – ‘This is mine, all mine,’” he says. “Now, it’s a different world. There’s no value in owning a country. There’s more value in influencing the economy and the politics of a country, or a territory or an area. Now, having an empire is just about setting up all of these spheres of influence all over the place.”
While Paredes was in Japan, the United States influenced Iraq in a big way, and when his time in the Far East was up, he was certain that his next gig would have something to do with Iraq – probably on a ship providing taxi service for Marines heading into battle. Given his principles, the prospect didn’t thrill him. He’s quick to point out that his objections have nothing to do with fear. “Unless you’re a pilot or special forces – and I’m neither – you’re not going to be in danger,” he says. “You’re going to hop on a ship, you’re going to do your specific job, you’re going to have air-conditioned spaces, cable, Internet, and you’re going to come back home after a while and everybody’s going to love you and tell you you’re a hero. It’s like a win-win situation – if you don’t become conscientious.”
No, his concern was aiding and abetting the execution of a war he doesn’t support. Trained as a fire controlman, his job was to fire defensive weapons systems on board his ship, which is equipped with a battery of Sea Sparrow and other missile systems. With eight months left in his Navy tenure, Paredes decided to enroll in Master-at-Arms school, a military police program, with a mind toward spending his remaining months checking identification at the front gate at some stateside Navy base. He says he was in the program, at a Navy school in San Antonio, Texas, for about five weeks before he realized that entering the program had added three years to his Navy stint.
As was his right, Paredes opted to drop out of the program rather than endure three more years. Had he remained in the program, he would have been stationed at a base in Port Hueneme in Ventura County. “You couldn’t ask for a better way to work your way out of the Navy,” he says, “but I wasn’t interested in a nice place for a longer amount of time still in the Navy.”
On the Indepundit blog was a post by someone who says he was the “chief in charge of getting FC3 orders” when Paredes dropped out of Master-at-Arms school. The post, signed “OSC,” said Paredes had the opportunity to claim conscientious-objector status, but he chose to state a different reason for wanting out. When “asked if he would have problems completing his mission as a Fire Controlman, possibly having to fire missiles from a ship,” OSC writes, Paredes “responded that he was fully capable of completing whatever job he was given on the ship. I have reread his statement as to why he wanted to drop from [Master-at-Arms school], and he lists his number one reason as, and I quote, ‘My marriage has suffered serious damage due to the separation that comes with the needs of the Navy.’ I even scheduled him an appointment with our legal officer to make sure that he did not fall into the conscientious objector category. His sole motivation during the entire process was to get back to his wife.”
OSC concludes by joining the anti-Pablo ‹ chorus: “I feel really sorry for those that actually have beliefs against the war, and have aligned themselves behind this liar.”
Paredes said the claim that he was presented with the option of conscientious-objector status is “absolutely bogus.” He says the bit about his marriage was only one of many issues he discussed with his chief in charge. His conversations with his superiors were centered on his philosophical objections to war, he adds.
Empire strikes back
Late last fall, he was told to report to San Diego and was given a month to get settled. In November he was informed that in two weeks’ time, he’d be assigned as a fire controlman on the U.S.S. Bonhomme Richard, heading to the Persian Gulf as part of Expeditionary Strike Group Five, a group of seven Navy and Coast Guard ships and a submarine.The expeditionary strike group provides the military with a sort of floating base, handy when foreign governments don’t give the United States permission to base military operations on their soil. Although not an aircraft carrier per se – it can’t launch standard jets – the deck of the Bonhomme Richard looks like one. It’s made for launching and landing helicopters and vertical-lift Harrier jets. In the ship’s stern is an interior deck, which opens up when the need arises to let loose three Landing Craft Air Cushions, large boats that travel on rubber inflatable skirts, carrying Marines, Humvees, or tanks for beach assaults.
For Paredes, the assignment was precisely what he had been trying to avoid. A number of ideas began clanging around in his head. Get high, fail a drug test, and earn a dishonorable discharge? Suffer a sudden injury? Sometimes desperate circumstances lead to desperate measures. A Navy SEAL friend offered to break his leg at the shinbone, something Paredes considered seriously enough to discuss it with his wife and his brother, who begged him not to go through with it.
But it was a friend from Japan who nonchalantly offered the idea that would stick. He says his friend e-mailed him: “Why don’t you just refuse to go?”
“I was just, like, ‘Wow. How ’bout I do that? How ’bout I just tell ’em the truth, and keep this completely principled, completely honest?’” he recalls.
It was December 2, four days before he was scheduled to ship out, when Paredes decided to make his issue with his uniform a media event. He hadn’t, however, talked with legal counsel about his move. He simply got on the phone and cold-called TV-news desks. Local Fox 6 and the Spanish-language Univision did pre-event interviews, which set the dominoes in motion. More interviews followed – mostly Latino, independent, and local media.
Antiwar activists immediately embraced him. Representatives from groups such as San Diego Military Counseling Project, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and Iraq Veterans Against the War offered to help him any way they could. Paredes has since embraced the activists right back, attending and speaking at their events. No matter the outcome of his case, they say his willingness to speak out has had a positive effect.
“If he gets the full punishment, it won’t have a significant impact on others,” says Larry Christian of the Military Counseling Project. “By now, you see there are some 6,000 people who have left the military. We get calls from people all the time who say, ‘My unit is going and I don’t want to go, what can I do?’ Sometimes there’s nothing they can do, and that’s why there’s the 6,000. By then, they’re in a desperate situation, and sometimes they do drastic things with consequences. Pablo did it publicly, but there are a lot more who are doing it on their own, who take off because they cannot contend with the prospect of having to go participate in a war that they think is so wrong. That’s going to continue happening no matter what happens to Pablo.”
In fact, he notes, as the number of soldiers gone AWOL and applying for Conscientious Objector status rises, more resources are becoming available. The Los Angeles Chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild is now starting a project to give legal help to service members who want out, called the Bill Smith Military Resistance Project in honor of a leading legal advisor to draft evaders during the Vietnam War.
After a brief side trip to offer humanitarian assistance to tsunami victims in Sri Lanka, sailors friendly to Paredes sent him notice the U.S.S. Bonhomme Richard was last in the Gulf of Bahrain, engaged in the Iraq War effort.
A Navy spokesperson told CityBeat that an investigation of Paredes has been completed, but a decision about his fate hasn’t yet been reached. If a military judge will not accept his plea for an other-than-honorable discharge in lieu of court-martial, he goes on trial in May. On a separate track, the Navy is also processing Paredes’s request for conscientious-objector status, which won’t be decided upon until after his punishment has been meted out. If, by some twist, he should find himself still in the Navy, conscientious objector status might end up springing him – for his beliefs, which is what he wanted all along.Pablo Paredes’s website is www.swiftsmartveterans.com.
04-14-05
U.S. captive pleads for life
BAGHDAD -- A distraught American hostage appeared on television with automatic weapons trained on his head Wednesday, a day that recalled the darker periods of Iraq's insurgency as bombs killed at least 14 people and U.S. Marines clashed with insurgents near the Syrian border.
As insurgent attacks have diminished since the national elections Jan. 30, Iraqi and U.S. officials have focused attention largely on shaping the country's political future and expressed hope that the insurgency was winding down. But a videotape broadcast on al-Jazeera television showed a scene more typical of last summer and fall: a foreigner pleading for his life as gunmen pointed automatic weapons at his head.
Jeffrey J. Ake, 47, of LaPorte, Ind., apparently reading from a statement on a wooden desktop in front of him, asked the United States to start a dialogue with Iraqi insurgents, to start withdrawing its forces from Iraq and to save his life, according to al-Jazeera. In one hand, he held open what appeared to be a U.S. passport, and in the other, an ID card.
The White House announced that authorities were monitoring the situation but would not negotiate for Ake's release. Ake was kidnapped Monday from a water-treatment facility near Baghdad where he worked as a contractor on a reconstruction project.
Meanwhile, four other American contractors were among those wounded yesterday by a car bomb that killed five Iraqis in Baghdad. The victims were traveling between the capital and the nearby airport in a Defense Department convoy when the bomb detonated.
Al-Qaida in Iraq, the insurgent group led by a Jordanian guerrilla, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, asserted responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement.
In northern Iraq, a bomb killed at least nine Iraqi police officers as they were defusing another explosive device planted beneath an oil pipeline near Kirkuk.
The slain men were members of an Iraqi anti-sabotage unit for oilfields, police Col. Afran Hannah said. They had successfully disabled one bomb -- apparently a decoy -- only to have a second, hidden bomb explode nearby. Five Iraqis were wounded in the incident.
And on Iraq's long border with Syria, U.S. Marines battled guerrillas claiming ties to al-Qaida for a third straight day. The U.S. military said yesterday that Marines had killed 30 insurgents Monday and Tuesday as they repeated
As insurgent attacks have diminished since the national elections Jan. 30, Iraqi and U.S. officials have focused attention largely on shaping the country's political future and expressed hope that the insurgency was winding down. But a videotape broadcast on al-Jazeera television showed a scene more typical of last summer and fall: a foreigner pleading for his life as gunmen pointed automatic weapons at his head.
Jeffrey J. Ake, 47, of LaPorte, Ind., apparently reading from a statement on a wooden desktop in front of him, asked the United States to start a dialogue with Iraqi insurgents, to start withdrawing its forces from Iraq and to save his life, according to al-Jazeera. In one hand, he held open what appeared to be a U.S. passport, and in the other, an ID card.
The White House announced that authorities were monitoring the situation but would not negotiate for Ake's release. Ake was kidnapped Monday from a water-treatment facility near Baghdad where he worked as a contractor on a reconstruction project.
Meanwhile, four other American contractors were among those wounded yesterday by a car bomb that killed five Iraqis in Baghdad. The victims were traveling between the capital and the nearby airport in a Defense Department convoy when the bomb detonated.
Al-Qaida in Iraq, the insurgent group led by a Jordanian guerrilla, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, asserted responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement.
In northern Iraq, a bomb killed at least nine Iraqi police officers as they were defusing another explosive device planted beneath an oil pipeline near Kirkuk.
The slain men were members of an Iraqi anti-sabotage unit for oilfields, police Col. Afran Hannah said. They had successfully disabled one bomb -- apparently a decoy -- only to have a second, hidden bomb explode nearby. Five Iraqis were wounded in the incident.
And on Iraq's long border with Syria, U.S. Marines battled guerrillas claiming ties to al-Qaida for a third straight day. The U.S. military said yesterday that Marines had killed 30 insurgents Monday and Tuesday as they repeated
New York Times ... On the Wrong Side of History
The beauty of the New York Times and most of its fellow corporate “mainstream” newspapers is that they do the right assessment only to reach the wrong conclusion.
Nicholas D. Kristof article, “A Slap in the Face,”[1] in the New York Times (April 12, 2005) is the latest and most appropriate example of this trend.
Very few critics of the so-considered mainstream media would as accurately describe the vanishing public trust in its reporting and analysis as is described by Kristof. However, he closes the argument with a grave misconception and an utterly wrong conclusion.
He sums up his whining over public's lack of interest in the four months house arrest of NBC Journalist, Jim Taricani, in these words: “If one word can capture the public attitude toward American journalists, I'm afraid it's ‘arrogant.’"
He goes on to conclude: “Unless we can recover the public trust… we'll wake up one day to find ourselves on the wrong side of history.”
If Kristof and his fellow corporate mainstreamers are not yet awake, it does not mean that they are not on the wrong side of history.
It doesn’t mean that the public shun them just because they are 'arrogant.' The public has shunned them because they present lies of their the US administration as facts and facts on the ground as fiction.
Public can deal with arrogance but not lies and outright deception. Kristof’s fellow journalists, who are facing government’s wrath in the form of up to 18 months for protecting their sources, are actually facing the same monstrous system and an invisible tyranny which they have been propping and supporting all along. Best of luck to them now.
The public knows well that the so-called “mainstream” media does not belong to them, nor does it represents them.
This media is actually serving the cause of the totalitarians who are out there to kill hundreds and thousands of people, occupy other countries, establish concentration camps abroad and pass draconian legislations at home only for protecting their personal interests and promoting their religious fantasies.
The public knows how the New York Times, for example, behaved in the run up to the Iraq war and how its hallow apologies for supporting administration's lies didn’t prove it innocent at all before the public.
The “mainstream" media is itself responsible for the worsened climate for freedom of the press because the tyrants they served for so long now want the same kind of subservient attitude and submissive media to continue toeing their line.
Seeking the passage of a federal shield law for journalists is now too little and too late a measure to undo what the journalists in the multi-million dollars media business have already done to themselves. Kristof's right analysis and wrong conclusions further confirm that when you lie for so long, you start believing in your lies.
The journalists and analysts associated with the “mainstream" media — the mainstreamers — have gone sick to the extent that they are hardly able to reflect on why all this is happening now.
They can see and they admit it. According to Kristof's admission: “I think, is that we in the news media are widely perceived as arrogant, out of touch and untrustworthy.” However, it once more shows the missing why aspect it the discussion.
They still believe, they are on the right side of history for promoting the truth and justice. They still look with contempt at the alternative sources of news and analysis to which the general public is flocking for information and understanding.
To the mainstreamers, most of the truth diggers are either Muslim "radicals," or mere “conspiracy theorists.” Despite failing to answer a single question out of the hundreds posed by the so-considered conspiracy theorists, the mainstreamers blindly and dutifully regurgitate the official line.
Journalists from the mainstream media still make a mockery of the accurate analysis on many web logs and independent web sites. Even giving a reference to the work of the organizations and web sites which are monitoring the inaccuracies of the “mainstream” media is embarrassing for the stars of the “mainstream” media.
This is how the mainstreamers decided to serve the interest of the corporate and totalitarian world behind them. They turned their back on accuracy, impartiality and truth. In turn the public turned its back on them. Now Mr. Kristof realizes that in his “society, public support for the news media has all but evaporated.”
This is too sad and too late a realization. However, it is meaningless because of the lack of determination to break out of the chains of self-imposed censorship on the truth. Still there is no intention to wake up because they still cherish the hope that things will improve and they would have something for face saving.
The leading mainstreamers are quick to give reference the recent studies, such as the one by the Pew Research Center, "Trends 2005," which says that 45 percent of Americans believe little or nothing in their daily newspapers, up from 16 percent two decades ago. However, the mainstreamers can hardly question how this unbelieving public voted for a lying administration?
Despite an overwhelming evidence and heavy criticism and complaints to the contrary, to the mainstreamers the 2004 elections were still the most free, fair and democratic elections of the US history.
It must not be surprising to find the tyrants and the tyranny the mainstreamers have been supporting all along, turn around and start jailing the mainstreamers. In the environment, which the product of their own hands, the mainstreamers must not be surprised at the creation of their own hands. The journalists heading for jails is not even the actual beginning.
Many would feel relieved to read Mr. Kristof whining in the New York Times today because it will give them some confidence that turning their back on the “mainstream” media is, after all, being felt by the mainstreamers: the accomplices of the totalitarians who starved 1.8 million innocents to death through genocidal sanctions and waged wars on the basis of lies upon lies.
Interestingly, Kristof is the one who is single-handedly waging a crusade for bringing justice to the victims of oppression in Sudan. He never stops using the word “genocide” for the situation in Sudan. However, he has hardly uttered this word a single time to describe the death of 1.8 million Iraqis who perished due to the genocidal UN sanctions on Iraq.
Now he says: “Public approval is our life-support system, and it is now at risk.” It is not just at risk. It is now gone. "Mainstream" is history as far as its usefulness is concerned. Hope this shows Mr. Kristof and his fellow mainstreamers how biased they have been in their reporting and analysis.
According to the National Opinion Research Center analysis public confidence in the press has fallen sharply since 1990. Is it not the time when the neocons and other totalitarians in the US administration, media, academia and other fronts have decided to go out all gun blazing and talking to the world from both sides of their mouth? And, have not the mainstreamers been their main accomplice to the genocides and wars since 1990?
Public distrust in the corporate mainstream media is not unfair at all. Even the PEW study that is cited by Kristof in defense of his whining is insufficient.
The study says only 14 percent of Republicans believe all or most of what they read in the New York Times, whereas among Democrats the figure is only 31 percent. The Fox News Channel is considered credible by fewer than one-third of the Republicans - and an even smaller number of Democrats.
It is ironic that this study does not give statistics of those Americans who do not trust either of these parties and hence don’t believe in anything that is reported in support of the official stories.
Reconnection to the public is not easy. It is just face saving to suggest that there should be more willingness to run corrections, more ombudsmen, and more acknowledgement of our failings, because studies have suggested that the media has been running corrections as a routine matter but the image that their initial wrong story leaves is incorrigible. So this process of wrong reporting, correction and belated apology is just the “mainstream” media’s modus operandi. That is how it serves its hidden objectives and leaves something for face saving. But, it will not be so any more.
Similarly, establishing diverse newsrooms at home is no alternative to total silence over the ban on Al-Jazeera TV and other news outlets abroad. Diverse newsrooms can never cover for volunteering to be embedded journalists in service of the naked aggression and cover up of the war crimes.
If two words can capture the public attitude toward the so-called mainstream media, I'm sure it's "liar, deceptive." Not surprisingly, this charge is absolutely fair. It's imperative for the public and sources of alternative news and views to take heart from the whining in the New York Times op-ed pages today and continue to show them their real face.
The “mainstream: media has already proved itself to be on the wrong side of history. We must reassure ourselves that in the face of the deep personal interests of its bosses, there is no hope that the "mainstream" media or mainstreamers will correct their ways of reporting and analysis in the near future.
The alternative sources of news and views should redouble their efforts and remain committed to telling as it is. This whining is the first admission of defeat.
Note:
[1]. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/opinion/12kristof.html?hp
By Abid Ullah Jan Al-Jazeerah, April 13, 2005
Nicholas D. Kristof article, “A Slap in the Face,”[1] in the New York Times (April 12, 2005) is the latest and most appropriate example of this trend.
Very few critics of the so-considered mainstream media would as accurately describe the vanishing public trust in its reporting and analysis as is described by Kristof. However, he closes the argument with a grave misconception and an utterly wrong conclusion.
He sums up his whining over public's lack of interest in the four months house arrest of NBC Journalist, Jim Taricani, in these words: “If one word can capture the public attitude toward American journalists, I'm afraid it's ‘arrogant.’"
He goes on to conclude: “Unless we can recover the public trust… we'll wake up one day to find ourselves on the wrong side of history.”
If Kristof and his fellow corporate mainstreamers are not yet awake, it does not mean that they are not on the wrong side of history.
It doesn’t mean that the public shun them just because they are 'arrogant.' The public has shunned them because they present lies of their the US administration as facts and facts on the ground as fiction.
Public can deal with arrogance but not lies and outright deception. Kristof’s fellow journalists, who are facing government’s wrath in the form of up to 18 months for protecting their sources, are actually facing the same monstrous system and an invisible tyranny which they have been propping and supporting all along. Best of luck to them now.
The public knows well that the so-called “mainstream” media does not belong to them, nor does it represents them.
This media is actually serving the cause of the totalitarians who are out there to kill hundreds and thousands of people, occupy other countries, establish concentration camps abroad and pass draconian legislations at home only for protecting their personal interests and promoting their religious fantasies.
The public knows how the New York Times, for example, behaved in the run up to the Iraq war and how its hallow apologies for supporting administration's lies didn’t prove it innocent at all before the public.
The “mainstream" media is itself responsible for the worsened climate for freedom of the press because the tyrants they served for so long now want the same kind of subservient attitude and submissive media to continue toeing their line.
Seeking the passage of a federal shield law for journalists is now too little and too late a measure to undo what the journalists in the multi-million dollars media business have already done to themselves. Kristof's right analysis and wrong conclusions further confirm that when you lie for so long, you start believing in your lies.
The journalists and analysts associated with the “mainstream" media — the mainstreamers — have gone sick to the extent that they are hardly able to reflect on why all this is happening now.
They can see and they admit it. According to Kristof's admission: “I think, is that we in the news media are widely perceived as arrogant, out of touch and untrustworthy.” However, it once more shows the missing why aspect it the discussion.
They still believe, they are on the right side of history for promoting the truth and justice. They still look with contempt at the alternative sources of news and analysis to which the general public is flocking for information and understanding.
To the mainstreamers, most of the truth diggers are either Muslim "radicals," or mere “conspiracy theorists.” Despite failing to answer a single question out of the hundreds posed by the so-considered conspiracy theorists, the mainstreamers blindly and dutifully regurgitate the official line.
Journalists from the mainstream media still make a mockery of the accurate analysis on many web logs and independent web sites. Even giving a reference to the work of the organizations and web sites which are monitoring the inaccuracies of the “mainstream” media is embarrassing for the stars of the “mainstream” media.
This is how the mainstreamers decided to serve the interest of the corporate and totalitarian world behind them. They turned their back on accuracy, impartiality and truth. In turn the public turned its back on them. Now Mr. Kristof realizes that in his “society, public support for the news media has all but evaporated.”
This is too sad and too late a realization. However, it is meaningless because of the lack of determination to break out of the chains of self-imposed censorship on the truth. Still there is no intention to wake up because they still cherish the hope that things will improve and they would have something for face saving.
The leading mainstreamers are quick to give reference the recent studies, such as the one by the Pew Research Center, "Trends 2005," which says that 45 percent of Americans believe little or nothing in their daily newspapers, up from 16 percent two decades ago. However, the mainstreamers can hardly question how this unbelieving public voted for a lying administration?
Despite an overwhelming evidence and heavy criticism and complaints to the contrary, to the mainstreamers the 2004 elections were still the most free, fair and democratic elections of the US history.
It must not be surprising to find the tyrants and the tyranny the mainstreamers have been supporting all along, turn around and start jailing the mainstreamers. In the environment, which the product of their own hands, the mainstreamers must not be surprised at the creation of their own hands. The journalists heading for jails is not even the actual beginning.
Many would feel relieved to read Mr. Kristof whining in the New York Times today because it will give them some confidence that turning their back on the “mainstream” media is, after all, being felt by the mainstreamers: the accomplices of the totalitarians who starved 1.8 million innocents to death through genocidal sanctions and waged wars on the basis of lies upon lies.
Interestingly, Kristof is the one who is single-handedly waging a crusade for bringing justice to the victims of oppression in Sudan. He never stops using the word “genocide” for the situation in Sudan. However, he has hardly uttered this word a single time to describe the death of 1.8 million Iraqis who perished due to the genocidal UN sanctions on Iraq.
Now he says: “Public approval is our life-support system, and it is now at risk.” It is not just at risk. It is now gone. "Mainstream" is history as far as its usefulness is concerned. Hope this shows Mr. Kristof and his fellow mainstreamers how biased they have been in their reporting and analysis.
According to the National Opinion Research Center analysis public confidence in the press has fallen sharply since 1990. Is it not the time when the neocons and other totalitarians in the US administration, media, academia and other fronts have decided to go out all gun blazing and talking to the world from both sides of their mouth? And, have not the mainstreamers been their main accomplice to the genocides and wars since 1990?
Public distrust in the corporate mainstream media is not unfair at all. Even the PEW study that is cited by Kristof in defense of his whining is insufficient.
The study says only 14 percent of Republicans believe all or most of what they read in the New York Times, whereas among Democrats the figure is only 31 percent. The Fox News Channel is considered credible by fewer than one-third of the Republicans - and an even smaller number of Democrats.
It is ironic that this study does not give statistics of those Americans who do not trust either of these parties and hence don’t believe in anything that is reported in support of the official stories.
Reconnection to the public is not easy. It is just face saving to suggest that there should be more willingness to run corrections, more ombudsmen, and more acknowledgement of our failings, because studies have suggested that the media has been running corrections as a routine matter but the image that their initial wrong story leaves is incorrigible. So this process of wrong reporting, correction and belated apology is just the “mainstream” media’s modus operandi. That is how it serves its hidden objectives and leaves something for face saving. But, it will not be so any more.
Similarly, establishing diverse newsrooms at home is no alternative to total silence over the ban on Al-Jazeera TV and other news outlets abroad. Diverse newsrooms can never cover for volunteering to be embedded journalists in service of the naked aggression and cover up of the war crimes.
If two words can capture the public attitude toward the so-called mainstream media, I'm sure it's "liar, deceptive." Not surprisingly, this charge is absolutely fair. It's imperative for the public and sources of alternative news and views to take heart from the whining in the New York Times op-ed pages today and continue to show them their real face.
The “mainstream: media has already proved itself to be on the wrong side of history. We must reassure ourselves that in the face of the deep personal interests of its bosses, there is no hope that the "mainstream" media or mainstreamers will correct their ways of reporting and analysis in the near future.
The alternative sources of news and views should redouble their efforts and remain committed to telling as it is. This whining is the first admission of defeat.
Note:
[1]. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/opinion/12kristof.html?hp
By Abid Ullah Jan Al-Jazeerah, April 13, 2005
Media Group Demands Investigation on Number of Media Deaths in Iraq
AFTRA Urges Iraq Probe
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and The Newspaper Guild-CWA (TNG-CWA) have called on President Bush to "heed the requests from journalists around the world for an independent investigation into the record number of deaths among media staff covering the war in Iraq."
Thomas R Carpenter, AFTRA national director of news and broadcast, and President Linda Foley of TNG-CWA, sent the letters as part of the International Federation of Journalists' (IFJ) global campaign to keep a public focus on the dangerous conditions facing journalists and media staff covering the Iraqi conflict.
"Respect for a free and independent press is a critical component of the liberty that members of a democratic society enjoy," Carpenter wrote in the April 8 letter to Bush. "More than ever, it is critical to protect the values of freedom, liberty and justice by responding to the request of journalists and the worldwide organizations representing them for a thorough and independent investigation."
In events and a letter-writing campaign around the world last week, IFJ and affiliated organizations called for a full and independent investigation by the United States into some 14 incidents in which media staff were killed while working in Iraq, including the bomb attack on the Palestine Hotel which killed Jose Couso, a reporter with Telecinco in Spain, and Taras Protsiuk, a Ukrainian cameraman working for Reuters.
In her letter to Bush, the TNG-CWA's Foley said, "We recognize, of course, that most journalists who die each year are killed by cruel extremists...and we unequivocally condemn those attacks and the people behind them." But the United States also must defend its "traditions of liberty and justice by addressing the concerns of journalists around the world," she noted, adding that the Pentagon's report about the Palestine Hotel tragedy, to date, has been inadequate and unconvincing, raising more questions than it resolved.
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and The Newspaper Guild-CWA (TNG-CWA) have called on President Bush to "heed the requests from journalists around the world for an independent investigation into the record number of deaths among media staff covering the war in Iraq."
Thomas R Carpenter, AFTRA national director of news and broadcast, and President Linda Foley of TNG-CWA, sent the letters as part of the International Federation of Journalists' (IFJ) global campaign to keep a public focus on the dangerous conditions facing journalists and media staff covering the Iraqi conflict.
"Respect for a free and independent press is a critical component of the liberty that members of a democratic society enjoy," Carpenter wrote in the April 8 letter to Bush. "More than ever, it is critical to protect the values of freedom, liberty and justice by responding to the request of journalists and the worldwide organizations representing them for a thorough and independent investigation."
In events and a letter-writing campaign around the world last week, IFJ and affiliated organizations called for a full and independent investigation by the United States into some 14 incidents in which media staff were killed while working in Iraq, including the bomb attack on the Palestine Hotel which killed Jose Couso, a reporter with Telecinco in Spain, and Taras Protsiuk, a Ukrainian cameraman working for Reuters.
In her letter to Bush, the TNG-CWA's Foley said, "We recognize, of course, that most journalists who die each year are killed by cruel extremists...and we unequivocally condemn those attacks and the people behind them." But the United States also must defend its "traditions of liberty and justice by addressing the concerns of journalists around the world," she noted, adding that the Pentagon's report about the Palestine Hotel tragedy, to date, has been inadequate and unconvincing, raising more questions than it resolved.
Mother says STOP to Stop-Loss for son
Mom at war with Army
to get her son back safely
Circleville, NY – The men in Jodie Knibbs' family have shed blood in every American conflict since World War II. Her uncle fought the Japanese in Okinawa and was wounded in combat. Another uncle was killed in action in Vietnam at the age of 18.
to get her son back safely
Circleville, NY – The men in Jodie Knibbs' family have shed blood in every American conflict since World War II. Her uncle fought the Japanese in Okinawa and was wounded in combat. Another uncle was killed in action in Vietnam at the age of 18.
So when her son, William, joined the Army four years ago – while he was still in high school – she understood his decision, even if she didn't support it.
Then the world changed – dramatically. Terrorists attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. The United States invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban. A year later, war was under way in Iraq.
Pvt. Knibbs, 22, a communications specialist with the 141st Signal Battalion, 1st Armored Division, fought his way to Baghdad with the invading forces. It was supposed to be a six-month tour of duty, but the Army extended his time "in country" to 15 months.
Now stationed in Germany, Knibbs expected to be discharged this summer. He had done his time and wanted to move on with his life.
But two weeks ago, the Minisink High grad learned that the Army was keeping him on under the "stop-loss" rule, and that his unit was heading back to Iraq for a yearlong tour of duty.
He should be coming home
His mother was enraged. William was a combat veteran. He was supposed to be coming home.
"It's not fair," Knibbs says, sitting in the kitchen of her Circleville home, going through a box of photographs her son sent home from a military base in Baghdad. William's sisters, 24-year-old Shana and 13-year-old Kathryn, miss him, Knibbs said.
"My son has served his country proudly," she said. "He should be coming home."
Under the Army's "stop-loss" program, about 14,000 soldiers have been prevented from retiring or leaving the military and redeployed to Afghanistan and Iraq.
The purpose of the program is to prevent military units from losing much-needed combat skills. Critics call it a backdoor form of the draft.
Some military families argue that the policy is unfair, especially because several soldiers who had already served their time have been killed while serving the extended duty.
Knibbs is taking her fight to Washington, D.C. She has started a letter-writing campaign to lawmakers, including Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a Vietnam veteran and critic of the stop-loss program.
She doesn't know if the effort will be successful. She just knows that she had to do something – anything.
'I'm fighting for my son's life'
"I told myself, I have two choices. I could sit down and cry about it or I could fight," Knibbs said. "The way I see it, I'm fighting for my son's life. That's the job of a mother."
Some soldiers have challenged the stop-loss rule, arguing it's a breach of contract.
In Oregon, Emiliano Santiago, 27, sued Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he received orders to go to Afghanistan after completing an eight-year stint with the Oregon National Guard. A federal judge in Portland ruled in favor of the U.S. government.
An Army spokeswoman said all enlistment contracts contain fine print mentioning the possibility that military service may be extended under some circumstances.
"We are a nation at war," said Maj. Elizabeth Robbins, an Army spokeswoman. "The bottom line is that stop-loss is about effective units."
The authority to issue stop-loss orders was first granted after the Vietnam War, but it wasn't used until the buildup to the Persian Gulf War in 1990.
For the military – which is suffering from troop shortages amid dwindling recruitment levels – keeping personnel in uniform is a necessity.
Hinchey called the stop-loss rule a "backdoor draft" that is placing an unfair burden on the families of military members.
"This is an authority that was given to the president to be exercised only when the nation was in dire or desperate circumstances," he said. "We are not a nation at war. There has been no declaration of war. We don't have a national emergency."
Knibbs doesn't know about troop shortages or wartime strategies. For her, it's a matter of fairness: Her son served his country and should come home, period.
"I want my son back home, where he belongs," she said.
By Christian M. Wade April 14, 2005
Times Herald-Record cwade@th-record.com
Copyright Orange County Publications, a division of Ottaway Newspapers Inc., all rights reserved.
THEY ARE COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN
“O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky;
but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” Matthew 16:3 (KJV)
but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” Matthew 16:3 (KJV)
In Russia, it's draft season again.[see article below] As the brutal and unpopular war in Chechnya grinds on with no resolution in sight, the Russian Army is finding it difficult to fill its recruiting quota of at least 155,000 able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 27. Those who choose not to serve in the military have the alternative of four years in government-approved non-military service. But that term of involuntary servitude, notes Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, (RFE/RL) "is widely viewed as too long and attracts only a handful of conscripts every year."
RFE/RL cited criticism of the Russian conscription program by "human rights activists," who reported that those Russians without economic or political means to evade the draft are subject to brutal (and often fatal) hazing rituals.
"What we now have in Russia are Soviet armed forces, the same forces that entered Prague, Baku, that fought in Afghanistan and Karabak," complains Valentina Melnikova, head of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers. "It's the very same Soviet army." Aleksandr Petrov of Human Rights Watch reports that Red Army press gangs are conducting raids of popular nightclubs in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk to "arrest" young men who have chosen not to enlist.
It's important to note that RFE/RL is a propaganda arm of the U.S. government, which treats the Putin regime on one day as a gallant ally in the "war on terror" and on the next upbraids the former KGB officer for his authoritarian practices. Like the hypocritical Pharisees of old, Washington is always indecently eager to audit the shortcomings of other governments, while studiously ignoring its own. What RFE/RL describes in Russia today could be taken as preview of the United States in 2007.
The air is thick with signs that a serious effort to reinstate the draft will occur sometime in 2006 – most likely in a "lame duck" session of Congress following mid-term elections.
Investigative reporter Kevin Zees notes that the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think-tank top-heavy with former Clinton administration figures, sponsored a recent forum to discuss a conscription plan quite similar to Russia's. As outlined in the March issue of Washington Monthly by Capt. Philip Carter, U.S. Army (ret.) and Paul Glastris, the plan envisions requiring all 18-year-olds – of both sexes – to serve 1–2 year terms of mandatory service, either in the military, homeland security, or in a federal program like AmeriCorps, as a condition of being permitted to attend college.
This plan would be politically viable, the authors insist, since it would dispense with deferments and exemptions, and allow draftees to choose their preferred form of involuntary servitude. More importantly, however, by having a pool of conscripts required to serve several years of reserve duty, this system would offer "surge capacity" – that is to say, a large and ever-expanding pool of potential coffin-stuffers.
"Both the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century and the 'progressive' Center for American Progress are calling for adding 100,000 new soldiers," writes Zeese. "During the presidential campaign Senator John Kerry also called for adding tens of thousand more troops to the military services." Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon official under Ronald Reagan who now serves as a Senior Fellow at CAP, also supports expanding the military by 100,000 troops, and while he opposes a return to the draft at present, he would support conscription – amid agonies of professed reluctance – should we remain mired in Iraq for another year, or the Bush administration choose to extend the blessings of "liberation" to Iran, Syria, or some other country.
Korb's role in this exercise is that of a shill – the conman's henchman who feigns skepticism and gradually allows himself to be "won over" as a way of deceiving the victims. In an interview with the April 4 San Francisco Chronicle, Korb insisted that he "supports the all-volunteer military" but warns that "the Bush administration is severely straining the military and faces a deadline. 'You've got about another year,' said Korb…. 'If you don't cut back in Iraq, your all-volunteer Army and Marine Corps are going to be in big trouble.'"
Just as significantly, the case for reinstating the draft has found an attentive audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, the oldest and most influential establishment think-tank. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) During a March 9 presentation at the Council, Rep. Rangel, who has sponsored a measure to reinstate conscription, outlined a plan very similar to that proposed by Carter and Glastris.
Those liable to conscription "would be about 36 million people between 18 and 26," stated Rangel. "We couldn't possibly need more than a million, probably far less than that, for military activity…. So it would seem to me that … you bring everybody in, and then you determine what can you do with them, what contribution can they make? National security is not just guns and bombs…. We can train people to do these non-military jobs. They can go overseas. They can stay here. They could be the eyes and ears."
Rangel, like Carter and Glastris, is alluding to the Marxist concept of the "equal liability of all to labor" in state-appointed forms of compulsory service, as described in the eighth plank of the Communist Manifesto. They also lay bare the essence of conscription, which is the rejection of the idea of self-ownership (or, as Christians believe, self-stewardship under God's sovereignty) in favor of the idea that all citizens are property of the State.
Few have summarized the lethal logic of conscription more candidly than Bernard Baruch, chairman of the War Industries Board during World War I. "Every man's life is at the call of the nation and so must be every man's property," declared Baruch on August 7, 1918. "We are living today in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state. His property is his only as the state does not need it. He must hold his life and possessions at the call of the state."
Nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizes the federal government to conscript citizens for any reason. While Congress has the authority to call out the "militia" – which is, in effect, the armed adult population – to defend our nation against invasion or insurrection, this cannot be done through a draft without violating the Thirteenth Amendment.
The problem is that the government has blithely disregarded these clear constitutional prohibitions in the past, and will do so again if permitted to do so. It is easy to foresee a draft-cum-national service measure being passed quietly in December 2006. Who's to stop this from happening?
The mothers of America, that's who.
In Post-Soviet Russia, the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers is desperately trying to reverse an existing injustice – conscription into a corrupt collectivist army. In Pre-Soviet America, Mothers Against the Draft (MAD) is organizing to pre-empt a return to conscription. Unlike those who burned draft cards or fled to Canada during the Vietnam War, MAD isn't defying an existing (albeit unjust and unconstitutional) law; it's seeking to prevent the passage of that law by forcing Congressmen to go on record before the measure finds traction in the House.
The focused activism of 100 mothers in a given congressional district would be sufficient to compel a Congressman to oppose any measure reinstating the draft in any form. The MAD website offers a printable petition with room for ten signatures.
Are you a mother disinclined to see your sons – and daughters – used as mortar bait? Then sign a petition, get ten of your friends to do the same, and have each of them enlist ten of their friends to do the same. On May 18, the anniversary of the Selective Service Act of 1917, MAD urges mothers across the nation to visit the district offices of their respective congressmen to deliver their petitions – and demand that the Representative go on record regarding the draft. And each mother should treat any answer other than an unequivocal "no" as a threat on the life of her children – which, in fact, it is.
April 13, 2005
Korrin Grigg is a homeschooling mother of five in Appleton, Wisconsin.
©LewRockwell
| Russia: Thousands Dodge Military Service as Draft Begins By Claire Bigg With the opening of the spring conscription campaign, the Russian army is once again struggling to fill its ranks. The annual draft, which began 1 April, aims to find 155,000 able-bodied men between 18 and 27. But it's not easy. The war in Chechnya and a reputation for brutality have made the army deeply unpopular. Thousands of young men across Russia hide from draft commissions and the police in order to avoid military service. Moscow, 5 April 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Aleksandr has spent the past seven years learning to look relaxed whenever he sees a police officer. Like many other young men in Russia, the 25-year-old Muscovite is hoping to evade compulsory military service. He's been successful so far: "Sometimes you feel a little vulnerable if you see some policemen who might check your documents at any moment," Aleksandr says. "I think the Russian army, in its current form, isn't a professional one. It doesn't make any sense. It's just some kind of farce. That's why I simply refuse to be another cog in this machine."
Rights groups in Russia and abroad often blame the army for violating the rights of conscripts by recruiting scores of young men whose health should make them unfit for service. Aleksandr Petrov, who works for Human Rights Watch in Moscow, says the army is also known to raid popular hangouts such as bars and nightclubs to enroll conscript-age men: "A year or two ago, such raids were carried out on a massive scale. Now we also hear reports that more raids are taking place in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg, or in other big cities like Novosibirsk," says Petrov. "Such things really happen quite frequently. Sometimes these arrests are accompanied by rough questioning and physical action." The horror stories that circulate about hazing and abuse in the army only add to the reluctance of many young men to spend two years in the military. Last October, during the last conscription campaign, Human Rights Watch said in a report that new conscripts faced grossly abusive and humiliating treatment. Russia's military command reacted by saying the report overplayed the problem and vowed to stamp out abuse. The practice of hazing in the Russian army is so common it even has a name, "dedovshchina," which roughly translates to the "rule of grandfathers." Rights groups say dozens of conscripts die every year during hazing rituals. Valentina Melnikova, head of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, a nongovernmental organization seeking to protect the rights of draftees, soldiers and their parents, fully sympathizes with men who refuse to serve in the army: "Not all young men want to serve in the army, particularly those who don't want to go to Chechnya, get beaten up and made fun of, and who know that money is extorted there," Melnikova says. "The fact that people don't want to go to these stupid barracks is a totally reasonable opinion and wish. What we now have in Russia are Soviet armed forces, the same forces that entered Prague, Baku, that fought in Afghanistan and Karabakh. It's the very same Soviet army." Conscripts do have an alternative -- a four-year non-military service. But it's widely viewed as too long and attracts only a handful of conscripts every year. Affluent and educated families often manage to keep their sons out of the army. This means that poorer recruits make up a growing part of the armed services. Many of these recruits suffer from ill health or alcohol or drug addiction, which has led the armed forces to regularly complain about the "low quality" of conscripts. The General Staff recently announced that as many as 57 percent of conscripts drafted in the fall had health problems that prevented them from taking part in all of the army's standard exercises. More than one in 50 recruits had spent time in prison. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2005 RFE/RL, Inc. |
Pentagon crackdown on GI resisters
MILITARY RESISTER Kevin Benderman was barred from traveling to speak at antiwar meetings last weekend, the latest escalation in the Army’s harassment of him.
After taking part in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Benderman came to question the war. With his unit scheduled to redeploy to Iraq late last year, he applied for conscientious objector status, which the Army refused to grant.
In January, Benderman was charged with desertion--and the Army is now seeking a general court-martial against him. The trial is at Fort Stewart on May 11. If convicted, Benderman faces up to seven years confinement, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.
Benderman had agreed to speak at several events in Chicago organized by Voices in the Wilderness--on April 9 and 10, a weekend when he wasn’t scheduled for work. But the Army abruptly denied him permission to travel.
On March 19, the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Benderman spoke at a “Bring the troops home now!” rally in Youngstown, Ohio. Apparently, the military didn’t want a repeat of his public appearance, so Benderman’s commanders denied his travel permit.
To Monica Benderman, Kevin’s wife, the lesson for those considering joining the military couldn’t be clearer. “It is important for these students to consider just how much of their freedom is taken away against their will by the military command,” she told Socialist Worker. “They need to be made aware of how the military controls soldiers, families, etc. The extent is an incredible violation of human rights, in our opinion.”
The military is anxious to squelch the growing dissent within its ranks. Pablo Paredes, who last December refused to board his Navy ship that was headed for the Persian Gulf, is likewise facing a special court-martial for filing a conscientious objector application.
And two days after Benderman was denied permission to travel, a federal appeals court ruled against Emiliano Santiago, an Oregon reservist who had filed a lawsuit late last year challenging the military’s “stop-loss” policy.
The policy allows the military to extend the enlistment term of soldiers--forcing them to serve years beyond their original discharge date. The Pentagon implemented this program as a way to “retain” National Guard and Reserve troops, who currently make up more than 40 percent of soldiers in Iraq. Under “stop-loss,” Santiago might not be allowed out of the National Guard until December 2031--even though he only signed an eight-year enlistment contract.
Emiliano explained to Socialist Worker that he had been recruited in high school at the age of 18. “The main thing was the uniform,” said Santiago. “But I’m just done with it now. I want to get out.”
Signs of discontent spreading in the military. Since the war began, more than 5,500 troops have gone “absent without leave” (AWOL). In Benderman’s unit alone, 17 troops went AWOL, and two attempted suicide to avoid redeployment.
Military resisters deserve the support of the antiwar movement--and by their actions, have the power to undermine the U.S. war on Iraq.
By Eric Ruder and Jorge Torres | April 15, 2005 |
© Socialist Worker Online
After taking part in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Benderman came to question the war. With his unit scheduled to redeploy to Iraq late last year, he applied for conscientious objector status, which the Army refused to grant.
In January, Benderman was charged with desertion--and the Army is now seeking a general court-martial against him. The trial is at Fort Stewart on May 11. If convicted, Benderman faces up to seven years confinement, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.
Benderman had agreed to speak at several events in Chicago organized by Voices in the Wilderness--on April 9 and 10, a weekend when he wasn’t scheduled for work. But the Army abruptly denied him permission to travel.
On March 19, the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Benderman spoke at a “Bring the troops home now!” rally in Youngstown, Ohio. Apparently, the military didn’t want a repeat of his public appearance, so Benderman’s commanders denied his travel permit.
To Monica Benderman, Kevin’s wife, the lesson for those considering joining the military couldn’t be clearer. “It is important for these students to consider just how much of their freedom is taken away against their will by the military command,” she told Socialist Worker. “They need to be made aware of how the military controls soldiers, families, etc. The extent is an incredible violation of human rights, in our opinion.”
The military is anxious to squelch the growing dissent within its ranks. Pablo Paredes, who last December refused to board his Navy ship that was headed for the Persian Gulf, is likewise facing a special court-martial for filing a conscientious objector application.
And two days after Benderman was denied permission to travel, a federal appeals court ruled against Emiliano Santiago, an Oregon reservist who had filed a lawsuit late last year challenging the military’s “stop-loss” policy.
The policy allows the military to extend the enlistment term of soldiers--forcing them to serve years beyond their original discharge date. The Pentagon implemented this program as a way to “retain” National Guard and Reserve troops, who currently make up more than 40 percent of soldiers in Iraq. Under “stop-loss,” Santiago might not be allowed out of the National Guard until December 2031--even though he only signed an eight-year enlistment contract.
Emiliano explained to Socialist Worker that he had been recruited in high school at the age of 18. “The main thing was the uniform,” said Santiago. “But I’m just done with it now. I want to get out.”
Signs of discontent spreading in the military. Since the war began, more than 5,500 troops have gone “absent without leave” (AWOL). In Benderman’s unit alone, 17 troops went AWOL, and two attempted suicide to avoid redeployment.
Military resisters deserve the support of the antiwar movement--and by their actions, have the power to undermine the U.S. war on Iraq.
By Eric Ruder and Jorge Torres | April 15, 2005 |
© Socialist Worker Online
Hinzman Appeal Filed
An American soldier who fled the U.S. military to avoid going to Iraq wants the Federal Court to examine Canada's refusal to accept him as a refugee in a case that one human-rights expert says raises broader legal issues about war crimes.
The application to review last month's Immigration and Refugee Board decision, which found Jeremy Hinzman had not shown a well-founded fear of persecution if returned to the United States, was filed Thursday with the Federal Court.
Hinzman wants the court to set aside the board's decision. He also wants the court to declare him a refugee, or at least refer the matter back to the board for further consideration.
The application cites several grounds, including "that the board erred in law in misapplying, misconstruing and ignoring relevant evidence." It says the board made "patently unreasonable findings of fact" and failed to "observe the principles of natural justice."
Hinzman also complains the board was wrong to dismiss as irrelevant his argument that the invasion of Iraq was illegal.
During his three-day refugee hearing in December, Hinzman said any violent acts he would have committed had he gone to Iraq would have amounted to an atrocity because the war itself was illegal.
He said the U.S. military regarded all Arabs in the Middle East - Iraqis in particular - as potential terrorists to be eliminated and were referred to as "savages." His case was bolstered by a former U.S. marine who said trigger-happy American soldiers in Iraq killed unarmed women and children, and murdered other Iraqis, in violation of international law.
Noah Novogrodsky, a law professor and director of the Centre for International Human Rights at the University of Toronto, said the board should have explored whether or not the behaviour of American soldiers in Iraq amounted to war crimes.
Instead, the board decided civilian casualties were "collateral damage" of the war and that human-rights abuses, such as those inflicted on Iraqi inmates by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, were isolated incidents, Novogrodsky said.
"It would be good to know when enough of these isolated incidents become a pattern and practice of human rights abuses that would be manifestly illegal to commit," he said.
"I don't think we should have a kind of 'I know it when I see it' analysis here of what constitutes war crimes."
Had the board decided that those abuses did constitute war crimes, it would have been easier for Hinzman to argue that efforts to prosecute him for refusing to deploy to Iraq would have amounted to persecution, Novogrodsky said.
Hinzman, 26, faces court martial for deserting his regiment in January 2004, just days before being deployed to Iraq.
Hinzman enlisted voluntarily in the U.S. army for four years in November 2000. He was a specialist with the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, N.C., until he [became a war-resister].
Canadian Press Updated: Thu. Apr. 7 2005 9:53 PM ET
dao reciprocity
  Hands grasp, but also give. The hands teach us not to be selfish. The mouth teaches us to give thanks in word and song. The nose teaches us to learn from our environment. The eyes teach us to show compassion and sincerity. The ears teach us to keep our balance. All parts of ourselves both give and receive. They function on a principle of reciprocity inherent in their very character. If our senses are so noble, shouldn’t we be as well? The eyes of a dedicated person show an inner fortitude and charisma that the eyes of the ordinary do not. Scientifically, we know that an eye is an eye, a mere organ, yet experientially we know that the eyes are virtual windows to the soul. For us to achieve similar depth of character, we must live according to the inherent nobility of our natures. Each one of our senses is not simply an information-gathering faculty but is a channel of expression as well. reciprocity 365 Tao Daily Meditations Deng Ming-Dao ISBN 0-06-250223-9 "Godhna Design" by Indra Kala Nidhi this is our last day with the women's art project in India so I share this portrait and know we will find them again with new and more beautiful paintings! 
a reading list of books and interpretations of the Daodejing is available at http://www.duckdaotsu.org/dao_books.html for a meditation sent to your email address each day, please write ’subscribe tao’ in the subject line and send to lisbeth at duckdaotsu |
Wednesday
The passion of Andrea Dworkin
The passion of Andrea Dworkin
To some, she was a holy warrior, fighting to protect women.
To others, she was a raging harpy determined to take away
their porn — or maybe their manhood.
By Laura Miller
hough holdovers from the counterculture of the 1960s will probably hate to hear it, Andrea Dworkin, who died over the weekend, was one of their own. The rosy lens of intervening decades has softened many people’s memories of those times, so that it’s become easier to see the ’60s as a time of righteous, liberal-minded protest movements and groovy celebrations of pot and casual sex.
But Dworkin, the product of what she describes in her 2002 memoir, “Heartbreak,” as a “horrible, awful, stupid suburb,” who fled clutching a copy of “Howl” to New York City to meet her idol, Allen Ginsberg, kept the faith. She was one of the last remnants of the extremist spirit you encounter when you go back to the source materials — leaflets, underground newspapers, manifestoes — created right in the moment, the spirit that called for, and firmly expected to get, permanent revolution, the abolition of work and the summary shooting of “pigs” in the street. It was the kind of spirit that had teenagers planting bombs in post offices for hazy reasons. For Dworkin, it eventually evolved into the idea that rape victims should be allowed to personally execute their attackers. That idea was grandiose, it was idealistic and, like Dworkin, it was ultimately self-defeating.
To Dworkin’s admirers, she was a hot-rod combination of martyr and holy warrior, a survivor of sexual abuse who dared to speak truth to power. To her critics, she was a raging harpy who rose up out of nowhere, intent on taking away their porn and (some of the male ones vaguely suspected) their manhood. With law professor Catharine MacKinnon she wrote an ordinance (passed by the city of Indianapolis) that defined pornography as a kind of speech crime that violated the civil rights of all women — the law was later overturned as unconstitutional. She testified before the infamous Meese Commission on pornography, forming what many saw as a dangerous alliance with the radical right. She was said to have written that all heterosexual intercourse was the equivalent of rape, though she denied that the passage in question amounted to such a claim.
Dworkin was a gifted, galvanizing communicator, both in print and as a public speaker. She was the Jonathan Edwards of radical feminism, capable of calling ecstatic souls to her cause, transforming her listeners and readers in ways many of them never forgot, even if they eventually came to disagree with her. (See Susie Bright’s eloquent eulogy for an example.) She could inspire impromptu Take Back the Night marches and the instant formation of anti-violence groups, sincere efforts to do something to check the abuse that real women really do suffer every day, even if the response to it in this case was more ideological than practical.
But Dworkin was also a pioneer of a particular and pernicious type of rhetoric, one currently being used much more effectively by talk radio hosts and the extreme political right. Here’s a classic example: During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Dworkin quarreled with feminists who did not consider Bill Clinton’s sexual encounters with the White House intern to be sufficiently exploitative to merit impeachment. A principled, reasonable argument could be made that Clinton’s behavior was unethical, but Dworkin was never about reason. “What needs to be asked,” she told a British journalist, “is, was the cigar lit?”
The statement (it seems too sensationalistic to be called a quip) is pure Dworkin: a ghoulishly creative melodramatic flourish that has little bearing on the matter at hand. Clinton may have acted sleazily, with a callous disregard for the emotional consequences of his actions on a young woman who was too naive and eager-to-please to grasp them herself, but no one suspects or has accused him of sadistically torturing her. Yet Dworkin was never able to enter into a conversation about morality unless the stakes were escalated to the stratosphere. The everyday realm where most of us commit our minor sins against, and injuries to, each other didn’t really interest her. She only cared for the Grand Guignol.
Dworkin came out of and contributed to a subculture of feminism that specialized in this kind of irresponsible overstatement. A certain style developed: Throw out a handful of lurid, grisly anecdotes as if they amounted to an indictment of an entire class of people (usually men), who, if the worst of them can be shown to be guilty of such outrages, must all be equally responsible for them. The shock will soften your audience up enough to keep them from asking just how typical such atrocities really are and how widely condoned. Yes, they do happen, but like the handful of kidnapped little girls during the summer of 2002, such horrors can be made to seem epidemic when they’re actually a rarity. Meanwhile, the much less exciting, if far more common, troubles of women who are simply trying to feed their children on inadequate wages, or get a decent job, fall by the wayside.
After this came the dodgy statistics, the one out of every four women said to have been raped in her lifetime, the alleged upsurge in domestic violence reports after the Super Bowl, and other mediagenic numbers. If these “facts” later turned out to be wobbly (or, in the case of the Super Bowl story, an outright hoax), many women’s advocates rarely seemed to grasp the damage they’d done. After all, they were only calling attention to real, pervasive problems, which rape and domestic violence unquestionably are.
But here’s the rub: If you get sloppy with the truth, then anyone who doesn’t feel like dealing with those problems can happily devote himself to quibbling with your numbers instead. Does it really matter that much whether it’s one women in four who will be raped, or one woman in 10? Or 20? It’s still too many, and it needs to be stopped. Good luck getting that done while everyone’s busy arguing about your stats.
The ravaged, bruised and mutilated women who parade through Dworkin’s writings can seem as insubstantial as these numbers. As described by her, they’re like the characters in an urban legend or campfire story, like the girl who finds the bloodied hook hanging from the car door handle. She tells their stories with an unseemly relish, and they’re portrayed as completely and utterly helpless and abject, with no one to turn to but their equally brutalized yet indomitable champion. “Heartbreak” professes to be the testament of someone who has devoted herself to abused women, but the only three-dimensional human being who emerges from the book’s Sturm und Drang is Dworkin herself. It’s a mistake to equate a writer’s work with how she lives her life, so let us hope that, in person, Dworkin managed to treat these women as more than rescue objects.
Perhaps in recent years Dworkin was pleased to see support for her own ideas in the theories of evolutionary psychologists who argue for the innate aggression of male sexuality, and even go so far as to suggest that men are born to rape. Probably not, though; she would have likely seen it as an excuse to go on raping. The very opposite of self-reflective, she never reconsidered her position on porn, so she surely never wondered what all the time and energy feminists spent on the “Sex Wars” of the 1980s might have accomplished if it had been redirected toward helping abused women gain the financial and emotional wherewithal to reclaim their lives. Her contribution to the discussion on most issues failed the ultimate litmus test: Even when she was right, she made the public conversation stupider. (Though some of her opponents, who could rarely resist ad hominem remarks about her appearance, surpassed her even in that.)
It’s almost impossible to locate a real woman amid the towering phantom images generated by Andrea Dworkin’s extraordinary life. It seems clear that she was very talented, and that she also suffered greatly, if exactly how and when is pretty hard to nail down. In recent years, the death of her beloved father and a murky traumatic incident in a European hotel seemed to sap her utterly. Her theories had become even more marginalized and it was getting harder and harder for her to publish in the U.S. Maybe the fight just went out of her. The constitutionally unforgiving (and Dworkin herself was among them) might hope that in the end she realized how much of that fight she’d wasted. The merciful will wish that she left what was for her an earthly house of horrors feeling vindicated somehow and finally free.
Laura Miller is a senior writer for Salon.
Long-absent hope returns to Lebanon
pril 13, 1975, is a date that represents, for most of us Lebanese who are above 45 years of age, a frontier separating the often idealized Lebanon of before the war, and the insufferable reality of after April 13. For the youth of Lebanon, April 13 is just a controversial historical date. For them there is no dividing line; they grew up in a Lebanon ravaged by war, still suffering the sequels of occupation and a deep sectarian partition. A country where ambition is curbed and hope scarceThis would have been a perfect introductory paragraph to a piece commemorating April 13, if I was asked to write it before February 14. Today I cannot ignore the change, the atmosphere of revival, and the fact that more than half of the Lebanese population, waving the flag, took to the streets in two peaceful demonstrations. I cannot ignore the loud voice of the silent majority, and the strong participation of women and the youth. I cannot disregard the sight of two women standing side by side at Hariri's last resting place, one reading the Muslim prayer and the other performing the sign of the cross. I cannot neglect the reaction of defiance and the stress on national unity that followed four criminal explosions that targeted Christian areas. One has often dreamed of renewal, but never dared to imagine one. Today it is possible, the Lebanese people just need to reach for it, and then maybe April 13, 2005 will be a new frontier, that of the rebirth of Lebanon.
I am sure that many dismiss these signs as emotional reactions, and insist that the situation is much more complex than the popular mood. This is true in some way, yet it is not pure naivete to observe the manifestations of discontent and to measure the pulse of the population. Regimes that dismiss the well-being of their population by imposing an iron-handed approach to governing do so at their own risk. In fact, the mood of the Lebanese before and after the Hariri assassination takes root in the political developments that followed the Taif Agreement.
The Lebanese civil war that started on April 13, 1975 was officially ended on October 22, 1989, by the Arab League, sponsoring the Taif Agreement. By then, the Lebanese were weary and tired from a series of armed conflicts that at first took root in deep internal divisions but then became regional in nature. The end of the armed conflict did not bring the civil war to a real conclusion. There was no national reconciliation effort on the popular level, and Israel maintained its occupation of South Lebanon, which made the Syrian presence in Lebanon a de facto reality that nobody could contest without seeming to side with the enemy. Given this reality it would have been naive to expect the emergence of an independent democratic Lebanon.
In theory, Taif restored to Lebanon its Constitution, that guarantees freedoms and democracy. But under the pretext of national security necessities the country was ruled for the last 15 years by a false, imposed national consensus that destroyed accountability, the prime basis of democracy. The choices of ministers became a reflection of sectarian power centers and foreign intervention, resulting at all political junctions in deadlock. The parliamentary institution lost its meaning when deputies started falling in line when it came to the ministerial vote of confidence or presidential elections, whatever their previously declared positions. People felt powerless and many gave up on the electoral system.
Then in the year 2000, the South was liberated from Israeli occupation, and there was hope in the air, but soon it became clear that the status quo was here to stay, and that the country was sinking deeper under Syrian control. The signs of an organized effort to erode the few remaining liberties became more pronounced. This demise of democracy was exacerbated by a deep feeling of isolation as the international community showed a total lack of concern. The sense of hopelessness became stronger and young people had only one dream: leave the country.
Buried under this hopelessness was anger. The anger exploded when Hariri was assassinated. People took peacefully to the streets, the prime minister resigned, and the international community started paying attention. Out of it came a feeling of empowerment and hope.
For me this hope is embodied in the commune-like freedom tents in the middle of Beirut. There you find hundreds of youth of all religious sects that have been living there since the Hariri assassination. They organize daily activities under strict rules of behavior and you often find students from opposing parties communicating, building a basis for national reconciliation. School children visit and try to understand. The hope is that this generation, whatever happens, will never forget this experience.
© Lebanon Star
By Khatoun Haidar Special to The Daily Star Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Rummy working to keep Saddam secret police in power
Rumsfeld’s mission to Baghdad: keeping Saddam’s secret police in power
The first high-level contact between Washington and the fledgling Iraqi transitional government came Monday, with an emergency flight to Baghdad by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Over the past few weeks, Washington’s official pronouncements and reports in the US media have been filled with rhetoric about the new Iraqi regime representing an historic transition from dictatorship to democracy. There has, predictably, been no attempt to square this official line with Rumsfeld’s mission to Baghdad, whose purpose is to force the incoming Iraqi administration to leave in place ex-military and police officers from the Saddam Hussein dictatorship who have been recruited by the CIA and Pentagon for the new US-organized Iraqi security forces.
Speaking to reporters en route to his surprise meeting with the Iraqi officials, Rumsfeld indirectly hinted at the nature of his visit, declaring, “It’s important that the new government be attentive to the competence of the people in the ministries and that they avoid unnecessary turbulence.”
He reportedly said he intended to warn the Iraqis against “corruption” and “cronyism.” These words must have evoked guffaws in many quarters, given Rumsfeld’s oversight of multi-billion-dollar contracts to Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR for a reconstruction effort that has provided a huge windfall for the firm previously headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Reporting on the talks between the Pentagon chief and newly installed Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, Reuters news agency stated, “Rumsfeld expressed particular concern about any clear-out of Iraq’s defense and interior ministries, which are at the heart of efforts to put Iraq’s security forces in charge of battling the country’s Sunni Muslim-led insurgency.”
The main impulse for Rumsfeld’s trip was growing sentiment within the Shiite Islamist parties that were the primary victors in last January’s election for a purge of former Baathist military and secret police officers enlisted by Washington in its efforts to suppress resistance to the US occupation.
“Our concerns are to maintain momentum, and that there be no major tinkering with security forces,” a US official in Baghdad told the Financial Times of London. “If you get rid of anyone who ever carried a Baathist card, then you get rid of everyone with experience and training, including some that have proven themselves in the last nine months.”
Rumsfeld’s intervention reveals in a nutshell the utter hypocrisy of Washington’s democratic pretensions. It points to the real aims and methods of the US occupation of Iraq, and the real nature of the relationship between the “sovereign” transitional government and its American overseers.
Rumsfeld’s visit follows by only days the largest demonstrations in Iraqi history, which brought hundreds of thousands of people—predominantly Shia, but also Sunni—into the streets of Baghdad demanding an end to the US occupation and equating George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein.
The demonstration, part of a continuing political campaign mounted by the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr, has placed significant political pressure on Jaafari, whose Dawa Party seeks to appeal to the same Shia population. At the same time, his key government partner, former Kurdish guerrilla leader and incoming Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, has insisted he does not want the US troops to leave.
For the civilian chief of the US military to fly to Baghdad to issue orders to the new government is a clear signal in itself. Washington views the new transitional regime as little more than a public front for what is, in fact, a transition to a new phase in the occupation. The Pentagon envisions a gradual reduction in US troop levels until American forces are able to withdraw to fortified bases and allow Iraqi puppet forces to carry out day-to-day repression.
Key to this strategy is the use of the ex-members of Saddam Hussein’s repressive apparatus, whose “experience and training” are precisely in the suppression of the same Shia masses who have turned out in such great numbers to demand an end to the US occupation.
In the early days of the US occupation, the head of the American operation, L. Paul Bremer, instituted a sweeping “de-Baathification” program and disbanded the Iraqi army—a move subsequently seen as a major blunder by many in the US security establishment. Within months of the US invasion, however, the CIA began quietly recruiting former officers of Saddam Hussein’s hated Mukhabarat secret police.
In 1991, in the wake of Iraq’s defeat in the first Gulf war, it was the Mukhabarat that organized the suppression of a Shia uprising in the south of Iraq. The bloody crackdown was conducted with the tacit backing of Washington, which allowed the Iraqi military to utilize its combat aircraft to attack the rebels.
After the dissolution of Bremer’s occupation authority and the installation of long-time CIA asset Iyad Allawi as the prime minister in the provisional government, the recruitment of former Hussein regime members was stepped up. Allawi is himself an ex-Baathist, and built his US- and British-backed exile group, the Iraqi National Accord, around disgruntled Baathist officers and intelligence agents.
It is now reported that up to 70 percent of the officers in the US-organized Iraqi security forces are ex-Baathist officers. An entire commando force of 10,000 members, which is considered the most reliable Iraqi unit, is composed almost entirely of ex-Iraqi military personnel.
Though Washington’s favorite, Allawi’s party received less than 10 percent of the vote in January. The United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition dominated by Shia religious parties, won the election through a campaign that called for an end to the US occupation and a purge of Baathists from the government.
Since being tapped as prime minister, Jafaari has been forced to back off from the call for a US withdrawal. Now, Rumsfeld has ordered him to shelve plans to root out military and police officers who are associated with massacres, assassinations and torture against the Shia population.
The Shia parties have charged that many of those involved in such crimes are being brought back to carry out similar atrocities. Hostility to the rehiring of Baathist officers boiled over last month following reports that three members of the Badr Corps, a Shia militia that is affiliated with the United Iraqi Alliance, were tortured to death by members of the security forces.
Washington is determined to utilize the ex-Baathists as the command structure for repressing resistance to its occupation. It fears that if they are purged, the new security force will disintegrate.
There is no prospect for the transitional regime headed by Jafaari securing popular support unless it can present itself as independent of a US occupation that is overwhelmingly opposed by the Iraqi people. Nevertheless, the visit by the US defense secretary has made it clear that Washington has no intention of tolerating any real independence, especially when it comes to the central question of its puppet Iraqi security forces.
In the final analysis, the Rumsfeld trip only underscores the colonial character of the US intervention in Iraq and the untenable nature of Washington’s efforts to forge a viable puppet regime. At the same time, the spectacle of the US strong-arming the new Iraqi government into accepting the return of Saddam Hussein’s military and secret police provides a devastating exposure of the propaganda about US bombs and troops spearheading a wave of democratic change in the Arab world.
By Bill Van Auken 13 April 2005
Copyright 1998-2004
World Socialist Web Site
The first high-level contact between Washington and the fledgling Iraqi transitional government came Monday, with an emergency flight to Baghdad by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Over the past few weeks, Washington’s official pronouncements and reports in the US media have been filled with rhetoric about the new Iraqi regime representing an historic transition from dictatorship to democracy. There has, predictably, been no attempt to square this official line with Rumsfeld’s mission to Baghdad, whose purpose is to force the incoming Iraqi administration to leave in place ex-military and police officers from the Saddam Hussein dictatorship who have been recruited by the CIA and Pentagon for the new US-organized Iraqi security forces.
Speaking to reporters en route to his surprise meeting with the Iraqi officials, Rumsfeld indirectly hinted at the nature of his visit, declaring, “It’s important that the new government be attentive to the competence of the people in the ministries and that they avoid unnecessary turbulence.”
He reportedly said he intended to warn the Iraqis against “corruption” and “cronyism.” These words must have evoked guffaws in many quarters, given Rumsfeld’s oversight of multi-billion-dollar contracts to Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR for a reconstruction effort that has provided a huge windfall for the firm previously headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Reporting on the talks between the Pentagon chief and newly installed Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, Reuters news agency stated, “Rumsfeld expressed particular concern about any clear-out of Iraq’s defense and interior ministries, which are at the heart of efforts to put Iraq’s security forces in charge of battling the country’s Sunni Muslim-led insurgency.”
The main impulse for Rumsfeld’s trip was growing sentiment within the Shiite Islamist parties that were the primary victors in last January’s election for a purge of former Baathist military and secret police officers enlisted by Washington in its efforts to suppress resistance to the US occupation.
“Our concerns are to maintain momentum, and that there be no major tinkering with security forces,” a US official in Baghdad told the Financial Times of London. “If you get rid of anyone who ever carried a Baathist card, then you get rid of everyone with experience and training, including some that have proven themselves in the last nine months.”
Rumsfeld’s intervention reveals in a nutshell the utter hypocrisy of Washington’s democratic pretensions. It points to the real aims and methods of the US occupation of Iraq, and the real nature of the relationship between the “sovereign” transitional government and its American overseers.
Rumsfeld’s visit follows by only days the largest demonstrations in Iraqi history, which brought hundreds of thousands of people—predominantly Shia, but also Sunni—into the streets of Baghdad demanding an end to the US occupation and equating George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein.
The demonstration, part of a continuing political campaign mounted by the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr, has placed significant political pressure on Jaafari, whose Dawa Party seeks to appeal to the same Shia population. At the same time, his key government partner, former Kurdish guerrilla leader and incoming Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, has insisted he does not want the US troops to leave.
For the civilian chief of the US military to fly to Baghdad to issue orders to the new government is a clear signal in itself. Washington views the new transitional regime as little more than a public front for what is, in fact, a transition to a new phase in the occupation. The Pentagon envisions a gradual reduction in US troop levels until American forces are able to withdraw to fortified bases and allow Iraqi puppet forces to carry out day-to-day repression.
Key to this strategy is the use of the ex-members of Saddam Hussein’s repressive apparatus, whose “experience and training” are precisely in the suppression of the same Shia masses who have turned out in such great numbers to demand an end to the US occupation.
In the early days of the US occupation, the head of the American operation, L. Paul Bremer, instituted a sweeping “de-Baathification” program and disbanded the Iraqi army—a move subsequently seen as a major blunder by many in the US security establishment. Within months of the US invasion, however, the CIA began quietly recruiting former officers of Saddam Hussein’s hated Mukhabarat secret police.
In 1991, in the wake of Iraq’s defeat in the first Gulf war, it was the Mukhabarat that organized the suppression of a Shia uprising in the south of Iraq. The bloody crackdown was conducted with the tacit backing of Washington, which allowed the Iraqi military to utilize its combat aircraft to attack the rebels.
After the dissolution of Bremer’s occupation authority and the installation of long-time CIA asset Iyad Allawi as the prime minister in the provisional government, the recruitment of former Hussein regime members was stepped up. Allawi is himself an ex-Baathist, and built his US- and British-backed exile group, the Iraqi National Accord, around disgruntled Baathist officers and intelligence agents.
It is now reported that up to 70 percent of the officers in the US-organized Iraqi security forces are ex-Baathist officers. An entire commando force of 10,000 members, which is considered the most reliable Iraqi unit, is composed almost entirely of ex-Iraqi military personnel.
Though Washington’s favorite, Allawi’s party received less than 10 percent of the vote in January. The United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition dominated by Shia religious parties, won the election through a campaign that called for an end to the US occupation and a purge of Baathists from the government.
Since being tapped as prime minister, Jafaari has been forced to back off from the call for a US withdrawal. Now, Rumsfeld has ordered him to shelve plans to root out military and police officers who are associated with massacres, assassinations and torture against the Shia population.
The Shia parties have charged that many of those involved in such crimes are being brought back to carry out similar atrocities. Hostility to the rehiring of Baathist officers boiled over last month following reports that three members of the Badr Corps, a Shia militia that is affiliated with the United Iraqi Alliance, were tortured to death by members of the security forces.
Washington is determined to utilize the ex-Baathists as the command structure for repressing resistance to its occupation. It fears that if they are purged, the new security force will disintegrate.
There is no prospect for the transitional regime headed by Jafaari securing popular support unless it can present itself as independent of a US occupation that is overwhelmingly opposed by the Iraqi people. Nevertheless, the visit by the US defense secretary has made it clear that Washington has no intention of tolerating any real independence, especially when it comes to the central question of its puppet Iraqi security forces.
In the final analysis, the Rumsfeld trip only underscores the colonial character of the US intervention in Iraq and the untenable nature of Washington’s efforts to forge a viable puppet regime. At the same time, the spectacle of the US strong-arming the new Iraqi government into accepting the return of Saddam Hussein’s military and secret police provides a devastating exposure of the propaganda about US bombs and troops spearheading a wave of democratic change in the Arab world.
By Bill Van Auken 13 April 2005
Copyright 1998-2004
World Socialist Web Site
Newly Released Documents Show Intelligence Nominee Was Active in U.S. Effort
Papers Illustrate Negroponte's Contra Role
The day after the House voted to halt all aid to rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John D. Negroponte urged the president's national security adviser and the CIA director to hang tough.The thrust of the envoy's "back channel" July 1983 message to the men running the contra war against Nicaragua was contained in a single cryptic sentence: "Hondurans believe special project is as important as ever."
"Special project" was code for the secret arming of contra rebels from bases in Honduras -- a cause championed by Negroponte, then a rising diplomatic star. In cables and memos, Negroponte made it clear that he saw the "special project" as key to the Reagan administration's strategy of rolling back communism in Central America.
As Negroponte prepares for his Senate confirmation hearing today for the new post of director of national intelligence, hundreds of previously secret cables and telegrams have become available that shed new light on the most controversial episode in his four-decade diplomatic career. The documents, drawn from Negroponte's personal records as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, were released by the State Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Post.
The documents were initially declassified and provided to Negroponte in 1998, after his retirement from the Foreign Service, but the vast majority have never been made public. A State Department FOIA official said yesterday that about 100 documents from the collection are still being "processed."
The documents offer revealing glimpses into the personality, leadership style and political attitudes of the man President Bush selected to shake up U.S. intelligence in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Negroponte's determination to reverse the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua occasionally put him at odds with fellow envoys and with more cautious State Department bureaucrats.
"I have my doubts about a dinner at the residence for a man who is in the business of overthrowing a neighboring government," cabled U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Anthony Quainton, after Negroponte played host to the political leader of the contra rebels, Adolfo Calero. Quainton made it clear that he was not a fan of Negroponte's "gastronomic diplomacy."
Overall, Negroponte comes across as an exceptionally energetic, action-oriented ambassador whose anti-communist convictions led him to play down human rights abuses in Honduras, the most reliable U.S. ally in the region. There is little in the documents the State Department has released so far to support his assertion that he used "quiet diplomacy" to persuade the Honduran authorities to investigate the most egregious violations, including the mysterious disappearance of dozens of government opponents.
The contrast with his immediate predecessor, Jack R. Binns, who was recalled to Washington in the fall of 1981 to make way for Negroponte, is striking. Before departing, Binns sent several cables to Washington warning of possible "death squad" activity linked to Honduran strongman Gen. Gustavo Alvarez. Negroponte dismissed the talk of death squads and, in an October 1983 cable to Washington, emphasized Alvarez's "dedication to democracy."
The cables show that the two men typically met once a week, and sometimes several times a week. Although the Honduran military had ostensibly turned over power to a civilian government headed by President Roberto Suazo, Negroponte and the U.S. Embassy viewed Alvarez as the go-to person on security matters. The ambassador supported an April 1983 request by Alvarez for more weapons for the contra rebels, and he predicted that the size of the contra force "could be doubled in next five months if we provided necessary weapons."
Negroponte's support for Alvarez remained unwavering until March 30, 1984, when fellow officers ousted Alvarez from office, accusing him of corruption and authoritarian tendencies.
The cables show that Negroponte enjoyed a close relationship with senior Washington policymakers, such as then-CIA Director William J. Casey, that was unusual for career diplomats. He used a back-channel system of communication through the CIA to send messages to Casey and others that he did not want widely distributed, offering advice on how to sell the "special project" to an increasingly suspicious and skeptical Congress.
The secret message traffic suggests that Negroponte was highly attuned to the political and public relations ramifications of embassy and State Department reporting. He occasionally berated colleagues for their lack of discretion and worked hard to maintain the fiction that Honduras was not serving as the logistical base for as many as 15,000 anti-Sandinista rebels known as the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN.
"We request that Department no longer clear out cables for Codels [Congressional Delegations] which of late almost invariably have included 'meet with FDN' or 'visit contra camps,' as one of the desired schedule items," Negroponte cabled then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz in July 1984.
The cables show that Negroponte was unremittingly skeptical of a regional peace initiative for Nicaragua known as the Contadora process, which would have left the Sandinista government in power. In a private cable to Shultz in May 1982, six months after taking over as ambassador, he expressed fears that peace negotiations could lead to the consolidation of communist influence in Nicaragua.
As reports of U.S. covert support for the contra war swept Washington in 1982, Negroponte became a controversial symbol of Reagan administration policies. The ambassador kept a separate file documenting his efforts to combat the negative press coverage, and he fired off letters to editors and newspaper owners to complain about their correspondents' reporting.
In a letter to Washington Post Co. Chairman Katharine Graham in November 1982, Negroponte complained about an unflattering profile in Newsweek -- which the company owns -- that depicted him as "a bit imperious" and an admirer of Shakespeare's play "Julius Caesar." Not true, insisted Negroponte. "What little leisure time I have for casual reading does not incline in the direction of English literature but rather towards 19th and 20th century history," he wrote.
Evidently, the Julius Caesar reference got to Negroponte, because six months later he was referring to the play in a back-channel message that relayed complaints from Honduran leaders about being "taken for granted by Uncle Sam." To emphasize his point, the ambassador quoted from the play to illustrate the relationship between the Honduran and U.S. governments:
"Cassius: You love me not.
"Brutus: I do not like your faults.
"Cassius: A friendly eye could never see such faults."
By Michael Dobbs Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 12, 2005; Page A04
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
John Bolton, king of the world!
John Bolton, king of the world! Plus: Karl Rove bootlegs Michael Moore, and James Dobson sees the Ku Klux Klan in the Supreme Court.
By Mark Follman
For days now, conservatives have been rallying around President Bush's nominee for U.N. ambassador, the man much noted for his admonition in 1994, "There is no such thing as the United Nations." Since Monday, beneath trademark glasses and bushy mustache, John Bolton has flashed a softer, more diplomatic face during contentious Senate confirmation hearings. But his pundit supporters know better.
"It's not a moment too soon for strong, effective — bold — American leadership at the United Nations," wrote Heritage Foundation fellow Peter Brookes in Monday's New York Post. "The world's largest international institution is in serious need of some 'tough love' — and the smart money says John Bolton is the right man to give it ... We need an ambassador in New York who can tangle with the increasingly powerful (and confident) Chinese, the ornery Russians and the (always) cranky French on the Security Council."
While opponents argue Bolton is about as anti-U.N. as they come, Brookes thinks otherwise. Bolton's criticisms of the institution, he says, "have always been inspired by the U.N.'s ideals — and therefore scathing about its corrupt reality."
Brookes doesn't go into what those "ideals" are, but his column is a primer on the double standard by which Bolton supporters measure the U.N. They maintain that its member nations should fall in line under American leadership — but when it comes to the institution's failures, they see the U.N. as an entity separate from the U.S.
"The 191-member organization is reeling from revelations of rampant corruption in the Iraq Oil-for-Food program, and sexual abuses by its 'peacekeepers' in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Standing in the dark shadow of deadly inaction in Rwanda and Bosnia, the international body is also under fire for its failure to halt ethnic cleansing in Darfur, Sudan, and the ongoing Congo massacres. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan admits the organization stands in desperate need of reform. He has suggested some reform initiatives — but he's on the verge of being tossed into the East River himself. The United Nations won't achieve the reform it needs without strong, engaged American leadership. That's where a rock-solid guy like John Bolton comes in."
Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, who calls Bolton a friend from their days working together for the right-wing Project for the New American Century, agrees that Bolton is "an exceptional choice" for the post. He also has some intriguing thoughts about who is at the helm of the party opposing the nominee. "[Bolton] supports President Bush's policies," says Kristol, "and as undersecretary of state worked hard to advance them in the first term. So the Democratic party, led by George Soros and the New York Times, thinks he shouldn't be permitted to continue to serve President Bush."
Like Brookes, Kristol makes no mention of a U.S. role in past U.N. debacles, including the failure to act to stop genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s and in Darfur today. "Despite Soros's millions and the Times's resources," Kristol continues, "the assault on Bolton has been pathetic. What does it amount to? He's a longtime U.N. skeptic — appropriate, one would think, given the U.N.'s 'Zionism is Racism' history during the Cold War, and its ineffectiveness (to be kind) in Rwanda in the '90s and in Sudan in this decade. But he's worse than a skeptic, the critics say: He has been disrespectful of the august body in which he will represent us. Why, he once joked, 'The Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.' Well, truer words were never spoken."
Steve Bowers, a blogger over at "Pardon My English," takes issue with the Democrats' "Borking" of Bolton (as in, Robert, the thwarted Supreme Court nominee). He laments their "systematic attempts to torpedo" the ideal strongman for the job.
"Personally, I think the best thing we could possibly do to the UN is take our land back (international territory, my ass) and throw the corrupt thugs the hell into the bay. But since that's not going to happen, the UN at the very least needs major reform and who better to help bring about that reform than a known critic of this vaunted body of corrupt third-world despots? And Bolton's suggestion that we eliminate the building (at least ten floors of it) is a good place to begin. We might end up with thousands of homeless diplomats and staffers roaming the streets of New York, but at least they wouldn't be engaging in their usual conspiratorial U.S. bashing. And if we threw them out on the streets, their living conditions would be roughly similar to the living conditions of the citizens in 90% of their home countries. Actually better because they could at least beg for subsistence instead of scrabbling in the hard earth for beans."
Bowers hits another talking point of Bolton supporters, a cost-benefit analysis that calls for a better return on investment, though is free of charge when things don't go so smoothly. (And Bowers seems a bit confused about who in the game wields the "big stick.")
"But seriously, as the supplier of 20 percent of the operating budget of the U.N., we aren't getting our money's worth," he says. "If you gave your kid an allowance and your kid went out and badmouthed you in public, came home and lectured you about how to run your family, then beat you with a big stick and, despite it all, you still kept giving him money, you'd be pretty damn stupid. Well, aside from the beating with a big stick, that's pretty much the situation the U.S. finds itself in with the U.N."
Rove's bootleg DVD collection?
In an excerpt from his new book, "The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy," Byron York, a White House correspondent for National Review Online, makes a shocking accusation about filmmaker Michael Moore: that he's a masterful hype artist. York digs deep into the box office numbers for "Fahrenheit 9/11" and argues that Moore's movie may not have had quite as big an impact on the voting populace as Moore claimed last fall.
What's more intriguing, though, is the film's apparent lack of impact on Karl Rove. York recounts lunching with Bush's top political advisor last August, when he asked Rove if he thought "Fahrenheit 9/11" would have an effect on the presidential race.
"'It's an artful piece of propaganda,' Rove said.
"Was that all? Had he seen the picture?
"'I plead guilty to violating the copyright laws of the United States by watching a bootleg DVD,' Rove answered with a grin. 'I refuse to enrich [Moore],' he added, giving the clear impression that he had a rather low opinion of the filmmaker."
Time for a bench burning
When he's not busy crusading against spritely yellow cartoon characters, Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson devotes his spare time to going after Supreme Court judges. On his April 11 radio show, he chatted with fellow talk-show host Mark Levin, and pumped up Levin's new book, "Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America."
At one point, the discussion turned to the justices' apparel, which Dobson deemed indicative of their true colors. Let's go to the transcript:
DOBSON: Justice Scalia referred to his colleagues on the court as "black-robed masters." Isn't that incredible?
LEVIN: You know, it is incredible. I'm starting to think, just so we can knock them down a notch, Dr. Dobson, that they should be required again to wear those white-powdered wigs.
[Laughter.]
DOBSON: Well, I heard a minister talking the other day about the great injustice and evil of the men in white robes, the Ku Klux Klan that roamed the country in the South, and they did great wrong to civil rights and to morality, and now we have black-robed men, and that's what you're talking about.
In closing Dobson noted that the introduction to Levin's book was written by fellow on-air journeyman Rush Limbaugh. As Dobson himself also said, "That ought to tell you something."
Mark Follman is an associate news editor at Salon.
Chinese Premier revives Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai
New Delhi, April 12: Reviving the five-decades old slogan Hindi chini, bhai bhai, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao today asserted that the two countries were not rivals or competitors but friendly neighbours who were out to further improve their relations through cooperation.
Noting that India and China were the largest developing countries with the fastest economic growth, he talked about Panchsheel and emphasised that the two countries should work together to make the 21st century that of Asia.
"Some see India and China as competitors... I disagree," Wen said addressing and interacting with the students of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi before winding up his four-day "historic" visit to the country.
"India and China are friendly neighbours and not rivals," he said in the address which he concluded by uttering Hindi chini, bhai bhai in Hindi, a famous slogan of 1950s which was clouded by the 1962 war, drawing all round applause.
The Chinese leader underlined that his country wished to see India "prosperous and developed. Also prosperous and developed China is in India's interest."
Charming the young audience while hailing India's progress in recent years, he elaborately quoted Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore, Amartya Sen and Deng Xiaoping and referred to Chinese traveller Huan Tsang's historic visit to India to lay emphasis on the historic friendly ties between the two neighbours which needed to be given a further lift.
Noting that India and China were the largest developing countries with the fastest economic growth, he talked about Panchsheel and emphasised that the two countries should work together to make the 21st century that of Asia.
"Some see India and China as competitors... I disagree," Wen said addressing and interacting with the students of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi before winding up his four-day "historic" visit to the country.
"India and China are friendly neighbours and not rivals," he said in the address which he concluded by uttering Hindi chini, bhai bhai in Hindi, a famous slogan of 1950s which was clouded by the 1962 war, drawing all round applause.
The Chinese leader underlined that his country wished to see India "prosperous and developed. Also prosperous and developed China is in India's interest."
Charming the young audience while hailing India's progress in recent years, he elaborately quoted Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore, Amartya Sen and Deng Xiaoping and referred to Chinese traveller Huan Tsang's historic visit to India to lay emphasis on the historic friendly ties between the two neighbours which needed to be given a further lift.
Support the troops -- all of them
The military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy took a beating last week when a 23 year-old Army sergeant who received a Purple Heart for service in Iraq disclosed that he was gay. The soldier, Robert Stout, told the Associated Press he'd like the chance to serve openly, but that it was more likely he would be jailed and discharged from the Army. "The old armchair thought that gay people destroy unit camaraderie and cohesion is just wrong,'' he said. ''They said the same things when they tried to integrate African-Americans and women into the military."
The military's policy seems particularly egregious today, given the U.S. military's ongoing recruitment problems. This week, conservative Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami, who often supports gay rights because of her Miami constituency, took the bold step of saying so. "We've tried the policy. I don't think it works. And we've spent a lot of money enforcing it,'' she told the Miami Herald. "We investigate people... Basically wreck their lives. People who've signed up to serve our country. We should be thanking them."
She and two other House Republicans, Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Jim Kolbe of Arizona (the only openly gay Republican in Congress), have joined 72 Democrats in supporting the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Rep. Marty Meehan of Massachusetts introduced the proposal in the House in March, saying he was concerned about military readiness. A report from the Government Accountability Office found that the Army has ejected nearly 10,000 service members since the policy began in 1993, many of whom had valuable language skills. The Army spent $190 million to replace them.
But as concerned as many legislators say they are about supporting U.S. troops now serving around the globe, addressing the issue of gays in the military is too hot an issue for most Republicans to touch. The bill, which has no Senate companion, is unlikely to leave the House Committee on Armed Services.
Stopping Hillary before she starts
( '? I still have my “BITCHES FOR HILLARY” Button.... end ( '?
Although the senator denies any interest in the presidency, she's becoming the No. 1 target of the right's attack machine.
Although the senator denies any interest in the presidency, she's becoming the No. 1 target of the right's attack machine.
By David Teather
She has yet to declare any intention of running for president, but the long shadow of Hillary Rodham Clinton over American politics has already prompted Republicans to train their sights on the former first lady. Republican strategist Arthur Finkelstein is reportedly raising $10 million for a political action committee called Stop Her Now. He aims to prevent Clinton's reelection to the Senate next year, and ultimately thwart any bid she makes for the White House.
Stop Her Now is a "527" advocacy group, similar to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group, which helped to undermine Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in last November's election. The groups began to emerge last year after campaign funding reform prevented donors from giving unlimited sums directly to political parties.
Finkelstein, an advisor to New York Gov. George Pataki and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is a controversial figure within his party. He raised eyebrows by warning against the influence of evangelical Christians. He is also openly gay, and startled some party supporters when headlines last weekend disclosed that he had recently married his long-term partner.
Although Clinton has refused to be pinned down on a run for president, she is widely seen as a leading contender among Democrats, and her popularity in New York is at an all-time high. She was introduced as "the next great president of the United States of America" at an address in Minnesota over the weekend. One of her advisors told the Associated Press that the Stop Her Now group was evidence that the Republicans planned "a negative campaign of lies and distortion."
The New York Republican Party's chairman has also launched a Stop Hillary Now fundraising drive. In a letter dated April 8 seen by the AP, Stephen Minarik said the campaign "is not merely a race for New York. It's a race for America. Stopping Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most important thing you and I can do as Republicans in the next two years."
Clinton has told potential supporters in an e-mail that she is the "No. 1 target for the rightwing attack machine." Her spokeswoman, Ann Lewis, told the AP that the Clinton campaign was "not surprised that the Republican Party has chosen to wage a personally negative campaign. They don't want to talk about Hillary's record of working for New Yorkers, throughout the state and in the Senate."
Cochran's Case in front of Supreme Court: Will it Suvive?
The Supreme Court Case Involving Johnnie Cochran:
Does The Controversy Survive His Death? And If So, Who Should Win?
By JULIE HILDEN
julhil@aol.com
Julie Hilden, a FindLaw columnist, practiced First Amendment law at the D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly from 1996-99. Hilden also has experience in criminal motions and appeals. Hilden's first novel, 3, was published recently. In reviewing 3, Kirkus Reviews praised Hilden's "rather uncanny abilities," and Counterpunch called it "a must read.... a work of art." Hilden's website, www.juliehilden.com, includes MP3 and text downloads of the novel's first chapter.
Does The Controversy Survive His Death? And If So, Who Should Win?
By JULIE HILDEN
julhil@aol.com
Tuesday, Apr. 12, 2005
Last month, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the First Amendment case of Tory v. Cochran. This month, sadly, one of the parties in the case - famed attorney Johnnie Cochran - died.
In this column, I will discuss whether the case is mooted by Cochran's death (I believe it is not), and who has the better of the argument. In particular, I will argue that Cochran's adversary, Ulysses Tory, is right to argue that the court injunction at issue violates his First Amendment rights.
The Basis for the Case: A California Court's Permanent Injunction Against Speech
The case involved a California court's injunction applying to Ulysses Tory, a very dissatisfied former Cochran client. Tory and others had picketed outside Cochran's law office holding up a variety of placards criticizing Cochran.
Among them were placards claiming Cochran was a "liar," a "thief," and a "crook"; suggesting he was involved in "illegal abuse" and discrimination; and saying that unless a client were rich, he or she would be "screwed" if represented by Cochran.
If such statements are indeed untrue, as the California judge held, then they are classic instances of defamation. Indeed, because some of these statements disparage Cochran's professional competency and integrity, they are, if untrue, a kind of defamation that the law especially despises -- for it can lead to job loss and blackballing.
Accordingly, Cochran on the basis of these statements, sued Tory and others associated with him, including other picketers, for defamation and "false light" invasion of privacy (a claim which is very similar to - and arguably, duplicative of - a defamation claim).
In the end, Cochran won, and he won big: The court issued a permanent injunction directing Tory and others not to picket, display placards, or otherwise speak about Cochran or his firm in any public forum.
This injunction will stay in place until and unless the court modifies it. It thus could gag Tory and his associates forever.
Is the Case Moot Now That Cochran Has Died?
Will Cochran's death end the case? Under the constitutional doctrine known as "mootness," a case is "moot," and can no longer be considered by a court, if there is no longer a controversy to be resolved. Thus, the Supreme Court requested that lawyers for both Cochran and Tory submit briefs on the question of whether the case survives Cochran's death.
Arguments support each side:
On one hand, any risk of defamation is gone, because deceased persons cannot bring defamation claims. (An earlier column by John Dean argues, however, that the law should recognize such a claim.) So if the injunction was simply meant to prevent Cochran from being further defamed, then its job is done.
On the other hand, the injunction relates not only to speech about Cochran, but also to speech about Cochran's firm - which certainly continues on without him. As Tory's lawyer, Erwin Chemerinsky, argued to legal journalist Tony Mauro, this strongly suggests that the injunction "continues after death," at least as against the firm.
But what if the injunction only reached the firm (which did not claim it was defamed) in order to prevent Tory from circumventing the ban on defamation claims against Cochran by critiquing the firm, not the attorney? In that case, one can argue, once again, that the injunction has no purpose - and thus is void - after Cochran's death, because no defamation of him can now occur, and that the case is moot.
A final point by Professor Chemerinsky may settle the debate: As he noted in speaking to Mauro, "[T]he terms of the injunction say that Tory never can say anything about Cochran" - not within Cochran's lifetime, but forever.
Since the injunction isn't time-limited, it continues on, and so do its benefits to the defendant -- as Cochran's lawyer, Jonathan Cole, pointed out. Cole told Mauro, "the firm and [Cochran's] estate could stand to benefit" from leaving the injunction in place.
The Core of the Case: Can A Defamation Claim Justify a Permanent Injunction?
The injunction the California court issued is very probably doomed, for the Supreme Court will almost certainly hold that it is contrary to the First Amendment - for a number of reasons.
First, defamation claims typically lead to damages awards - not to court orders like injunctions. In this case, Cochran was not able to show a concrete way in which his firm was hurt by the picketing - for instance, a particular prospective client that was lost. In most cases, the failure to prove damages would mean the claim simply could not succeed. Here, however, the judge, rather than ruling against Cochran, shifted the remedy - choosing to issue an injunction rather than awarding damages.
Second, the doctrine of "prior restraint" strongly disfavors any court order that affects words that have not yet been said (or posted, or published, or put on a picket sign, as the case may be). Precisely because damages are available if the words are defamatory, the court generally allows the words to be communicated to the world.
The idea is that the damages will be able to make the plaintiff "whole" - compensating him for any injury he may suffer - and thus, a prior restraint is not only anti-free-speech, but simply unnecessary.
Of course, that's not accurate in all instances: Defamation plaintiffs like Cochran probably tend to suffer unprovable harms. (For instance, would Cochran necessarily have known about it if a potential client was reluctant to cross a picket line, and instead chose a different lawyer?) But the law sometimes addresses this issue by presuming that damages are suffered when certain types of defamatory statements are made -- whether or not the plaintiff has evidence of damages.
And there's a strong First Amendment reason, in any event, to entertain the fiction that a damages award, in fact, fully compensates for defamation. If words aren't spoken, it's not only the speaker who suffers: It may also be society.
In addition, the harm from defamation, unlike many other harms, can be countered by speech itself - especially when the defamation targets a public figure. Cochran had a very prominent public podium from which he could fight Tory's allegations through his eloquent words, as well as fighting them in court.
Many public figure defamation plaintiffs have the same advantage. Indeed, some - such as Britney Spears - are blogging in order to directly address their fans about rumors they say are untrue.
Could a Narrower Injunction Possibly Pass Muster?
There's a third reason that this injunction ought to be a goner: It's extremely broad. It lasts forever. It does not limit the type of speech to which it applies, only the topic. It limits speech about the firm, not just about Cochran. And it applies to a number of people other than Tory, whose conduct sparked the lawsuit.
For all these reasons, the Supreme Court, even if it somehow did not invalidate the injunction, would be forced at least to narrow it. A slightly more palatable court order - but one that would very probably still be held to violate the First Amendment - would apply only to Tory; would apply only to false and defamatory statements; and would be subject to automatic, periodic court review to determine if it ought to continue.
Yet I doubt the Supreme Court will be inclined to intervene to rewrite the injunction this way. It's much more likely to simply invalidate it, and see if the court that initially issued the injunction is inclined to now issue a newer, narrower version in light of the guidance from the Court's opinion.
Thus, it may not ever reach what is, in my view, the only truly debatable question this case raises: Are injunctions simply off limits as remedies in defamation cases, or might there be injunctions much narrower than this one that are permissible under the First Amendment?
While Tory Will Very Probably Win, It's Cochran's Advocacy That Is Impressive
In the end, there seems little question Tory will win his case. But this one loss ought not to mar Johnnie Cochran's impressive record: The First Amendment arguments here were just too much to overcome.
And even if Cochran, his firm, and their outside attorney, Cole, lose at the Supreme Court, as they ought to, they deserve credit. They talked a judge into imposing an extremely broad, perhaps unprecedented remedy. Then they got a California appeals court to approve that remedy despite such serious First Amendment problems that the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently took notice. Admiring advocates must wonder: Was hypnotism employed?
Overall, the result in this case is, thus, already worthy of Cochran - who, while he lived, was possessed of an exceptionally silver tongue. Had he and his counsel been lesser lawyers, this case would never have made it to the Supreme Court in the first place.
Full disclosure: Petitioner Ulysses Tory is represented by Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who has written for this site.
Julie Hilden, a FindLaw columnist, practiced First Amendment law at the D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly from 1996-99. Hilden also has experience in criminal motions and appeals. Hilden's first novel, 3, was published recently. In reviewing 3, Kirkus Reviews praised Hilden's "rather uncanny abilities," and Counterpunch called it "a must read.... a work of art." Hilden's website, www.juliehilden.com, includes MP3 and text downloads of the novel's first chapter.
Land of milk and money
Critics say Horizon and other mass-production dairies don't deserve the organic label -- and that the USDA needs to come up with a real definition.
By Rebecca Clarren
Rebecca Clarren writes from Portland, Ore. Support for this article was provided in part by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
By Rebecca Clarren
The happy cow on the label of Horizon organic milk flies across the carton like some grocery-store superhero. The ubiquitous red milk carton in your local supermarket is like a stop sign for consumers: go no further, your quest for healthy milk ends here. The back of the carton assures us that Horizon milk is produced on certified organic farms, where "clean-living" cows "make milk the natural way, with access to plenty of fresh air, clean water and exercise." Horizon cows are not hopped up on antibiotics, continues the cheery copy. "Happy, healthy cows produce better milk for you and your family."
Just now, though, at one of Horizon's dairy farms in central Idaho, the cows don't look too happy. Perched amid a stark landscape of sagebrush and expansive brown fields, long silver barns that hold 4,000 cows are linked like barracks in some covert operation. I drive down a narrow, cracked road toward the dairy's main office and pass open-air sheds about 20 feet away, where cows laze in crowded pens atop the brown hardpan of the Idaho desert. Just outside the milking barn, more cows are jammed into an outdoor corral. Amid clumps of dirt and snow, they are lined up, their bodies touching.
In recent weeks, as revelations of Horizon's farming practices have come to light, a collection of consumer groups and organic dairy farmers have erupted in protest. Horizon and similar dairies are capitalizing on the boom in organic foods, they say, but diluting the true meaning of the term. Contrary to genuine organic practices, which entail raising cows on open pastures, where the animals feed on grass, experts say that a substantial percentage of cows at farms like Horizon's are confined to pens, fed a diet of proteins and grains, and produce milk that, while free of hormones, is not as healthy as it could be.
At a recent meeting of the United States Department of Agriculture's organic advisory board, 25 dairy farmers gave public testimony, and 8,000 farmers and consumers sent letters, claiming that by allowing "confinement dairies" such as Horizon and Aurora Organic Dairy, a 5,300-cow operation outside Denver (started by the founder of Horizon), to continue to market themselves as organic, the label's original promise of excellence is lost.
"People are paying more for organic products because they think the farmers are doing it right, that they're treating animals humanely and that the quality of the product is different," says Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, a network of 600,000 organic consumers. "There has never been farms like Horizon or Aurora in the history of organics. Intensive confinement of animals is a no-no. This is Grade B organics."
Cummins and other critics stress that the USDA has been lax in enforcing current organic standards, which remain vague, and in creating strict new ones. To them, federal organic standards should mandate that cows be raised on pasture and fed grass. Given the USDA's failures, they attest, confinement dairies like Horizon continue to profit at the expense of the nation's small, independent dairies -- ones that do follow organic principles and produce the healthiest milk possible for people, cows and the environment.
Despite its folksy image, Horizon is emblematic of 21st century agriculture. It's a brand of White Wave Foods, itself a division of $10 billion Dean Foods, the largest milk bottler in the country. Yet big business doesn't have to be a dirty word, says Steve Demos, president of White Wave Foods and overseer of the Horizon brand, who resigned from the company not long after our interview.
"There's a certain idealistic appreciation for a farm with 10 cows grazing on a hill at sunrise," he offers. "But there are 280 million people in the Unites States. If moms and consumers care about avoiding hormones and antibiotics, then it's our job to fill that need as much as possible. And if profits are rooted in noble causes and honorable intentions, then honesty pays. Long ago they said that small was beautiful; they forgot to tell you it's not profitable."
Here's a little primer on the cash cow that is organic milk. It sells for nearly double the price of regular milk (approximately $4 to $2 for a half-gallon). Although it currently constitutes less than 3 percent of the American milk market, sales have increased 23 percent every year between 1997 and 2003. At its current trajectory, organic milk is poised to become 6 percent of the market by 2010 -- a $2.4 billion industry. Horizon, with annual sales of $218 million, is already the country's largest organic milk producer.
And, yes, building market share requires a clever sales pitch. "Nobody doubts the pure wholesome milk of the early American heritage dairy farms," Demos says. "We are marketing the very myth about early milk."
It's a myth that has certainly caught on. "Consumers always mention the happy cow," says Blanca Hernandez of the Hartman Group, a market research firm for natural foods. "Its brand reinforces their decision that they're buying something that's good for their family." Yet mainstream consumers, she adds, aren't aware of what qualifies as organic. "They don't know how exactly a product should be grown to be certified. It's not imperative to them. To them, the organic label simply means that their milk has been produced without the use of hormones or antibiotics. Those are the things they look for. It's what gives them peace of mind."
What most consumers don't know is that at Horizon's big dairies, such as the one in Idaho, the cows are raised in a manner that most experts don't consider organic. According to former Horizon Idaho dairy workers, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of jeopardizing their current jobs, Horizon cows graze for only four or five hours a day and during only three months in the summer. While Horizon claims the cows get plenty of fresh air, that's because the barns are open structures. Their cows can see the fields but mostly aren't walking around in them. "Most of the time, the cows are inside the barn," says one former employee, who worked on the Idaho farm for eight years.
Like the steady stream of Mexican immigrants who milk them every eight hours, Horizon cows work hard. In Idaho, they are fed a steady diet of alfalfa hay, oats, soybeans, and grains such as barley and corn (all organic!), according to a Horizon spokesperson. This starch diet pushes the bovines to produce extra milk. While dairy cows on many pasture-based farms are milked twice a day, Horizon's cows produce enough to be milked three times daily.
In general, says Dr. Hubert Karreman, a dairy cow veterinarian, "grain-heavy diets aren't good for cows." Karreman is an animal husbandry expert who also serves on the National Organic Standards Board, a federal advisory board. Cows have evolved to eat grass, which is why their four stomachs, filled with an array of anaerobic bacteria, function like fermentation vats at a brewery. When the majority of a cow's diet comes from grain and other readily fermentable carbohydrates, their rumen, the first of those four stomachs, becomes acidic and the cows can become sick and die prematurely.
Former employees say they have no evidence of this happening at Horizon. The company, according to its spokesperson, generally sells its cows at an average age of 6 years old to butchers, while in general many organic dairy cows can live to be 13.
"It's fundamental to organic that cows are eating grass that's rooted in the ground," says Karreman, based in Lancaster County, Pa. "I'm not in favor of large confinement farms. I like to see cows out on grass, eating in the sunshine, enjoying the landscape. Organic should mean that pasture is the true source of nutrition for the animals."
Linda Tikofsky, a veterinarian at Cornell University, agrees. "Cows are healthier when they're out on grass," she says. Tikofsky explains that while there's nothing in Horizon milk that would hurt anyone, for her, an organic label would mean a sustainable system where the health of the animal and the environment is more important than manipulating cows to maximize milk production. "I feed my kids organic milk but not Horizon," she says.
There remains a serious debate about just how good milk is for anyone. Ask any vegan. Regardless, many nutritionists say the most nutritious glass of milk comes from cows that eat fresh grass. Studies in the Journal of Dairy Science suggest that grass-fed cows produce milk that is higher in beta carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E, and has five times more cancer-fighting properties. This also contains an equal ratio of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. Even amounts of these two fats result in lower risk of cancer, allergies, obesity and diabetes, according to a 2002 study in Biomed Pharmacotherapy.
Still, while the milk from Horizon and Aurora's confinement dairies may not be the cream of the crop, it's far from the milk produced by conventional factory dairies such as Borden, Alta Dena and Meadow Gold, all bottled by Dean, Horizon's parent company. These days, regular dairies can have up to 30,000 cows that are raised in huge contained barns with big lagoon ponds of manure out back. To keep all those cows healthy in such a confined space, they're pumped full of antibiotics. They're fed hormones to increase their milk production, and these conventional cows eat a tasty array of pesticide-laden feed. As calves, they're fed chicken manure because it's high in protein. Such milk is laced with a cocktail of pharmaceuticals and hormones such as rGBH, a controversial drug produced by Monsanto.
Horizon is on a populist mission to produce milk without hormones and make it accessible and affordable to everyone. In Idaho and at a 3,000-cow farm in California, from which Horizon buys milk, cows eat feed produced without pesticides; while producing milk, they are given no hormones or antibiotics. Horizon also buys milk from several hundred small dairies where cows do graze on pasture. A company spokesperson estimates that 30 percent of its milk comes from the company's farm in Idaho and a similar operation in Maryland.
But because that figure doesn't include the additional milk it purchases from the California dairy, and a 5,300-cow dairy in Colorado, critics say that's a low figure. Based on its own market analysis, the Cornucopia Institute, an agricultural think tank, says it's more likely that nearly 50 percent of Horizon's milk comes from cows that are not raised on pasture.
Given that significant percentage, critics say the dairy is disregarding the intention of the organic laws. "Factory dairy farms are playing loose with the organic rules," says Mark Kastel, director of the Cornucopia Institute. "We cannot allow corporate profiteering to besmirch the organic marketplace. When consumers buy organic, they think they're supporting family farms with a higher environmental and animal husbandry ethic."
Over the past several months, the institute has filed three formal complaints with the USDA, alleging that the agency is being lax in its enforcement of the pasture regulation at Horizon's dairy in Idaho and at the other dairies in Colorado and California, where Horizon buys milk. While there is no timeline for when the USDA must respond, if the government fails to take this issue seriously, Kastel says his group may sue.
His position was bolstered this past March at the meeting of the National Organic Standards Board. A federal advisory panel recommended that the USDA clarify its regulations so that they more explicitly state that organic dairy cows be confined in bad weather to protect the safety of animals, often during birthing. It also advised the USDA to interpret the pasture rule to mean that at least 30 percent of animals graze grass for at least 120 days of the year.
This rule is controversial because big dairies like Horizon's Idaho operation currently don't meet that standard. It would also require big dairies to invest in more land and new milking procedures. It is now open to public comment and will be voted on in August. Yet whether the USDA will heed these recommendations is another matter entirely. Horizon has been able to get away with a creative interpretation of the pasture standard because the USDA hasn't been clear with the public or farmers about just what it means to be an organic cow.
The USDA doesn't actually go out to every farm and give it a stamp of organic approval. Rather, such grunt work is done by a hodgepodge of state agricultural agencies, nonprofit groups and for-profit companies; there are 97 different organic certifiers in total. These entities verify all aspects of a dairy's organic plan by inspecting records to ensure, for example, that the fields have been chemical free for at least three years and by visiting the farm to examine the conditions of the cattle, the milking parlor and the surrounding pasture.
While there are hefty federal penalties for illegally stamping a dairy organic, the system is fraught with potential conflict of interest. Kevin Elfering, a director of dairy food and meat inspection for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, states that the pell-mell certification process lacks rigorous and transparent oversight. He says it's too easy for certifiers to bend the rules, allowing dairies to stay in business and keep the certifiers in the black as well. "There are always a small percentage of people looking to amass higher profits without following the rules," Elfering says. "You have any number of certifying organizations and they want business. The certifier would be biting the hand that feeds them if they enforce the regulations."
Indeed, John Cleary, certification director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, a 20-year-old nonprofit certification organization, says he would never stamp Horizon with an organic label. "It doesn't appear to me that they [Horizon] have access to pasture in the way we understand the rules," he says. "Organic is about balancing the amount of land with the amount of animals and the health of the animals. I don't see how these confinement operations can do that."
Cleary faults the USDA for not doing a better job of overseeing the certification process. "I've asked [Horizon and Aurora] how they're meeting these standards and they say, 'We're certified and we couldn't be doing this if we weren't meeting the standards.' The USDA needs someone with a backbone to stand up and say if you don't raise your cows on pasture, it just doesn't qualify as organic. There's an uneven playing field out there now."
According to Cleary and a host of consumer groups, the USDA has been about as vigilant as cops at a doughnut shop. Since the final organic rule was released in December 2000, the USDA hasn't implemented any of the organic standards board's more than 50 policy recommendations. It has yet to create a peer review panel to oversee the accreditation process, as is required by law, or to create a program manual for certifiers that specifies all of the rules and regulations.
"The staff at the USDA that is running the organic program continues to be cagey. The lack of transparency makes us wonder what they have to hide," says Urvashi Rangan, of the Consumers Union. Rangan wonders whether certifiers all follow the same standards for ensuring that milk is organic. "The quality of some milk may be less than others and the USDA needs to rectify the situation. I think the envelope is being pushed as wide as it actually can."
Even without overalls or a red barn (his are green), third-generation dairy farmer Jon Bansen evokes the days when milk really did arrive on our doorsteps at dawn. With his wife and four young blond children, Bansen raises 200 Jersey cows in the shadow of Oregon's coastal mountains. On a recent clear morning, as frost melts beneath a bright sky, cows with names such as Eileen and Trish crowd around Bansen, rubbing their noses on his jeans.
"I'm a grass farmer first -- if I don't grow grass well, there's nothing for the cows," Bansen explains. "It's all about the health of the cow; it starts with healthy soil, and that relates to a healthy plant, and it just goes all the way up the food chain. Really, if people just use common sense, it's an absolute no-brainer. If an animal is healthier, what they produce will be healthier."
Bansen describes how he rotates his cows to graze different sections of his 310 acres of grass so that the land isn't overgrazed and trampled. During the winter months, when the Oregon rains make grazing dangerous for the cows, Bansen feeds the animals pickled grass that he cut last season. Today, Bansen sells his milk to Organic Valley, a cooperative owned and run by nearly 700 families with an emphasis on pasture. In 2004, it sold $208 million worth of milk, butter and yogurt. He and his wife make an income comparable to that of doctors or lawyers and he has three employees who make up to $35,000 annually.
Yet if the USDA continues to allow big companies like Horizon to play by different standards, Bansen says his livelihood will be at stake. If large dairies don't invest in the cost of land for pasture, they can sell their milk for less. While the large demand for a limited supply of organic milk has kept prices high for everyone, Bansen worries that when more large confinement dairies like Horizon enter the market, they will dictate cheaper prices.
"We can't compete with somebody milking 6,000 cows who's doing it in a manner that doesn't cost as much," he says, sitting in his living room that overlooks a broad green field. "Big dairies threaten the structure of rural America, which is contingent on living-wage jobs. Organic has provided for small family businesses."
Already, some small dairy farmers say the big dairies are squeezing them off the shelf. About 30 miles southeast of Bansen's farm, Franz Wenz, owner of Noris Dairy Inc., the only independent organic milk producer and bottler in the Northwest, says only large operations like Organic Valley and Horizon can afford to spend big bucks on flashy marketing and offer supermarkets exclusive deals at lower prices.
"The big guys can bury us," says Wenz, an Austrian native with bushy eyebrows and heavy jowls. "They can make exclusive deals and say, 'You just take our product and we'll give you a good deal.' The stores don't understand that they're hurting themselves when they depend on just one company that can then control the price."
To stay in business, Wenz and his family have carved out a niche by selling and personally delivering their glass-bottled milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream and sour cream directly to more than 300 customers in the Portland and Eugene area. Wenz says he and his family intend to stick it out, despite hard financial times.
As the sun rises high above the morning's cloak of white fog, before us stretches the mythic American heritage dairy. Happy cows graze in a broad pasture of green grass. Only this time the picture is real.
Rebecca Clarren writes from Portland, Ore. Support for this article was provided in part by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
Related stories
Got guilt?
Dairy workers grub for minimum wage in sickening manure pits -- so American consumers can have cheap milk and cheese.
By Rebecca Clarren
08/27/04
BOLTON: Bully Who Abused His Power
“SERIAL ABUSER”
The State Department's former intelligence chief testified Tuesday that John R. Bolton was a "serial abuser" of underlings who tried to remove an intelligence analyst who disagreed with him and was "a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy."
But it appeared that the testimony of Carl W. Ford Jr., former assistant secretary of State for intelligence and research, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had not changed any votes on Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Republicans control the panel 10 to 8 and were seen as likely to approve him.
President Bush's choice of Bolton has alarmed Senate Democrats, who view the nominee as a foe of the U.N. and as a symbol of failed U.S. intelligence practices.
An outspoken conservative who has been a harsh critic of the U.N., Bolton testified Monday that if confirmed he would carry out the president's policies and work closely with allies at the U.N. while trying to reform the world body.
The testimony by Ford, who said he was a conservative Republican, was solicited by Democrats to impeach Bolton's character.
Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, the only committee Republican known to be wavering, was still inclined to vote in favor of Bolton, Chafee spokesman Stephen Hourahan said Tuesday. Chafee had "not made up his mind" and was "going to spend some time reading written testimony" from other witnesses, Hourahan said.
Democrats signaled that they might try to subpoena more witnesses — who are still in the administration and may not testify voluntarily — to buttress their arguments that Bolton retaliated against analysts who would not change their assessments.
A committee vote could come Thursday or by early next week, possibly sending the nomination to the Senate floor, where Bolton is likely to win confirmation on a party-line vote. Democrats could mount a filibuster to block Bolton's nomination, but they did not indicate Tuesday that they planned to do so.
Ford testified on the second day of hearings on the nomination of Bolton, 56, who has served since 2001 as undersecretary of State for arms control and international security. Ford retired in October 2003 after more than 30 years in the Army, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department's intelligence bureau.
Describing himself as an "enthusiastic supporter" of Bush and his policies, and as a fan of Vice President Dick Cheney, Ford said he felt awkward testifying against the president's nominee. He said he agreed to do so only after committee Democrats suggested that they might subpoena him.
But Ford went on to denounce Bolton's treatment of subordinates.
"There are a lot of screamers in government," Ford said. "I've never seen anyone like Secretary Bolton … in terms of how he abuses little people."
Ford acknowledged that he might not be objective about Bolton. But he denied suggestions by Republican senators that his testimony might stem from personal animosity. Ford said he found Bolton's treatment of others "professionally unacceptable."
"I'm as conservative as John Bolton," Ford said, but added: "It is out of bounds in the federal bureaucracy to let a bully run wild on the people."
Democrats praised Ford for coming forward, but committee Republicans questioned the intelligence official's allegations as they moved to shore up Bolton's nomination.
Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) said despite the sweeping condemnation, Ford had direct knowledge of only one incident.
Ford agreed that his personal experience with Bolton was limited to one episode. In that incident, he said Bolton castigated Christian Westermann, an intelligence analyst who worked for Ford. Westermann "had the temerity" to tell Bolton's staff that he could not approve language about Cuba's biological weapons program that Bolton wanted to include in a speech, Ford said.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said the committee had interviewed four witnesses who corroborated Ford's story. Democrats said the witnesses also described a second incident in which Bolton sought to have the national intelligence officer for Latin America removed from his job after a conflict about intelligence.
When confronted by Democrats with the accounts, Bolton testified Monday that he told the analysts' superiors in both cases that he had lost confidence and trust in the men and thought they should be reassigned. Bolton insisted that he did not pressure the analysts to change their views and said the problems were based on their professional conduct.
In the case of Westermann, Bolton said the analyst had gone behind his back by sending an e-mail to a CIA colleague saying that Bolton was seeking clearance to use the Cuba language in a speech.
Westermann wrote that he thought the language in the proposed speech went too far in describing Cuba as having an offensive biological weapons program, and he sent a copy of the e-mail to Bolton's chief of staff. In the end, the CIA ruled that Bolton had to tone down his remarks.
Westermann, who has not testified, told committee staffers in an interview that Bolton had summoned him to his office and had delivered a finger-pointing, red-faced tirade, then kicked him out of his office.
Ford testified that word of the confrontation "spread like wildfire" through the intelligence community, causing analysts to fear what would happen to them if their assessments ran afoul of administration politics.
Ford was out of the office on the day of the confrontation between Bolton and Westermann. Ford's deputy, Thomas Fingar, trying to defuse the situation, sent Bolton an e-mail saying that Westermann's behavior had been "inappropriate," that "we screwed up" and that "it won't happen again."
Fingar told committee staff members that he understood Bolton was angry and that he sent the e-mail to placate him. Bolton testified that as far as he was concerned, the matter ended there.
"I shrugged my shoulders and I moved on," Bolton said Monday.
Ford contradicted that account, saying Bolton had asked him to remove Westermann from assignments dealing with issues of biological weapons.
In an argument in a State Department hallway, Ford refused to replace the analyst, whose job he said was to "speak truth to power."
Ford said he used the incident in training other analysts how to present policy makers with intelligence estimates that they did not want to hear.
Chafee noted that Westermann and the other analyst who had angered Bolton kept their jobs.
The State Department continued to defend Bolton.
Asked for Bolton's response to Ford's charges, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "I don't think anything more needs to be said. The president nominated him and has confidence that he will do an excellent job for us at the U.N., and we believe he should be confirmed."
Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said he would vote for Bolton.
Although the demeanor of an official is important, he said, "the paramount issue as I see it is the reform of the United Nations."
"This is not meant to excuse any particular conduct," Lugar said.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) suggested that Bolton needed anger management training, and other Democrats said the incidents demonstrated Bolton's unsuitability for the U.N. post.
Biden said Bolton would be serving in the U.N. at a time when the objectivity and accuracy of U.S. intelligence was doubted around the world, and while his own credibility on intelligence matters was under fire.
"This is the man who might have to take the case to the world on [North] Korea and Iran based on intelligence," Biden said. "I believe this is damaging to our national interest."
By Sonni Efron Times Staff Writer April 13, 2005
The State Department's former intelligence chief testified Tuesday that John R. Bolton was a "serial abuser" of underlings who tried to remove an intelligence analyst who disagreed with him and was "a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy."
But it appeared that the testimony of Carl W. Ford Jr., former assistant secretary of State for intelligence and research, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had not changed any votes on Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Republicans control the panel 10 to 8 and were seen as likely to approve him.
President Bush's choice of Bolton has alarmed Senate Democrats, who view the nominee as a foe of the U.N. and as a symbol of failed U.S. intelligence practices.
An outspoken conservative who has been a harsh critic of the U.N., Bolton testified Monday that if confirmed he would carry out the president's policies and work closely with allies at the U.N. while trying to reform the world body.
The testimony by Ford, who said he was a conservative Republican, was solicited by Democrats to impeach Bolton's character.
Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, the only committee Republican known to be wavering, was still inclined to vote in favor of Bolton, Chafee spokesman Stephen Hourahan said Tuesday. Chafee had "not made up his mind" and was "going to spend some time reading written testimony" from other witnesses, Hourahan said.
Democrats signaled that they might try to subpoena more witnesses — who are still in the administration and may not testify voluntarily — to buttress their arguments that Bolton retaliated against analysts who would not change their assessments.
A committee vote could come Thursday or by early next week, possibly sending the nomination to the Senate floor, where Bolton is likely to win confirmation on a party-line vote. Democrats could mount a filibuster to block Bolton's nomination, but they did not indicate Tuesday that they planned to do so.
Ford testified on the second day of hearings on the nomination of Bolton, 56, who has served since 2001 as undersecretary of State for arms control and international security. Ford retired in October 2003 after more than 30 years in the Army, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department's intelligence bureau.
Describing himself as an "enthusiastic supporter" of Bush and his policies, and as a fan of Vice President Dick Cheney, Ford said he felt awkward testifying against the president's nominee. He said he agreed to do so only after committee Democrats suggested that they might subpoena him.
But Ford went on to denounce Bolton's treatment of subordinates.
"There are a lot of screamers in government," Ford said. "I've never seen anyone like Secretary Bolton … in terms of how he abuses little people."
Ford acknowledged that he might not be objective about Bolton. But he denied suggestions by Republican senators that his testimony might stem from personal animosity. Ford said he found Bolton's treatment of others "professionally unacceptable."
"I'm as conservative as John Bolton," Ford said, but added: "It is out of bounds in the federal bureaucracy to let a bully run wild on the people."
Democrats praised Ford for coming forward, but committee Republicans questioned the intelligence official's allegations as they moved to shore up Bolton's nomination.
Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) said despite the sweeping condemnation, Ford had direct knowledge of only one incident.
Ford agreed that his personal experience with Bolton was limited to one episode. In that incident, he said Bolton castigated Christian Westermann, an intelligence analyst who worked for Ford. Westermann "had the temerity" to tell Bolton's staff that he could not approve language about Cuba's biological weapons program that Bolton wanted to include in a speech, Ford said.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said the committee had interviewed four witnesses who corroborated Ford's story. Democrats said the witnesses also described a second incident in which Bolton sought to have the national intelligence officer for Latin America removed from his job after a conflict about intelligence.
When confronted by Democrats with the accounts, Bolton testified Monday that he told the analysts' superiors in both cases that he had lost confidence and trust in the men and thought they should be reassigned. Bolton insisted that he did not pressure the analysts to change their views and said the problems were based on their professional conduct.
In the case of Westermann, Bolton said the analyst had gone behind his back by sending an e-mail to a CIA colleague saying that Bolton was seeking clearance to use the Cuba language in a speech.
Westermann wrote that he thought the language in the proposed speech went too far in describing Cuba as having an offensive biological weapons program, and he sent a copy of the e-mail to Bolton's chief of staff. In the end, the CIA ruled that Bolton had to tone down his remarks.
Westermann, who has not testified, told committee staffers in an interview that Bolton had summoned him to his office and had delivered a finger-pointing, red-faced tirade, then kicked him out of his office.
Ford testified that word of the confrontation "spread like wildfire" through the intelligence community, causing analysts to fear what would happen to them if their assessments ran afoul of administration politics.
Ford was out of the office on the day of the confrontation between Bolton and Westermann. Ford's deputy, Thomas Fingar, trying to defuse the situation, sent Bolton an e-mail saying that Westermann's behavior had been "inappropriate," that "we screwed up" and that "it won't happen again."
Fingar told committee staff members that he understood Bolton was angry and that he sent the e-mail to placate him. Bolton testified that as far as he was concerned, the matter ended there.
"I shrugged my shoulders and I moved on," Bolton said Monday.
Ford contradicted that account, saying Bolton had asked him to remove Westermann from assignments dealing with issues of biological weapons.
In an argument in a State Department hallway, Ford refused to replace the analyst, whose job he said was to "speak truth to power."
Ford said he used the incident in training other analysts how to present policy makers with intelligence estimates that they did not want to hear.
Chafee noted that Westermann and the other analyst who had angered Bolton kept their jobs.
The State Department continued to defend Bolton.
Asked for Bolton's response to Ford's charges, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "I don't think anything more needs to be said. The president nominated him and has confidence that he will do an excellent job for us at the U.N., and we believe he should be confirmed."
Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said he would vote for Bolton.
Although the demeanor of an official is important, he said, "the paramount issue as I see it is the reform of the United Nations."
"This is not meant to excuse any particular conduct," Lugar said.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) suggested that Bolton needed anger management training, and other Democrats said the incidents demonstrated Bolton's unsuitability for the U.N. post.
Biden said Bolton would be serving in the U.N. at a time when the objectivity and accuracy of U.S. intelligence was doubted around the world, and while his own credibility on intelligence matters was under fire.
"This is the man who might have to take the case to the world on [North] Korea and Iran based on intelligence," Biden said. "I believe this is damaging to our national interest."
By Sonni Efron Times Staff Writer April 13, 2005
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
AFL-CIO SWEENEY SILENT: TIES TO WAR HAWKS
Sweeney Is Silent on Ties to War Hawks
Who Are Promoting Bush’s Global Agenda
By Harry Kelber
Who Are Promoting Bush’s Global Agenda
By Harry Kelber
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has declined to explain why his name and title appear on a list of supporters of the Project for the New American Century, an organization whose prime activity is to promote the establishment of an American global empire through the use of military and economic power.
On the list of “people associated” with the Project, besides Sweeney, are: Vice President Dick Cheney, a founder; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and a gallery of neo-conservatives, many from the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. The list is “current to Dec. 2004.”
The Project for a New American Century is a think tank, founded in 1997, whose principles are now the governing foreign and military policies of the Bush administration. In September 2000, the Project released a “grand plan” that called for sufficient combat forces to fight and win multiple major wars and be equipped for “constabulary duties” around the world, with American rather than U.N. leadership. The Project supports the doctrine of pre-emptive war and the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons.
Union members are entitled to know what, exactly, is Sweeney’s relations with the PNAC? What prompted him to collaborate with an organization that, to say the least, is hardly a friend of organized labor?
Sweeney is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, regarded as the most influential think tank on foreign and economic policy, whose recommendations are often adopted by the government. Executives from 200 “international companies representing a range of sectors” participate in special Council programs. They include the largest commercial banks, insurance companies and strategic planning corporations. Petroleum, military and media companies are also well represented.
How is Sweeney’s presence on the Council of any benefit to the 13 million union members he represents? Doesn’t his name on the Council imply support for its activities?
Although Sweeney has continuously criticized President George Bush on domestic policies, he has remained conspicuously silent on Iraq and the war on terrorism, even in the final days of the presidential elections, when Bush was especially vulnerable on his handling of the war.
In the two years since the invasion of Iraq, Sweeney has refused to comment on any of Bush’s embarrassing problems: the failure to find weapons of mass destruction; the rising toll of dead and wounded American soldiers; the exorbitant cost of the war, and the lack of an exit plan for the return of our troops.
Moreover, the AFL-CIO, with Sweeney’s apparent approval, has maintained a strict blackout of news and information about Iraq, homeland security and terrorism. Most affiliated unions have followed Sweeney’s example; their leaders have refrained from issuing any statements that criticize Bush’s foreign policy, and their publications act as though the war in Iraq is not an issue for America’s working families.
The news blackout is enforced even within the labor movement. AFL-CIO publications and policy statements by the Executive Council have consistently ignored the anti-war movement and its advocates among members of its affiliated unions. U.S. Labor Against the War reports a list of unions, representing better than a third of the entire AFL-CIO membership, that have passed resolutions calling for an end to the American-led occupation in Iraq and the return home of our soldiers. Yet this is not considered newsworthy by the AFL-CIO’s official magazine, America@Work and other union publications.
It is high time for Sweeney to be accountable to the AFL-CIO membership. There are a few straightforward questions that require straightforward answers:
- Does he approve of the Project for a New American Century? If so, why? If not, will he publicly denounce it and ask PNAC to remove his name from its list?
- Why has he maintained membership in the Council of Foreign Relations? What has been his role within the Council? Does he intend to continue his Council membership? Why?
- Why has he remained silent on Iraq and the war on terrorism since the invasion? Why has he refused to criticize President Bush on foreign policy? Who ordered a strict blackout of news and information about Iraq? Will he announce an end to the blackout?
Brother Sweeney, silence is no longer an acceptable option.
Harry Kelber’s e-mail address is: hkelber@igc.org
Racism and Resentment: Life in the Army
or starters, he’s against the war.
Deploying U.S. troops to Iraq has more to do with oil, money and power than it does with freedom, terrorism and democracy, Army Sgt. Dana Taylor said.
"If it was about protecting the U.S. I would be highly motivated. But that is not the case," said Taylor, a 34-year-old father of three from Hammond.
So it's not the worst deployment to serve in Qatar, a mostly flat and barren peninsula bordering the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia. The country -- slightly larger than the eight counties of Northwest Indiana -- is strategically located near major petroleum deposits.
There, at Camp AsSayliyah, Taylor serves with the 938th Military Police Detachment, deployed from Michigan City in November. The camp is swarming with officers, many using the facilities for three-drink maximum, rest-and-relaxation weekends.
"My job is to maintain law and order," Taylor said.
racism and resentment
But Taylor said he has experienced another form of R-and-R in the Army -- racism and resentment.
"The Army has more racism than I have ever seen," said Taylor, a biracial soldier who, admittedly, looks more white than black.
Because of this, other white soldiers don't censor or edit their discriminatory thoughts or words against minorities, he said.
"They don't realize the things they say, or who they say them around," he said.
Partly because of this Taylor has become a loner at camp, especially since most of his unit's 45 members were deployed to nearby Saudi Arabia. The remaining MPs from his unit work 12-hour days, four days on and one day off in Qatar, he said.
"I don't have anyone to talk to or anything to do," he said.
This gives him more time than other soldiers to remember what he's missing back at home -- his wife, Amy, his three daughters, his mother, uncle and two cousins, and also his civilian job with the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago.
"I miss everything," he said.
He especially misses life's subtle pleasures, like holding his wife's hand at church during prayer, or having his daughters jump onto his bed on his days off.
"You don't realize how much you have until you don't have it," he said.
Making things worse, Taylor said he's being forced to stay in the Army against his will through an extended deployment, into 2006. He calls it a backdoor draft.
"I don't understand how most regular Army tours of duty are six to nine months, or a year at the most. And the (Army) Guard and Reserves have to do 18 months," he said.
On the upside, he will be returning home for a short leave this summer.
Still, considering his sentiments against the war, the racism he said he's encountered, and the fact he may be serving Uncle Sam for another year or so, Taylor has seen better days, he said.
"I'm miserable."
BY JERRY DAVICH jdavich@nwitimes.com 219.933.3376
feminists speak out about Andrea: resources
Calling Women “An” Andrea Dworkin To Shut Them Up
By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)
I have been called “an” Andrea Dworkin more than a few times, as a slur. It is interesting which circumstances trigger that “name-calling,” and which don’t. I found I was called that most in “sex-positive” communities,
as I had the nerve to try to interject feminism and thwart homophobia into sex “positive” environments. When I first read her book, “Intercourse,” I was stunned at the brilliance and eloquence therein. And I love how she
does not mince words for **your** comfort. Andrea is appropriately called an “agitator,” as much as an activist. She certainly did not play by the rules and she did not mind the boys, which is absolutely admirable and ridiculously difficult. “No compromise” was what Andrea Dworkin’s life was about.
Andrea Dworkin died this week. It is a huge loss. On many levels. I was just published in a book with her this year. I was looking forward to more of such minglings, but I guess that was not meant to be. Andrea Dworkin scared me the way Nikki Craft scares me. I am scared of their unceasing demands and yet, I love them for it. Andrea pushed the envelope, which is really hard labor. Feminism is really hard, as you are pushing against the grain of society, but Andrea was not just a feminist, she was as far out and extreme as feminism gets! I cannot imagine holding up that responsibility for as long as she did. She kept watch on the borders between feminism and patriarchy like a driven guard, passionate in her
loyalism, armed with her words. And her words were fast, pointed, and poisonous. And men and women squirmed, as if in a slow motion cartoon, as they saw her words come hurling towards them full of logic that was damned hard to refute.
I have found “Andrea Dworkin” was used like a weapon, to cut off a feminist argument at the knees in the pro-sexuality movement. Anytime people did not like what you said, they just called you an Andrea Dworkin, then everyone stepped back from you. Wow. What power Andrea had. I hope when I am still alive people call uncompromising feminists “a” Kirsten Anderberg, to try to shut them up. That would be an honor.
For more information on Andrea Dworkin’s life, work and writings, please
visit the following links:
Online Andrea Dworkin Memorial: Post your fav Andrea quotes and memorials
http://www.andreadworkin.net/messages/
Another Online Memorial Page for Andrea:
http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/sfvo/dworkin.html
To hear a raw two hour tribute to Andrea Dworkin from yesterday April 11th
and to access an Internet memorial please go to:
http://www.mediawatch.com/news.html
[NY Times: April 12, 2005
Radical Feminist Andrea Dworkin Dies at 58
http://tinyurl.com/4g8kf
Andrea Dworkin, feminist iconoclast, dies at 59
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=628590
Dworkin Online Library
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/OnlineLibrary.html
Donations in honor of Andrea Dworkin's life and work can be made to:
The Schlesinger Library
The Andrea Dworkin Fund
Radcliffe Institute
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-3600
or to the domestic-violence shelter or rape-crisis center of your choice.
(Contributions to The Schlesinger Library designated for The Andrea Dworkin Fund will go toward processing
the Andrea Dworkin papers and creating an on-line searchable guide.)
By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)
I have been called “an” Andrea Dworkin more than a few times, as a slur. It is interesting which circumstances trigger that “name-calling,” and which don’t. I found I was called that most in “sex-positive” communities,
as I had the nerve to try to interject feminism and thwart homophobia into sex “positive” environments. When I first read her book, “Intercourse,” I was stunned at the brilliance and eloquence therein. And I love how she
does not mince words for **your** comfort. Andrea is appropriately called an “agitator,” as much as an activist. She certainly did not play by the rules and she did not mind the boys, which is absolutely admirable and ridiculously difficult. “No compromise” was what Andrea Dworkin’s life was about.
Andrea Dworkin died this week. It is a huge loss. On many levels. I was just published in a book with her this year. I was looking forward to more of such minglings, but I guess that was not meant to be. Andrea Dworkin scared me the way Nikki Craft scares me. I am scared of their unceasing demands and yet, I love them for it. Andrea pushed the envelope, which is really hard labor. Feminism is really hard, as you are pushing against the grain of society, but Andrea was not just a feminist, she was as far out and extreme as feminism gets! I cannot imagine holding up that responsibility for as long as she did. She kept watch on the borders between feminism and patriarchy like a driven guard, passionate in her
loyalism, armed with her words. And her words were fast, pointed, and poisonous. And men and women squirmed, as if in a slow motion cartoon, as they saw her words come hurling towards them full of logic that was damned hard to refute.
I have found “Andrea Dworkin” was used like a weapon, to cut off a feminist argument at the knees in the pro-sexuality movement. Anytime people did not like what you said, they just called you an Andrea Dworkin, then everyone stepped back from you. Wow. What power Andrea had. I hope when I am still alive people call uncompromising feminists “a” Kirsten Anderberg, to try to shut them up. That would be an honor.
For more information on Andrea Dworkin’s life, work and writings, please
visit the following links:
Online Andrea Dworkin Memorial: Post your fav Andrea quotes and memorials
http://www.andreadworkin.net/messages/
Another Online Memorial Page for Andrea:
http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/sfvo/dworkin.html
To hear a raw two hour tribute to Andrea Dworkin from yesterday April 11th
and to access an Internet memorial please go to:
http://www.mediawatch.com/news.html
[NY Times: April 12, 2005
Radical Feminist Andrea Dworkin Dies at 58
http://tinyurl.com/4g8kf
Andrea Dworkin, feminist iconoclast, dies at 59
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=628590
Dworkin Online Library
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/OnlineLibrary.html
Donations in honor of Andrea Dworkin's life and work can be made to:
The Schlesinger Library
The Andrea Dworkin Fund
Radcliffe Institute
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-3600
or to the domestic-violence shelter or rape-crisis center of your choice.
(Contributions to The Schlesinger Library designated for The Andrea Dworkin Fund will go toward processing
the Andrea Dworkin papers and creating an on-line searchable guide.)
--
You can receive Kirsten's articles, as they are written, via an email list
called "Eat the Press." Go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/eatthepress
to join the list.
You can receive Kirsten's articles, as they are written, via an email list
called "Eat the Press." Go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/eatthepress
to join the list.
dao awareness
  Outer eyes Cannot see themselves. the inner eye Is its own reflection. When we look, we can see many thing, but the eyes cannot see themselves without the help of a mirror. We are not used to introspection. Although the followers of Tao say to look within to gain self-awareness, we will be confused if we use the attitudes formed by looking with our eyes. That is why it is important to make a clear distinction early on. Do not try to understand yourself with the attitudes of physical seeing. Look within using inner vision. For centuries, people of many different cultures have referred to the “mind's eyes,” or the “inner eye,” or the “third eye.” These are all indications that there is a separate way of looking within. In meditation, it is important to discover and utilize this mode of introspection. We must go beyond thought, go beyond visualization, go beyond imagination and actually open a part of the mind that most people leave dormant. This inner eye has a location, buried deep in the brain. When it is opened, it sis our way of receiving more suable experiences than we receive in our physical states. Perhaps looking and seeing are misleading terms, after all. We don’t necessarily “see” images through this inner eye. We gain direct awareness that is beyond the image. awareness 365 Tao Daily Meditations Deng Ming-Dao ISBN 0-06-250223-9
a reading list of books and interpretations of the Daodejing is available at http://www.duckdaotsu.org/dao_books.html for a meditation sent to your email address each day, please write ’subscribe tao’ in the subject line and send to lisbeth at duckdaotsu |
Tuesday
Andrea Dworkin, embattled feminist, dies at 58
Mark Honigsbaum
Tuesday April 12, 2005
The Guardian
Andrea Dworkin, the radical feminist activist and writer best known for her campaigns against pornography and her love of outsized dungarees, has died at her home in Washington DC.
Mark Honigsbaum
Tuesday April 12, 2005
The Guardian
Andrea Dworkin, the radical feminist activist and writer best known for her campaigns against pornography and her love of outsized dungarees, has died at her home in Washington DC.
The author of more than 13 works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, Dworkin died peacefully in her sleep early on Saturday morning after a long battle with illness, said her partner and collaborator, John Stoltenberg. She was 58.
Famous for her outspoken positions on a range of issues from male-on-female violence, to rape and sexual intercourse, Dworkin's uncompromising stance brought fierce criticism not only from liberals, concerned at her attempts to pass laws against pornography, but from feminists.
Dworkin was particularly upset by the disbelief that greeted her claims in 2000 that she'd been raped and drugged by two men in a Paris hotel room in 1999. Seizing upon inconsistencies in her two essays about the incident, which were published in the Guardian and the New Statesman, and her failure to contact hotel security or police, many feminist critics suggested the rape did not happen.
"Andrea was deeply hurt by the comments, as all women are," said her friend and colleague Catharine MacKinnon, professor of law at the University of Michigan. "But she had an indomitable spirit and deserves to be remembered as a woman with a rage for resistance and struggle."
"Andrea was like an old testament prophet," agreed Gloria Steinhem, the feminist writer and co-founder of Ms magazine who has been a close friend of Dworkin's for more than 30 years.
"She was always warning about what was about to happen and because of that she was frequently misunderstood. But she also had a breadth and depth of intelligence that was refreshing.'
Steinhem said that it was untrue, as Dworkin's critics frequently claimed, that she wished to ban pornography outright or that she considered sexual intercourse rape.
"She was talking about relationships not sex per se," said Steinhem. "But she did call attention in an uncompromising way to the unequal power between men and women and what that meant in the lives of both."
She added that although Dworkin was a self-confessed lesbian who eschewed sexual intercourse, her relationship with John Stoltenberg, who she first met at poetry reading in Greenwich Village in 1974, was proof that she was no "man-hating" stereotype.
Born to a Jewish family in Camden, New Jersey, Dworkin was embroiled in controversy from an early age. Arrested during an anti-Vietnam protest as a student, she was sent to a women's detention centre where she was subjected to a body cavity search. She later became a prostitute in New York and Greece.
Michael Moorcock, the novelist, said that in person Dworkin was not the firebrand she was portrayed as in public but a shy woman with an "incredibly sharp mind".
In her own words
Let him die: Dworkin on conviction of murderer Scott Lee Peterson
My gamble: Andrea Dworkin on why she's voting for Kerry
'They took my body from me and used it'
Interviews, profiles and comment
Julie Bindel talks to Dworkin about her drug-rape experience
Love her or hate her, she's a feminist icon, by Louise Armstrong
Catherine Bennett: Doubts about Dworkin
Useful links
Dworkin's website
The Andrea Dworkin Lie Detector
Wikipedia: More about Dworkin
'Dworkin in agony' :Salon.com essay on Dworkin's drug rape, Julia Gracen
'Oh, Andrea Dworkin': London Review of Books essay by Jenny Diski, sept 01
THE HARAM AL-SHARIF
Oleg Grabar
THE HARAM AL-SHARIF:
AN ESSAY
It is only at a relatively late date that the Muslim holy space in Jerusalem came to be referred to as al-haram al-sharif (literally, the Noble Sacred Precinct or Restricted Enclosure, often translated as the Noble Sanctuary and usually simply referred to as the Haram). While the exact early history of this term is unclear, we know that it only became common in Ottoman times, when administrative order was established over all matters pertaining to the organization of the Muslim faith and the supervision of the holy places, for which the Ottomans took financial and architectural responsibility. Before the Ottomans, the space was usually called al-masjid al-aqsa (the Farthest Mosque), a term now reserved to the covered congregational space on the Haram, or masjid bayt al-maqdis (Mosque of the Holy City) or, even, like Mecca’s sanctuary, al-masjid al-haram.
The reasons for this apparent proliferation of names are many and they reflect the long and complicated history of Jerusalem and of the Muslim holy places. I shall return to some of them in the course of this essay, but I mention them here to contrast this uncertain nomenclature with the clarity of the space itself. (It is a large trapezoidal platform measuring 281 metres at the south, 310 metres at the north, 461 metres at the east and 491 metres at the west.) These same dimensions were already established well over a thousand years ago, for we know that they were recorded in an inscription seen in the fourth century AH /tenth century AD. The dimensions of the Haram were established artificially, since the platform was cut out of the rock at its northern end and elevated upward from the sharply sloping terrain on most of its western and eastern sides and entirely on its southern one. For all of this latter perimeter, the massive wall of magnificent stone rises as high as forty metres above ground level and is, without any doubt, the most spectacular man-made structure found in any city. Its impact is all the greater because most of the southern wall of the Haram--and all of the eastern one--coincides with the outer edges of the city itself. Thus, the Haram is clearly part of a walled city and occupies about one-fifth of its surface. Yet, it is also at the edge of this city, forming a major part of the city’s boundaries with its surroundings and with the rest of the world. It is forbidding because, to the east and to the south, the terrain slopes so abruptly. But it is also inviting, as it exhibits clearly-marked gates both to the south and to the east. However, these gates are closed now, as they have been for many centuries, thereby giving further emphasis to the visual paradoxes of a stupendous space.
In order to explain the Haram, or at least to try to do so, I will follow two lines of thought. The first is a sort of historical topography, a reconstructed summary of the development of the space of the Haram-- including its buildings, which altered or enhanced the character of the space and which affected each other. This kind of topography is archaeologically objective in the sense that dates, forms, patronage, or usage of architecture can be known or uncertain, true or false, always reflecting a positive and--at least, theoretically--demonstrable reality. The second line of reasoning concerns meanings. What did patrons wish to convey or to express when they constructed or sponsored buildings on the Haram? How were these buildings understood in their time or over the centuries? What pious, political, or ideological associations were made between, on the one hand, the Haram and its buildings and, on the other, the Haram and the complex web of beliefs and emotions of the Muslim faithful or of all those, Muslim or not, who became aware of its existence, of its overwhelming presence in the city of Jerusalem? These questions are more difficult to answer because they entail the interpretation of many different, mostly written, sources and they require an awareness of cultural history, which has a logic all of its own. These are also questions that bring into play the attitudes toward the Haram held by those who are not Muslims and thus may contribute to an understanding of, if not agreement with, views which shape public and political opinion. I shall end this essay with an attempt to define the Haram as a visual experience.
Much that appears in the pages that follow is hypothetical. I have preferred to avoid precise references to primary sources or to secondary literature, for these are easily found. My intention is rather to illustrate two approaches to the reading of a space and to the elaboration of its history.
Historical topography
There are traces on the Haram of human activities going back to the Iron Age and even earlier. Such vestiges include the piercing of the Rock, the highest point of the ridge upon which the Haram is located, and some walls constructed with massive stones that remain in one corner of what are now called the Stables of Solomon, found below the surface of the Haram, to the south-east. In a fashion that is still, for the most part, hypothetical, sections of the area occupied by the Haram were connected with the Iron Age ‘City of David’ to the south of the present city of Jerusalem. But these early activities are, at this stage of knowledge, impossible to date or to explain. And, despite the observation that the Rock--and the cavern within it--mark the highest point (753 metres above sea level) of the stony ridge, such activities did not, apparently, affect later developments in significant topographical terms, for nothing in the present structure of the Haram seems to require the existence of constructions from such an early period. As we shall see later, they did, however, affect developments in ideological and religious terms.
The Haram took its present shape during the reign of Herod the Great (37-34 BC), an ambitious and flamboyant ruler who transformed Jerusalem, giving it much of the physical shell that we see today. He erected the main platform of the Haram for the Jewish Temple--although its exact location there is unknown--by cutting into the rock in the northern side (the original rock formation still being visible in several places) and then building up the other sides to establish a surface appropriate for a complex of edifices on several levels. The result is still spectacular and few visitors can resist the sheer power of the Herodian masonry in the whole southern half of the space. In Herodian times, the Haram featured a grandiose colonnaded hall overlooking the lower city and the handsome steps which led up from it to the sanctuary; these have now been cleared of debris and are again visible. The location of many major gates to the Haram was also fixed during the same period--certainly the ‘Double’ and ‘Triple’ gates, which led to the platform from the south through an underground tunnel, and the southernmost ones on the western side, which were reached by means of a monumental stairway, traces of which still remain (the so-called Robinson’s arch protruding from the southern part of the western wall). The same is probably true of the eastern gate, the ‘Golden Gate,’ which is blocked, as are the others; in front of it, to the east, fragments of an extensive and monumental approach have been found. Thus, the locations and possibly the basic plans of many of the Haram’s gates are certainly Herodian, but their contemporary elevations are not necessarily so.
The Herodian ensemble was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70 and the following centuries left no evident traces of construction. From written sources, we know that a Roman temple was built in the Haram and that it contained statues of divinities and of emperors, but all of this is nearly impossible to reconstruct with even a remote chance of accuracy. These pagan buildings were either destroyed or left to decay in the early fourth century, when the emperor Constantine proclaimed Christianity to be the religion of the empire. Subsequently, the western part of Jerusalem became host to many churches, including major monuments such as the Holy Sepulchre complex and the Nea church, and to a series of ecclesiastical or pilgrim-related establishments. The large space of the Haram was left untouched and unrepaired. Perhaps it was indeed used as a place to deposit the city’s refuse, although this may have been a calumny of later times. It became a relatively rare instance of a space preserved in a destroyed state for iconographic purposes, that is to say, to demonstrate the abandonment of the old Jewish order and its replacement with the brilliantly successful one then being made manifest on the western hill of the city. It is possible that some of the work of clearing debris was accomplished during the brief period which followed the Persian invasion of 614--and before the triumphal return of the Byzantine emperor, Heraclius, in 631--but these matters are very controversial and, to my knowledge at least, have not found a clear archaeological demonstration. The masonry of the outer walls of the Haram, where it is visible, shows evidence of considerable damage and repair, but the exact chronology of this has not yet been established.
When Muslim Arabs took control of Jerusalem in 638, they appropriated what should be imagined as a large area of ruins, strewn with many cut stones and columns, and large heaps of capitals and decorative friezes, but without any significant social or religious use. Although usually not reliable as historical documents, many later sources describe how the caliph, `Umar, together with the Christian patriarch, Sophronius, began to clear the area of the Haram of the debris that covered it. Among their other achievements, or so the legend says, they made visible again the Rock with the cavern beneath it. It may be assumed that, with or without the actual example of the caliph himself, the Muslim community began to transform whatever they had inherited into a functioning space. There had to be a fairly plane surface upon which to build and thus were created the two platforms known today, the lower one extending over the entirety of the space, the higher one set asymetrically more or less in the western half of the Haram. We can only speculate as to why the higher platform was located where it is. There may have been traces of something older that could not easily be removed or it may have been an area with a lot of accumulated remains from antiquity. It is also possible--in fact, even likely--that the Early Islamic patrons and artisans took into consideration, or themselves developed, the many cisterns which are located under this platform, for their chronology and growth have never really been investigated.
Walls were partially rebuilt along the southern and eastern sides, but this particular task was a long and tedious one that went on for many centuries, as we know from several inscriptions from the ninth century. Gates had to be made accessible. We may surmise that the first gates to be repaired were the southern ones, which led to the large Early Islamic settlements that have been excavated there; thus, at present, most scholars agree that the elevation and decoration of the Double Gate are Early Islamic or Umayyad. It is also likely that old stones, carved or not, from older buildings were reused. Something similar must have taken place with regard to the Golden Gate on the eastern wall. This striking monument seems functionally useless from the outside of the Haram and hardly more comprehensible from the inside; we can only be certain that it was constructed in the Early Islamic period with ornamented stones that were the product of an earlier time. On the western side, the stairway leading to a gate remained in place at the southern end of the wall. What happened farther north and on the actual northern side are presently unknown.
It is unlikely that all of these results were achieved immediately or that there was an early architectural master plan created to guide successive generations of patrons and artisans. It is easier to imagine that the space, inherited accidentally or not (more on that below), was gradually made amenable to the religious and social requirements of the newly-arrived Muslim Arab community while, as we shall see shortly, reflecting the ideological purposes of the new empire. This rehabilitation, as it would be called today, depended upon the availability of funds and was a continuous process that took several centuries to be completed, if it ever was. For it is a remarkable peculiarity of the large space of the Haram that, precisely because it was not originally created for a Muslim purpose, it stayed flexible enough to incorporate changes in function and taste.
While this painstaking task of rehabilitation was going on, new buildings were constructed. The first one was a mosque. More accurately, it was a large and simple shed intended to accommodate many believers and may be construed as the covered or shaded part (zulla) of the whole Haram considered as a mosque, a masjid. It was probably located somewhere in the southern part of the larger and lower platform. Some scholars have interpreted archaeologically retrieved evidence found under the present Aqsa Mosque as remains from this earlier structure, but the general consensus seems to be that no known physical traces remain. It seems reasonable to assume, however, that the first mosque marked out for all time the emplacement of the covered area of the Muslim religious and restricted establishment The date that this first mosque was been built is a matter for speculation. Some sources attribute it to the brilliant first caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, Mu`awiya, but it may have even been constructed by an earlier figure from Islamic history.
The next stage in the physical development of the Haram was a crucial one and it is unquestionably associated with the Umayyad dynasty and, especially, the reigns of `Abd al-Malik and al-Walid (685-715). Its most forceful example is the Dome of the Rock, set over the stone and cave that mark the highest point of the hill. Its location, its nearly perfect geometry, the unusual height of its dome--like a cylindrical tube surrounded by an octagonal ring--its unique use of coloured decoration on its exterior and the absence of significant buildings nearby all permit it to dominate much more than the esplanade of the Haram. Visually, it controls practically the whole city of Jerusalem and a great deal of its surroundings. Its construction also created a focal point on the Haram itself and it served as the axis upon which, at the southern end of the platform, a large and elaborately-decorated covered hall was built, with a wide central nave and a fancy dome, corresponding more or less to the present dome and axial nave of the Aqsa Mosque. There is some disagreement among scholars about the exact sequence of events involved and it is just possible that the mosque did not acquire its final Early Islamic shape until the end of the eighth century, but these are secondary details of chronology. The point is that, under the Umayyads, the Haram was provided with what may be called its ‘bone structure,’ a set of fixed anchors and directions which have remained until this day.
The most problematic, probably Umayyad, monument on the Haram is the Dome of the Chain (qubbat al-silsila), located immediately east of the Dome of the Rock. It is a strange, eleven-sided, open building that was placed at the geometric centre of the platform, but its early function has not been ascertained. Today, it looks a bit of an orphan, a sort of architectural offspring to the dominant masterpiece next to it.
Work continued over the following four centuries, until the very unique times of the Crusades, beginning in 1099. The Aqsa Mosque was redone several times and eventually shrunk in size. Architectural devices serving to highlight the composition of the vast esplanade made their appearance: a colonnade along all but the eastern and part of the southern walls of the Haram, ornate steps to reach the platform of the Dome of the Rock, and short arcades to emphasize them and to accentuate a parapet that surrounded the upper platform. Many new gates appeared on the western and northern sides of the Haram with names which were sometimes pious (Prophet, Khitta) and sometimes simply references to adjoining quarters or landmarks. Several small domes on the platform served to commemorate various episodes of the Prophet’s mystical journey from Mecca (isra’) and his Ascension into the heavens (mi`raj). From contemporary sources, especially Nasitr-i Khosro, a Persian traveller of the first half of the eleventh century, we know that several religious establishments existed there for the benefit of various sectarian and/or mystical organizations, especially in the north-eastern quarter of the platform. A grandiose gate with mosaic decoration and a fancy inscription was also then erected on the location of the present Gate of the Chain (bab al-silsila), a contribution by the Fatimid rulers of Cairo whose beautiful mosaic inscription and decoration may still be seen in the Aqsa Mosque. During the Fatimid period, the walls of the city were shortened and the southern entrances into the Haram were at first neglected and eventually closed altogether, as they have remained ever since.
The Crusaders, whose building activities affected much of the city of Jerusalem, used the Muslim constructions of the Haram for their own military, religious and everyday purposes. They added some fixtures of their own, like the rose window that is still present on the eastern wall of the Aqsa Mosque and a handsome screen in wrought iron that surrounded the Rock (now kept in the Islamic Museum of the Haram). But, on the whole, their physical impact on the space of the Haram is not visible. In part, this is because, as many sources point out, Saladin had most traces of the Crusader presence removed and the sanctuary restored to its pre-Crusader state when he recaptured the city in 1187. This task involved the recollection of memories more than three generations old, a feat which led to several misunderstandings interesting to the historian, but unimportant to the history of the space.
The Ayyubids and, particularly, the Mamluks (thirteenth to early-sixteenth centuries) were the real creators of the Haram as we know it now. They maintained and repaired the old buildings as well as the walls and gates. But they also added two new elements. One was a large number of commemorative cupolas and pious spaces and signifiers of all sorts, such as mihrabs to emphasize the direction of the qibla, minbars for preaching and platforms for gathering. Many of these were in memory of the Prophet, of course, but some also honoured Old Testament prophets and Jesus, whose cradle may still be seen in the south-eastern corner of the platform. Thus did the Haram become a repository of small structures strewn around its large space in an apparently disorganized way, at least visually. The second new element to be introduced was a monumental architecture dedicated to the provision of social services: libraries, religious and legal schools (madrasas), retirement homes and pilgrim hostels (khangas), fountains, cisterns and so on. Many of these establishments belong to an architectural typology of buildings common to Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The entrances to most of them were outside of the precinct of the Haram itself, while some of them were erected completely beyond the sanctuary, along the street leading up to it. When they abutted on the Haram, however, their often heavily-decorated walls created to the north and the west an ornate façade to the space occupied by the Haram. One of these monuments, located in the Haram proper, is the fountain of Qaytbay; connected to underground cisterns, it is an exquisite masterpiece of stone architecture. Altogether, a new visual and physical relationship was created between the vast platform, with its pious and commemorative monuments, and the mass of urban establishments with varying social purposes directed toward the city--even beyond the city, for many of the patrons of these buildings lived in Syria or Egypt--yet lining up the sacred space. The novelty of this vision is illustrated by the Gate of the Cotton-Merchants (bab al-qattanin) on the western side of the Haram which, by its shape and decoration, is no longer an entrance to the Haram from the city, but from the Haram to the city, through an eminently secular commercial establishment.
After 1512 and until the end of World War II, the Haram was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Regulated by a strict administrative system affecting all Muslim holy places, the Haram was carefully maintained. Occasionally, it was rehabilitated in a spectacular way, such as when Suleyman the Magnificent, who had restored the walls of Jerusalem, provided the Dome of the Rock with the magnificently colourful tiles that, much- and well-restored, are still there. Buildings were added to provide offices and to house stores of all kinds. Some of the madrasas began to be used for the education of schoolchildren or for other purposes altogether. With a few exceptions, these activities were not expressed in monumental form or in accordance with the architectural and decorative values of older times. Indeed, they reflect something of the banality of the late Ottoman centuries.
Such is a rapid sketch of the physical growth and development of what was, by then, the haram al-sharif. Its most amazing feature is the cumulative value of whatever was built upon it. Little was destroyed, everything could always be modified and additions were made to reflect the long and complex history of the city of Jerusalem. Much is still uncertain about the architectural history of the Haram. Surveys of its masonry and, of course, archaeological investigations are bound to alter conceptions of many of the features I have described, for instance, its imagined appearance at the time of the Muslim conquest. Three moments, however, emerge as essential to any understanding of the Haram as a space: the Herodian period, which set the stage by creating much of the space as well as its most basic elements, such as walls and gates; the first Islamic century (seventh to eighth centuries), which transformed a ruined and disorderly space into a focused one, complete with axes and visual magnets; and the Mamluk period, which provided what might be called the skin, still visible today, of the haram al-sharif. But none of these developments would have occurred had it not been for the meanings associated with the space.
Meanings
Whereas a certain degree of analytic objectivity is possible with respect to the evolution of the Haram’s space, controversies abound when we turn to meanings. Indeed, a variety of contradictory views in written sources indicate that these were as numerous in the past as they are in the present. In the paragraphs that follow, I will try to sort out these meanings without necessarily choosing between them, for it seems to me that the main point is that most of them reflect genuine emotions and perceptions, as well as powerful historical events or mythological memories. These feelings and memories may contradict one other when expressed together, but at different moments or stages in any individual’s life, most of them can have a significant impact. The fascination of the Haram lies precisely in the variety of associations that it may evoke. Below, I have divided--somewhat arbitrarily, to be sure--these associations into four categories of thought or behaviour, although the boundaries between them are often blurred in practice. These categories--religious beliefs and practices, history and myth, expectations, and power and ideology--are not discussed in any chronological order, since we are often ignorant as to how and when any one of them developed. Some are medieval Muslim creations; yet others are Muslim transformations of older and broader sentiments attached to other religions, primarily Judaism and Christianity.
Religious beliefs and practices
It is difficult, I believe, to argue that the Qur’an contains direct and immediate references to a holy place in Jerusalem or, in fact, to Jerusalem altogether. It is true, of course, that Jerusalem was the first qibla, or direction for prayer, and that the Qur’an contains references to the mihrabs of David (38:24 and ff.) and of Zakariya (3:37). Both had to have been in Jerusalem and the early Muslims searched for them and eventually found them in various places--or, at least, identified where they once were. Quite early, the association was made between the Muslim space in Jerusalem and the masjid al-aqsa, the “farthest mosque” of Qur’an 17:1, to which the Prophet was transported during his mystical Night Journey. At some point, maybe as early as in the eighth century, the Night Journey was conflated with the Ascension. Thus began Islam’s strongest and most powerful emotional, intellectual and theological association with the Haram and it culminated in the grandiose eleventh-century Fatimid inscription of the full quotation of the appropriate Qur’anic verse on the triumphal arch of the Aqsa Mosque. As is well-known, this entire event has been brilliantly illustrated in Persian paintings since the late thirteenth century.
Another Muslim practice connected with the Haram was the pilgrimage. In the ninth century, anti-Umayyad writers claimed that `Abd al-Malik had wanted to replace Mecca with Jerusalem and the ka`ba with the Dome of the Rock. This was certainly a piece of political disinformation, but visits to Jerusalem were nonetheless a common part of the pilgrim’s journey and there were always local pilgrimages to the Haram, perhaps continuations of very ancient Palestinian practices.
Some religious authorities, especially the Hanbalites, rejected much in the esoteric traditions associated with the mystical voyage of the Prophet. They preferred to see the Haram quite simply as the masjid of Jerusalem, the place where the Muslim community gathered to pray and to deal with all matters pertinent to the proper behaviour of Muslims. In this sense, the Muslim madrasas and other establishments of social import around the Haram are simply the natural Late Medieval expression of Sunni piety. Their presence around the Haram suggests that the latter acted as a sort of magnet of holiness. The reason for this can be found in Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddima. The great historian and philosopher argues that Jerusalem is indeed one of the three “masajid (mosques)” in the sense of “sanctuaries on earth which are privileged by God.” According to Ibn Khaldun, it follows Mecca, but precedes Madina, because it has been a sanctuary since “Sabean (that is, pre-Hebraic)” times and was transformed into the Jewish Temple by Solomon. In other words, Ibn Khaldun argues that, whatever specific pious beliefs Muslims brought to the Haram, the latter’s holiness had already been established before the appearance of Islam or even of Judaism. The permanence of sacred places regardless of religion is a well-known phenomenon especially notable in Western Asia, where religious allegiances changed frequently throughout the Late Antique period.
Hence, the Haram was simultaneously endowed with unique religious associations of its own (such as pilgrimage and the Prophet’s Journey), interpreted as a routine urban congregational mosque (reflecting changes in Muslim piety) and simply the vehicle of long-established modes of behaviour (such as coming to Jerusalem as a pilgrim).
History and myth
Mujir al-Din’s late fifteenth-century description of Jerusalem, known as Al-Uns al-jalil fi tarikh al-Quds wa al-Khalil, is the best-preserved compendium of information about the entire area of Jerusalem and Hebron. It follows many other sources in identifying the following pre-Islamic, mostly biblical, figures with the Haram: David, Khidr, Solomon, Moses, Jesus, Joseph, Jacob, Zakariya, Isaac and Abraham. Although rejected by classical Islamic theology and scholarship, a striking early tradition goes as far as to say that it was from the Rock in Jerusalem that God left the earth after having created it.
Each of these associations has a place on the platform or, as in the case of Jesus, on the stairway going down to what are known as the Stables of Solomon. Each one also has its own historical development. Many derived from the operation of popular Islamic devotional practices, about which little is known, but which must have been strongly influenced by local non-Muslim, Jewish and Christian conventions. Furthermore, it is important to recall that Jews and Christians developed their own associations with the Haram. It was upon Mount Moriah that--through a series of mistaken references--Abraham was believed to have prepared the sacrifice of his son, Isaac. For Jews, the Haram was, and still is, the site of the Temple built by Solomon and rebuilt by Herod the Great, and a complicated set of beliefs and attitudes are attached to the site. Its western wall has become a major focus of Jewish religious life. Matters are less clear for the Christians. There were, of course, episodes in the life of Jesus that were associated with the Temple. The Crusaders identified the Dome of the Rock as the Temple of the Lord and the Aqsa Mosque as Solomon’s palace. The Golden Gate, on the eastern side, was seen as the place where Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Virgin Mary, had met; through it, Heraclius re-entered the city in 631 bearing the fragments of the True Cross that the Persians had earlier taken away. The martyrdom of St. Stephen was supposed to have taken place on the south-eastern corner of the Haram. As late as the end of the nineteenth century, one Western architectural historian even tried to argue that the Dome of the Rock was, in fact, the Holy Sepulchre. In his wonderful Victorian way, he thought that the actual Holy Sepulchre was too cluttered and disorganized to commemorate the Passion of Christ, whereas the Dome of the Rock was more befitting because it was a beautiful monument dominating everything around it.
Expectations
A very important dimension of the Haram lies in its eschatological meaning. At the end of time, according to some Muslim traditions, the ka`ba will come from Mecca and settle near the Dome of the Rock. It is in and near the Haram that the Last Judgement will take place, inasmuch as the deep valley to the east of the Haram contains the entrance to the place of damnation, while the Mount of Olives leads to paradise. The chain of the qubbat al-silsila was understood as a means to separate the just from the wicked, while the two sides of the Golden Gate were known as bab al-tawba and bab al-rahma (the Gate of Repentance and the Gate of Mercy). Among the earliest--probably already Umayyad--inscriptions in the Dome of the Rock, is one appearing on a bronze plaque that was originally located on its eastern gate; it calls for the Prophet’s intercession on behalf of his umma, the collectivity of all Muslims, at the time of divine judgement.
The very location of the Haram between a living urban setting and the often very ancient cemeteries to the east of the city transformed it into a sort of mediating space between life and death or between transitory and eternal life. This dimension may be less significant to contemporary piety, but it was an important aspect of traditional mentalities and explains, among other things, why holy men, ascetics, or later members of Sufi mystical organizations spent time in the Haram. Occasionally, as in Fatimid times, there were special areas reserved for them. The Haram did not simply mediate between two worlds in the space of Jerusalem, but also in the spiritual growth of men of faith.
Power and ideology
The last remaining dimension concerns power and ideology. The very location of the Haram, a large artificial platform at the edge of a walled city overlooking a deep valley, underlines its dominating function. This function is further emphasized by the height and colours of the Dome of the Rock, which may easily be seen from all sides, with the exception of the north. Thus, the presence of Islam as a political force, as well as a system of beliefs, was made visible and prominent in what was, in the seventh century, a Christian city. The inscriptions inside the Dome of the Rock stress that the successful domination of the new faith will be the final stage of divine revelation. Even the peculiar occurrence of the Abbasid caliph, al-Ma’mun, substituting his name for that of the Umayyad, `Abd al-Malik, without changing the date of the building’s construction, is a clear sign of an ideological takeover with political, rather than pious, implications.
This ideological, as well as visual, meaning is not peculiar to the Haram created by `Abd al-Malik. Already, the Romans had supposedly erected a statue of the emperor there, probably next to a pagan temple. Then, in an event which is difficult to reconstruct in full because of confusion in the sources, it appears that Mu`awiya, the very remarkable founder of the Umayyad dynasty, was consecrated as ruler of the Muslim world in Jerusalem, probably in the Haram, where he would have received a crown. A similar ceremony may have been held for his son, Yazid. Much later, Fatimid inscriptions of the eleventh century-- preserved in the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque or removed from the western gate--also emphasized the power of ruling dynasties. And one may well argue that the Mamluks and the Ottomans continued to exhibit a presence and a domination through the visibility of their work on the Haram. Such is one of the meanings of the construction of Qaytbay’s fountain or of the laying of beautiful tiles on the Dome of the Rock. Quite simply, the manner in which power was expressed changed over the centuries.
My argument has been that the haram al-sharif may be seen in two ways simultaneously. One is through a history of stones and other architectural features, which explain the evolution of the space that we know today. The other is through a set of meanings ranging quite widely in character and operating at varying rates of intensity due to changes in circumstance and individual choice. In following both of these lines of thought here, I have only sketched a few highlights and much remains unsaid and, as yet, unknown. Thus, one could ponder the history of trees and other forms of vegetation in the Haram, the vacillations of local Palestinian or pan-Islamic pilgrimages to it, or the sociology of the piety expressed within it, more particularly, the piety of women that is so obvious today. There are many more narratives that could be woven around the Haram and the task of finding congruencies among various of these in some significant moment of time or of composing a well-integrated description of a grand religious space is still awaiting its historian and, probably, its poet. The fact that all of these narratives are even possible is primarily the result of the rich texture of piety and of memories entwined around every stone of the sanctuary and nurtured, in Jerusalem itself and all over the world, by generations of Jews, Christians and, especially, Muslims. But these narratives were also affected by the aesthetic dimension of the Haram, particularly the Dome of the Rock, which occupies its highest point. Even the most jaded tourist least concerned with matters of faith cannot escape the visual and sensual magnetism of the space. It is apparent in the masonry of the Herodian walls or in the original steps leading to the Haram from the south; it is fully present in the Gate of the Cotton Merchants or in the fountain of Qaytbay; and it may be found, not only in the obvious power of the Dome of the Rock, but in the Ottoman tiles that adorn it. It is perhaps ironic that the very beauty of the Haram and of the masterpieces it harbours is what has preserved it from so many centuries of conflicts. Hopefully, it will sustain this beauty for centuries to come to satisfy the constantly-changing needs of the faithful and the visual excitement and aesthetic pleasure of all mankind.
Investigative journalism proves life-threatening in Mexico
Three muckraking journalists have been assaulted or gone missing this month, with at least one of them slain, in a sign that investigating corruption remains a dangerous trade in Mexico.
The attacks appear to be an effort by organized crime to silence the media so that “no one knows anything,” Deputy Atty. Gen. Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos said Saturday.
The latest victim was prizewinning newspaper editor Raul Gibb Guerrero, owner of La Opinion in the town of Poza Rica, near the Gulf of Mexico. He was shot to death in neighboring Papantla on Friday night after publishing exposes on traffickers of stolen gasoline and drugs in the state of Veracruz.
“He was an altruist, dedicated to using the newspaper to improve society,” reporter Gabriel Hernandez said of his late boss. “No way will this stop us. We owe it to him to continue.”
Gibb’s slaying followed the shooting of radio reporter Guadalupe Garcia Escamilla of Nuevo Laredo, a border city in Tamaulipas state, on April 5. Garcia Escamilla was shot nine times as she left the Estereo 91 station. She survived the attack but remains in critical condition.
Nidia Egremy, of the Mexican Reporters Society, said Garcia had also been digging into municipal corruption in Nuevo Laredo and had received threats.
“The state of Tamaulipas is the most dangerous one in Mexico if you are independent and critical,” Egremy said. On Saturday, the state’s public security minister, Luis Roberto Gutierrez, suggested that reporters should carry firearms.
Alfredo Jimenez Mota, a 25-year-old reporter with the newspaper El Imparcial in the northern city of Hermosillo, disappeared on his way to an interview April 2 and has not been seen publicly since. Authorities and colleagues fear that he was slain. Jimenez Mota recently had written stories about alleged plans of drug traffickers to kill government officials.
“We have no details on whom he was going to see or what subject they were going to talk about,” said his father, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, when asked in a telephone interview from Hermosillo about the nature of his son’s last assignment. “This is torture not being able to talk to him or find him.”
Mexico is among the more hazardous places in the world for journalists to ply their trade, said Carlos Lauria, coordinator of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. It ranks 11th among countries in the number of journalists slain over the last decade, with nine killed. Iraq, Algeria and Colombia top the list.
The International Press Institute reported last month that four journalists were killed in Mexico last year, more than any other Latin American nation. It noted that “corruption and drug trafficking have made it almost impossible for journalists to carry out investigative reporting” in Mexico.
Lauria said the northern border region, through which billions of dollars’ worth of drugs are smuggled into the United States each year, has become especially hazardous. Mexican police rarely solve the crimes, he said, which contributes to further attacks.
“The impunities around these crimes are a green light for those who perpetrate them to attack the next reporter,” Lauria said.
Jose Carreno, director of journalism studies at Iberoamericana University in Mexico City, said investigative journalism, already rare in the country, has been made even less attractive to journalists because of “out-of-control powers acting with great impunity.”
Gibb’s family founded La Opinion half a century ago in Poza Rica, a refining center where the major employer is Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, the state oil monopoly.
Under Gibb’s direction, La Opinion won two national prizes in 2002 and 2004 for its work in uncovering gasoline contraband rackets that allegedly operated with the complicity of high-ranking Pemex officials. Despite those articles, gangs still steal gasoline directly from the refineries and sell it in adulterated form to gas stations in several states, according to recent La Opinion reports. The paper’s most recent story on the rackets appeared April 4.
Authorities said Gibb had received threats shortly before his slaying. The editor was driving home Friday when he was stopped by four gunmen in two trucks who pumped 15 bullets into him. Police have arrested no suspects.
He is survived by his wife, Ana, and three children.
From Los Angeles Times, April 12, 2005 By Chris Kraul
This article is from Los Angeles Times. If you found it informative and valuable, we strongly encourage you to visit their website and register an account to view all their articles on the web. Support quality journalism.
The attacks appear to be an effort by organized crime to silence the media so that “no one knows anything,” Deputy Atty. Gen. Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos said Saturday.
The latest victim was prizewinning newspaper editor Raul Gibb Guerrero, owner of La Opinion in the town of Poza Rica, near the Gulf of Mexico. He was shot to death in neighboring Papantla on Friday night after publishing exposes on traffickers of stolen gasoline and drugs in the state of Veracruz.
“He was an altruist, dedicated to using the newspaper to improve society,” reporter Gabriel Hernandez said of his late boss. “No way will this stop us. We owe it to him to continue.”
Gibb’s slaying followed the shooting of radio reporter Guadalupe Garcia Escamilla of Nuevo Laredo, a border city in Tamaulipas state, on April 5. Garcia Escamilla was shot nine times as she left the Estereo 91 station. She survived the attack but remains in critical condition.
Nidia Egremy, of the Mexican Reporters Society, said Garcia had also been digging into municipal corruption in Nuevo Laredo and had received threats.
“The state of Tamaulipas is the most dangerous one in Mexico if you are independent and critical,” Egremy said. On Saturday, the state’s public security minister, Luis Roberto Gutierrez, suggested that reporters should carry firearms.
Alfredo Jimenez Mota, a 25-year-old reporter with the newspaper El Imparcial in the northern city of Hermosillo, disappeared on his way to an interview April 2 and has not been seen publicly since. Authorities and colleagues fear that he was slain. Jimenez Mota recently had written stories about alleged plans of drug traffickers to kill government officials.
“We have no details on whom he was going to see or what subject they were going to talk about,” said his father, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, when asked in a telephone interview from Hermosillo about the nature of his son’s last assignment. “This is torture not being able to talk to him or find him.”
Mexico is among the more hazardous places in the world for journalists to ply their trade, said Carlos Lauria, coordinator of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. It ranks 11th among countries in the number of journalists slain over the last decade, with nine killed. Iraq, Algeria and Colombia top the list.
The International Press Institute reported last month that four journalists were killed in Mexico last year, more than any other Latin American nation. It noted that “corruption and drug trafficking have made it almost impossible for journalists to carry out investigative reporting” in Mexico.
Lauria said the northern border region, through which billions of dollars’ worth of drugs are smuggled into the United States each year, has become especially hazardous. Mexican police rarely solve the crimes, he said, which contributes to further attacks.
“The impunities around these crimes are a green light for those who perpetrate them to attack the next reporter,” Lauria said.
Jose Carreno, director of journalism studies at Iberoamericana University in Mexico City, said investigative journalism, already rare in the country, has been made even less attractive to journalists because of “out-of-control powers acting with great impunity.”
Gibb’s family founded La Opinion half a century ago in Poza Rica, a refining center where the major employer is Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, the state oil monopoly.
Under Gibb’s direction, La Opinion won two national prizes in 2002 and 2004 for its work in uncovering gasoline contraband rackets that allegedly operated with the complicity of high-ranking Pemex officials. Despite those articles, gangs still steal gasoline directly from the refineries and sell it in adulterated form to gas stations in several states, according to recent La Opinion reports. The paper’s most recent story on the rackets appeared April 4.
Authorities said Gibb had received threats shortly before his slaying. The editor was driving home Friday when he was stopped by four gunmen in two trucks who pumped 15 bullets into him. Police have arrested no suspects.
He is survived by his wife, Ana, and three children.
From Los Angeles Times, April 12, 2005 By Chris Kraul
This article is from Los Angeles Times. If you found it informative and valuable, we strongly encourage you to visit their website and register an account to view all their articles on the web. Support quality journalism.
How many have gone to war?
Even experts are surprised at the vast numbers of U.S. soldiers who have been deployed after 9/11. Even if troop levels in Iraq are cut next year, the military may be permanently damaged.
hree and a half years have passed since U.S. bombs started falling in Afghanistan, and ever since then, the U.S. military has been engaged in combat overseas. What most Americans are probably unaware of, however, is just how many American soldiers have been deployed. Well over 1 million U.S. troops have fought in the wars since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Pentagon data released to Salon. As of Jan. 31, 2005, the exact figure was 1,048,884, approximately one-third the number of troops ever stationed in or around Vietnam during 15 years of that conflict.
More surprising is the number of troops who have gone to war since 9/11, come back home, and then were redeployed to the battle zone. Of all the troops ever sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, one-third have gone more than once, according to the Pentagon. In the regular Army, 63 percent of the soldiers have been to war at least one time, and almost 40 percent of those soldiers have gone back. The highest rate of first-time deployments belongs to the Marine Corps Reserve: Almost 90 percent have fought.
The data sheds new light on how all-consuming the post-9/11 wars have been for the U.S. military, and suggests a particular strain on U.S. ground forces. An increasing number of military experts believe those forces -- the Army and Marines -- are months away from being overtaxed to the point of serious dysfunction. The situation in Iraq must continue to stabilize. If it doesn't, and the Bush administration continues to both reject the idea of a draft and rebuff efforts to permanently increase the size of the Army and Marines, U.S. ground forces will break down to a point not seen since just after Vietnam.
"Unless things start to improve, we will start to see a serious problem in six to nine months," said Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine Corps three-star general and a former Marine Corps deputy chief of staff under Ronald Reagan. "I think they [the Pentagon] are betting that things are going to get better. But that could be a miscalculation," said Trainor. "This crowd has been pretty good at miscalculating."
Indeed, the revelation that well over 1 million U.S. troops have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan surprises even close military observers. "Those are big numbers ... a lot bigger than I would have thought," said John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense information Web site that tracks the logistics of war. Pike thinks it is too early to tell what the impact will be on the regular Army, but he said the repeated deployments have already broken the reserve forces.
The particularly grinding service in Iraq puts a special brand of wear and tear on the troops, as evidenced in, among other things, the rate of mental illness among soldiers coming home. Among veterans who served in Iraq and are now seeking healthcare from the Department of Veterans Affairs, one in four is now being diagnosed with a mental problem, according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine. There are no front lines in Iraq: Transportation companies, military police and civil affairs soldiers face the same risk of random ambush or death by roadside bombs. The stress goes on 24 hours a day for an entire tour. (Tours vary by unit, with some Army soldiers serving up to a year per tour, and Marines serving seven-month tours.) Veterans of Vietnam say some of that sounds eerily familiar.
During the 15 years of the Vietnam conflict, around 2.4 million troops served there, according to a study of Pentagon data by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis. Some estimates put another 1 million troops in surrounding countries during that time. The U.S. started moving new troops into the Vietnam arena in 1956 and troop levels peaked in Vietnam in 1968 when nearly a half-million troops were there. Most news reports about current military engagement focus on the number of troops in Iraq now: 150,000 are there, with another 20,000 on the ground in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon.
The United States drafted nearly 2 million people during the Vietnam War era, according to the Selective Service System, but did not activate military reserves as the military is doing for the Iraq war. But no one in the Bush administration has uttered the "D" word for this war. Under intense pressure from Congress, the Bush administration has agreed to temporarily increase the size of the Army until 2008, but says it does not want to permanently increase ground forces because of cost. But if the government does nothing to alleviate the strain on troops, military analysts worry that Iraq might turn into another Vietnam -- but not in the way most people think of that comparison.
Instead, military experts said the tempo of the Iraq war will eventually erode the Army and the Marine Corps into a state of disrepair similar to that after Vietnam, when discipline, morale and readiness were considered by some historians to be the worst ever. The Army was recovering from a war in which troops had killed their superior officers. Drugs were rampant. Some units in Vietnam had refused to fight. That took a decade to fix as the military moved away from the draft to an all-volunteer force in 1973 and began to purge officers who were performing poorly.
Some factors that contributed to the post-Vietnam military slump were particular to that conflict and do not apply to Iraq; most notably, the Vietnam-era Army included a large number of conscripted soldiers. The modern professional soldier is more motivated and better trained. Conventional wisdom says that the modern all-volunteer Army can last longer in war and bounce back faster. But the risk of pushing the military too far still remains.
Anecdotes and examples abound showing the current strain on the military. The Iraq war is burning through troops. In addition to troops getting treatment in military hospitals, nearly 50,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, including those discharged for wounds or injuries, are now out of the military and getting medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to V.A. data. Around 25,000 troops have been medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon's transportation command.
Further, calls to the GI Rights Hotline, an 800 number set up by nonprofit groups for soldiers to get information on military discharges, have nearly tripled since the year 2000. The hot line got 32,200 calls last year from soldiers who don't want to go to Iraq -- or don't want to go back. "The majority of the calls are people who are trying to get out," said the hot line's manager, Steve Morse, GI rights program coordinator for the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors in Oakland, Calif. Most of the calls are from AWOL soldiers who are looking for help, or are interested in becoming conscientious objectors or getting some sort of discharge. A February Harper's article said 5,500 troops have gone AWOL since the invasion of Iraq.
The good news is that the situation in Iraq may be genuinely improving. The Pentagon reported last week that the number of "terrorist incidents" in Iraq has dropped to the lowest level since March 2004. The rates of combat deaths, which have fluctuated since the invasion in March 2003, are decreasing this year. But that could change at any time. And now the American military is at a precarious tipping point. Even some current Pentagon leaders have expressed concern. "What keeps me awake at night," Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard A. Cody told a Senate panel last month, "is what will this all-volunteer force look like in 2007?"
Pentagon officials told the New York Times recently that the United States might be able to reduce the number of troops in Iraq to 105,000 early next year -- if violence does not spike again. (The article notes that similar plans last year were put on ice after the insurgency heated up.) Some military experts said by early next year, it will already be too late to prevent serious damage to U.S. ground forces.
"If you want to ask how to destroy the all-volunteer Army, the Bush administration has provided a textbook case," Lawrence J. Korb told an audience at a Center for American Progress debate on the draft this month. Korb, an assistant secretary of defense under Reagan, said the strain may soon become overwhelming -- and Bush is not doing enough about it. "It may be that at some point we have cracked the all-volunteer force so much, we will have to do something else." Korb said that he thinks that three combat tours is the breaking point. Some combat units, such as the Army's famed Third Infantry Division, are in Iraq for the second time now.
Ironically, while some experts think the draft exacerbated the desolation of the Army after Vietnam, others argue that it is one option to maintain national security given the current strain on the all-volunteer force. "America has a choice. It can be the world's superpower or it can maintain the current all-volunteer military, but it probably can't do both," Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris wrote in the Washington Monthly last month.
The Pentagon has moved to stop the bleeding, enacting "stop loss" policies that prevent some soldiers from leaving the military. They have tapped the Individual Ready Reserve, soldiers who thought they had severed ties with the military years ago. Critics have said these policies are part of a "back door draft." The Bush administration has agreed only to the temporary increase in the size of the Army until 2008 and is reconfiguring combat units to get more foot-soldier bang for its buck.
But recruitment is also falling, particularly for Army Reserve units. The Pentagon said last month that both the active-duty and reserve forces are behind on recruiting goals for this year. The National Guard is down 25 percent. The Pentagon is adding new recruiters to try to fill the gaps: The Army National Guard has said it will add another 1,400 alone. "This will be a very challenging year for recruiting for the reserve components," Charles S. Abell, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told Congress last month. That trend continues even as the military increases signing bonuses and lowers its standards for signing up. (Most recently, the government decided that a new recruit into the reserves could be 39 instead of 34.)
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. -- a Vietnam veteran and an Army Ranger, respectively -- want to permanently increase the Army by 30,000 soldiers and add 3,000 Marines. The Bush administration has balked at such efforts, citing the $3 billion price tag. The most pressing issue may be the reserves. Fearing a political backlash if he deployed weekend warriors to Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson bypassed the reserves and used the draft instead. Indeed, slots in the National Guard were particularly coveted during that era, as the 2004 presidential election and the revisiting of George W. Bush's Guard record made so clear.
After Vietnam, the Pentagon reorganized the military so that it can't fight a big ground war without mobilizing the reserves. The idea was to block the president from waging a war without the full support of the American heartland. Active-duty Army units now rely on reserve units to perform vital functions in a major mobilization.
But the reserves are lagging the farthest behind in meeting their recruitment goals. The long deployments may have been particularly shocking for the troops, many of whom simply did not think they were signing up for this. The grind is wearing the reserves down, and fewer people are willing to sign up for it now. The Army Reserve's chief, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, wrote in a memo to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker late last year that the stress meant the Army Reserve was "degenerating into a 'broken' force."
Pike, from GlobalSecurity.org, said the situation for the reserves is dire. "The guard is broken and cannot be fixed," Pike said. "I don't think anybody would voluntarily, of their own volition, join the National Guard. I think they will have to come up with a new mission statement for the thing."
Mark Benjamin is a national correspondent for Salon based in Washington, D.C.
Related stories (all are puclished in the archives of duckdaotsu blog)
The invisible wounded
Injured soldiers evacuated to the U.S. never arrive in the light of day -- and the Pentagon has yet to offer a satisfactory explanation why.
By Mark Benjamin
03/08/05
Behind the walls of Ward 54
They're overmedicated, forced to talk about their mothers instead of Iraq, and have to fight for disability pay. Traumatized combat vets say the Army is failing them, and after a year following more than a dozen soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, I believe them.
By Mark Benjamin
02/18/05
Insult to injury
Some wounded soldiers back from Iraq are having to pay for meals at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Veterans' groups say it's another symptom of fighting a costly war on the cheap.
By Mark Benjamin
01/27/05
Five Ways to Combat Conservative Media
1. Stop talking about “bias.”
Inaccurate, distorted and misleading news reports that further a conservative agenda or undermine progressive ideas dominate our newspapers and airwaves. But this isn’t necessarily because reporters or media outlets are biased towards conservatives.
For every Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, there are dozens of reporters who don’t have an ideological axe to grind, but whose work contains conservative misinformation anyway.
Sometimes that’s because they lazily repeat Republican talking points. Sometimes it’s because the conservative communications apparatus is larger, more lavishly funded and better able to disseminate its message. Regardless of the reason, conservative misinformation appears in news reports written, produced and read by all kinds of journalists.
The Right has spent decades framing the debate over media coverage as one of ideological bias, and it has worked for them. But that’s an overly simplistic view of the media. Rather than mimicking conservatives, progressives should recognize that we can’t read reporters’ hearts and minds—but we can read their articles and columns.
By focusing our criticism on content rather than intent, we can more effectively address the problems in news reports. Criticism based on content rather than claims of “bias” will also resonate with a larger portion of the public.
2. stay informedMedia Matters for America, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting and Free Press are all valuable resources for progressives who want to fight the flood of conservative misinformation in the media.
Also seek out progressive voices in the media, from Air America to bloggers to the soon-to-launch Progressive Book Club.
3. Get activeEvery day, reporters are bombarded with inaccurate and misleading information promoted by conservatives, and they face constant allegations of “bias” from right-wing organizations and politicians, including the president and vice president of the United States.
Is it any wonder news reports are filled with conservative misinformation?
Well, it won’t change—unless we all do something about it. When you see a misleading news report, write a letter or make a phone call. Tell the news organization why they are wrong. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your family, and encourage progressive leaders to do the same. Progressive efforts to fight back against conservative misinformation in the media will gain credibility and momentum when we all join the fight—from local activists to elected officials.
4. Be patient– and be persistent
Conservatives have spent decades actively and intensely “working the refs,” as former Republican National Committee chairman Rich Bond famously described the right’s criticism of the media. Progressives took longer to get started, so it will not be enough to occasionally hold media outlets responsible for purveying conservative misinformation: We have to do it every day.
5. Fight back in innovative ways
Aside from writing letters and making phone calls, we must think of new, creative and effective ways to combat conservative misinformation in the media. Come up with your own ideas, try them out—and share them with other activists.
Jamison Foser has been Senior Adviser at Media Matters for America since the organization’s launch in early 2004.
NY Assembly Dems kill reinstatement of death penalty
ALBANY — The Democratic-controlled state Assembly’s powerful Codes Committee voted 11-7 Tuesday not to send legislation aimed at reinstating New York’s death penalty to the full house for a vote, a move that may effectively kill the effort for this year.
Such legislation has been pushed hard by Republican Gov. George Pataki and the state Senate’s Republican majority leader, Joseph Bruno.
New York’s death penalty was reinstated in 1995 by the Legislature and the newly elected Pataki who had vowed, as part of his successful campaign to oust then-Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo, to bring capital punishment back. Cuomo, in 12 years as governor, had routinely vetoed death penalty legislation.
The 1995 death penalty law was effectively declared invalid by a ruling from the state’s highest court last year. Since the law took effect in 1995, no person in New York has been executed.
“I’m very pleased,” said Albany’s Roman Catholic bishop, Howard Hubbard, after the committee vote. “I think the death penalty has not proven effective and is morally repugnant.” While he has been a death penalty supporter in the past, state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, has cooled to the policy in recent months.
Gabriel Thompson Among the Minutemen
n October of 2004, when I first heard about a citizen border patrol initiative called the Minuteman Project, it had received absolutely no media coverage. I only stumbled upon the group while doing research for a book I am working on about Mexican immigrants. I was immediately intrigued by the group, and decided I wanted to investigate them.
I knew right away that I wanted to spend an extended period of time with the group and the story. I didn’t want to fly in one night, gather a few quotes, spend a day on the border, and then call it a day. For one thing, I was curious about the people that had decided to volunteer, and I didn’t think that I’d gain their trust so quickly. In addition, I wanted to try and figure out how Mexicans living across the border viewed the project - and how prospective crossers were feeling and what had motivated them to try and cross illegally in the first place. At the time, of course, I didn’t know exactly how I would find such people, but that was my intention.
By the time I arrived in Tombstone, Arizona, the media were all over the story. Hordes of television vans and dozens of print reporters from around the country were wandering around, taking notes and asking questions. So from the beginning, to some extent my decisions regarding how to cover the Minutemen were formed by looking at what other reporters were doing, and doing the opposite. The constant question in my head was: how can I make sure I’m not wasting my time and just writing an identical story? What can I try to accomplish that the others aren’t? Who can I go talk to that is being ignored?
Most reporters covering the event followed a pretty similar format. They interviewed one of the two official leaders, Jim Gilchrist or Chris Simcox, who gave them the needed soundbite: "We’re Americans doing the job the government won’t do" or "we’re the largest neighborhood watch group in the country" were the two I heard most frequently. Then they went out on patrol with a group, described what they saw, got a quote or two from the volunteers, and filed their story.
So my first decision was to not focus on either Gilchrist or Simcox, who were constantly followed by a gaggle of reporters and were pretty careful to remain on message. Instead, I hung out with the ordinary volunteers that were doing the grunt work, many of whom actually were a bit resentful of Gilchrist and Simcox for their constant media exposure.
My goal to get a behind-the-scenes look at the volunteers was made easier when I learned that many of the Minutemen would be staying at a bible college near the border, which would become their headquarters and where they would try to "build a sense of community." I immediately booked a dorm room (for only 5 bucks a night, which was unbelievably cheap, even though the place was in many areas a disaster zone and had been uninhabited for years).
Though this seemed like a logical move for anyone trying to really understand the project, I found only two other reporters - a freelance photographer and a freelance writer - who actually stayed there. Nearly everyone else spent their nights in local hotels, which meant that they missed a lot of what was happening, in my view. By essentially "embedding" with the Minutemen, I was at times able to become invisible. People saw me everywhere: at the cafeteria, in the bathrooms, etc., so eventually many forgot I was actually a writer. It also helped, of course, that I was white and originally from California-where many of the volunteers lived. Many people assumed that I was sympathetic to their project because of these two facts, and I did my best not to stand in the way of their assumptions (I didn’t have to lie, but only do my best to remain neutral).
Before I started hanging out with the Minutemen, I thought it would be easy to keep some of my opinions to myself. Obviously, my view about illegal immigration (many of my friends are undocumented immigrants) and that of people ready to patrol the border for a month were going to be quite different. I’ve always tended towards a class-based perspective; volunteers were tending towards a citizen-alien perspective that I just don’t find very illuminating. But I figured I’d be able to keep my own thoughts out of the way, since I have pretty thick skin and hoped to just laugh off any stupid Mexican jokes.
After two days, however, of hearing certain people bitch and moan about how easy immigrants have it in the country, I found myself arguing more. It didn’t bother me as much to hear complaints about potential terrorist threats, because I could see where people were coming from-even though I myself find it hard to feel anxious about national security concerns. But the sense of victimhood that many of the participants expressed (one popular sticker read: "Kick Me-I’m a Citizen"), and the idea that undocumented immigrants get the red carpet treatment in this country absolutely contradicted what I have seen with my own eyes working with immigrants the last four years in Brooklyn.
By day three, I had the urge to slap a few of the people that keep whining about "illegals getting welfare" or "illegals getting healthcare." Instead, I’d say something a bit sarcastic like, "I guess you’re right [regarding whatever inane statement you just made], but for me, white people are so boring. Mexicans just seem like they’re more intelligent and interesting, don’t you think?" Another retort I used drove a particularly cranky woman crazy: "I actually think English is an ugly language. You should try to learn Spanish - it just sounds a lot better." This wasn’t a productive route, and I might have alienated a few people who had interesting stories to tell, but it did make me feel a tad bit better.
Thankfully, I decided to cross the border and visit Mexico at precisely the point that I was getting most upset with some of the rhetoric around the bible college. That trip allowed me to blow off some steam with people that harbored similar feelings about the Project. I spent one day with a government agency called Grupo Beta, whose responsibility is to patrol the Mexican side of the border and search for hungry and thirsty migrants. When Grupo Beta found people, they would give them food and water, and warn them about the armed Americans that were in the area. Most migrants decided to take their offer and catch a ride back to the border town of Agua Prieta, enjoy a shower and warm bowl of soup, and wait for the Minutemen to go home before crossing. Grupo Beta is, in my mind, a clear example of a government agency actually playing a positive role (which in Mexico, as in the US, is not the most frequent occurrence).
I also visited a shelter in Mexico run by a Catholic Church, where people from other parts of Mexico and Latin America would stay for a few days before attempting to cross. These experiences helped me see the Minutemen from the Mexican side - both from their government and immigrants preparing to cross - and gave another dimension to the story that was frequently overlooked (especially the perspective of the migrants themselves).
There were two key insights I had about the Minutemen that were thanks to having spent so much time with them (I stayed at the bible college for a week). The first was that many Minutemen had a very intense need to feel "secure" - personally, politically, even militarily - and that this security was constantly being breached. The second was that people, by and large, weren’t what I would call actual racists, but instead hyper-nationalistic.
I was initially amazed at how much time people spent talking about the "security" of the bible college. On the first night there was an alleged "security breach" by two people that didn’t have Minutemen identification. Though they never found the people - who probably never existed - many volunteers armed themselves, strapped on bullet-proof vests, and conducted a door-to-door inventory of the facility. Some were downright hysterical that the breach had allegedly occurred.
And even though there were always people with the task of "securing" the perimeter of the bible college, I often heard people complain about how vulnerable they felt. One man explained in a frantic voice that even on day 3, with regular shifts of security detail, things were still a mess. He told me that a group of "illegals" could easily come in from one of the areas that was still unprotected and attack our group. While taking a shower one morning I overheard another man speak about wanting to set up lights that could illuminate the whole area 24-hours a day.
I couldn’t help but feel that this profound sense of insecurity had its origins in, and was somehow related to, an inability to outgrow a child’s normal fear of the dark. It also seemed that this insecurity was the principle around which many of the volunteers organized their entire lives, and that no matter what steps they took, they would never quite feel safe. I thought to myself that it must be exhausting to be in their shoes.
In terms of racism, which was a frequent charge levied at the Minutemen by critics, I found that only a few people actually seemed to be out-and-out racists. Instead, I felt that the most common viewpoint was instead a sort of hyper-nationalism - a deep sense of patriotism and loyalty to one country, the United States, and a pretty strong lack of concern for citizens of others.
In fact, the only non-white participant I met, a Cuban-American whose family fled the country prior to the revolution, was very well received by white volunteers. The key was not skin color, but a shared sense of American pride and a sense of outrage over the issue of illegal immigration. If an American citizen had come legally from Mexico, or even Saudi Arabia, and wanted to help secure the southern border and "put America first," they would have been more than welcomed by the group.
Finally, I got the sense from many Minutemen that they were actually a bit disappointed about the Project. From a political perspective, of course, it was a brilliant move, receiving tons of press and even moving the Border Patrol to assign more agents to the Arizona border. Although the Minutemen claimed to have 1000 volunteers, I estimated that they never had more than 150, and after the first weekend I figured that only about 50-75 people were still staying at the bible college. But the project would have to be considered an overwhelming success in terms of impact and exposure.
Despite all this success, the bottom line was that many Minutemen were surprised by what they actually found at the border: boredom. The email that was sent by Gilchrist to recruit people for the project spoke in militaristic, excited terms. Patriots were needed to stop an invasion, to do surveillance work, to secure our border. Undoubtedly inspired by the call, volunteers drove and flew hundreds or thousands of miles to the Arizona-Mexico border, ready to join a war of sorts. Then they pulled out lawn chairs and stared through binoculars at a bunch of shrub. Only one of the participants that I spoke to had actually seen an immigrant attempting to cross. I even thought of a t-shirt to hock at the bible college: I spent a week protecting the border under the Arizona sun, and all I got was lobster face.
No headlines about this war
The pro-Pentagon propaganda machine here usually celebrates war anniversaries, especially wars with few U.S. casualties. Yet take a look at Google News for March 24: Yugoslavia turned up only 38 independent hits. Thirty-four of them involved chess champion Bobby Fischer’s asylum in Iceland. The war was almost ignored.
Did someone think it would be harder now to convince people of the 10 years of organized lies and propaganda used to justify aggression against Yugoslavia? Shining a light on the Balkans exposes too much truth about imperialist aggression and its consequences.
On March 24, 1999, a U.S.-led NATO force launched its first sustained aggression against what remained of the once quite successful socialist country of Yugoslavia. At the time, the NATO leaders and U.S. President Bill Clinton claimed this was a “humanitarian war.” It featured 78 days of “humanitarian bombing.” NATO’s propagandists gave the world the obscene term “collateral damage.”
During those 78 days, U.S.-NATO forces bombed Yugoslavia’s industrial infrastructure, including television stations, apartment complexes and schools. The bombs killed over a thousand civilians, about one-third of them children. They polluted a beautiful country with chemicals, oil spills, and depleted
uranium.
The humanitarian side was supposedly helping the Albanian people of the Kosovo and Metochia province of Serbia. To this province the war brought a continued NATO occupation with a United Nations cover. It brought the biggest U.S. military base in Eastern Europe. It brought the most reactionary and corrupt groupings from the Albanian population into power.
Now Kosovo’s biggest industries are drug running and prostitution of impoverished women from the East. Meanwhile these ultra-rightists have driven out over 200,000 Serbs, Roma people, Jews and all other nationalities in a very non-humanitarian pogrom under NATO’s watch.
Serbia and the other former Yugoslav republics are not free. They are appendages of Western European and U.S. imperialism. Joblessness has reached new heights, poverty new depths. German capital owns Serbia’s media lock, stock and barrel, and controls its banks. U.S. Steel owns its biggest steel mills.
Clinton kept better relations with his imperialist allies, and gave them a share of the loot, but NATO bombed Yugo slavia for the same imperialist reasons that Bush invaded Iraq: to overthrow an independent state, to place a puppet in power and to seize control of the resources. The war should be remembered, but as a great imperialist crime.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
Did someone think it would be harder now to convince people of the 10 years of organized lies and propaganda used to justify aggression against Yugoslavia? Shining a light on the Balkans exposes too much truth about imperialist aggression and its consequences.
On March 24, 1999, a U.S.-led NATO force launched its first sustained aggression against what remained of the once quite successful socialist country of Yugoslavia. At the time, the NATO leaders and U.S. President Bill Clinton claimed this was a “humanitarian war.” It featured 78 days of “humanitarian bombing.” NATO’s propagandists gave the world the obscene term “collateral damage.”
During those 78 days, U.S.-NATO forces bombed Yugoslavia’s industrial infrastructure, including television stations, apartment complexes and schools. The bombs killed over a thousand civilians, about one-third of them children. They polluted a beautiful country with chemicals, oil spills, and depleted
uranium.
The humanitarian side was supposedly helping the Albanian people of the Kosovo and Metochia province of Serbia. To this province the war brought a continued NATO occupation with a United Nations cover. It brought the biggest U.S. military base in Eastern Europe. It brought the most reactionary and corrupt groupings from the Albanian population into power.
Now Kosovo’s biggest industries are drug running and prostitution of impoverished women from the East. Meanwhile these ultra-rightists have driven out over 200,000 Serbs, Roma people, Jews and all other nationalities in a very non-humanitarian pogrom under NATO’s watch.
Serbia and the other former Yugoslav republics are not free. They are appendages of Western European and U.S. imperialism. Joblessness has reached new heights, poverty new depths. German capital owns Serbia’s media lock, stock and barrel, and controls its banks. U.S. Steel owns its biggest steel mills.
Clinton kept better relations with his imperialist allies, and gave them a share of the loot, but NATO bombed Yugo slavia for the same imperialist reasons that Bush invaded Iraq: to overthrow an independent state, to place a puppet in power and to seize control of the resources. The war should be remembered, but as a great imperialist crime.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
International Conscientious Objector Day
World War II to Present – Continuing Efforts for CO Rights
May 15th, 2005 – International Conscientious Objector Day
Annual Advisory Council Meeting
Time: Noon – 5:00 PM
Place: Church of the Brethren
337 North Carolina Ave. SE
Washington, DC 20003
Invited Keynote Speakers: Sam Legg, WWII Conscientious Objector,
Camilo Mejia, Iraq War CO
Event: The day will be filled with seminars and workshops about conscientious objection, anti-militarism, counter recruitment, and war tax resistance. This event will be held at the Church of the Brethren; Washington, DC.
http://www.nisbco.org/forms/adcoun.htm
Click here to register or go to: http://www.nisbco.org/forms/adcoun.htm
May 16th, 2005 – National Lobby Day
Conscientious Objection and Anti-Draft
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Place: United Methodist Building and Locally
Event: People of conscience speak out to make their voices heard in the halls of Congress against the reinstatement of the military draft. On May 16th, 2005 the Center on Conscience & War (CCW) in conjunction with the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund is holding a national lobby day to lobby for the rights of conscientious objectors In particular we will lobby against the military draft, for the rights of military conscientious objectors, and for the Peace Tax fund bill. Participants will meet in the Methodist Building in Washington, and others will lobby locally at their Congress members' district office.
May 15th, 2005 – International Conscientious Objector Day
Annual Advisory Council Meeting
Time: Noon – 5:00 PM
Place: Church of the Brethren
337 North Carolina Ave. SE
Washington, DC 20003
Invited Keynote Speakers: Sam Legg, WWII Conscientious Objector,
Camilo Mejia, Iraq War CO
Event: The day will be filled with seminars and workshops about conscientious objection, anti-militarism, counter recruitment, and war tax resistance. This event will be held at the Church of the Brethren; Washington, DC.
http://www.nisbco.org/forms/adcoun.htm
Click here to register or go to: http://www.nisbco.org/forms/adcoun.htm
May 16th, 2005 – National Lobby Day
Conscientious Objection and Anti-Draft
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Place: United Methodist Building and Locally
Event: People of conscience speak out to make their voices heard in the halls of Congress against the reinstatement of the military draft. On May 16th, 2005 the Center on Conscience & War (CCW) in conjunction with the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund is holding a national lobby day to lobby for the rights of conscientious objectors In particular we will lobby against the military draft, for the rights of military conscientious objectors, and for the Peace Tax fund bill. Participants will meet in the Methodist Building in Washington, and others will lobby locally at their Congress members' district office.
Lawyers Against the War are After Bush
Canadians are no better or no worse than any other people. They have been on the right and wrong sides of history. Like every other nation Canada has produced revolutionaries, working class heroes, buffoons and idiots.
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin was forced to take the correct position on missile defense by refusing to back U.S. President George W. Bush. At the same time Canada has come up short on the question of Haiti. According to a March 15, 2002 article in the Canadian magazine “L ‘Actualite,“ by Michel Vastel, President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s coup was planned in Ontario.
Many have said that singer/actor/director Harry Belafonte is the closest we have to his idol, Paul Robeson. Belafonte is known as a risk taker. He was one of the first to openly question Colin Powell’s role in international politics. While others were saying things like, “Let’s give the brother a chance,” Belafonte referred the former Secretary of State as a “House Negro.”
Belafonte called Powell out on the Larry King Show on CNN. Said Belafonte, "There's an old saying. In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and there were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master ... exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him." Belafonte continues to make waves by supporting an effort to have U. S. President George W. Bush, former CIA Director George Tenet; the former commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen Richard Sanchez, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and several other military leaders arrested for torture changes.
Gail Davidson, Co-Chair of Lawyers against the War (LAW) has laid seven torture charges against U. S. President George W. Bush. If Davidson, a Vancouver, Canada based-lawyer and her organization have their way President Bush will be tried in Canada on these charges. The charges were laid when President Bush visited Canada on November 30, 2004. These charges concern the well-known abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, photos of which shocked the world last year, as well as similar abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that have emerged more recently.
The Canadian government used a claim of diplomatic immunity to have the information charging Bush declared a nullity. On behalf of LAW, Davidson was seeking to set a date for a hearing into the charges and came armed with evidence. Judge William Kitchen acceded to the Attorney General’s objections and declared the charges “a nullity.”
I recently interviewed Davidson on Saturday Morning Live on CKLN-FM 88.1(Saturday’s 10:00am to 1pm) about the case against President Bush.
Says Davidson:
“When Lawyers against the War learned about it we wrote to the Prime Minister (Paul Martin), the Minister of Justice (Irwin Cotler) and former Minister of Immigration (Judy Sgro) telling them that he ought not to be invited to Canada. Because he had been accused by many academics, lawyers, citizens and various kinds of groups and organizations around the world of committing war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. And as such wasn’t admissible to Canada because we have laws saying that either people accused of war crimes aren't admissible or if they come into Canada we have to prosecute them. So the government naturally turned a deaf ear to us. Under the Canadian criminal code there is a provision where the Canadian courts can take jurisdiction of allegations of torture if the person is on Canadian soil. So we filed seven torture charges against Mr. Bush on November 30th .”
It must be mentioned that the movement only had two weeks to organize the protest against President Bush. When LAW was unable to pin down President Bush in Canada they joined the prosecution of Donald Rumsfeld and 11 other high ranking individuals filed also on November 30th 2004, by the US group Center for Constitutional Rights. This case was dismissed and CCR, LAW and the other complainants are appealing. LAW has members in 14 countries: U.S., Kenya, the UK, Syria, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, India and Poland.
LAW had Bush charged in Germany. Says Davidson,”One thing we will do for sure is pursue similar charges in Germany as Part of the prosecution launched there by the American Center for Constitutional Rights. There is reason to think that the German authorities will show more backbone in the face of the Bush administration’s trashing of international human right human rights law.”
The movement of international lawyers is a good thing and should be supported. This is a people-to-people action which is positive. However, we should not be so naive as to believe that the governments of the U.S. or Germany have good intentions for the world’s people. Both are concerned about their bottom lines. German imperialists are no different than American or Canadian imperialists. We must always remember there is such an animal as inter-imperialist rivalry that will cause the imperialists to fight among themselves for a slice of the capitalist pie. While Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin refused to join the U.S. on the question of Missile Defense he did so to save his politic life.
Gerald Horne, author of a new book Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican revolution, 1910-1920 supports Law’s international efforts. Horne feels that internationalist has always aided African Americans. International support has always helped African Americans and American working people. There is a historic precedent for this. On Dec.17, 1951, Paul Robeson and William L.Patterson, two giants of the international African Liberation Struggle, delivered to the United Nations a petition titled, “We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People.” Many feel that this act helped spark the modern civil rights and black power movements. The great El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) was talking about an updated version of what Robeson, Patterson, George Crockett, Dr. W.E.B. Dubois, Claudia Jones and others had started in 1951.
There are more international bodies in 2005 then there were in the time of Robeson. Could this case be taken up by the African Union (Kenya has a chapter of LAW) or the European Union which has several members? Says Davidson, “Many countries over the last decade or so have expanded their criminal jurisdiction as they joined international conventions. All countries that joined the conventions against torture have to deal with the issue. The US joined in 1994 and Canada joined in 1987. So all countries that joined that convention had to change their criminal law so that they had to expand their capacity to prosecute crimes of torture.
“I think that persecution of these crimes is particularly important because the so-called torture memos have been put into the public realm. It’s become pretty clear what the Bush administration was trying to do in the follow-up to the invasion of Afghanistan and prior to the invasion of Iraq was to create a class of non-people whom international and national laws didn’t apply. So Mr. Bush tries to create this class by calling them ‘enemy combatants’ The US courts have just recently decided that it didn’t really matter what the President called them – they were prisoners of war and entitled to rights under various conventions starting with the Geneva Convention going on until the convention against torture and so on.”
As we go to press a Kamloops, B.C. Vietnam War veteran wants to add U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the most wanted list. In a press release John McNamer says, “Neither U. S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice nor President George W. Bush should be allowed into Canada while the Iraq war continues.” McNamer, 57, began the campaign March 13, with large banners displayed on the lawn in front of Kamloops Courthouse that read “No to Rice/Bush”; “Iraq War Illegal” and “Canada is a Peacekeeper.”
“The U.S. needs to be pressured to immediately ask the international community through the United Nations to assume complete management of the Iraq situation in ways that are consistent with international law. Until then, let’s not pretend that we accept U.S. foreign policy conducted at the point of a bomb,” says McNamer. “The entire world should isolate and punish people who violate international law – be it Osama bin Laden or Condoleezza Rice, not give them shelter and support.”
by Norman (Otis) Richmond
© The Black Commentator
Toronto-based journalist and radio producer Norman (Otis) Richmond can be heard on Diasporic Music, Thursdays, 8-10 p.m., Saturday Morning Live, Saturdays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and From a Different Perspective, Sundays, 6-6:30 p. m. on CKLN-FM 88.1 and on the Internet at www.ckln.fm. He can be reached e-Mail at norman@ckln.fm.
dao concentration
  Imagination, song, the soaring spirit. Separate them to know them as aspects of the whole, Join them to know the mystery of totality. The mind, if focused, can become the most powerful force we know. Yet for most of us, we are lost in the vastness of our own uncharted minds. We play around with different aspects, find certain modes that we can get by with, and leave the rest unexplored. Those who follow Tao do not do this. They want to explore all the dimensions of the mind so that they may find a wholly integral mode of consciousness. The primary means of exploration is through concentration of the mind. Practitioners first select an aspect and delve into it by daily focus. Only when they have fully understood do they go on. It is like studying . When you are first introduced to a subject, you must put your attention to work in order to master the knowledge. Such concentration leads to absorption, like mixing liquids together in a bottle: Once they are combined, they cannot be distinguished from one another. With concentration, all the curious aspects of the mind can be joined together into one superconscious mode. Sound is the same as sight, taste is the same as smell, touch is the same as thought, and all that we are is identical with the spiritual energy that resides within us. In this high concentration, there is complete union, and we feel the joy of total integration with all our facets. concentration 365 Tao Daily Meditations Deng Ming-Dao ISBN 0-06-250223-9
http://www.duckdaotsu.org/dao_books.html for a meditation sent to your email address each day, please write ’subscribe tao’ in the subject line and send to lisbeth at duckdaotsu |
Monday
Santiago v. Rumsfeld
They lined up down the stairs and out the doors, waiting patiently for the featured act. But it wasn't a rock band the University of Washington law students came to see. It was rock stars of the legal world -- a three-judge panel of the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals -- and they came to Seattle last week.
The "tour" is part of a program wherein the Ninth Circuit judges visit various west coast law schools once a year to hear local cases and take questions afterwards from eager students. Usually, the cases are fairly pedestrian -- but not last week. Last week, C-SPAN was in the house, too.
The attention was due to Emiliano Santiago v. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the highest court test to date of the Pentagon's controversial stop-loss program, aka the "backdoor draft." Under stop loss, some 50,000 soldiers nationwide have been kept in active service involuntarily beyond the discharge date of their original contracts.
Emiliano Santiago is a 26-year-old Oregon National Guardsman who signed up as an 18-year-old high school junior. He was scheduled to be finished with his eight year commitment last June, but two weeks before that date his unit was notified of "possible mobilization." Santiago was told at that time that he couldn't be discharged -- in fact, he was presented with a new contract with a discharge date of Christmas Eve 2031, a potential lifetime of involuntary servitude. In October, his unit received notification of mobilization and began training for a mission to Afghanistan. To add further drama to last week's court hearing, Santiago's lawyers also wanted an emergency injunction -- he was scheduled to ship out to Afghanistan in two days.
The Army allowed Santiago to fly up from Oklahoma to attend Wednesday's hearing. Santiago had already lost in lower appeals courts, and his lawyers had tried and discarded a previous argument challenging the validity of the presidential declaration of a national emergency (which is the legal basis for stop loss) as being moot now that Afghanistan has a democratic government (sic). Courts weren't about to entertain the question of whether Afghanistan's government was or wasn't truly democratic. This time, Santiago's lead attorney, Steven Goldberg, tried to argue contract law -- that without the backing of Congress, President Bush (and Rumsfeld, acting as his agent) did not have the authority to unilaterally abrogate the terms of a contract with a soldier, when a soldier is not already on active duty.
It was a long shot, reflected immediately in the aggressive oral argument questioning Goldberg drew from presiding U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Tallman. Santiago, according to Tallman, was essentially asking the court to second-guess the commander-in-chief as to what constitutes a national emergency -- something Tallman was clearly unwilling to do.
It was all over with remarkable speed: a mere 20 minutes for oral arguments, and, within hours on the same day, the panel's decision. Santiago not only failed to get the injunction, but lost his entire appeal -- a process that usually takes weeks or months. Moreover, the full Ninth Circuit in San Francisco declined to review the panel's decision the following day. By Friday, Santiago was on his way to Afghanistan.
The whole exercise underscores how precarious the hope is, carried by many progressives, that the federal courts are the last line of defense against a conservative White House and Congress. The appeals panel was there to decide a mater of law -- not of politics or, for that matter, of common sense. At one point, Goldberg made the common-sense observation that giving the federal government unlimited power to extend tours of duty would make it that much harder to recruit volunteer soldiers -- and Tallman responded, correctly, that that was the president's problem, not the court's. Courts are not, at least in theory, in the business of deciding political and legislative matters. It may be a matter of crass opportunism that George W. Bush continues to renew declarations of a national "emergency" in the United States due to events in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it's his call to make. And Congress is not about to make it more difficult for him.
In the classroom-turned-courtroom at the UW School of Law, all was proper decorum. But next door, in the overflow room, it was a grand old show, with students boisterously cheering and jeering the various verbal ripostes like some kind of live taping of reality TV. But it was real -- to tens of thousands of soldiers kept, many unwillingly, past the time they thought they'd mutually agreed to serve. Some won't survive that extra tour of duty.
It may not be fair. But, for now, it's the law.
(c) Working Assets Online. All rights reserved.
Geov Parrish - WorkingForChange.com 04.11.05
The "tour" is part of a program wherein the Ninth Circuit judges visit various west coast law schools once a year to hear local cases and take questions afterwards from eager students. Usually, the cases are fairly pedestrian -- but not last week. Last week, C-SPAN was in the house, too.
The attention was due to Emiliano Santiago v. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the highest court test to date of the Pentagon's controversial stop-loss program, aka the "backdoor draft." Under stop loss, some 50,000 soldiers nationwide have been kept in active service involuntarily beyond the discharge date of their original contracts.
Emiliano Santiago is a 26-year-old Oregon National Guardsman who signed up as an 18-year-old high school junior. He was scheduled to be finished with his eight year commitment last June, but two weeks before that date his unit was notified of "possible mobilization." Santiago was told at that time that he couldn't be discharged -- in fact, he was presented with a new contract with a discharge date of Christmas Eve 2031, a potential lifetime of involuntary servitude. In October, his unit received notification of mobilization and began training for a mission to Afghanistan. To add further drama to last week's court hearing, Santiago's lawyers also wanted an emergency injunction -- he was scheduled to ship out to Afghanistan in two days.
The Army allowed Santiago to fly up from Oklahoma to attend Wednesday's hearing. Santiago had already lost in lower appeals courts, and his lawyers had tried and discarded a previous argument challenging the validity of the presidential declaration of a national emergency (which is the legal basis for stop loss) as being moot now that Afghanistan has a democratic government (sic). Courts weren't about to entertain the question of whether Afghanistan's government was or wasn't truly democratic. This time, Santiago's lead attorney, Steven Goldberg, tried to argue contract law -- that without the backing of Congress, President Bush (and Rumsfeld, acting as his agent) did not have the authority to unilaterally abrogate the terms of a contract with a soldier, when a soldier is not already on active duty.
It was a long shot, reflected immediately in the aggressive oral argument questioning Goldberg drew from presiding U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Tallman. Santiago, according to Tallman, was essentially asking the court to second-guess the commander-in-chief as to what constitutes a national emergency -- something Tallman was clearly unwilling to do.
It was all over with remarkable speed: a mere 20 minutes for oral arguments, and, within hours on the same day, the panel's decision. Santiago not only failed to get the injunction, but lost his entire appeal -- a process that usually takes weeks or months. Moreover, the full Ninth Circuit in San Francisco declined to review the panel's decision the following day. By Friday, Santiago was on his way to Afghanistan.
The whole exercise underscores how precarious the hope is, carried by many progressives, that the federal courts are the last line of defense against a conservative White House and Congress. The appeals panel was there to decide a mater of law -- not of politics or, for that matter, of common sense. At one point, Goldberg made the common-sense observation that giving the federal government unlimited power to extend tours of duty would make it that much harder to recruit volunteer soldiers -- and Tallman responded, correctly, that that was the president's problem, not the court's. Courts are not, at least in theory, in the business of deciding political and legislative matters. It may be a matter of crass opportunism that George W. Bush continues to renew declarations of a national "emergency" in the United States due to events in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it's his call to make. And Congress is not about to make it more difficult for him.
In the classroom-turned-courtroom at the UW School of Law, all was proper decorum. But next door, in the overflow room, it was a grand old show, with students boisterously cheering and jeering the various verbal ripostes like some kind of live taping of reality TV. But it was real -- to tens of thousands of soldiers kept, many unwillingly, past the time they thought they'd mutually agreed to serve. Some won't survive that extra tour of duty.
It may not be fair. But, for now, it's the law.
(c) Working Assets Online. All rights reserved.
Geov Parrish - WorkingForChange.com 04.11.05
Students Can Object Military Recruitment
Students Can Object Military Recruitment
By Andrew Tonkovich
You can’t help but notice the parade of military recruiters on campus lately. They appear with their flags and promises with increased regularity, and it’s not because we Anteaters are so darn special.
They are spending plenty of time at Southern California high schools, community colleges and universities, and for obvious reasons: U.S. fatalities in the Iraq war exceed 1,500 with – almost never mentioned – 100,000 Iraqis killed. Nobody even bothers counting the Iraqi wounded, but 10,000 U.S. personnel have come home legless, armless, eyeless—less in so many ways.
As a result, military enlistment is down, with as many as 5,000 soldiers gone absent without leave, among them plenty of conscientious objectors.
And now we read newspaper reports of army recruiters trying to extricate themselves from the awkward ethical dilemma of selling young women and men on the terrific “opportunities” in the Army of One. It’s an all-volunteer military, of course. And there’s no draft, not yet. But registration with Selective Service is legally required.
Failure by 18-25-year-old males to register can result in prosecution, though it almost never does. For college students, failure to register means not getting financial aid, federal or state. That bit of governmental coercion probably compels a lot of young men to fill out the form and not think much about the other consequences of giving in to militarism, or about the opportunity they have missed to resist, even symbolically, by declaring their objections to war early.
Objecting is a fairly straightforward process, with a legitimate and honorable history. By writing a simple statement reflecting principled opposition to militarism – before a draft is reinstated by Congress – you are taking the first steps toward creating a record of your intention to file as a conscientious objector in the event of a national military draft. You are creating a file on yourself, written by you, documenting a conscience-based stand supported by many religious, cultural, philosophical traditions over history. You are avoiding taking human life in the future and, perhaps, saving your own life.
This declaration might be as simple as: “I am a conscientious objector, opposed to participation in war in any form, because of my ethical, moral and religious beliefs.” Write it on the Selective Service form available at the post office, make a copy of the form for your file, and then mail in the actual form. Keep it! No, Selective Service does not care about your intentions or sincerely held beliefs. Not now.
But in the event of a draft, your documented statement of this position may indeed become a key piece of evidence in a future request by you for C.O. status. There’s plenty more to learn about the draft, registration and military recruitment and the proud history of conscientious objection to war.
You can check out organizations such as the National Lawyers Guild (www.nlg-la.org) and the national Center on Conscience and War (www.nisbco.org). Both groups sponsor counseling programs and provide free, confidential information to the public, as well as active duty military and Reservists trying to get out of the military.
Writing that simple declaration on the Selective Service form now is, of course, only a first step. Opponents of war will want to document their public service record, solicit letters testifying to their clear rejection of violence and militarism, and, yes, take concrete actions to stop the current one.
Andrew Tonkovich is a draft and registration counselor and a lecturer of English and comparative literature.
© 2003 by the New University Newspaper
By Andrew Tonkovich
You can’t help but notice the parade of military recruiters on campus lately. They appear with their flags and promises with increased regularity, and it’s not because we Anteaters are so darn special.
They are spending plenty of time at Southern California high schools, community colleges and universities, and for obvious reasons: U.S. fatalities in the Iraq war exceed 1,500 with – almost never mentioned – 100,000 Iraqis killed. Nobody even bothers counting the Iraqi wounded, but 10,000 U.S. personnel have come home legless, armless, eyeless—less in so many ways.
As a result, military enlistment is down, with as many as 5,000 soldiers gone absent without leave, among them plenty of conscientious objectors.
And now we read newspaper reports of army recruiters trying to extricate themselves from the awkward ethical dilemma of selling young women and men on the terrific “opportunities” in the Army of One. It’s an all-volunteer military, of course. And there’s no draft, not yet. But registration with Selective Service is legally required.
Failure by 18-25-year-old males to register can result in prosecution, though it almost never does. For college students, failure to register means not getting financial aid, federal or state. That bit of governmental coercion probably compels a lot of young men to fill out the form and not think much about the other consequences of giving in to militarism, or about the opportunity they have missed to resist, even symbolically, by declaring their objections to war early.
Objecting is a fairly straightforward process, with a legitimate and honorable history. By writing a simple statement reflecting principled opposition to militarism – before a draft is reinstated by Congress – you are taking the first steps toward creating a record of your intention to file as a conscientious objector in the event of a national military draft. You are creating a file on yourself, written by you, documenting a conscience-based stand supported by many religious, cultural, philosophical traditions over history. You are avoiding taking human life in the future and, perhaps, saving your own life.
This declaration might be as simple as: “I am a conscientious objector, opposed to participation in war in any form, because of my ethical, moral and religious beliefs.” Write it on the Selective Service form available at the post office, make a copy of the form for your file, and then mail in the actual form. Keep it! No, Selective Service does not care about your intentions or sincerely held beliefs. Not now.
But in the event of a draft, your documented statement of this position may indeed become a key piece of evidence in a future request by you for C.O. status. There’s plenty more to learn about the draft, registration and military recruitment and the proud history of conscientious objection to war.
You can check out organizations such as the National Lawyers Guild (www.nlg-la.org) and the national Center on Conscience and War (www.nisbco.org). Both groups sponsor counseling programs and provide free, confidential information to the public, as well as active duty military and Reservists trying to get out of the military.
Writing that simple declaration on the Selective Service form now is, of course, only a first step. Opponents of war will want to document their public service record, solicit letters testifying to their clear rejection of violence and militarism, and, yes, take concrete actions to stop the current one.
Andrew Tonkovich is a draft and registration counselor and a lecturer of English and comparative literature.
© 2003 by the New University Newspaper
No Draft No Way Activists speak to campus groups
Activist speaks on draft
Students enrolled in universities across the nation will no longer be able to divert a military draft, if the Bush administration - along with the Selective Service System - implements the already planned and organized mandatory recruitment, said Dustin Langley, a U.S. Navy veteran and activist with No Draft No Way.
Langley spoke about the possibility of an upcoming draft in the face of a dwindling military enlistment Wednesday night at the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus, as part of the third annual Palestinian Awareness Week, sponsored by New Jersey Solidarity.
The event also featured guest speaker Nadia Taha, a Palestinian activist from N.J. Solidarity.
A lot of people will say the government cannot bring the draft back due to the political cost, but the Bush administration has gone back on its word before, Langley said.
"Both Bush and [U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld] said the draft is not coming back, but they also said they knew about weapons of mass destruction and that they were going to restore dignity," he said.
No Draft No Way - the organization Langley represents - sent out a call for people to take action because on March 31, the SSS, the agency responsible for military enlistment, planned to file a report to the president, stating its performance goals had been met in terms of improving its level of recruitment and preparing for the draft, he said.
The steps taken include staffing local draft ports, training high school registrars, buying new software and practicing with their lotteries, Langley said.
"The goal is to have the entire apparatus fully operational," he said.
Once the report is filed, it signifies the agency is ready to implement a draft within 75 days.
Schools in areas like New York, Iowa and Pennsylvania began protesting last week through picketing, holding walk-outs and even blocking access to recruiting stations, Langley said.
This possible draft, like the previous one, will be based on a lottery system by birthdays mainly of individuals from ages 18-26, with an emphasis on age 20, he said.
Unlike the previous draft, there's a greater need for a broad level of skills usually requiring higher education.
Computer skills and linguistics are just some examples of the levels of education being of interest to the military, Langley said.
But those lacking in higher education skills and in general financial opportunity will more likely be placed in combat roles, he said.
"What many people are not aware of is the existence of an economic draft also known as a poverty draft, which is the specific military recruitment targeted at poor communities," Langley said.
"In general, the military has targeted individuals from these communities, who do not have many opportunities making false promises of education and job training," he said.
"[The military] presents this as a way out," he added. "The reality behind the sales pitch is much different than what is represented."
Military training for military jobs doesn't always transfer over, even with such jobs as accounting, the information taught is specifically geared toward military accounting and so on, Langley said.
"Only 8 percent of men and 6 percent of women in the military will ever use their job training," he said.
Also, for most individuals the GI bill gives them only $34,000 of the $50,000 they're thought to receive, an amount that will not cover tuition at most universities, he said.
Currently, there are about 130,000 troops in Iraq, and they need three times this amount to maintain occupation.
Rutgers College junior Nadia Taha, president of N.J. Solidarity, spoke about the similarities between the U.S. occupation in Iraq, and the ongoing struggle in Palestine.
"Both occupations are illegal invasions of indigent land for economical-political aims," Taha said.
The situations in Iraq and Palestine are pretty inextricable from one another, in terms of political occupation and the production of refugees, she said.
"They both look the same on television," Taha said. "Just the same image of this huge military force coming in and oppressing these people that have suffered for so long."
Both nations face an enormous political prisoner problem, with civilians being captured in large quantities and being placed alongside real criminals in prisons, she said.
It is crucial to think about these issues when discussing Iraq and Palestine, Taha said.
By Diana Pichardo / Staff Writer
The Daily Targum - University
Issue: 4/11/05
Students enrolled in universities across the nation will no longer be able to divert a military draft, if the Bush administration - along with the Selective Service System - implements the already planned and organized mandatory recruitment, said Dustin Langley, a U.S. Navy veteran and activist with No Draft No Way.
Langley spoke about the possibility of an upcoming draft in the face of a dwindling military enlistment Wednesday night at the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus, as part of the third annual Palestinian Awareness Week, sponsored by New Jersey Solidarity.
The event also featured guest speaker Nadia Taha, a Palestinian activist from N.J. Solidarity.
A lot of people will say the government cannot bring the draft back due to the political cost, but the Bush administration has gone back on its word before, Langley said.
"Both Bush and [U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld] said the draft is not coming back, but they also said they knew about weapons of mass destruction and that they were going to restore dignity," he said.
No Draft No Way - the organization Langley represents - sent out a call for people to take action because on March 31, the SSS, the agency responsible for military enlistment, planned to file a report to the president, stating its performance goals had been met in terms of improving its level of recruitment and preparing for the draft, he said.
The steps taken include staffing local draft ports, training high school registrars, buying new software and practicing with their lotteries, Langley said.
"The goal is to have the entire apparatus fully operational," he said.
Once the report is filed, it signifies the agency is ready to implement a draft within 75 days.
Schools in areas like New York, Iowa and Pennsylvania began protesting last week through picketing, holding walk-outs and even blocking access to recruiting stations, Langley said.
This possible draft, like the previous one, will be based on a lottery system by birthdays mainly of individuals from ages 18-26, with an emphasis on age 20, he said.
Unlike the previous draft, there's a greater need for a broad level of skills usually requiring higher education.
Computer skills and linguistics are just some examples of the levels of education being of interest to the military, Langley said.
But those lacking in higher education skills and in general financial opportunity will more likely be placed in combat roles, he said.
"What many people are not aware of is the existence of an economic draft also known as a poverty draft, which is the specific military recruitment targeted at poor communities," Langley said.
"In general, the military has targeted individuals from these communities, who do not have many opportunities making false promises of education and job training," he said.
"[The military] presents this as a way out," he added. "The reality behind the sales pitch is much different than what is represented."
Military training for military jobs doesn't always transfer over, even with such jobs as accounting, the information taught is specifically geared toward military accounting and so on, Langley said.
"Only 8 percent of men and 6 percent of women in the military will ever use their job training," he said.
Also, for most individuals the GI bill gives them only $34,000 of the $50,000 they're thought to receive, an amount that will not cover tuition at most universities, he said.
Currently, there are about 130,000 troops in Iraq, and they need three times this amount to maintain occupation.
Rutgers College junior Nadia Taha, president of N.J. Solidarity, spoke about the similarities between the U.S. occupation in Iraq, and the ongoing struggle in Palestine.
"Both occupations are illegal invasions of indigent land for economical-political aims," Taha said.
The situations in Iraq and Palestine are pretty inextricable from one another, in terms of political occupation and the production of refugees, she said.
"They both look the same on television," Taha said. "Just the same image of this huge military force coming in and oppressing these people that have suffered for so long."
Both nations face an enormous political prisoner problem, with civilians being captured in large quantities and being placed alongside real criminals in prisons, she said.
It is crucial to think about these issues when discussing Iraq and Palestine, Taha said.
By Diana Pichardo / Staff Writer
The Daily Targum - University
Issue: 4/11/05
Three killed, over 20 injured in car bomb in Iraq's Samarra
A suicide car bombing occurred on Monday evening in Iraq's Samarra, north of Baghdad, killing three Iraqis and wounding more than 20 others, said reports reaching here from the restive city.
Local hospital sources were quoted as saying that the incident occurred when a pickup truck exploded near a US convoy patrolling a crowded market in the Al-Dubat neighborhood of Samarra.
A doctor at Samarra's main hospital told the press that his facility received three dead and more than 20 wounded, including five children and a woman, after the attack.
"I saw a pickup truck ram into a four-vehicle US convoy," said a witness.
There was no immediate report on the incident from the US military.
Earlier on Monday, two suicide car bombers blew up their cars at a US military base near a customs station in the town of Qaim by the Iraqi-Syrian border, some 400 km west of Baghdad, Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel reported.
The first blast took place after a suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden vehicle into a checkpoint outside the US base before the gate of the customs station, and then the second suicide car bomb blew up, causing several casualties.
Clashes immediately broke out between insurgents and US and Iraqi forces in the area after the attack, al-Jazeera said citing witnesses at the scene.
Samarra and Qaim have been the scenes of violence and insurgency against the US forces since the US-led invasion in 2003.
www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-12 01:46:09
BAGHDAD, April 11 (Xinhuanet)
Local hospital sources were quoted as saying that the incident occurred when a pickup truck exploded near a US convoy patrolling a crowded market in the Al-Dubat neighborhood of Samarra.
A doctor at Samarra's main hospital told the press that his facility received three dead and more than 20 wounded, including five children and a woman, after the attack.
"I saw a pickup truck ram into a four-vehicle US convoy," said a witness.
There was no immediate report on the incident from the US military.
Earlier on Monday, two suicide car bombers blew up their cars at a US military base near a customs station in the town of Qaim by the Iraqi-Syrian border, some 400 km west of Baghdad, Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel reported.
The first blast took place after a suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden vehicle into a checkpoint outside the US base before the gate of the customs station, and then the second suicide car bomb blew up, causing several casualties.
Clashes immediately broke out between insurgents and US and Iraqi forces in the area after the attack, al-Jazeera said citing witnesses at the scene.
Samarra and Qaim have been the scenes of violence and insurgency against the US forces since the US-led invasion in 2003.
www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-12 01:46:09
BAGHDAD, April 11 (Xinhuanet)
Activist against Military Rape
Vet becomes crusader for victims SURVIVORS of soldier rape
he Army vet listens and lets fly. She has zero tolerance for tales of soldier rape. “In the military, they’ll tell you, ‘Lady, you can’t get compensation for having sex,’ ” said Susan Avila-Smith, the Puget Sound area’s outspoken advocate for sexually assaulted veterans.
Her client Donna Jean Patee nods from her wheelchair, her service dog asleep at her feet. “It happened to me,” said the former Navy petty officer, who filed a rape claim in 1993. Patee said she was on waterfront watch in San Diego in the 1960s when five sailors gang-raped her.
The claim was denied. “I’ve spent years being told it didn’t happen, that ‘none of my men would do anything like that,’ ” said the disabled 59-year-old, who is working with Avila-Smith on filing government claims for seizures and other disorders. “I thought I had no recourse.
“Then Susan happened.”
Susan happens. And all hell may break loose.
Day after day, the outraged, sometimes outrageous housewife from Sammamish battles to get military discharges, veteran benefits, Social Security disability pay, medical treatment, military back pay and counseling for female vets. At a time when military sexual trauma is in the national spotlight, she’s a mama bear on a tear, stirring it up, rattling brass, breaking rules as she decodes military-speak and spiels off statistics.
The statistics aren’t pretty.
In 2003 and 2004, 147 sexual assaults were reported in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and other active-deployment areas, according to Pentagon figures. But the numbers represent only a small fraction of attacks. A study by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that 75 percent of assaulted military women never tell their commanding officer.
The reasons are complicated.
Some assaulted female soldiers express concerns that they won’t be “one of the guys” if they tell — or that higher-ups might use reports as an excuse to cut back on women in the military, just as they are making gains in combat support roles. And most have heard horror stories of retaliation.
Avila-Smith, 47, cites case after case of clients who reported assaults and were vilified, blamed for the act, grilled on whether they were actually attacked. The former Army linguist said some clients have been threatened with multiple charges: filing a false report, “conduct unbecoming” and adultery, if they are married.
It makes her blood boil.
“If you want to be a sexual predator, the military is a great place for you,” the laser-focused, dark-eyed crusader said.
In interview after interview, her traumatized vets — World War II to Iraq — sing her praises. She finds them beds to sleep in and couches to surf on, buys them groceries, invites them home for the holidays. She gives them rides to VA appointments and stands in for them when they can’t bear to tell their stories again — can’t handle the smell, the sight, the gazes of so many men in one place.
She listens as they vent, blow, break down, describe struggles with drugs, alcohol, homelessness, continued abuse, their inability to hold jobs. A good number have attempted suicide. Their stories are difficult.
“It’s like you’re lying bleeding in this foxhole for 20 years, and everybody just goes by and ignores you. But Susan stops, says ‘Oh, you’re injured. Let’s get you out of there and get you some help,’ ” said a former Air Force squad leader and soft-spoken mother of three. Her life unraveled after she reported an assault by her supervising officer in Panama.
“I went for help, but they didn’t believe me,” said the fragile woman, who has been in intensive psychiatric care for almost two decades. She worries constantly about personal safety and delicately calls her assault “the blow.”
“The colonel said, ’It never happened — or else.’ ”
‘In-the-face kind of gal’
If Avila-Smith comforts the afflicted, she can also rub official nerves raw. That was the crusader from Sammamish interrupting a colonel’s speech on Operation Iraqi Freedom to ask: “So what is your policy on military sexual trauma?”
Rick Price, a program manager for the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs, describes Avila-Smith as high-maintenance.
“She’s a little obnoxious, a very in-the-face kind of gal. In that way, she’s a pain ...,” he said. “But to get things done, sometimes you need people like her to make it happen.”
Eyebrows may go up in VA circles when her name is mentioned. Avila-Smith is neither a therapist nor a sanctioned counselor, some who are point out. She is herself a patient with her own horror tale of service-connected sexual abuse. She is on full disability for post-traumatic stress disorder, which can manifest in anxiety, sleeplessness, flashbacks, irritability, nightmares, depression.
Her future was determined in 1995, when, during a women’s trauma-support group at the Puget Sound VA, she realized how hard it was for some patients to fill out their own disability paperwork, reliving their tales again in writing. “It was too emotional to put this stuff down and hand it over to a stranger, for them to make a decision about your life,” Avila-Smith said.
So she began filling out forms for sisters in crisis.
And an advocate was born.
Insider know-how
PTSD can sharpen nerves to a ragged edge — as is evident as Avila-Smith talks. She fidgets with her hands, grinds her teeth, works to silence “the chatter in my head.”
Studies indicate that women exposed to trauma are 2 1/2 times more like than men to develop PTSD. They typically experience more symptoms than men and endure a longer course of illness, often accompanied by physical problems.
If the trauma is sexual, the women’s PTSD rates are even higher.
Avila-Smith, who sits on the King County veterans advisory board, estimates that she has successfully filed more than 200 PTSD claims for her sexually assaulted vets, soldiers in a battle they never expected. “The government has a responsibility,” she said. “You protect the country. The country protects you. Done.”
Her insider know-how is invaluable, those who’ve watched her in action say. “She knows PTSD inside and out,” said Bridget Cantrell, a Bellingham-based psychologist contracted with the state Department of Veterans Affairs who has worked with Avila-Smith. “She knows the nuances of PTSD, how it affects someone’s life. Things that aren’t written down in books — Susan knows these things.”
Her manner is manna to women in crisis. “She just nods and understands; she knows. That was so therapeutic after facing so many people who just did not understand, or didn’t agree, or hated me,” said Audra, a former Fort Lewis sergeant, now living in Pennsylvania, who asked that her last name not be used.
The former tactical intelligence specialist filed an assault report from Kuwait in 2003 that detailed how she was knocked unconscious, tied up with her hands tied behind her back, gagged with her own underwear and raped. In a sworn statement, she described how her masked assailant whispered “Be quiet or else” and threatened to cut her genitalia.
When she reported it, commanders gave her a rape exam, got her treatment for her cuts and took her to another camp, where she was asked to take a lie-detector test. Although the Army denied that she received inadequate care, Audra said she was left alone, with no rape counseling, and, distraught, almost overdosed on anxiety medications.
Then Susan happened.
Avila-Smith helped Audra return home, find a trauma counselor, get medical treatment and prepare VA claims — Audra is now on full disability for PTSD and injuries to her head, back and elsewhere. The crusader also took Audra and her husband into her home, fed them and lent them her car and, always, her shoulder. “I’m totally in debt to her,” said Audra, who received an honorable discharge last spring.
It’s a story heard often in the suburban Sammamish house Avila-Smith shares with her second husband, who works for the Federal Railroad Administration. The town-and-country rambler, dolled up with a pretty palette of paint on the walls, is home base for Women Organizing Women, her non-profit patient-to-patient support group. She is founder, director and one-woman hot line. The phone rings constantly.
Yes, the advocate says, picking up the receiver to hear sobs, she can help.No, she doesn’t charge anything — only that each female vet help three others. “Sometimes you have to fight to be heard, and that’s not right,” she says into the receiver.
Only a few of Avila-Smith’s clients know her own tangled story. After living abroad for years, she joined the Army at age 34, looking for three squares, a cot and a “wardrobe that’s picked out for you. How hard could it be?”
She was soon married to a soldier husband who, she says, abused, stalked and threatened her in the early 1990s, on a military base on Oahu, Hawaii. Honolulu police records show a string of domestic violence calls to 911 and a no-contest plea to third-degree assault charges by her ex-husband. Avila-Smith said base command neither backed her charges nor enforced restraining orders — complaints she made in formal, sworn statements before her honorable discharge in 1995.
“The commander told me I was not worthy to be in the military.”
Those were fighting words for the nervy girl from California who boasts that she “bosses the colonels around now.” She’s a soldier on a mission, marching to her own orders.
Her goal is to get 300 veterans hooked up for military disability pay, which ranges from $108 to $2,229 monthly. So far, she figures she has helped file about 200 successful claims. She has 150 or more others in the works.
If she is successful, she figures, the claims could cost the Defense Department about $300 million. “It’s my way of dealing with my rage and indignation,” Avila-Smith said, flashing a fleet smile.
Her time frame is limited. She plans to retire when her husband does, within a year and a half. She is looking for someone to fill her shoes.
It’s not going to be easy.
The crusader’s shoes are big and heavy and kick hard.
And they aim where it hurts.
WHERE TO GET HELP
- National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800-656-4673
- The Puget Sound VA Health Care System: 800-329-8387
- VA Health Care Benefits: 877-222-8387
- Military Onesource hot line: 800-342-9647
- To contact Susan Avila-Smith at Women Organizing Women, e-mail smith715@Comcast.com
RELATED ARTICLE
- Assaults in military go unreported for a variety of reasons
Monday, April 11, 2005 By M.L. LYKE
P-I reporter M.L. Lyke can be reached at 206-448-8344 or m.l.lyke@seattlepi.com © 1998-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Iq: Concern that US forces are holding CBS wounded cameraman
eporters Without Borders said today it was very worried that the US forces have detained a CBS cameraman of Iraqi nationality ever since shooting and wounding him during an operation against an insurgent on 5 April."We call on the US army to release him very quickly if no evidence is produced to support his alleged collaboration with the insurgency," the press freedom organization said.
The organization said there have already been cases of journalists being detained for no reason by the coalition forces in Iraq. In May 2004, for example, three journalists with the French TV station Canal + were detained while working in Baghdad. They were held for nearly 30 hours although they had their press cards and their TV station immediately confirmed their identity.
A US army statement said the CBS cameraman was being held because be might pose "an imperative threat to the coalition forces." CBS said the US military suspect him of links to the rebels because video footage found in his camera shows he was on the scene of several bombings shortly after they took place. This makes the US military think he may have been warned in advance in the insurgents.
CBS yesterday issued a statement of support for their cameraman, who began working for them three months ago after being recommended by one of their fixers. CBS has asked that he not be named for his own protection.
He was wounded in the hip during an exchange of shots between an Iraqi insurgent and members of the 1st brigade of the US 25th infantry division near the northern town of Mosul. In a statement issued by the Pentagon, the US army said soldiers fired at a rebel who was "waving an AK-47 (assault rifle) and inciting a crowd of civilians."
During the incident, "an individual that appeared to have a weapon who was standing near the insurgent was shot and injured. This individual turned out to be a reporter who was pointing a video camera. Regretfully, the reporter was injured during the complex and volatile situation," the statement said, adding that the incident was being investigated.
The cameraman was taken to a US military hospital for treatment. The US army described his injuries as minor. Reporters Without Borders immediately condemned his shooting as a "blunder" by the US army.
see info on margin of blog for Reporters Without Borders ---------------->
Activist groups and Corrie family call for International Day of Action against Caterpillar on April 13
Activism News
candio., The Electronic Intifada, 11 April 2005
Olympia, WA. — Olympia friends and supporters of Rachel Corrie and her family have called on concerned people worldwide to join them in demonstrating on the International Day of Action Against Caterpillar, April 13. They hope that a vigorous turnout will not only send a strong message to Caterpillar but will also send a positive message of solidarity with the Corrie family as they go forth with what is sure to be a long and difficult landmark legal struggle against the equipment manufacturer.
Sustained and vocal public pressure has been a key factor in many of the smaller victories that the Corries have already won on behalf of Rachel; and it is felt that what happens on the 13th will be a factor in shaping the debate over corporate responsibility in the future.
On March 15, nearly two years after the killing of Rachel Corrie under an American made, Israeli driven CAT D9 military bulldozer in the Occupied Palestine Territories [OPT], Rachel's parents, Craig and Cindy Corrie, have pressed forward in their quest for accountability from Caterpillar.
With legal assistance from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington State alleging that "Caterpillar Inc. violated international and state law by providing specially designed bulldozers to Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) that it knew would be used to demolish homes and endanger civilians." [1] The Corrie family has also initiated historic lawsuits against the State of Israel, the Israeli Defence Forces and the Israeli Defense Ministry for their role in Rachel's death.
CCR Attorney Jennie Green commented, on the case, "The Caterpillar lawsuit charges Caterpillar with its role in the war crimes, the extra-judicial execution of Rachel, her wrongful death and the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment she suffered before her death. We have charged Caterpillar, because as other U.S. courts have held, corporations, when they take part in human rights violations and war crimes, they can also be held liable." [2]
The position of the Corries is that they "hold Caterpillar complicit in the death of Rachel." They have written letters to James Owens, CEO of Caterpillar, requesting a meeting to talk to him about Rachel. Cindy reports on the response by Mr. Owens who said "he understood our position but had no reason to meet with us." [3]
In April of 2004, on another International Day of Action, the Corries presented at CAT headquarters in Peoria, IL only to be turned away by 17 riot police, according to Craig Corrie's count. [2]
International Day of Action
On April 13, the international protest is centered on a Caterpillar shareholder meeting in Chicago where a resolution has been brought forth by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) addressing the sale of bulldozers to the Israeli military. The massive armored machines are used by the IDF for home demolitions, ripping up roads, power, water and sewage lines and for other acts of collective punishment in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) — all considered war crimes under the Geneva Convention.
The call to action is being issued by JVP and SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now) [4] and is officially supported by over 30 other well known groups including Amnesty International, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Christian Peacemaker Teams, the Presbyterian Church USA, Not in My Name, and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the group Rachel Corrie was affiliated with while in Rafah.
Organizations worldwide are expected to sponsor their nonviolent protests at regional CAT locations to highlight the company's human rights violations. At least 40 demonstrations are planned in the US alone. STOPCAT says they want to "send the board of directors and the CAT dealerships a strong message that cooperation in human rights abuses will not be tolerated." [5]
Western Washington targets the Harnish Group
The Western Washington action is being led by the Olympia Rafah Sister City Project (ORSCP). People are being asked to gather at the state's largest Caterpillar distributor, NC Machinery, in Tukwila, Washington at 2 pm for a creative, nonviolent, and family-friendly event. [6] The demonstration is planned as a regional effort and great attention is being paid to both strategy and publicity both pre and post event. According to the ORSCP, the Harnish Groups had a revenue of $450 million from Caterpillar sales and rentals in 2004 and is being asked to "lend its weight to this important campaign."
A letter from ORSCP requesting a meeting to discuss their position has been sent to John Harnish, CEO of The Harnish Group, Inc., owner of NC Machinery. The letter was endorsed by over 40 organizations including the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, and Veterans for Peace-Rachel Corrie Chapter 109. [7]
Broad-based support for the ORSCP was evidenced by the number of national and international groups signing onto the letter, they range from the Middle East Children's Alliance, three chapters of Women in Black (Maryland, Vienna, and Australia) to the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace in Ontario. Individuals have also been encourage to write the Harnish Group directly to voice their concerns about Caterpillar's human rights abuses.
In its letter, ORSCP talks about the killing of Rachel Corrie, gives facts about the uses of D9 bulldozers by the IDF and how this use contradicts both the values statements of Caterpillar Inc. and NC Machinery. ORSCP requests that the Harnish business adhere to its promise to be "uncompromising in our adherence to moral and ethical principles. We do what is right, even when it is not the easiest solution." ORSCP points out that Caterpillar's own Code of Worldwide Business Conduct states that the company's commitment to financial success "must also take into account social, economic, political and environmental priorities." [8]
The group requests CEO John Harnish support the Jewish Voices for Peace shareholder resolution as well as the demand by Human Rights Watch to cease the sales of militarized Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel. They also look for a public statement of concern about the use of the deadly machines. "This letter to you is inspired by our serious concern for the welfare of the people in the Middle East, but also by the need for all of us to work together and take responsibility for the deplorable actions that occur in our names. We strive to continue the peacemaking work of our fallen friend Rachel Corrie, and of those who came before her. We hope you will not let us down."
The group recognizes that "Mr. Harnish and NC Machinery alone cannot change Caterpillar's role in the Occupied Territories. With this in mind we have made requests of Mr. Harnish that are reasonable steps that he can take to communicate his concerns about the misuse of Caterpillar bulldozers in the OT and their violations of international law, Caterpillar's code of conduct, as well as NC Machinery's code of conduct."[8] The group reports no response.
Change is possible
One of ORSCP's founders and a lead organizer of the April 13th event, Rochelle Gause, believes that events like these will ultimately make a difference. In an in depth article she wrote about Caterpillar, Gause stated, "This campaign is winnable. The labor practices of this company are notorious," she explained, "including strike breaking and union busting providing strong opportunities for cross issue solidarity. Sales to the Israeli military represent a very small part of Caterpillar's business and, unlike military contractors, Caterpillar sells primarily to civilians making it a company vulnerable to public pressure."[9]
At a March 19th protest marking the 2nd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Gause offered moving words about Rachel Corrie's continuing influence. "Remembering Rachel is not about seeing her as beyond human, as separate from ourselves, Rachel's memory represents a potential in each one of us to make a brave stand for compassionate justice. The question is not how did Rachel become so spectacular, but what is keeping us from reaching our own courage, preventing us from taking our own stand for justice, acting in solidarity with people outside of ourselves and realizing the power that we as Americans hold."
The International Day of Action is an opportunity to fulfill this vision and connect with others and within oneself to remember Rachel and let her family know that the world stands in solidarity. The volume of the turn out will also send a strong message of care and hope to the people of Rafah and the OPT; every day is a day of resistance for them as they face the horrendous damage of American made Caterpillars paid for with American tax dollars.
candio. lives in the Northwest and has an art and writing career spanning two and a half decades. Her work has been found on the street and in museums. For the past two years she has written about the Palestinian Solidarity movement in Olympia, WA. She can be reached at candy@candio.com.
Footnotes
1. Press release from the Center for Constitutional Rights, who are representing the Corries against Caterpillar.
2. Democracy Now! interview. The video segment has rare footage of Rachel speaking at a mock trial accusing George Bush of war crimes. It was held by the Children's parliament in Gaza: Interview 1 | Interview 2
3. Interview with Cindy Corrie, 4 April 2005.
4. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Stop U.S. Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now (SUSTAIN). Of particular note: The JVP site has a pdf of the 23-page CAT complaint filed by the Corries in United States District Court in Washington state. The CAT Destroys Homes site has more info on the day of action and an article discussing the JVP resolution.
5. For more information on the STOPCAT campaign see www.stopcat.org.
6. For information on the Olympia action sponsored by ORSCP, including links and a letter from Cindy Corrie about CAT, see www.orscp.org/weblog.php?id=C0_20_1.
7. Letter sent to the Harnish Group written by ORSCP,/A> and endorsed by 'Multiple signers representing the Rachel Corrie Foundation, ORSCP, OMJP, Code Pink, Veterans for Peace' and many other groups.
8. From ORSCP press materials.
9. This is from a front page article written for the local press by one of ORSCP's founders, Rochelle Gause, who also had worked with Ms. Corrie on local actions.
Related Links
BY TOPIC: Rachel Corrie
BY TOPIC: Caterpillar
©2000-2005 electronicIntifada.net
candio., The Electronic Intifada, 11 April 2005
Olympia, WA. — Olympia friends and supporters of Rachel Corrie and her family have called on concerned people worldwide to join them in demonstrating on the International Day of Action Against Caterpillar, April 13. They hope that a vigorous turnout will not only send a strong message to Caterpillar but will also send a positive message of solidarity with the Corrie family as they go forth with what is sure to be a long and difficult landmark legal struggle against the equipment manufacturer.
Sustained and vocal public pressure has been a key factor in many of the smaller victories that the Corries have already won on behalf of Rachel; and it is felt that what happens on the 13th will be a factor in shaping the debate over corporate responsibility in the future.
On March 15, nearly two years after the killing of Rachel Corrie under an American made, Israeli driven CAT D9 military bulldozer in the Occupied Palestine Territories [OPT], Rachel's parents, Craig and Cindy Corrie, have pressed forward in their quest for accountability from Caterpillar.
With legal assistance from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington State alleging that "Caterpillar Inc. violated international and state law by providing specially designed bulldozers to Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) that it knew would be used to demolish homes and endanger civilians." [1] The Corrie family has also initiated historic lawsuits against the State of Israel, the Israeli Defence Forces and the Israeli Defense Ministry for their role in Rachel's death.
CCR Attorney Jennie Green commented, on the case, "The Caterpillar lawsuit charges Caterpillar with its role in the war crimes, the extra-judicial execution of Rachel, her wrongful death and the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment she suffered before her death. We have charged Caterpillar, because as other U.S. courts have held, corporations, when they take part in human rights violations and war crimes, they can also be held liable." [2]
The position of the Corries is that they "hold Caterpillar complicit in the death of Rachel." They have written letters to James Owens, CEO of Caterpillar, requesting a meeting to talk to him about Rachel. Cindy reports on the response by Mr. Owens who said "he understood our position but had no reason to meet with us." [3]
In April of 2004, on another International Day of Action, the Corries presented at CAT headquarters in Peoria, IL only to be turned away by 17 riot police, according to Craig Corrie's count. [2]
International Day of Action
On April 13, the international protest is centered on a Caterpillar shareholder meeting in Chicago where a resolution has been brought forth by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) addressing the sale of bulldozers to the Israeli military. The massive armored machines are used by the IDF for home demolitions, ripping up roads, power, water and sewage lines and for other acts of collective punishment in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) — all considered war crimes under the Geneva Convention.
The call to action is being issued by JVP and SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now) [4] and is officially supported by over 30 other well known groups including Amnesty International, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Christian Peacemaker Teams, the Presbyterian Church USA, Not in My Name, and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the group Rachel Corrie was affiliated with while in Rafah.
Organizations worldwide are expected to sponsor their nonviolent protests at regional CAT locations to highlight the company's human rights violations. At least 40 demonstrations are planned in the US alone. STOPCAT says they want to "send the board of directors and the CAT dealerships a strong message that cooperation in human rights abuses will not be tolerated." [5]
Western Washington targets the Harnish Group
The Western Washington action is being led by the Olympia Rafah Sister City Project (ORSCP). People are being asked to gather at the state's largest Caterpillar distributor, NC Machinery, in Tukwila, Washington at 2 pm for a creative, nonviolent, and family-friendly event. [6] The demonstration is planned as a regional effort and great attention is being paid to both strategy and publicity both pre and post event. According to the ORSCP, the Harnish Groups had a revenue of $450 million from Caterpillar sales and rentals in 2004 and is being asked to "lend its weight to this important campaign."
A letter from ORSCP requesting a meeting to discuss their position has been sent to John Harnish, CEO of The Harnish Group, Inc., owner of NC Machinery. The letter was endorsed by over 40 organizations including the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, and Veterans for Peace-Rachel Corrie Chapter 109. [7]
Broad-based support for the ORSCP was evidenced by the number of national and international groups signing onto the letter, they range from the Middle East Children's Alliance, three chapters of Women in Black (Maryland, Vienna, and Australia) to the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace in Ontario. Individuals have also been encourage to write the Harnish Group directly to voice their concerns about Caterpillar's human rights abuses.
In its letter, ORSCP talks about the killing of Rachel Corrie, gives facts about the uses of D9 bulldozers by the IDF and how this use contradicts both the values statements of Caterpillar Inc. and NC Machinery. ORSCP requests that the Harnish business adhere to its promise to be "uncompromising in our adherence to moral and ethical principles. We do what is right, even when it is not the easiest solution." ORSCP points out that Caterpillar's own Code of Worldwide Business Conduct states that the company's commitment to financial success "must also take into account social, economic, political and environmental priorities." [8]
The group requests CEO John Harnish support the Jewish Voices for Peace shareholder resolution as well as the demand by Human Rights Watch to cease the sales of militarized Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel. They also look for a public statement of concern about the use of the deadly machines. "This letter to you is inspired by our serious concern for the welfare of the people in the Middle East, but also by the need for all of us to work together and take responsibility for the deplorable actions that occur in our names. We strive to continue the peacemaking work of our fallen friend Rachel Corrie, and of those who came before her. We hope you will not let us down."
The group recognizes that "Mr. Harnish and NC Machinery alone cannot change Caterpillar's role in the Occupied Territories. With this in mind we have made requests of Mr. Harnish that are reasonable steps that he can take to communicate his concerns about the misuse of Caterpillar bulldozers in the OT and their violations of international law, Caterpillar's code of conduct, as well as NC Machinery's code of conduct."[8] The group reports no response.
Change is possible
One of ORSCP's founders and a lead organizer of the April 13th event, Rochelle Gause, believes that events like these will ultimately make a difference. In an in depth article she wrote about Caterpillar, Gause stated, "This campaign is winnable. The labor practices of this company are notorious," she explained, "including strike breaking and union busting providing strong opportunities for cross issue solidarity. Sales to the Israeli military represent a very small part of Caterpillar's business and, unlike military contractors, Caterpillar sells primarily to civilians making it a company vulnerable to public pressure."[9]
At a March 19th protest marking the 2nd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Gause offered moving words about Rachel Corrie's continuing influence. "Remembering Rachel is not about seeing her as beyond human, as separate from ourselves, Rachel's memory represents a potential in each one of us to make a brave stand for compassionate justice. The question is not how did Rachel become so spectacular, but what is keeping us from reaching our own courage, preventing us from taking our own stand for justice, acting in solidarity with people outside of ourselves and realizing the power that we as Americans hold."
The International Day of Action is an opportunity to fulfill this vision and connect with others and within oneself to remember Rachel and let her family know that the world stands in solidarity. The volume of the turn out will also send a strong message of care and hope to the people of Rafah and the OPT; every day is a day of resistance for them as they face the horrendous damage of American made Caterpillars paid for with American tax dollars.
candio. lives in the Northwest and has an art and writing career spanning two and a half decades. Her work has been found on the street and in museums. For the past two years she has written about the Palestinian Solidarity movement in Olympia, WA. She can be reached at candy@candio.com.
Footnotes
1. Press release from the Center for Constitutional Rights, who are representing the Corries against Caterpillar.
2. Democracy Now! interview. The video segment has rare footage of Rachel speaking at a mock trial accusing George Bush of war crimes. It was held by the Children's parliament in Gaza: Interview 1 | Interview 2
3. Interview with Cindy Corrie, 4 April 2005.
4. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Stop U.S. Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now (SUSTAIN). Of particular note: The JVP site has a pdf of the 23-page CAT complaint filed by the Corries in United States District Court in Washington state. The CAT Destroys Homes site has more info on the day of action and an article discussing the JVP resolution.
5. For more information on the STOPCAT campaign see www.stopcat.org.
6. For information on the Olympia action sponsored by ORSCP, including links and a letter from Cindy Corrie about CAT, see www.orscp.org/weblog.php?id=C0_20_1.
7. Letter sent to the Harnish Group written by ORSCP,/A> and endorsed by 'Multiple signers representing the Rachel Corrie Foundation, ORSCP, OMJP, Code Pink, Veterans for Peace' and many other groups.
8. From ORSCP press materials.
9. This is from a front page article written for the local press by one of ORSCP's founders, Rochelle Gause, who also had worked with Ms. Corrie on local actions.
Related Links
©2000-2005 electronicIntifada.net