Bay Area United Against War Presents:
"WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception"
A film by Danny Schechter
"The News Dissector"
Saturday, Dec. 11th, 2004
(Showtime to be announced)
Embarcadero Center Cinema
One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 267-4893
" 'WMD' paints a meticulous and damning portrait of the media's
coverage of the Iraq war. In sobering detail, Danny Schechter
shows us how the TV networks now prefer the role of cheerleader,
to that of objective journalist," says Mike Nisholson of
austinnforkerry.org.
"Schechter tackles his subject like a cross between Errol Morris
and a Dashiell Hammet detective, following close on the tail of big
media reporters as they in turn track the march toward war, embed
themselves in the military industrial complex and then get out
when the fighting gets tough and leave the cleanup work to
stringers, " writes Shandon Fowler of film's Hamptons
International Film Festival appearance, Oct. 20-24.
To learn more about the film visit:
www.wmdthefilm.org
www.bauaw.org
There will be a showing of "WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception"
sponsored by Media Alliance on Friday, Dec. 10th at the
same location.
(Distributed by Cinema Libre Studio, www.cinemalibrestudio.com)
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Benefit Concert for Chiapas
December 8 - 7:30PM
La Pena Cultural Center
3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley
2) Destroying Iraq to Save It
Michael Kinsley
November 21, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kinsley21nov21,0,779452
9.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
3) Alert! Falluja women, children in mass grave
Sunday 21 November 2004
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/24EBE5BB-CA3F-462B-8279-546BC1D9B7E6.
htm
4) Tues. Nov. 23, 7pm
ANSWER Educational Forum
"After the Election: What's Next for the Movement Against
War & Racism?"
SF WomenÂ’s Building,
3543 18th St. btwn Valencia & Guerrero
5) Marines Hampered by Security Fears in Falluja
By Michael Georgy
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
Mon Nov 22, 2004 08:23 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6884991&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
6) Jackson fears Army will remain in Iraq for years
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
22 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=585402
7) It Doesn't End With Fallouja
EDITORIAL
November 22, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-iraq22nov22,0,5866020.story
8) STRIKERS MASSACRED IN THE PHILIPPINES: BMP
(initials for Solidarity of Filipino Workers, in
Tagalog, one of the labor federations in the
Philippines-KM) SOLIDARITY APPEAL
9) Oil and gas update from the northeast
-----Original Message-----
From: G. Leona Green [mailto:glgreen@neonet.bc.ca]
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 7:13 PM
To: landwatch@onenw.org
Subject: Fw: [BCEN LW:] Oil and gas update from
the northeast
November 19. The friend mentioned at the end of this
posting, passed away this morning. Leona
10) Lynne Stewart on trial in New York: civil liberties
vs. the new McCarthyism
By Monica Hill
Freedom Socialist • Vol. 25, No. 4 • October-November
11) Enforcement of Civil Rights Law Declined
Since '99, Study Finds
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON
November 22, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/22/national/22civil.html?oref=login
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Benefit Concert for Chiapas
December 8 - 7:30PM
La Pena Cultural Center
3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley
Son de La Tierra performs traditional son jarocho music
from the state of Varacruz in Mexico
You do not want to miss this group! Plus:
"Messages from Chiapas" - a report from our November
Encuentro in Chiapas. Also: New artesania from the women's
cooperative in Polho, Chiapas - Great Christmas presents
(gifts of conscience).
See you all soon!
Chiapas Support Committee
www.chiapas-support.org
P.O. Box 3421
Oakland, CA 94609
Tel: (510) 654-9587
email: cezmat@igc.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) Destroying Iraq to Save It
Michael Kinsley
November 21, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kinsley21nov21,0,779452
9.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Has there ever before been a war that so many people disapproved
of but so few wanted to stop? Have the reasons for starting a war
ever been so thoroughly discredited without turning into reasons
for ending it?
The Vietnam-era antiwar movement had an agenda: Bring the troops
home. Or, in two words - suitable for a picket sign or a T-shirt -
"Out now."
What seems to be today's antiwar position - it was a terrible mistake
and it's a terrible mess, but we can't just walk away from it - was
actually the pro-war position during Vietnam. In fact, it was close
to official government policy for more than half the length of that war.
Today's antiwar cause doesn't even have a movement, to speak of,
let alone an agenda. It consists of perhaps 47% of the citizenry - the
ones who voted for John Kerry - who are in some kind of existential
opposition to the war but don't know what they want to do about it.
Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers die by the hundreds and Iraqis - military
and civilian - by the thousands in a cause these people (and I'm one
of them) believe to be a horrible mistake.
Kerry spent months untangling the knots of his Iraq position while
tangling new ones even faster. He pounded George W. Bush over
the phantom weapons of mass destruction, and he mocked Bush's
confusion of Osama bin Laden with Saddam Hussein. Kerry said,
famously, that Bush's invasion of Iraq was "the wrong war in the
wrong place at the wrong time." So was he in favor of ending it? No,
his position was that he would try, but not promise, to bring the
troops home in four years. Four years! U.S. involvement in World
War II lasted 3 1/2.
Bush had a good point when he wondered how, as commander in
chief, Kerry could ask American soldiers to die for the wrong war
in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course, that problem
does not vindicate Bush's belief that Iraq is the right war in the
right etc. etc. etc.
But Bush's apparently sincere belief does relieve him from
needing to explain why he doesn't want the war to end now.
Kerry's studiously confused position was not, or not just, a political
stratagem. It was an accurate reflection of the views of his
constituency. Most of them deplore the war, but only a tiny
fraction favor an immediate pull-out. Anyone who opposes the
war but isn't ready to demand peace needs an answer to the
question, "Why on Earth not?"
There are answers, possibly even adequate answers. But none of
them shine with the kind of obvious truth that makes the question
unnecessary, let alone uninteresting, which is how it is being treated.
The answers fall in two categories, each associated with a secretary
of State.
The Henry Kissinger answer is, in a word, credibility. A superpower
that announces a goal and gives up without achieving it will not be
super for long. In the end, President Nixon and Kissinger added five
years to the length of the Vietnam War, and we lost it anyway. Did that
add to our superpower credibility? Well, maybe. In the Kissingerian world
of High Strategy, a reputation for pigheaded stupidity can be almost as
valuable as a reputation for wise persistence. What could be more
credible than a reputation for staying the course no matter how
disastrous it turns out to be?
The Colin Powell answer goes by the nickname "Pottery Barn," referring
to the alleged policy of that purveyor of yuppieware that "if you break
it, you own it." In fact, Pottery Barn's breakage policy is much kinder and
gentler than that. But it's certainly true that a well-brought-up foreign
policy doesn't occupy a country, wreck it and move on like a rock band
checking out of a hotel room. The question is whether at this point
we're actually helping to tidy up, or only making a bigger mess.
The lead Page 1 headline in Monday's Los Angeles Times was, "Iraqi
City Lies in Ruins." That would be Fallouja, a city of 300,000 (metro
area) that Americans had never heard of until we felt impelled to
destroy it. And our reasons were neither trivial nor contemptible.
They followed with confident logic from the premise that Hussein
was an intolerable danger to the United States. If so, he had to be
taken down. And if that destabilized the country, we had to occupy
it for a while and calm it down. And you can't run a national occupation
with rebels occupying a major city, so you have to besiege the city
and kill a lot of people and leave the place "in ruins."
An American general in Vietnam famously said, "We had to destroy
the village to save it." This has become the definitive expression of
the macabre futility of war. Last week, we destroyed an entire city in
order to save it (progress!), but our capacity to find that sort of thing
ironic seems to have become shriveled and harmless.
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Alert! Falluja women, children in mass grave
Sunday 21 November 2004
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/24EBE5BB-CA3F-462B-8279-546BC1D9B7E6.
htm
Residents of a village neighbouring Falluja have told Aljazeera that they
helped bury the bodies of 73 women and children who were burnt to
death by a US bombing attack.
"We buried them here, but we could not identify them because they
were charred by the use of napalm bombs used by the Americans,"
said one resident of Saqlawiya in footage aired on Aljazeera on Sunday.
There have been no reports of the US military using napalm in Falluja
and no independent verification of the claims.
The resident told Aljazeera all the bodies were buried in a single grave.
Late last week, US troops in Falluja called on some residents who had
fled the fighting to return and help bury the dead.
However, according to other residents who managed to flee the
fighting after US forces entered the city, hundreds more bodies
still lay in the streets and were being fed on by packs of wild dogs.
Danger zone
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said
Falluja remained too dangerous to secure proper retrieval and burial
of corpses.
"We could not enter Falluja city so far due to the security measures
and the continuing battles," Muain Qasis, ICRC spokesman in Jordan,
told Aljazeera.
When asked about the security measures, Qasis said: "In order to
carry out an independent and acceptable humanitarian action, we
must have guarantees ensuring the safety of the humanitarian staff.
"The humanitarian situation in Falluja city is very difficult.
"The city is still suffering shortage of public services. There is no
water or electricity. There is no way to offer medical treatment for
the injured families still surrounded inside the city," he added.
Detained civilians released
In related news, the US military in Falluja announced that it had
released 400 of the 1450 men it had detained in the war-ravaged
city.
"More than 400 detainees have since been released after being
deemed non-combatants," the military said, adding that 100 more
were due to be released on Sunday.
Aljazeera + Agencies
URL: http://www.PeaceNoWar.net
July 2003, Peace No War Visit and Video Interview in Fallujah
http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/video.html#fallujah
Los Angeles Times has a complete biographical Information on
U.S. Soldiers Killed:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/external/fmmac2.mm.ap.org/war2/adv_search.php?S
ITE=CALOS&SECTION=MIDEAST
For more photos and Videos from Iraq, visit:
"Report from Baghdad" July, 2003
http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/intro.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Tues. Nov. 23, 7pm
ANSWER Educational Forum
"After the Election: What's Next for the Movement Against
War & Racism?"
SF WomenÂ’s Building,
3543 18th St. btwn Valencia & Guerrero
Discussion and presentations by Bay Area activists about the ongoing
occupation and resistance in Iraq and the role of the anti-war, anti-
racist movement in the post-election period. Who is the Iraqi
resistance and how is the international peopleÂ’s movement
confronting imperialism?
$3-10 donation. Refreshments provided, wheelchair accessible.
Call 415-821-6545 to reserve free childcare.
----------
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---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Marines Hampered by Security Fears in Falluja
By Michael Georgy
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
Mon Nov 22, 2004 08:23 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6884991&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines were conducting painstaking
weapons searches in the Iraqi city of Falluja on Monday when they
spotted a man with an AK-47 rifle on a nearby rooftop.
Armed only with a light weapon, he could never stand up to what they
were about to unleash. But he was enough to distract Marines from a
task that is key to stabilizing Falluja after a U.S.-led offensive crushed
rebels controlling the Sunni Muslim city.
The angle of the rooftop could not quite accommodate the trajectory
of a shoulder-launched Javelin missile so Marines fired the more direct,
wire-guided TOW missile after a debate.
Then they fired hefty .50 caliber machinegun rounds at the rooftop,
blew up a door and stormed a living room. It was an impressive display
of firepower but they raided the wrong house.
When they finally made it to the pulverized rooftop with smoke still
rising from the machinegun bullet holes, the man with one rifle they
were seeking had escaped.
"One of the main challenges we are facing in conducting weapons
searches is these lone snipers who randomly appear and delay our
operations," said 1st Lieutenant Christopher Wilkins, 24, as he led
a weapons hunt in central Falluja.
At that point, his platoon had only found a few sacks with AK-47s,
some hand grenades, an artillery shell and, most notably, a pick-up
truck mounted with surface-to-air missiles.
After pounding Falluja with air strikes, artillery fire and tank shells,
Marines are now scrambling to find caches so that some 300,000
residents who fled before the assault can return.
They have been astounded by the quantity and variety of weapons,
from Egyptian submachineguns to Russian and German models and
flame-throwing rifles.
Hundreds of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers
and bomb-making equipment have been uncovered inside couches,
behind hidden walls and even on top of the city water tower, Marine
officers said.
Marine officers say they know tracking down all insurgents is
impossible but they hope the weapons searches will lead them
to houses that guerrillas could use in future.
Some insurgents are still keen to fight.
A few were caught swimming across the Euphrates river to get
back into Falluja at a spot near the hospital, holding up their
AK-47s above the water and floating on beach balls, Marine
officers said.
"This could take weeks and even months to make Falluja safe
for its people to return," said Lieutenant Colonel Larry Kling.
Marines, who expect to stay in Falluja until Iraqi forces
can take over security, can't afford to push too hard or fast
in the house to house searches because they are trying to gain
the trust of residents.
Falluja's people might already have reason for anger. The
offensive has reduced many parts of the city to rubble.
But Marines searched aggressively in a middle class
neighborhood; behind paintings, in couches and even toy boxes.
"I tell my men not to be too aggressive so that people will
not have more hatred when they come home," said Wilkins. "But
the problem is these weapons are hidden in incredible places."
Marines search between 20 and 50 houses a day and 80
percent of them have weapons hidden inside. Some had time to
joke despite the risky and sensitive challenge ahead.
Standing over a crater six meters (20 ft) across and six
meters deep in a street created by what he said was a 2,000-
pound bomb during the offensive, Staff Sargeant Jonathan
Knarth, 29, of Florida, looked at down the deep water at the
bottom.
"Hey look all you have to do is extend a slide from that
rooftop to the water and you have an amusement park right here
courtesy of the United States Air Force."
(c) Copyright Reuters 2004.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Jackson fears Army will remain in Iraq for years
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
22 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=585402
British troops will be sent to help the US in conflict zones anywhere
inside Iraq, prompting fears that soldiers could be stuck in the most
dangerous parts of the country fighting insurgents for years to come.
General Sir Mike Jackson, the officer commanding the Army, said in
an interview with The Independent yesterday that troops could again
be dispatched outside the Basra area to help the US and Iraqi forces if
the insurgent threat escalates. The deployment could also go on beyond
the end of 2005 when the US mandate for the coalition to stay in the
country expires. "It is event-driven," he said.
Sir Mike's remarks will raise fears among critics of the war that Britain
is being sucked deeper into the mire in Iraq by extending its mission.
Four British soldiers have died in suicide attacks and bombings since
the Black Watch was sent north to support the US-led onslaught on
Fallujah three weeks ago. It was the first time UK troops have left the
British-controlled area of Basra.
Aware of the unpopularity of the deployment, the Government has
been at pains to say that the Black Watch troops will be back home
by Christmas. And Tony Blair said last month that he "did not believe
that there will be a further requirement for other troops" to be
deployed away from Basra.
"Yes, we have said that the Black Watch will come back by
Christmas," the Prime Minister said. "As to what then happens,
we cannot be sure. We do not believe that there will be a further
requirement for other troops, but I cannot guarantee that, because,
obviously, I do not know the situation that may arise."
Meanwhile, Iraqi authorities announced yesterday that national
elections would be held on 30 January despite escalating violence.
The elections will clash with the annual haj, when millions of pilgrims
travel overland through Iraq. They will come from Iran, Afghanistan
and Pakistan, making it impossible to seal Iraq's borders.
In Ramadi, 35 miles west of Fallujah, gunmen attacked a group of
Iraqi National Guard troops yesterday, killing nine and wounding 17
after hijacking a convoy and lining the men up for execution. Earlier
in the day, several Iraqi civilians were killed when US Marines fired
on a bus that drove through a checkpoint.
Near Latifiyah, south of Baghdad, a Reuters reporter watched
gunmen kill two off-duty National Guards troops and a policeman
at a roadblock.
In Mosul, Iraq's third city, the bodies of three men killed by insurgents
were left lying on a street a day after US troops discovered the bodies
of nine Iraqi soldiers. All 12 men had been shot in the back of the head.
Four headless corpses were also discovered in the city last week.
A group led by the al-Qa'ida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has claimed
responsibility for the killings. In Baghdad, four large explosions
shook the area near the US-guarded Green Zone after sunset but
no casualties were reported.
Sir Mike said that all the British operations had been in the Basra
area "until this one-off deployment of the Black Watch. That is
not to say, in the future, there may not be a military requirement
of the coalition as a whole for a British unit or units to be elsewhere".
The Black Watch would be pulled back within a few weeks and
would not be replaced at Camp Dogwood, he said.
Sir Mike rejected claims by the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles
Kennedy, that the Black Watch deployment was a sign of "mission
creep''. "The mission is to provide Iraq with its political and
economic future," he said. "That's the mission."
Sir Mike also appeared to suggest that the British deployment
could go on beyond December 2005, when the mandate for the
coalition in Iraq officially ends. "How long we stay there is going
to be event-driven," he said.
Iraq was now more "challenging", he said, adding: "It's clear a minority
- and I believe a pretty small minority - of Iraqis with some outside
assistance cannot face the idea of progress in Iraq and are prepared
to do some pretty revolting things to prevent it. And they cannot be
allowed to succeed."
(c) 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) It Doesn't End With Fallouja
EDITORIAL
November 22, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-iraq22nov22,0,5866020.story
A Marine general commented last week after his men ousted nearly
all Iraqi guerrillas from Fallouja that the two weeks of fighting had
"broken the back of the insurgency." If only it were that simple.
Marines did a good job of purging enemies from the city, but as the
general spoke, flames and smoke rose in other Sunni Triangle cities
in the north and west; foreigners and Iraqis were beheaded, shot or
killed by suicide bombers; and political parties vowed to boycott
national elections that the Bush administration has put forth as
a harbinger of democracy in a nation where the concept is a stranger.
More than 50 U.S. soldiers were killed in the Fallouja fight, which
began Nov. 8 in one of the cities where Sunni Muslims are the majority,
and the U.S. death toll in Iraq has now passed 1,200. An estimated
1,200 insurgents were killed in Fallouja as well.
The difficulties of pacifying Iraq were obvious last week. Insurgents
showed the depths to which they're capable of sinking when evidence
surfaced that Margaret Hassan, the kidnapped director of CARE
International in Iraq, had been shot to death. And even as Marines
tried to kill the last remnants of resistance in Fallouja, guerrillas
stormed police stations in the northern city of Mosul, where more
than 80% of police responded by abandoning their posts.
The U.S. goal is to get an Iraqi army and police force trained to
provide the nation's security and let American troops come home;
that objective remains elusive. Iraqi soldiers following Marines
into battle in Fallouja did well, but their numbers are few.
Fallouja was thought to be the headquarters of militant leader
Abu Musab Zarqawi; if so, he left before the Marines arrived.
Zarqawi's followers continue to try to terrorize Iraqis into
opposing the U.S. occupation by beheading natives and foreigners
alike. Zarqawi was born in Jordan, but Marines said most of the
fighters in Fallouja appeared to be Iraqi. That could be a hopeful
sign that although the Iraq misadventure has inflamed Islamic
opinion against Washington, few foreign fighters have wanted or
been able to enter the country. But it also may mean Iraqis are
sufficiently angered by the invasion to be willing to fight and
die in large numbers without outside help.
The brutality of battle was brought home in television footage
of a Marine fatally shooting an Iraqi insurgent in a mosque. An
inspection after the shooting indicated the insurgent was wounded
and unarmed, and U.S. officials said they would investigate the
incident. Soldiers faced with the possibility of booby-trapped
corpses and suicide bombers trying to kill them are understandably
on edge, but even if the shooting is found to be accidental, it will
be used as anti-American propaganda, stacked next to the
photographs from Abu Ghraib prison.
As the killing has spread, the political battle has suffered setbacks.
Dozens of political groups, many with mostly Sunni members,
announced plans to boycott January's elections, in part because
of anger over Fallouja. A boycott would undercut the legitimacy
of balloting; the interim Iraqi government should try to bring
all politicians into the process. If that proves impossible, those
elected will have to try to govern in a manner that makes all
Iraqis feel they have a stake in the nation, regardless of
religious beliefs.
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) STRIKERS MASSACRED IN THE PHILIPPINES: BMP
(initials for Solidarity of Filipino Workers, in
Tagalog, one of the labor federations in the
Philippines-KM) SOLIDARITY APPEAL
STRIKERS MASSACRED IN THE PHILIPPINES
Three days ago, on 16 November, fourteen people were killed by
army and police in the Philippines. They were strikers at the
Hacienda Luisita, in Tarlac.
The strike is in defence of 327 workers fired by management in
a clear-cut case of union busting. The union was defending the
right of workers to collectively bargain for wage increases.
The strike busting was carried out by the Department of Labor
and Employment Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas, who through the
strike breaking mechanism -- "assumption of jurisdiction" of the
strike -- issued a "return to work order" thus setting the scene
for the police and army to move in.
Two of those killed were children, aged two and five, who died
from suffocation as a result of the tear gas used. Some 35 people
suffered gunshot wounds, 133 were arrested, hundreds more
were wounded.
Hacienda Luisita is owned by the family of former president
Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, who replaced the dictator Marcos
during the 1986 Edsa uprising.
The trade union movement in the Philippines has called for
massive protests condemning the murders, demanding a full
investigation of what happened. They are demanding justice for
the workers, that hundreds of workers illegally dismissed be
rehired, and that criminal charges against the strikers be dropped.
They are also demanding the repeal of the 'assumption of
jurisdiction' authority of the labor department, and resignation
of the Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas.
The protest actions have begun and will continue next week,
with coordinated nation-wide actions, culminating in a major
mobilisation on November 30.
Please send your messages of solidarity to be read out at the
protests and to be sent on to the Department of Labor and
Employment.
BMP International Desk
bmp_philippines@yahoo.com mailto:bmp_philippines@yahoo.com
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Oil and gas update from the northeast
-----Original Message-----
From: G. Leona Green [mailto:glgreen@neonet.bc.ca]
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 7:13 PM
To: landwatch@onenw.org
Subject: Fw: [BCEN LW:] Oil and gas update from
the northeast
November 19. The friend mentioned at the end of this
posting, passed away this morning. Leona
----- Original Message -----
From: G. Leona Green
To: landwatch@onenw.org
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 9:13 PM
Subject: [BCEN LW:] Oil and gas update from the northeast
Hello all,
Tomorrow is the big day, the drilling company will frac the gas well to
the southwest. I am told this is all very safe and the chemical cloud
which is very small (so they say) will dissipate in no time! Why do I
not believe any of this?
To update you on the pleasure of living in the "patch". In Dawson Creek
and area, the drug trade is estimated to be a one hundred and thirty-two
million dollar per month trade. Break and enters are average of two each
day of the month. The feed store where I deal has been broken into twice
in the last ten days. What they expect to get there is beyond me. They
now have steel reinforcements on the doors. My youngest son is in the
security systems business, he cannot keep up with the demand for
security systems.
My second youngest son lives in Dawson Creek in one of the "better"
neighborhoods. His doors are locked at all times and I have to ring the
doorbell to let him know I am there if I go to see him. For reasons
unknown, he has been vandalized.
Prostitution, drugs, B&E, muggings, purse snatching, vehicle thefts,
vagrants sleeping in ally ways. You name it, we got it.
Ft.St.John is worse. My eldest son and his family live there. They have
been broken into so many times that they now have a security system as
well as bars on the windows and doors as well as two dogs. And they live
in one of the "classier" sections of the city in a lovely home with a
chain link fence around it. Had a visit from a man from the fair city of
FT.St.John the other day, he has a twelve year old daughter. Said
daughter goes only to school and other than that she refuses to go
anywhere as it is not safe. I, myself have been nowhere in the evening
for the last several months. Not even out to dinner or a concert. The
city is not safe to be out in.
I live on what used to be a quiet country road and usually knew every
vehicle that drove by, what few there were. Now, day and night, the roar
of the traffic is deafening and the speed with which they travel on
these back roads is unreal. What I have described here is only a "drop
in the bucket" so to speak. I have lived in the Dawson Creek area for
many years, back when it was a "raw frontier" town. In those days one
was perfectly safe on the streets day or night. How times have changed!
We have a lovely park over in the Tumbler Ridge area. Won't be lovely
for long. They are logging off forty acres next to the park to build one
of the biggest gas plants ever built.
I had started out to just tell you how "lovely' living in the "patch" is
but I have just received word that a friend and neighbor who is only in
her late forties is in Edmonton in a coma. She is a victim, we believe,
of the gassing that we received from the sour gas well in 1998. She has
suffered the exact same fate as all of my animals that died from the
blood filled tumors. If she should recover enough to come out of the
coma, she will be a "vegetable". She is still bleeding into the brain
and that causes the brain to die. Why do they not just come and shoot us
and our animals, it would be more humane!
May God help us ....... no one else can. If I could ever hope to sell
what has come to be known as death valley, I would leave. But I am stuck
here come what may.
Leona
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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10) Lynne Stewart on trial in New York: civil liberties
vs. the new McCarthyism
By Monica Hill
Freedom Socialist • Vol. 25, No. 4 • October-November
For years, the government has been spying on New York attorney
Lynne Stewart — to such an extent that civil liberties defenders say
the Department of Justice ought to be arrested and tried for its
actions. Instead, it is Lynne Stewart who is on trial, in a courtroom
battle that pits the political Left against the far Right, the Constitution
against the Attorney General, and the liberty-loving U.S. public against
an empire determined to repress its critics and dump due process.
It all adds up to a crucial fight against the neo-McCarthyism that has
been ignited by the "war on terrorism."
Inventing the crime to fit the punishment. Stewart's saga began
in 1995, when the FBI charged Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine
others with conspiring to bomb several New York landmarks.
Abdel-Rahman, an Islamic fundamentalist leader known as the
"blind cleric," was connected to a group in Egypt that was on the
Secretary of State's list of terrorist organizations. A judge appointed
Lynne Stewart to be the indigent sheik's attorney. Her legal team
included translator Mohammed Yousry and paralegal Ahmed Sattar,
who are both now codefendants in the Stewart case.
Sheik Abdel-Rahman was eventually convicted of conspiring to
blow up the UN, kill Egypt's president and bomb highway tunnels
in New York. Historically, the government resorts to charges of
conspiracy (contemplation of illegal acts) when it cannot prove
illegal activity. The two key witnesses in the trial were informants.
One was a former Egyptian army officer who made a million dollars
spying for the FBI. The other was one of the alleged conspirators
who pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government.
After the conviction, Stewart continued to act as the sheik's legal
representative. Abdel-Rahman, a major political and religious
figure in the Middle East, was anxious not to disappear into the
black hole of U.S. prisons. Stewart insists she was doing her job
when, in April 2000, she released the cleric's press statement
to Reuters for the Egyptian media.
That's when the government began heavy-duty spying on Stewart,
culminating in her arrest two years later. Attorney General Ashcroft
jailed Stewart and her legal team for "aiding and abetting a terrorist
organization." The highly publicized crackdown was calculated to
silence dissidents and scare lawyers from defending them.
Stewart's attorney Michael Tigar defines the case as "an attack
on the First Amendment right of free speech, free press and
petition" and on "the right to effective assistance of counsel."
"The 'evidence' in this case," he says, "was gathered by wholesale
invasion of private conversations, private attorney-client meetings
and private faxes, letters and e-mails. I have never seen such an
abusive use of governmental power."
The people's heroine. Instead of being intimidated, Stewart took
the principled and courageous road of bringing her case to the
court of public opinion. A defense committee sprang up. Lawyers
and civil liberties experts across the country denounced the arrests.
Law students at City University New York (CUNY) gave her their
annual award for public interest lawyer of the year. Stewart is
invited to speak all over the country and a steady stream of
supporters troop into the courtroom.
In the post-9/11 chill characterized by brazen government
detentions of people from the Middle East, Stewart is the first
attorney targeted by the Justice Department. She attributes this
to the fact that she is a radical and a woman.
Long before she met Sheik Abdel-Rahman, Lynne Stewart's life
and politics were decidedly leftist. She has marched and demonstrated,
spoken up for and represented countless protesters. Her clients have
included Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, the Ohio Seven,
the Black Liberation Army and busloads of less visible cases. "My
whole entire career," she says, "has been about the government
expanding its powers to make more and more criminal what could
be considered political."
The rightwing Front Page Magazine sees Stewart as evil incarnate:
"the most notorious terrorist advocate ... a self proclaimed champion
of terrorism and an avowed Communist..." With enemies like these,
Stewart must be doing something right!
Inside the courtroom. The best way to get a picture of the trial is to
read Stewart's fascinating blog (web journal) at www.lynnestewart.org.
The government has been presenting its case for nearly two months
and, as Stewart puts it, it's sheer "Snoozeville." Witnesses play
damaged surveillance tapes and grainy videos. They read endless,
poorly translated speeches by the sheik that are intended to show
he's a terrorist and hence, by association, so must be Stewart and
her codefendants. Innuendo and smears are the government's
favored tactics. For example, shortly before the third anniversary
of September 11, the prosecution showed the jury a four-year-old
video of Osama bin Laden calling on Muslims to fight for Sheik
Abdel-Rahman's freedom.
The bright side of the trial is the show of public support for
Stewart, Yousry and Sattar. Courtroom visitors have included Sharon
Salaam, mother of one of the wrongly convicted youths in the Central
Park jogger case; Kathleen Cleaver, former Black Panther leader;
Rafael Anglada, an attorney who has defended Puerto Rican
independistas and is on the defense team for the Miami Five;
and one of Stewart's clients, Nasser Ahmen, who was held three
years in solitary confinement on the basis of fraudulent secret
evidence. "This is the face of my America," Stewart writes.
Sometime in October, the defense will finally get to tell its story.
It will resonate with the half-million people who marched against
the Republican National Convention in New York City in August and
with the millions across the country who are not fooled by the
government's criminal "war on terror."
Warns Stewart, "We are in our time the Communists of the Fifties,
the Scottsboro Boys [of the 1930s], the Anarchists [in the late
1800s]. And now the Terrorists — whatever Imperial America can
frighten the people with. Judges included."
Help keep Stewart and her codefendants out of prison by publicizing
this fight and, if possible, attending the trial. Send donations to the
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee, 350 Broadway, Ste. 700, New
York, NY 10013. For more info, call 212-625-9696 or e-mail info @
lynnestewart.org. Strike back for civil liberties!
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11) Enforcement of Civil Rights Law Declined
Since '99, Study Finds
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON
November 22, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/22/national/22civil.html?oref=login
WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (AP) - Federal enforcement of civil rights laws
has dropped sharply since 1999, as the level of complaints received
by the Justice Department has remained relatively constant, according
a study released Sunday.
Criminal charges of civil rights violations were brought against 84
defendants last year, down from 159 in 1999, according to Justice
Department data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
The study also found that the number of times the Federal Bureau
of Investigation or another federal investigative agency recommended
prosecution in civil rights cases fell by more than one-third, from
more than 3,000 in 1999 to just over 1,900 last year. Federal court
data also show that the government has sought fewer civil sanctions
against civil rights violators.
One of the study's authors, David Burnham, said the results showed
that civil rights enforcement dropped across the board in President
Bush's first term in office. "Collectively, some violators of the civil
rights laws are not being dealt with by the government," Professor
Burnham said. "This trend, we think, is significant."
It is unlikely the decline has occurred because of fewer civil rights
violations occurring, the study suggests. The number of complaints
about possible violations received by the Justice Department has
remained at about 12,000 annually for each of the past five years.
The Justice Department had no comment about the study.
When he announced his resignation on Nov. 9, Attorney General
John Ashcroft listed as one of the department's accomplishments
a statistic that showed the number of civil rights prosecutions was
slightly higher over the past three years than the previous three-
year period. Mr. Ashcroft also said the department had tripled the
number of defendants charged in human trafficking cases
compared with the previous three years.
The Syracuse report gives no conclusive reasons for the reduction
over five years in civil rights enforcement but speculates that it
could have resulted from federal prosecutors and investigators
having spent far more time than in previous years on terrorism
cases after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Civil rights cases made up a tiny fraction of the Justice Department's
total of 99,341 criminal prosecutions in 2003. The study found,
however, that only civil rights and environmental prosecutions were
down from 1999 to 2003 as the total caseload rose by about
10 percent.
By far the biggest criminal prosecution category is illegal drugs,
at about 33,100 cases last year, followed by immigration, weapons
violations, white-collar crime and others. The study was based on
data collected from the Justice Department, federal courts and
Congressional budget documents.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
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