STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!
ALL OUT JANUARY 20TH, 5:00 P.M., CIVIC CENTER, S.F.
************BREAKING NEWS**************
According to the A.N.S.W.E.R. Washington, DC news conference
covered live on CSPAN this morning, the U.S. government is not
allowing antiwar/anti-Bush protestors onto Pennsylvania Ave.
along the inauguration route.
A.N.S.W.E.R. reported, there are three types of tickets available
for the inauguration, Group A, is for personally invited guests;
Group B, is for contributors to the Bush campaign (for both of
these groups a list is carefully checked before tickets are sold;)
tickets for Group C, for the general public, are not available.
None. They are simply not sold.
The Government, in a stalling move, has not denied permits to
ANSWER for space for counter demonstrators, rather they are
delaying as long as possible with the knowledge that the longer
the permits are denied, the harder it will be for people to make
arrangements to come to DC to protest. If and when permits
are officially denied, A.N.S.W.E.R. declared they would challenge
the government legally as they did in the last presidential
inauguration "celebration."
We have a constitutional right to protest the inauguration.
BAUAW encourages all to show up in DC and come to Pennsylvania
Avenue with your signs and banners and express your opposition
to Bush and to the War.
We demand, along with A.N.S.W.E.R., equal access along the rout
for all. We have a right to protest our government or any of its
official representatives. Nothing gives the government the right
to disallow legal and peaceful protest. We say all out to
Washington, DC if you can make it.
If you can't go to DC, come out Jan. 20, 5pm, Civic Center, SF. in
solidarity with all protestors in Washington and everywhere who
oppose this war.
We are encouraging everyone to participate somehow by wearing
buttons and signs at work, at school and on the bus; hold banners
at freeway entrances, and crowded shopping areas etc. on
Jan. 20. Students should hold rallies and march to the Civic Center.
Come to our next meeting and pick a place to flyer or table
for Jan. 20 or hold a sign during the day, on Jan. 20 if you can.
NEXT BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR MEETING:
SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 11AM
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(NEAR 16TH STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO)
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The only moral virtue of war is that it compels the capitalist system
to look itself in the face and admit it is a fraud.
HELEN KELLER, "The Menace of Militarism."
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Where you can still see the "must-see" film, WMD: Weapons of
Mass Deception.
This film is being downplayed by the mass media. It must have
something to do with the searing criticism of that very media that
is the content of the film. Go and see it.
WMD will play in the following theatres in the
Bay Area on FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2004:
San Francisco, CA
Landmark Opera Plaza Cinema
601 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 267-4893
Berkeley, CA (currently playing)
The Oaks Theater
1875 Solano Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94707
(510) 526-1836
Orinda, CA
Orinda Theater
2 Orinda Theater Square
Orinda, CA 94563
(925) 254-906
Richard Castro
Outreach & Special Distribution
Cinema Libre Studio
818.349.8822 Ph.
818.349.9922 Fax
www.cinemalibrestudio.com
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Hey Peace Activists...
Sorry for the massive crossposting, but I had to share this with you.
In case anyone needed a reminder as to why we are doing this,
please take a moment to watch Ian Rhett'"(Didn't know I was) UnAmerican"
http://unamerican.haightfreetv.com/unamerican.56m041011.swf
It's wonderful.
Charles Shaw
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
Newtopia Magazine
www.newtopiamagazine.net
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1) Holiday Benefit Sale
at the Middle East Children's Alliance
Saturday, December 18th, 10 AM to 6 PM at
901 Parker Street, Berkeley (corner of 7th and Parker)
2) HUMOR: Iraqi leader to be announced at Jan. 16 Golden Globe Awards
3) Cuba, Venezuela Defy U.S. and Announce
Their Own Plan To Create A FairTrade
Alternative to FTAA!
----- Original Message -----
From: < nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com >
" Castro, Chavez Defy US Trade Pact "
4) New Gallup Poll Raises Questions About Media Focus on 'Values'
By E&P Staff
NEW YORK
Published: December 14, 2004 10:00 AM ET
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content
_id=1000736658
5) War Funding Request May Hit $100 Billion
By Bryan Bender
WASHINGTON
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Boston Globe
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1215-03.htm
6) Details of Marines Mistreating
Prisoners in Iraq Are Revealed
By Richard A. Serrano
WASHINGTON
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1215-01.htm
7) Eskimos Seek to Recast Global Warming
as a Rights Issue
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
December 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/international/americas/15climate.html?oref
=login&oref=login
8) The Thought Police - Cops Investigate Anti-American Statements
of 11-Year-Old
The Washington Post reports two police officers recently
visited the home of an 11-year-old and questioned his parents
for three hours about anti-American comments their son made in
school The student had refused to participate in a Veterans Day
exercise and criticized the Marines. The school claimed he had
said, "I wish all Americans were dead and that American soldiers
should die." The Police questioned his parents about their views
on Sept. 11, the military and if they knew any foreigners who
criticized US policy. They also inquired whether the parents might
be teaching "anti-American values" at home. The mother, Pamela
Allbaugh, told the Washington Post "It was intimidating.
I told them it's like a George Orwell novel, that it felt like
they were the thought police." She went on to say "If someone
would have asked me five years ago if this was something my
government would do, I would have said never."
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/16/1444215
9) World War 3 Report, issue 93, December 2003
http://www.ww3report.com/93.html#palestine6
Remote-control Machine Guns to Be Mounted on the Wall
10) Mark your calendar: Saturday, December 18, 6:00-8:00
(18th & CASTRO)
11) Chuck D keynotes "State of the Black Youth" convention
By Diane Bukowski
DETROIT
The Michigan Citizen
http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=73&twindow=Defaul
t&mad=No&sdetail=1308&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restat
us=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=
12) Israeli Army Raid Into Gaza Kills 5 Palestinians
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters)
Fri Dec 17, 2004 08:29 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7125113&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
13) Hungry and homeless ranks swell in US cities
By Rick Kelly
World Socialist Web Site
www.wsws.org
17 December 2004
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/dec2004/hung-d17.shtml
14) Joma Sison issued this statement in the wake of the deaths
of over 1000 people due to typhoon-related mudslides and
the government's request for 600 U.S. Marines to engage
in "relief operations" near areas controlled by the NPA
and National Democratic Front of the Philippines. --dp
PS. CARHRIHL is an important human rights declaration signed
by the Philippine government and the NDFP.
Press Statement
16 December 2004
CARHRIHL DOES NOT ALLOW US COMBAT TROOPS TO INTRUDE
INTO PHILIPPINE--GRP OR NDFP--TERRITORY
UNDER PRETEXT OF RELIEF OPERATIONS
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
15) On Sunday December, 12, 2004, an Israeli sniper in Khan
Younis refugee camp killed Rana Syiam, 7 years old, while
she was sitting at home, eating supper with her family.
The Israeli army gave no explanation for the attack.
16) COMMUNITY SPEAK OUT FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
Sat, Dec. 18th, 1:00 pm
24th & Mission St. (24th St. BART), San Francisco
Call to Action for Immigrant Rights:
17) NEWS & COMMENTARY: Soldier has himself shot to avoid
returning to Iraq
18) Days of Protest Jan. 20 Inauguration Day and
Jan.22, 32nd Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade:
19) Guard Reports Serious Drop in Enlistment
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
December 17, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/politics/17reserves.html?oref=login
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1) Holiday Benefit Sale
at the Middle East Children's Alliance
Saturday, December 18th, 10 AM to 6 PM at
901 Parker Street, Berkeley (corner of 7th and Parker)
The subject of this email is Project Censored's #1 story for 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1118425,00.html
In reality, every very "tax reform" since President Kennedy, federal,
state, and local governments have been transfering taxes from the
rich and to the poor, the working class, and small businesses. This
process has been bipartisan and even occurred during the last
Presidential Election. The overwhelming majority of us are being
robbed by the government and deprived of essential services at
the same time.
FYI: The following is from the "PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION"
to the Media Monopoly: With a New Preface on the Internet and
Telecommunications Cartels, by Ben H. Bagdikian. (2000) Beacon
Press, 25 Beacon St., Boston Mass 02108-2892:
"AS THE UNITED STATES ENTERS the twenty-first century, power
over the American mass media is flowing to the top with such
devouring speed that it exceeds even the accelerated consolidations
of the last twenty years. For the first time in U.S. history, the country's
most widespread news, commentary, and daily entertainment
are controlled by six firms that are among the world's largest
corporations, two of them foreign.
"Even with the dramatic entry of the Internet and the cyber world
with their uncounted hundreds of new firms, the controlling handful
of American and foreign corporations now exceed in their size and
communications power anything the world has seen before. Their
intricate global interlocks create the force of an international cartel.
"There are pernicious consequences. While excessive bigness itself
is cause for economic anxieties, the worst problems are political
and social. The country's largest media giants have achieved alarming
success in writing the media laws and regulations in favor of their
own corporations and against the interests of the general public.
Their concentrated power permits them to become a larger factor
than ever before in socializing each generation with entertainment
models of behavior and personal values.
"The impact on the national political agenda has been devastating,
For years, the mainstream news has over dramatized its reporting
of congressional and White House debate on the national debt and
deficit beyond their intrinsic importance. Politicians raised the issue,
but it was seized upon and overblown by the major media--
media that politicians use as a bellwether on what issues will
get them the most public attention and partisan advantage.
During these crucial years, the American economy was undergoing
an astonishing phenomenon that the mainstream news left largely
unreported or actually glamorized in its infrequent references: the
largest transfer of the national wealth in American history from
a majority of the population to a small percentage of the country's
wealthiest families."
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/1.html
Wealth Inequality in 21st Century Threatens Economy and
Democracy
MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, May 2003, Vol. 24, No. 5
Title: "The Wealth Divide" (An interview with Edward Wolff)
Author: Robert Weissman
BUZZFLASH, March 26 and 29, 2004
Title: "A Buzzflash Interview, Parts I & II" (with David Cay Johnston)
Author: Buzzflash Staff
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/1.html
LONDON GUARDIAN, October 4, 2003
Title: "Every third person will be a slum dweller within 30 years, UN agency
warns"
Author: John Vidal
MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, July/August, 2003
Title: "Grotesque Inequality"
Author: Robert Weissman
Faculty Evaluators: Greg Storino, Phil Beard Ph.D.
Student Researchers: Caitlyn Pardue, David Sonnenberg, Sita Khalsa
THE DOMESTIC TREND
In the late 1700s, issues of fairness and
equality were topics of great debate-
equality under the law, equality of opportunity,
etc. Considered by the framers of the
Constitution to be one of the most
important aspects of a democratic
system, the word "equality" is featured
prominently throughout the document.
In the 200+ years since, most
industrialized nations have succeeded
in decreasing the gap between rich and poor.
However, since the late 1970s wealth
inequality, while stabilizing or increasing
slightly in other industrialized nations,
has increased sharply and dramatically
in the United States. While it is no secret
that such a trend is taking place, it is rare
to see a TV news program announce that
the top 1% of the U.S. population now owns
about a third of the wealth in the country.
Discussion of this trend takes place, for
the most part, behind closed doors.
During the short boom of the late 1990s,
conservative analysts asserted that, yes,
the gap between rich and poor was growing,
but that incomes for the poor were still
increasing over previous levels. Today most
economists, regardless of their political
persuasion, agree that the data over the
last 25 to 30 years is unequivocal. The
top 5% is capturing an increasingly greater
portion of the pie while the bottom 95% is
clearly losing ground, and the highly touted
American middle class is fast disappearing.
According to economic journalist, David
Cay Johnston, author of "Perfectly Legal,"
this trend is not the result of some naturally
occurring, social Darwinist "survival of the
fittest." It is the product of legislative policies
carefully crafted and lobbied for by
corporations and the super-rich over
the past 25 years.
New tax shelters in the 1980s shifted
the tax burden off capital and onto labor.
As tax shelters rose, the amount of federal
revenue coming from corporations fell
(from 35% during the Eisenhower years
to 10% in 2002). During the deregulation
wave of the '80s and the '90s, members
of Congress passed legislation (often
without reading it) that deregulated
much of the financial industry. These
laws took away, for example, the powerful
incentives for accountants to behave with
integrity or for companies to put away
a reasonable amount in pension plans
for their employees-resulting in the well
-publicized (too late) scandals involving
Enron, Global Crossing, and others.
THE GLOBAL IMPACT
As always, America's economic trends
have a global footprint-and this time,
it is a crater. Today the top 400 income
earners in the U.S. make as much in
a year as the entire population of the
20 poorest countries in Africa (over
300 million people). But in America,
national leaders and mainstream media
tell us that the only way out of our own
economic hole is through increasing
and endless growth-fueled by the
resources of other countries.
A series of reports released in 2003 by
the UN and other global economy
analysis groups warn that further increases
in the imbalance in wealth throughout the
world will have catastrophic effects if left
unchecked. UN-habitat reports that unless
governments work to control the current
unprecedented spread in urban growth,
a third of the world's population will be
slum dwellers within 30 years. Currently,
almost one-sixth of the world's population
lives in slum-like conditions. The UN warns
that unplanned, unsanitary settlements
threaten both political and fiscal stability
within third world countries, where urban
slums are growing faster than expected. The
balance of poverty is shifting quickly from
rural to urban areas as the world's population
moves from the countryside to the city.
As rich countries, strip poorer countries of
their natural resources in an attempt to re-
stabilize their own, the people of poor countries
become increasingly desperate. This deteriorating
situation, besides pressuring rich countries
to allow increased immigration, further
exacerbates already stretched political
tensions and threatens global political
and economic security.
UN economists blame "free-trade" practices
and the neo-liberal policies of international
lending institutions like the IMF and WTO,
and the industrialized countries that lead
them, for much of the damage caused to
Third World countries over the past 20 years.
Many of these policies are now being
implemented in the U.S., allowing for an
acceleration of wealth consolidation. And
even the IMF has issued a report warning
the U.S. about the consequences for its
appetite for excess and overspending.
In developing countries, the concentration
of key industries profitable to foreign investors
requires that people move to cities while forced
privatization of public services strip them of the
ability to become stable or move up financially
once they arrive. Meanwhile, the strict repayment
schedules mandated by the global institutions
make it virtually impossible for poor countries
to move out from under their burden of debt.
"In a form of colonialisation that is probably
more stringent than the original, many developing
countries have become suppliers of raw commodities
to the world, and fall further and further behind,"
says one UN analyst. World economists conclude
that if enough of the world's nations reach
a point of economic failure, such a situation
could collapse the entire global economy.
For further information on this story, please
check out the following excellent websites:
www.inequality.org
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/income.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1118425,00.html
David Cay Johnston interview also found on
Democracy Now!, May 18, 2004.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) HUMOR: Iraqi leader to be announced at Jan. 16 Golden Globe Awards
[The Borowitz Report scooped other
media sources Wednesday with its
announcement that the new president
of Iraq will be chosen by the Hollywood
Foreign Press Association and announced
Jan. 16 at the 62nd annual awards
ceremony. -- Secretary of State Donald
Rumsfeld said he foresaw criticism,
but commented: "You choose a new Iraqi
president with the awards ceremony you
have, not the awards ceremony you might
want." -- Thanks to Karen Havnaer
for sending this piece. --Mark]
http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/1913/
The Borowitz Report
HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION TO
CHOOSE NEW IRAQI PRESIDENT
** Awards Ceremony to Replace January Elections **
Borowitz Report
December 15, 2004
http://www.borowitzreport.com/default.asp
With prospects for IraqÂ’s January 30
elections appearing increasingly dim, the
White House announced today that the
new president of Iraq would be chosen by
the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,
best known for organizing the
star-studded Golden Globe Awards.
Under an unorthodox arrangement, the
new Iraqi leader will be announced two
weeks earlier than scheduled, on January
16, at the 62nd Annual Golden Globe
Awards in Hollywood.
“By allowing the Hollywood Foreign
Press Association to choose IraqÂ’s new
leader, we will accomplish the most
important thing: sticking to our
arbitrary January deadline,” said
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Mr. Rumsfeld added that handing over
authority to the Hollywood Foreign Press
Association was the most practical way
to choose a new Iraqi president in a
timely fashion, since the security
situation in Hollywood is “considerably
better” than that in Iraq.
And while the credibility of the Golden
Globes has come into question in
recent years, Mr. Rumsfeld argued, “
You choose a new Iraqi president with the
awards ceremony you have, not the
awards ceremony you might want.
The Golden Globes decision could
spell trouble for interim Iraqi president
Ghazi al-Yawar, who now faces a
crowded field of Hollywood favorites including
Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Buddy Schlantz, a veteran Hollywood
talent agent, said that Mr. al-Yawar must
begin aggressively courting the members
of the Hollywood Foreign Press
Association if he expects to prevail: “
If I were al-Yawar, IÂ’d start ordering
the fruit baskets now.
Elsewhere, Bernard KerikÂ’s nanny resigned
today, saying that she wanted to
spend less time with his family.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Cuba, Venezuela Defy U.S. and Announce
Their Own Plan To Create A FairTrade
Alternative to FTAA!
----- Original Message -----
From: < nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com >
" Castro, Chavez Defy US Trade Pact "
Agencia Cubana de Noticias (AIN)
http://www.ain.cubaweb.cu
Cuba and Venezuela will Support
Alternative Initiative to the FTAA
Havana, Dec 14 (AIN) Presidents Fidel Castro Ruz,
of Cuba, and Hugo Chavez FrÃas, of Venezuela,
signed a joint declaration and an accord on Tuesday
in Havana to implement the Bolivarian Alternative
of the Americas.
The joint declaration strongly rejects the content
and intentions of the Free Trade Zone of the
Americas (FTAA), considered the clearest
_expression of the imperialist desires to dominate
the Latin American region.
With the recent accord both governments expand
and modify their Comprehensive Bilateral
Cooperation Agreement, signed on October 30,
2000.
They also take concrete steps towards integration
of the Bolivarian Initiative for The Americas,
known as ALBA by its Spanish acronyms and
which is an alternative project to the FTAA.
The document stipulates that both nations will
draw up a strategic plan that guarantees the most
beneficial productive complementation on the
basis of rationality, the optimum use of advantages
existing in both countries, the saving of resources,
and others. Both nations will also exchange
locally-developed integral technology packages
for mutual benefit.
Presidents Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez also
agreed to subscribing a Reciprocal Credit
Accord, the development of a two-way balanced
trade and joint cultural initiatives. According to
the document, Venezuela and Cuba are
committed to undertake a series of actions
including the immediate lifting of any kind of
non-tariff barrier on all imports in both ways.
In the context of Tuesday's agreement, Havana
offers 2,000 scholarships annually to
Venezuelan youths to take higher education
courses in the fields of interest of Caracas,
which will transfer technology in the energy
sector.
AFP via al Jazeera - Dec 15, 2004
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/70FAE354-7832-4AC8-A714-604F65F6C78E.
htm
Castro, Chavez Defy US Trade
Pact
Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez have announced an
alternative trade bloc to the one proposed by
the US for a free-trade area of the Americas.
The alternative was conceived as "a battle
fought with the same rules and regulations as
those imposed by the [US] empire to divide
the people," Castro said on Tuesday.
Naming the new pact the Bolivarian Alternative
for the Americas (ALBA), the presidents said it
would eliminate trade barriers and tax obstacles,
provide incentives for investment, increase
banking relations and tourism cooperation.
Venezuela promised financing for Cuban
industrial and infrastructure projects, while
Cuba agreed to pay a minimum price of $27
per barrel of Venezuelan oil, as part of the
accord "to apply the Bolivarian Alternative
for the Americas".
FTAA dead
Before the signing of the agreement, Castro
and Chavez addressed a rally in Havana
where both presidents declared the
US-proposed Latin American Free Trade
Zone dead.
"It is an alternative to the perverse FTAA,
which they have been trying to impose on
us for years," Chavez said. "FTAA is dead."
Chavez also accused Washington of pursuing
imperialist intentions in free trade talks with
Andean countries.
Venezuela is one of the biggest suppliers
of crude oil to the US, but their relations
have been strained by disputes between
Chavez and the White House.
Washington has expressed concern over
Chavez's close ties to Castro since Chavez
won the presidency in 1998. And US
President George Bush says the FTAA is
the solution to the region's deepening
poverty.
Chavez visit
Chavez is on a two-day visit to
commemorate his first encounter in Havana
with Castro 10 years ago when he was an
army officer recently released from prison
for leading a failed coup.
At the time, Castro proclaimed him
Venezuela's future leader.
Venezuela currently provides Cuba with
53,000 barrels of oil a day at preferential
prices, while Cuba has 13,000 doctors in
Venezuela, is helping the country stamp
out illiteracy and has treated thousands
of Venezuelans in its hospitals. -AFP
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Carlos Rovira - "Carlito"
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) New Gallup Poll Raises Questions About Media Focus on 'Values'
By E&P Staff
NEW YORK
Published: December 14, 2004 10:00 AM ET
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content
_id=1000736658
NEW YORK In the aftermath of the Nov. 2 election, the press and
various political partisans jumped on exit polls that seemed to
suggest "moral values" was the top issue in voters' minds as they
re-elected President George W. Bush. Some analysts have questioned
that notion, but a new nationwide Gallup Poll, released Tuesday
morning, could deal a death blow to the whole idea.
Asked what they consider "the most important problem facing this
country today" the issue of values was tied for fourth place with
unemployment/jobs, with only one in ten of the Gallup sample
choosing it. Far ahead, with 23%, was the war in Iraq, followed by
terrorism and the economy in general, both at 12%, only then
followed by unemployment and values.
The modest vote for values is all the more surprising because it
was broadly define to include a wide range of concerns including
"ethics," "moral," "religious/family decline," "dishonesty," and
"lack of integrity."
This 10% total could also be compared to the 29% who named
some aspect of the economy as the top issue, along with the
35% who mentioned Iraq or terrorism.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) War Funding Request May Hit $100 Billion
By Bryan Bender
WASHINGTON
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Boston Globe
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1215-03.htm
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration plans to ask for between
$80 billion and $100 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan next year, rather than the $70 billion to $75 billion
the White House privately told members of Congress before the
election, according to Pentagon and White House officials.
Administration officials said yesterday they have not concluded
how much money they will request in a "supplemental" spending
package that is scheduled to go to Congress in January.
"There's work going on inside the department to understand
what's needed, and there's work going on with the Office of
Management and Budget," the Defense Department's chief
spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, told reporters yesterday.
But some analysts and government officials said the request is
expected to run as high as $100 billion, bringing the total cost
of operations in Iraq alone to well over $200 billion since the
March 2003 invasion.
Earlier this fall, members of Congress said the Defense Department
told them in private briefings the supplemental package would be
between $70 billion and $75 billion. The budget request will be
higher, sources said, because of the greater number of soldiers --
temporarily boosted to 150,000 -- needed to provide security
around the time of the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections, and the loss of
equipment due to the vigorous insurgency there.
In June, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated
that the 2005 supplemental to be submitted this January for
Iraq and Afghanistan would be between $55 billion and $60 billion.
The January supplemental will be the third special budget request
to cover the military costs of Iraq. The administration asked for
$55.8 billion in April 2003 and $71.8 billion in November 2003.
In May of this year, Congress added $25 billion in war costs to
the fiscal 2005 defense budget. In total, $152.6 billion in military
funding for Iraq has been provided through the end of this year.
Those statistics do not include emergency money to support the
20,000 US troops in Afghanistan, which brings the total bill to
$162.3 billion.
In addition, the military has been spending more than was
approved for 2004, in anticipation of a fresh infusion of funds
in early 2005.
"They ran out of the 2004 budget a month early [and] had to
borrow [from] 2005," said John Pike, a defense specialist at the
military think tank GlobalSecurity.org, a military think tank in
Alexandria, Va. "They're already starting to suggest that the
2005 budget is going to be $100 billion for one year alone."
The Iraq operation, he said, has "been running over a billion
a week thus far. I think we're probably getting up to $2 billion
a week fairly soon."
Few analysts expect the Iraq mission to be wrapped up in
a year, and many question why the Bush administration is
continuing to budget its war costs through supplementals
-- usually reserved for one-time, emergency expenses --
rather than include them in the annual budget request that
is sent to Capitol Hill every February.
Democrats and some fiscally conservative Republicans
believe the administration is trying to hide the effects of
rising war costs on the federal deficit, thereby justifying
President Bush's calls for making some tax cuts permanent
and spending more on education and other domestic priorities.
Although war costs ultimately get added to the deficit, keeping
them off the annual budget creates a false picture of the
government's commitments at a time when Congress is making
funding decisions, critics said.
Brian Reidl, an economist with the conservative-leaning Heritage
Foundation, said the Iraq funding should be put in the defense
budget, because the Pentagon knows it will need money to pay
for the operation. Leaving it out masks the true size of the
deficit, he said.
"There's an argument to be made that [early in the year] you
don't know what you'll need" for Iraq funding, Reidl said. But
"there's no reason why you can't put in a place-holder to at
least estimate the cost."
The administration separates the Iraq funding because "it's
easier to sell the budget resolution with a smaller deficit and
a smaller spending total because Iraq is excluded," Reidl said.
Steve Kosiak, a defense budget specialist at the Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, added
that "the idea is [supplementals] are supposed to be used
when there is a surprise. This is no longer a surprise that we
are in Iraq."
The actual cost of the military operations in Iraq is higher
than any of the supplementals suggest, analysts said, because
the wartime wear and tear on people and equipment will
require expenditures long after the war ends.
A soon-to-be-completed classified study by the Government
Accountability Office requested by Democrats on the Senate
Budget Committee concludes that the cost of "resetting" the
worn-out armed forces for peacetime will require billions
more than the money needed simply to maintain combat
operations, according to congressional officials.
"They will need new training and the sense is that the longer
this thing goes on the deeper the problems get," said
a congressional staff member who has been briefed on
the GAO study.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon yesterday alerted more units to
be ready for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tens of thousands of Army soldiers from Alaska, Florida,
Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, New York, and Texas -- including
a brigade of the Army's 10th Mountain Division based at Fort
Drum in New York -- will prepare to deploy overseas by the
middle of 2005. The planned rotations, and others to be
announced in the coming weeks, would maintain a force
of 138,000 US troops in Iraq well into 2006.
However, Di Rita called the notifications "prudent planning"
and cautioned that it does not necessarily mean the United
States will need all those forces.
"It would be wrong to say that, as far as the eye can see, this
is the number," Di Rita said. "It may very well be less than this.
It may be the same amount. It may be more."
Copyright (c) 2004 the Boston Globe
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Details of Marines Mistreating
Prisoners in Iraq Are Revealed
By Richard A. Serrano
WASHINGTON
Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 by the Los
Angeles Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1215-01.htm
WASHINGTON - Marines in Iraq conducted mock executions of
juvenile prisoners last year, burned and tortured other detainees
with electrical shocks, and warned a Navy corpsman they would
kill him if he treated any injured Iraqis, according to military
documents made public Tuesday.
The latest revelations of prisoner abuse cases, obtained by the
American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit against the government,
involved previously unknown incidents in which 11 Marines were
punished for abusing detainees. Military officials indicated that
they had investigated 13 other cases, but deemed them
unsubstantiated. Four investigations are pending.
Military superiors handed down sentences of up to a year in
confinement after finding Marines guilty of offenses ranging
from assault to "cruelty and mistreatment," the documents show.
The new documents are the latest in a series of reports, e-mails
and other records that the ACLU has obtained to bolster its
contention that the abuse of prisoners goes far beyond the
handful of soldiers charged with abusing detainees at the Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The photographs of naked Iraqi prisoners being tortured by
American troops at the prison shocked the world in April. The
scandal involved abuse by reservists and members of the Army
and National Guard; the latest cases elaborated for the first time
on numerous allegations of abuse by Marines.
The mistreatment occurred as early as May 2003, months before
the first allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib were recorded. And
the most recent case involving prisoner abuse by the Marines
occurred in June, two months after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU in New York,
placed responsibility for the abuse on the Pentagon. "This kind of
widespread abuse could not have taken place without a leadership
failure of the highest order," he said.
Lawrence Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said he could
not comment on the latest cases because he was unfamiliar with them.
The documents described Navy criminal investigators scrambling
to keep pace in June with an "exploding" number of abuse cases.
"Heads up," an assistant special agent in charge of the Navy's
investigative field office in the Middle East wrote to his superiors
in a 6 a.m. e-mail June 14, pleading for more investigators. "Case
load is exploding, high visibility cases are on the rise," he warned.
"We have scrubbed all of our personnel and have no other trained
personnel available to deploy."
Cases involving prisoner abuse continue to tarnish the U.S. military's
involvement in Iraq. Since the Abu Ghraib scandal, revelations have
surfaced of other detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the
prison for terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.
Authorities have charged eight prison guards for beating and
sexually humiliating prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near
Baghdad last fall. At least two prisoners at Abu Ghraib died in
custody.
In all, about three dozen prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan are
believed to have died in U.S. custody.
The cases are in various stages of investigation or prosecution.
The Pentagon confirmed this week that four soldiers were accused
of killing a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002, but charges against
three of them were dropped.
In the case that drew the stiffest punishment, a one-year prison
sentence for the Marine, a detainee at Mahmoudiya was shocked
with an electric transformer. Wires were held against his shoulders,
and "the detainee danced as he was shocked," the documents state.
The new records - which blacked out the names of soldiers - also
show that a Marine was convicted of ordering four juvenile Iraqi
looters to kneel down beside two shallow holes in Diwaniya. Then,
"a pistol was discharged to conduct a mock execution." The
Marine was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment with hard labor.
Other Marines were punished for physically abusing prisoners.
In Karbala, a Marine held a 9-millimeter pistol to the back of
a detainee's head while another Marine snapped a picture. A glass
of water then was poured on the prisoner's head, and he was
photographed with an American flag draped over his body.
Navy investigators found other allegations unsubstantiated,
including sexual abuse cases alleging that a detainee's testicles
had been squeezed and another prisoner had been sodomized
with a rifle muzzle.
Navy investigators also interviewed a group of corpsmen from
Washington state who were dispatched to Iraq last year. Two of
them spoke about being intimidated by Marines there.
One corpsman said he was cautioned not to talk to others about
prisoner abuse. "There was a lot of peer pressure to keep one's
mouth shut," he said.
Another corpsman said, "We were told not to exhaust our resources
on the Iraqis. Several Marines told me that if I provided medical
services to any Iraqi military or civilian personnel, that they
[the Marines] would kill me."
However, the corpsman later said that "there was a wounded
Iraqi POW who needed his dressings changed" and that some
Marines "actually called my attention to him to make sure he
received treatment."
He also recalled seeing Marines force detainees' heads into
the dirt, "which was a cultural insult to them," and said that
he saw a Marine striking a prisoner with an empty, 5-gallon
plastic water jug.
The records discuss the deaths of several detainees, but they
do not identify them or say how the cases were resolved.
One prisoner, who had attempted 20 escapes, reportedly died
after breaking free of his restraints and jumping from a window,
"landing on his head," the documents state. The examining Marine
officer "surmised that the detainee died from internal cranial
bleeding from the fall that was slow to kill him."
Another prisoner was "ziplocked" - a military term for being
handcuffed - and then died in custody. "Preliminary information
is that the detainee died from an apparent heart attack," the
reports state.
In other cases, there was spirited debate, in reports and e-mails,
about the corpses of prisoners. One dead Iraqi could not be found,
and an e-mail ordered, "Try to find that body; we'll exhume
if possible."
In another e-mail exchange, military officials discussed whether
autopsies should be conducted in Iraq, at military bases in
Germany or in the United States.
"Personally," responded one military officer, "I suspect that remains
should probably NOT be brought to the U.S. for legal reasons."
He did not elaborate.
Two Marines were disciplined for claiming to have done things
they didn't do. One was convicted of lying to a Las Vegas
newspaper that he "personally executed two Iraqis." He forfeited
a month's pay.
The other Marine told a military surgeon that he broke his hand
"punching an EPW [enemy prisoner of war] in the face" and told an
officer that he broke it "punching an EPW in the back of the head."
Back in the U.S., "he recanted, stating he punched the ground,"
the reports said. He lost two months' pay.
Times staff writer Mark Mazzetti contributed to this report.
(c) Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Eskimos Seek to Recast Global Warming
as a Rights Issue
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
December 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/international/americas/15climate.html?oref
=login&oref=login
The Eskimos, or Inuit, about 155,000 seal-hunting peoples scattered
around the Arctic, plan to seek a ruling from the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights that the United States, by contributing
substantially to global warming, is threatening their existence.
The Inuit plan is part of a broader shift in the debate over human-
caused climate change evident among participants in the 10th round
of international talks taking place in Buenos Aires aimed at averting
dangerous human interference with the climate system.
Inuit leaders said they planned to announce the effort at the
climate meeting today.
Representatives of poor countries and communities - from the
Arctic fringes to the atolls of the tropics to the flanks of the Himalayas
- say they are imperiled by rising temperatures and seas through
no fault of their own. They are casting the issue as no longer simply
an environmental problem but as an assault on their basic human
rights.
The commission, an investigative arm of the Organization of
American States, has no enforcement powers. But a declaration
that the United States has violated the Inuit's rights could create
the foundation for an eventual lawsuit, either against the United
States in an international court or against American companies in
federal court, said a number of legal experts, including some
aligned with industry.
Such a petition could have decent prospects now that industrial
countries, including the United States, have concluded in recent
reports and studies that warming linked to heat-trapping
smokestack and tailpipe emissions is contributing to big
environmental changes in the Arctic, a number of experts said.
Last month, an assessment of Arctic climate change by 300
scientists for the eight countries with Arctic territory, including
the United States, concluded that "human influences" are now the
dominant factor.
Inuit representatives attending the conference said in telephone
interviews that after studying the matter for several years with
the help of environmental lawyers they would this spring begin
the lengthy process of filing a petition by collecting videotaped
statements from elders and hunters about the effects they were
experiencing from the shrinking northern icescape.
The lawyers, at EarthJustice, a nonprofit San Francisco law firm,
and the Center for International Environmental Law, in Washington,
said the Inter-American Commission, which has a record of treating
environmental degradation as a human rights matter, provides the
best chance of success. The Inuit have standing in the Organization
of American States through Canada.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the elected chairwoman of the Inuit
Circumpolar Conference, the quasi-governmental group recognized
by the United Nations as representing the Inuit, said the biggest
fear was not that warming would kill individuals but that it would
be the final blow to a sturdy but suffering culture.
"We've had to struggle as a people to keep afloat, to keep our
indigenous wisdom and traditions," she said. "We're an adaptable
people, but adaptability has its limits.
"Something is bound to give, and it's starting to give in the Arctic,
and we're giving that early warning signal to the rest of the world."
If the Inuit effort succeeds, it could lead to an eventual stream of
litigation, somewhat akin to lawsuits against tobacco companies,
legal experts said.
The two-week convention, which ends Friday, is the latest session
on two climate treaties: the 1992 framework convention on climate
change and the Kyoto Protocol, an addendum that takes effect in
February and for the first time requires most industrialized countries
to curb such emissions.
The United States has signed both pacts and is bound by the
1992 treaty, which requires no emissions cuts. But the Bush
administration opposes the mandatory Kyoto treaty, saying it
could harm the economy and unfairly excuses big developing
countries from obligations.
That situation makes the United States particularly vulnerable
to such suits, environmental lawyers said.
By embracing the first treaty and signing the second, it has
acknowledged that climate change is a problem to be avoided; but
by subsequently rejecting the Kyoto pact, the lawyers said, it has
not shown a commitment to stemming its emissions, which constitute
a fourth of the global total.
The American delegation at the Buenos Aires conference declined to
comment on Tuesday on the petition or the arguments behind it.
"Until the Inuit have presented a complaint, we are not responding
to that issue," a State Department official said. "When they do, we
will look at what they have to say, consider it and then respond."
Christopher C. Horner, a lawyer for the Cooler Heads Coalition,
an industry-financed group opposed to cutting the emissions,
said the chances of success of such lawsuits had risen lately.
From his standpoint, he said, "The planets are aligned very poorly."
Delegates who flew to the conference from the Arctic's far-flung
communities, where retreating sea ice imperils traditional seal
hunts, said they planned to meet in Buenos Aires with representatives
from small-island nations that could eventually be swamped by rising
seas, swelled by meltwater from shrinking glaciers and Arctic ice sheets.
Enele S. Sopoaga, the ambassador to the United Nations from Tuvalu,
a 15-foot-high nation of wave-pounded atolls halfway between
Australia and Hawaii, said he still saw legal efforts as a last resort.
Tuvalu had threatened to sue the United States two years ago in the
International Court of Justice, but held off for a variety of reasons.
Larry Rohter contributed reporting from Buenos Aires for this article.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) The Thought Police - Cops Investigate Anti-American Statements
of 11-Year-Old
The Washington Post reports two police officers recently
visited the home of an 11-year-old and questioned his parents
for three hours about anti-American comments their son made in
school The student had refused to participate in a Veterans Day
exercise and criticized the Marines. The school claimed he had
said, "I wish all Americans were dead and that American soldiers
should die." The Police questioned his parents about their views
on Sept. 11, the military and if they knew any foreigners who
criticized US policy. They also inquired whether the parents might
be teaching "anti-American values" at home. The mother, Pamela
Allbaugh, told the Washington Post "It was intimidating.
I told them it's like a George Orwell novel, that it felt like
they were the thought police." She went on to say "If someone
would have asked me five years ago if this was something my
government would do, I would have said never."
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/16/1444215
Va. Boy's Defiant Words Draw Police Response
Investigators Visit Home After Student Allegedly Wishes
Harm on Americans
By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 15, 2004; Page B01
Original Washington Post story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64726-2004Dec14.html?sub=AR
When the two plainclothes Loudoun County sheriff's investigators
showed up on her Leesburg doorstep, Pamela Albaugh got nervous.
But when they told her why they were there, she got angry:
A complaint had been filed alleging that her 11-year old son
had made "anti-American and violent" statements in school.
She was aware of an incident at Belmont Ridge Middle School in
which her son, Yishai Asido, was assigned to write a letter to U.S.
Marines and responded, according to his teacher, by saying, "I wish
all Americans were dead and that American soldiers should die."
Yishai and Albaugh deny that the boy wished his countrymen dead.
Albaugh, a U.S. citizen, and her husband, an Israeli citizen who
manages a Leesburg moving company, say the investigators' visit
and the school's response were a paranoid overreaction in
a charged post-9/11 environment. But law enforcement officials
say the terrorist attacks and the Columbine school shootings
require them to consider whether children who make threats
might post a danger to their classmates. The case illustrates the
balancing act that schools and law enforcement must find between
the free speech of minors and community safety.
Albaugh described her son as a rambunctious student who has long
opposed armies of any kind. He refused the Veterans Day assignment
and told his teacher that the Marines "might as well die, as much
as I care." Whatever was said, the words had been the source of anguished
conferences, phone calls and, ultimately, a day of in-school suspension.
Albaugh thought the whole thing was resolved in school until
Investigators Robert LeBlanc and Kelly Poland showed up last
week. What followed, she said, was two hours of polite but intense
and personal questioning.
They asked how she felt about 9/11 and the military. They asked
whether she knows any foreigners who have trouble with American
policy. They mentioned a German friend who had been staying with
the family and asked whether the friend sympathized with the Taliban.
They also inquired whether she might be teaching her children "anti-
American values," she said.
Toward the end of the conversation, Albaugh's husband, Alon Asido,
arrived home. Asido said the pair then spent another hour talking
to him, mostly about his life in Israel and his more than four years
in an elite combat unit there.
Before the investigators left, one deputy said their "concerns had
been put to rest," Albaugh said.
"It was intimidating," she said. "I told them it's like a George Orwell
novel, that it felt like they were the thought police. If someone
would have asked me five years ago if this was something my
government would do, I would have said never."
Loudoun County Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson confirmed that
investigators visited the house. "Whenever there is a complaint
that a child in a school is using language that is threatening or with
violent overtones, we have an obligation to look into it," he said.
"We can't ignore something like that and have something tragic
happen down the road that we could have prevented."
Simpson declined to comment on details of the complaint or the
kinds of questions investigators asked. "If you're looking at what
[the school] said he said, I have to think you'd see where we came
up with those questions," he said.
A schools spokesman declined to comment, other than to release,
at Albaugh's request, a one-page letter from Yishai's file that
explained his suspension.
His parents said the boy's words were those of a confused adolescent,
whose views of the world are still being formed. They believe that
authorities were called partly because he has a foreign-sounding
name and accented English from years of living abroad. The family
lived in India, Europe and Israel before moving to the United States
in 2000. The couple have four children, with both U.S. and Israeli
citizenship, enrolled in Loudoun schools.
Albaugh said that Yishai is not violent and that the school could
have used the classroom incident as a "teachable moment," helping
him learn to say what he was feeling in a less offensive manner.
Instead, Yishai said he has learned that it is not worth challenging
authority. "At the end of the day, you lose," he said, adding: "All
of these freedoms and things they're supposed to uphold, they
bash them."
The Columbine shootings, in which a teacher and 12 students
were killed by two other students in Colorado in 1999, has
changed the way schools view violent words uttered by their
students, said Ronald D. Stephens, executive director of the
National School Safety Center. In this case, he noted, no one
was arrested, no charges were filed and the case was closed.
"Sometimes the questions might be somewhat uncomfortable.
But the final outcome was that [the investigators] got there and
realized there was no 'there' there," he said. "We should give
credit where credit is due."
Georgetown law professor David Cole said Yishai's statement
in class is protected by the Constitution.
"There's no indication from the student making an anti-American
statement that violence to the school would follow," he said.
"The FBI and government officials should be investigating real
terrorists, not children who criticize the United States."
Charles Shaw
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
Newtopia Magazine
www.newtopiamagazine.net
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9) World War 3 Report, issue 93, December 2003
http://www.ww3report.com/93.html#palestine6
Remote-control Machine Guns to Be Mounted on the Wall
According to Haaretz reporter Amira Hass, a Sept. 21 [2003] article
on the Israeli paper Yediot Ahronoth's Web site, Ynet, states that
"the separation fence to be built in the Gilboa region will include
remote-control machine guns that will be operated by female
soldiers from their command posts and will shoot at those
suspected of being terrorists." According to Ynet's reporter, the
system is be installed in the coming months in the mountainous
Gilboa region, along the path of the "Separation Wall." The army's
purpose in installing the system is to compensate for the small
amount of troops and the difficulties of moving in the area--"and
to shoot at terrorists who try to cross the fence." In a concession
to humanitarian considerations, rather than making the guns fire
automatically at anything that moves they will be fired "by the
female soldier who manages the lookout post and has been
trained for this."
Hass adds: "The report did not say how she would be trained to
tell whether the figure who appears on her video screen is
a terrorist or an innocent man." (Ha'aretz, Sept. 24) There is
no explanation why the soldiers used will be female, but perhaps
the Israeli army considers it a combat role that would be safe
enough for a woman soldier. (Ha'aretz, Sept. 24) (David Bloom)
7. Remote-control Helicopter Stolen
Industrial espionage is believed to be the explanation for the
theft of a state-of-the-art remote-control pilotless helicoter
under developoment by an Israeli company. The unit was stolen
from Steadicopter's Kefar Maccabi plant, after it had finished
it's final test flights. The BBC notes that Israel has "long been
a world leader in developing pilotless reconnaissance aircraft
and its Pioneer drone is currently in service with US forces in
Iraq." (BBC, Nov. 12) (David Bloom)
8. Next: Remote-control Bulldozers
The fearsome armor-plated D-9 Israeli army bulldozer, used
to demolish Palestinian buildings and orchards as well as
international activists, is being modified to be operated by
remote control, a move the army insists will "save lives." An
unnamed Israeli officer was quoted by the Israel Technion I
nstitute of Technology, which designed the remote-control
version, as saying, "today the bulldozer drivers are exposed
to great danger when they knock down buildings that have
militants hiding in them." Palestinian spokesmen Saeb Erakat
denounced the move. "The whole idea is despicable," said Erekat.
"If an unmanned bulldozer is used, human life is in much
greater danger." As of the Oct. 31 press time of this BBC
report, the robot dozer was to go "into service in the next
few weeks. " (BBC, Oct. 31)
According to the Israeli Committee of Housing Demolitions
(ICAHD), 8,000 Palestinian houses have been destroyed by
the Israeli occupation forces since 1967. (ICHAD:figure as
of Spring, 2002)
The D-9 bulldozer is a product of the US-based Catepillar
Corporation. (See also:
http://www.sustaincampaign.org/cat_actionkit.html) (David Bloom)
- Modern "war" is state terrorism directed against civilians.
- The purpose of u.s. actions toward Iraq over the last
14 years (2 horrific illegal bombing invasions, and 12
years of illegal, immoral sanctions) is to destroy Iraq as
a nation, the fulfillment of the neo-con dream of "ending
nations" that defy usrael. Forget what bush, klinton and
others say, forget stated intentions, just look at what they
do, and what they have done.
- If my men could think, they would not fight.
- Napoleon
- The most outlandish conspiracy theory of them all (and
the most widely accepted): 19 hijackers from a third world
terrorist group armed with boxcutters forced 3 planes into
3 of the nation's most important and symbolic structures
with no assistance from US government / intelligence insiders.
-http://www.oilempire.us/conspiracy.html
- It's too late for religions to fight over market share.
Adopting a particular religion is not the way. It's no good
for us to "become" Jews, or Christians, or Buddhists. Rather,
we must be like Jesus, without necessarily being a Christian,
be like Buddha, without necessarily being a Buddhist. In order
to do this, we need to study these religions a little, not use
them for political ends..
- paraphrase of Robert Thurman (author of Anger) being
interviewed by Chris Welch
on Living Room, KPFA-FM Radio, 11-18-04
Daniel Stone
justice_freedom@earthlink.net
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) Mark your calendar: Saturday, December 18, 6:00-8:00
(18th & CASTRO)
As anyone with a pulse knows, BADlands owner Les Natali has
been veeeeery NAUGHTY this year. (THE CITY HUMAN RIGHTS
COMMISSION HAS RECEIVED A TON OF COMPLAINTS ABOUT
HIS BAD BEHAVIOR.)
SO, this Saturday at 6PM, 18th & And Castro for All are TAKING
ACTION FOR KINDNESS! After all, it's not very *nice* to violate
city and state civil rights laws, ignore human rights investigations, etc.
It is very nice, though, that on Saturday along with Grinch-spotting,
And Castro For All will launch its new anti-discrimination hotline .
We hope it's one gift that keeps on giving.
Wear your Santa Hat, your favorite red outfit or elf shoes, and bring
along your ho-ho-hos.
Meet at Harvey Milk Plaza at 6:00 PM -Call 415.850.8580 if you're
late and need to find us.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) Chuck D keynotes "State of the Black Youth" convention
By Diane Bukowski
DETROIT
The Michigan Citizen
http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=73&twindow=Defaul
t&mad=No&sdetail=1308&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restat
us=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=
DETROIT - Chuck D of the seminal rap group Public Enemy blasted
the U.S. entertainment industry for perverting hip-hop music and
culture during his keynote address Nov. 19 at the Third Annual
State of the Black Youth in the New Millennium convention.
Held at Wayne State University's General Lectures auditorium by
the National Black Operations Business Association, the convention
drew hundreds of high-school and college youth.
"Hip hop is not drug culture, gun culture, thug culture or dumb culture,"
Chuck D said. "It comes out of the legacy and musicianship of Black
people. It's an expression of our soul in vocalization. But the industry
has substituted the style of a people for the soul of a people."
The musician noted that the hip-hop phenomenon has established
roots worldwide, including a thriving community in Brazil that has
remained true to the original purpose of the genre. He said that
community refused to have Snoop Dog and Ja Rule perform there,
because they did not "represent the people."
Chuck D also condemned the Bush administration and the prison-
industrial complex in the United States.
"The only gangsters that get away with anything are the gangsters
in government," he said. "There are no Black gangsters."
Noting that the same corporations are purchasing prisons and
cemeteries, he said the only options being given Black youth are
to go to prison or to war.
"If they cared about rehabilitation in prison, they would make
computers available there. Let three brothers in prison have
laptops, and they'll be running their lives and the world," he said.
Rico Hoye, ranked the number one light heavyweight boxer in
the country, struck a similar chord, talking about the 10 years
he spent in Michigan prisons after being sentenced at 16 for
second-degree murder.
"I watched the cells in adult prison filling up with our youth,"
Hoye said, "and they were getting younger and younger, 13
and 14 years old, going in and never going home, or going
home and coming back again."
Hoye said he got the opportunity to rewrite his life from the
political education he received from the "positive brothers" he
met while incarcerated. He called on the community to address
conditions inside the prison, including the need to reinstitute
college-level education there, and to provide support, including
jobs for ex-prisoners coming home.
"It's hard to get a job," he said. "I'm on TV, but I'm still putting
in job applications and still getting turned down."
Karinda Washington, a candidate for the Detroit City Council,
called on young Black women to develop themselves, and to
allow themselves the opportunity to develop deep, mutually
respectful relationships rather than engaging in casual sex.
"If you're not whole within yourself, Black woman, he cannot
make you whole," she said. "Create opportunities for courtship.
There are some good, qualified Black men available here in
the city of Detroit."
NBOBA president Mohammed Luwemba echoed Washington's
plea for wholesome relationships.
"The state of the women is the state of the race," he said.
"If women are not respected and protected, then the men
cannot be respected and protected."
He announced a new NBOBA initiative, Operation Race
Restoration, aimed at creating positive, dedicated young
men and women who will devote themselves to confronting
and overthrowing the Bush regime.
"They get up every morning at the crack of dawn with one
thing on their mind, 100-percent world domination," Luwemba
said. "But we will get up every single morning with nothing but
overthrowing these people on our minds."
E-mail: dbukowski@michigancitizen.com
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) Israeli Army Raid Into Gaza Kills 5 Palestinians
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters)
Fri Dec 17, 2004 08:29 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7125113&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli tanks and troops raided southern Gaza on
Friday in response to increasing Palestinian mortar attacks, killing
at least five Palestinians and prompting hundreds to flee their homes,
witnesses and medics said.
At least five other Palestinians were trapped in an arms- smuggling
tunnel that collapsed as it was being dug under an army-controlled
security strip between the Gaza town of Rafah and nearby Egypt,
witnesses from Rafah said.
Palestinian ambulances and rescue crews given clearance by Israeli
forces rushed to the scene. Palestinian officials said earlier accounts
that two men had been extracted from the tunnel were incorrect,
citing poor communications in the area.
"We are still digging, we cannot yet determine their fate," a security
official said by telephone from Rafah.
Israeli troops have raided Rafah many times to battle militants waging
a four-year-old revolt, killing hundreds of Palestinians and leaving
thousands homeless from demolitions of homes suspected of hiding
tunnels.
At least five Palestinians were killed and 22 wounded in Friday's army
raid into Khan Younis, Gaza's second largest city and a hotbed of
militants who frequently pepper nearby Jewish settlements with
mortar and rocket fire.
Four of the dead were militants and the other a civilian, local medics
and witnesses said.
NEW CHANCE FOR PEACE?
The incursion unfolded hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
told a high-profile security conference that there was a unique chance
for Middle East peacemaking with new Palestinian leaders following
the death of Yasser Arafat.
Sharon said he was ready to coordinate a planned pullout from Gaza
with a moderate post-Arafat leader, likely to be Mahmoud Abbas.
He is favored to win a Jan. 9 presidential election and advocates
a halt to violence and fresh talks.
About 600 people, many carrying small children in freezing pre-dawn
darkness, fled homes in neighborhoods bearing the brunt of the raid
and were given shelter in a U.N.-run school.
They said a number of homes were demolished.
"What peace and what pullout? We only feel fear and cold. I do not
know even if my house was still standing or if it was demolished,"
Kamilia Attobji, 36, a mother of 10, told Reuters.
Israeli forces say buildings they raze in such raids are used as cover
for militants targeting settlements. Residents uprooted by demolitions
complain of collective punishment.
An Israeli army commander in the Khan Younis area told Reuters that
the raid would continue as long as was required.
"We will carry on and I can say we will do all we can to reduce the
threat to the local communities who should not have to live like this,
" Lieutenant Colonel Dotan, who declined to give his surname, said in
reference to mortar barrages.
The incursion was only the second serious army sweep into
Palestinian territory since a short period of calm following
Arafat's death on Nov. 11.
Rocket and mortar fire by militants has since restarted with some
30 attacks this month. A Thai farm labourer was killed and 17
settlers wounded in one attack.
(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis)
(c) Reuters 2004
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) Hungry and homeless ranks swell in US cities
By Rick Kelly
World Socialist Web Site
www.wsws.org
17 December 2004
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/dec2004/hung-d17.shtml
The demand for emergency shelter and food in US cities has risen
significantly over the past year, straining a tattered social safety net
beyond the breaking point, according to a report released Tuesday
by the US Conference of Mayors. The "Hunger and Homeless Survey"
covering America's 27 largest cities showed that requests for food
aid increased by 14 percent in 2004, while the demand for shelter
rose by 6 percent.
The most striking conclusion of the survey was that working families
now constitute one of the largest groups in need of regular emergency
assistance. Contrary to the image portrayed by the mass media, those
going homeless and hungry in America are not just the "down and
out," the alcohol or drug-dependent, mentally ill or people otherwise
unable to earn a living. They include many people who are working,
but earn so little that they cannot make ends meet.
Chronic poverty afflicts wide sections of the working class,
particularly those employed in the predominantly low-paid and
casual service industry. Of all adults requesting food assistance,
34 percent were employed. Children and their parents accounted
for fifty-six percent of all recipients of food aid. Families now make
up 40 percent of the total homeless population in the United States.
These stark figures are another indication of the economic and
social catastrophe confronting millions of Americans. While Bush
boasted of an economic recovery during the presidential campaign,
the reality is that only a small layer at the top has seen significant
income gains in 2004. For millions of Americans, mass layoffs and
the spiraling cost of living-particularly food, housing and fuel
expenses-have made it increasingly difficult to get by.
"Working poor, unemployed, multi-generational, single and traditional
parent families have to make difficult decisions as whether to pay for
utilities, rent, medicine, gas, health or car insurance," city authorities
in Louisville reported. "Food is being pushed further down the list
of priorities."
"The time when households used food assistance facilities primarily
for emergency situations is long over," noted officials in Philadelphia.
"At least 86 percent of the people receiving assistance from the food
cupboards return every month. The network is used to sustain families
every month so they can use their limited resources on rent, heat,
medical bills, and transportation."
The report included a number of case studies. In Phoenix, the
Robertsons, a married couple and their three children, became
homeless after the father lost his job at a telemarketing company.
He struggled to develop his own landscaping business, while his
wife worked day labor jobs. "The family has no money and is having
trouble accessing services because they do not have appropriate
documentation, and do not have the money to pay for new birth
certificates... Currently the Robertsons are on a waiting list of
a large family shelter, but will need appropriate identification to
enter the program."
In St. Paul, a 24-year-old woman, Tara, her husband Martin, and
their three young children became homeless after she lost her job
as a home healthcare worker, which paid $6.20 per hour. The family
was forced to move into a shelter run by the local Catholic church.
Assistance for the poor remains grossly inadequate. Charity
organizations are overwhelmed by the demand, and both the
federal and state governments have gutted the budgets for social
programs over a number of years.
The survey reported that in the past 12 months, one in five requests
for food assistance went unmet-nearly a 50-percent increase over
the previous year. Twenty-three percent of requests for emergency
shelter were turned down, and this rejection rate rose to 32 percent
for homeless families.
In many cities, the shortfalls are far higher than these averages. In
New Orleans, 66 percent of food requests were rejected, and in San
Francisco 50 percent. In Los Angeles, 66 percent of all shelter requests
made by families were turned down, and in Boston 50 percent.
The report provides a glimpse into some of the innumerable
hardships and indignities suffered by those who seek assistance.
More than half of the responding cities routinely forced homeless
families to be broken up in order to be accommodated in emergency
shelter.
Food pantries forced to cut portions
Two-thirds of all cities surveyed reported that emergency food
assistance facilities, in a desperate attempt to meet demand, were
forced to cut back on the quantity of food they provided. Restrictions
are also enforced on the number of times people are permitted to
receive food.
Punitive government welfare cutbacks and restrictions, introduced
by both the Clinton and Bush administrations, have only added to
the hardship. "According to the Boston Medical Center Pediatric
Emergency Department," the report noted, "25 percent of homeless
families interviewed in their clinic had been cut off of welfare benefits
within the past year (compared to 11 percent of non-homeless families)
due to failure to comply with behavioral or procedural requirements,
such as not being able to provide a mailing address to the welfare office."
The swelling of the ranks of the working poor has seen a parallel
increase in the demand for subsidized housing. Requests for such
housing by low-income families and individuals increased in 68
percent in the surveyed cities. Applicants for public housing now
wait an average of 20 months before they receive any assistance.
Fifty-nine percent of the surveyed cities are refusing to accept any
new applications because they already have long waiting lists.
City authorities reported that they expect no improvement in hunger
and homelessness in 2005. Eighty-eight percent said that they
anticipate another increase in the demand for food assistance, and
92 percent expect a rise in requests for emergency shelter.
The Conference of Mayors made a somewhat bizarre attempt to put
a positive spin on the survey's findings. Bill Purcell, mayor of Nashville
and chair of the conference's task force on hunger and homelessness,
admitted that the "bad news is that the increased demand [for
assistance] is all over the country." He then added: "The good news
here is that the increase in demand overall has slowed somewhat."
In other words, the "good news" is that things are getting worse but-
at least for the moment- at a slower rate. Every year the survey, first
conducted 20 years ago, has registered an increase in the demand
food and shelter assistance.
Over the last year, the demand for food aid increased 17 percent,
while requests for emergency shelter rose by 13 percent. In 2003,
the demand for both food and shelter increased by 19 percent. As
the survey demonstrates, the continued growth in the numbers of
working people who are unable to earn enough to house and feed
themselves has already overwhelmed the limited assistance programs
that exist in America.
To focus on a decline in the rate at which hunger and homelessness
is growing only confirms that the government and the corporate-
controlled two-party system are unwilling and unable to take any
action to alleviate the suffering.
What emerges from the survey is a devastating portrait of the human
cost of American society's unprecedented level of social inequality.
While the wealthiest strata are anticipating a lucrative new year (see
"America's super-rich look forward to a merry Christmas" ), millions
of people will spend the holiday season in desperation and destitution.
Copyright 1998-2004
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) Joma Sison issued this statement in the wake of the deaths
of over 1000 people due to typhoon-related mudslides and
the government's request for 600 U.S. Marines to engage
in "relief operations" near areas controlled by the NPA
and National Democratic Front of the Philippines. --dp
PS. CARHRIHL is an important human rights declaration signed
by the Philippine government and the NDFP.
Press Statement
16 December 2004
CARHRIHL DOES NOT ALLOW US COMBAT TROOPS TO INTRUDE
INTO PHILIPPINE--GRP OR NDFP--TERRITORY
UNDER PRETEXT OF RELIEF OPERATIONS
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
The entire Filipino people must condemn all pronouncements and actions of
the US government and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines
(GRP) to justify and push the entry of US combat troops in the Philippines
under such pretexts as joint military exercises, training, civic action, and
relief operations. All these are violative of the national sovereignty of
the Filipino people and territorial integrity of the Philippines.
In this regard, the GRP and Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo are betraying
the national sovereignty of the Filipino people and territorial integrity of
the Philippines by allowing US combat troops to enter the country under the
pretext of relief operations.
Civilian agencies of foreign governments can offer civilian relief personnel
and aid very properly and easily. There are also more than enough Filipinos
who can do the relief work. Why should the GRP and Romulo allow US combat
troops to enter the country under the pretext of relief operations,
provocatively show off their military weapons and vehicles and conduct
psywar and intelligence operations on Philippine territory? Is relief work
really the objective or is it to make the escalation of US military
intervention in the Philippines acceptable to the public?
According to the CPP Information Department, the New People's Army is
magnanimously not targeting the intrusive and marauding US combat troops
and is giving them the chance to get out of the country as quickly as
possible. But such magnanimity should not be linked to the wrong notion that
the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International
Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) permits US combat troops to enter the
Philippines under the pretext of relief operations.
The GRP and the US government are in the first place condemnable for
violating the national sovereignty of the Filipino people and the
territorial integrity of the Philippines. It is erroneous for anyone to
claim that CARHRIHL permits US combat troops to enter Philippine, GRP or
NDFP territory for any length of time under the guise of relief operations
and that the GRP can decide unilaterally the scope of operations and types
of arms and equipment which the US combat troops can bring for their
supposed security.
1. CARHRIHL does not allow the entry of US combat troops into the
Philippines but allows only timely limited agreements between the GRP and
NDFP as co-belligerents in a civil war to grant safe passage on certain
humanitarian grounds to the Filipino troops of one side or the other or the
International Committee of the Red Cross and other permitted civilian
agencies.
2. Under CARHRIHL, the GRP and NDFP are contracting parties on an equal
footing, with their respective political integrity. The GRP cannot
unilaterally decide the scope of operations and types of arms and
equipment of even GRP troops and police when they seek on certain
humanitarian grounds to enter the territory of the NDFP or people's
revolutionary government or contested areas.
As NDFP chief political consultant, I advice all forces and personnel of the
CPP, NDFP and NPA to study carefully the CARHRIHL and other agreements
entered into by the NDFP with the GRP and appreciate how the NDFP has
upheld revolutionary principles and made policy agreements, without leaving
any ground for capitulation or submission to GRP authority by any
revolutionary force or element. ###
THE MACAPAGAL-ARROYO REGIME SPEWS OUT LIES LIKE GOEBBELS DID
Vainly believing that by spewing out and repeating even the most outrageous
lies it can deceive the people, the Macapagal-Arroyo regime has declared the
New People's Army as the worst human rights violator and accused it of
illegal logging and causing the death of many hundreds. The same tactic was
used by Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief, who claimed that by
continuously repeating lies, the lies would ultimately be accepted as truth.
But the people cannot be deceived by the regime's lies. The experience of
the people in the countrysides and in the cities proves that it is the
regime's military and police that kill, maim and injure the people, destroy
their properties, and violate their basic human and democratic rights in
order to serve the interests of the foreign mining companies, the logging
companies, the rest of the big comprador bourgeoisie, big landlords and
bureaucrat capitalists.
The brutal massacre at Hacienda Luisita on November 16, 2004 and the summary
execution of the key witness of the massacre, Marcelino Beltran, on December
8, 2004 are stark examples of such atrocities against the people. The
Arroyo regime, including the President herself as Commander-in-Chief of the
Armed Forces of the Philippines, Secretary of Labor Patricia Sto. Tomas, the
Cojuangcos and Aquinos, the military and police officers who carried out the
massacre, these are the worst human rights violators. The killers of the
regime, such as General Jovito Palparan, are the big violators of human
rights. No amount of spewing out lies that the NPA are the worst human
rights violators can erase the truth of the bitter experience of the
people.
The records prove that the Macapagal-Arroyo regime, as did its predecessors,
approved and allowed foreign and local logging firms to denude our forests
as to cause the massive floods and landslides that have resulted in so many
deaths. This is true not only in the areas of the latest catastrophe. It
is true of so many other areas in our country. This regime and the cronies
whose logging concessions it has approved are criminally liable for all the
death and destruction they cause.
On the other hand, it is also the experience of the people in the rural
areas, wherever the New People's Army is active, that the NPA and other
revolutionary forces protect the people against logging companies, foreign
mining companies and other destroyers of the environment.
On a related matter, President Macapagal-Arroyo has hailed the recent
Supreme Court reversal of its earlier decision to declare unconstitutional
the Mining Act of 1995. This means that Financial and Technical Assistance
agreements (FTAAs) allowing foreign mining companies to plunder up to
100,000 hectares of land are to be promoted, causing not only the
displacement of numerous indigenous people but further destruction of the
environment and even more disastrous floods and landslides. This regime is
surrendering our country's economic sovereignty, promoting the unbridled
plunder of our country and in effect agreeing to the death and destruction
that results from these. It is indeed a deceitful and murderous regime. It
must be militantly opposed and isolated.
Luis G. Jalandoni
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
15) On Sunday December, 12, 2004, an Israeli sniper in Khan
Younis refugee camp killed Rana Syiam, 7 years old, while
she was sitting at home, eating supper with her family.
The Israeli army gave no explanation for the attack.
[This week in Palestine: a service of the International Middle East
Media Center imemc.org, for the week of December 10 - 17, 2004]
Rana is just one of 231 Palestinians, mostly children and women,
killed in the Khan Younis refugee camp over the four years of the
current intifada.
Khan Younis camp, one of the most crowded places on earth, shares a
border with the illegal Israeli settlement of Gush Katif -- the
largest Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip. Population density in
Gaza averages 65,800 persons per square mile, compared with 1,700
people per square mile in the illegal Israeli settlements that now
control over 20% of Gaza.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, 3,478 Palestinians
have been killed since September 2000, and 28,248 have been injured.
(During the same time period, 694 Israeli civilians have been killed)
The Health and Development Information Policy Center (HDIP) reports
that 82% of the Palestinians killed by the army were civilians, 18.5%
of them under the age of 18.
84% (699) of the Palestinians killed were shot in the head and neck,
like Rana.
Rana Syiam was one of six Palestinians killed this past week. Twenty
four Palestinians were wounded, including a three year old child in
Rafah.
64 palestinians were arrested this week, 26 homes were demolished,
major checkpoints were closed at least six times, and Palestinian
towns and villages were invaded at least 38 times by the Israeli
military.
Some examples of this week's violence:
Nine Palestinian schoolchildren aged 8-12 were wounded as an army tank
shell landed close to their classroom at Tareq Ben Ziad School in Khan
Yunis on Sunday morning.
In Nablus on Sunday, armed settlers barred residents from picking
their olives, hurled stones at the residents and their cars, and
forced them out of their fields. The Israeli army did not intervene
in the settler's unprovoked attacks on the Palestinian farmers.
Ateyya Mustafa Yassin, 15, was hospitalized Wednesday after being
severely beaten by Israeli soldiers in Nablus. Soldiers claim that
Yassin was among a group of youth who were throwing stones at armored
military vehicles.
In the West Bank town of Jayyous, 117 olive trees were uprooted on
Saturday December 11. Residents of the town managed to obtain, with
the help of their lawyer, a plan by Israeli contractors to build a new
Israeli settlement on their land -- in violation of the "road map to
peace", in which Israel pledged 'disengagement' from the Palestinian
territories. All Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land are
against the Geneva Convention, which Israel agreed to in 1951.
Sharif Omar of Jayyous village is one of those whose homes are
scheduled to be demolished and land confiscated for the building of
this new settlement:
If the wall is completed as planned by Israel, Palestinians will be
left with ten percent of their original land, divided into a number of
isolated islands with complete Israeli control of entrance and exit.
This week the Wall's construction continued throughout the West Bank.
On Tuesday a non-violent protest against the Wall in Bil'in, northwest
of Jerusalem met with a violent military reaction. Four people were
wounded, and Seven peace activists were arrested, including 4
Israelis, when they tried to intervene in the beating of a child by
Israeli soldiers.
in southern gaza on sunday, 4 israeli soldiers and 2 palestinian
resistance fighters were killed in an attack on an israeli army base.
Hamas and a group known as the Fatah Hawks claimed responsibility for
Sunday's attack. The Fatah group said it was avenging the
assassination" of Yasir Arafat, referring to rumours widespread among
Palestinians that their veteran leader was poisoned.
Fuad Kokali, a local secretary general of the fatah party, comments on
the attack:
<20>
The Israeli army responded to Sunday's bombing by firing six missiles
into various populated areas in Gaza and conducting daily incursions
throughout the week with Apache helicopters, tanks and armored
vehicles, killing at least four people.
The attack came just two days after the Israeli army attempted to
assassinate a Palestinian resistance leader by shooting a missile at
his car.
Abu Samhadana, who survived the attack, stated that, "Assassination
attempts, even if they succeed, won't weaken the resistance, but
will only strengthen it. We will continue fighting until we liberate
all Palestinian land,".
Meanwhile, on the Palestinian presidential campaign, jailed Fatah
leader Marwan Barghouti, the leading candidate, has dropped out of the
race.
Five candidates for the municipal elections, scheduled for December
23, have been arrested by Israeli forces and remain in jail.
Palestinian Local governing minister Jamal Shubaki this week urged the
international community to immediately intervene to end Israeli
actions that hinder the ability of Palestinians to run free and
democratic elections, including the release of these five candidates.
And palestinian administrative detainees reported that they will
boycott Israeli courts starting from December 19, until the Israeli
authorities releases all detainees whose detention period has ended.
Palestinians are routinely held without charges in administrative
detention -- the boycotting prisoners demand that they either be
charged, or released. At least 760 palestinians are currently held in
administrative detention, according to the israeli organization
b'tselem. they are among the over 5000 palestinians currently
imprisoned in Israel.
And finally, 24-year-old peace activist Brian Avery from Albuquerque,
New Mexico, petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice for a police
investigation of his shooting. Avery was shot in the face last year
by a tank mounted machine gun in Jenin while volunteering with the
International Solidarity Movement. The petition challenges the
Israeli army's account of events, which contradict the accounts of
numerous eyewitnesses, and states "the duty to investigate is part
of the rule of law."
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
16) COMMUNITY SPEAK OUT FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
Sat, Dec. 18th, 1:00 pm
24th & Mission St. (24th St. BART), San Francisco
Call to Action for Immigrant Rights:
The immigrant community has become one of the main targets inside
the country as part of the well-known “war at home,” which is no
different from the war against Iraq. After the result of the elections,
immigrant communities face critical moments and should be ready
for the next four years. The racism, discrimination, hostility,
harassment, police brutality, the raids, among others, keep on growing.
Today, more than ever, all immigrant communities are ONE COMMUNITY,
that includes Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Philippines, and others, because
we all are part of the same struggle and face the same problems. LetÂ’s
be out on the street once more to talk about issues that concern us
and only we can solve.
Changes, historically, have not been gained because of the mercy or
sympathy of any politician, whether he or she was a Democrat or a
Republican, but because of the hard struggle people fought to gain
their rights.
Only a peopleÂ’s movement is capable of stopping this brutal war
against our communities.
ThatÂ’s why this Saturday December 18th we will be in the streets.
We will utilize one of our basic rights, the right to speak, and gather
in the streets to listen to each other and take action.
EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO FIGHT FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, JOIN
US ON SATURDAY! For Unity, Peace and Justice!
Sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism)
For more information or flyers to distribute please call: Silvia or
Alicia at (415) 821-6545 or Jess at the Arab-American Anti
Discrimination Committee at (415) 726-3951.
Sat, Dec. 18th, 11 am
POSTERING FOR JANUARY 20th PROTEST
Meet at ANSWER office – 2489 Mission St,
Rm. 24 (near 21st), San Francisco
Before going to the Immigrant Rights Speak-Out, join other
activists going out in teams around San Francisco to get the
word out about the upcoming Counter-Inaugural protest on
January 20. Or come by and pick up posters and leaflets for later.
There will be no ANSWER Activist Meeting this Tuesday, Dec. 21st.
Please join us throughout the week for postering, flyering and
phonebanking to build the January 20 Counter-Inaugural Protest.
Call 415-821-6545 for more details.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR: On Tuesday, December 28, we will have
a mass mailing for Jan. 20th a potluck dinner at the ANSWER office
at 2489 Mission St, Rm 30 in San Franciso. The mailing will start at
1pm; we will eat at 6pm and continue the mailing through the evening.
To subscribe to the list, send a message to:
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
17) NEWS & COMMENTARY: Soldier has himself shot to avoid
returning to Iraq
[Marquise Roberts of the Cedarbrook section of North Philadelphia didn't
want
to go back to Iraq. -- He'd already conquered Baghdad once, and thought
that
ought to be enough. -- So he had his cousin shoot him in the leg, and then
drive him to Philadelphia's Albert Einstein Medical Center. -- But the two
men's stories didn't jibe, and when the police found out he was due to
report
back to Fort Stewart, Georgia, the next day, they grew suspicious... --
Jay
Ruskin of UFPPC looks beyond the headlines and asks: what does Marquise
Roberts's act really mean?
SOLDIER HAS HIMSELF SHOT TO AVOID RETURNING TO IRAQ
By Jay Ruskin
United for Peace of Pierce County (WA)
December 17, 2004
http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/1931/
Marquise Roberts thought that seven months in the Middle East were enough
for
him.
The supply specialist's two-week leave was about to end, and he was supposed
to be back the next day at Fort Stewart, Georgia, to rejoin the Army's 3rd
Infantry Division. With the 3rd Roberts had fought his way to Baghdad in
the
2003 invasion of Iraq, and then returned to the U.S. in the summer of 2003.
Now he was scheduled to be redeployed to Iraq once again.
It seemed to Marquise Roberts that conquering Iraq once ought to suffice.
So
around 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, a cloudy day with temperatures hovering in the
low 30s, police say he had his wife's cousin shoot him in the leg with a
.22-caliber pistol, then headed for the Albert Einstein Medical Center not
far
away.
Unfortunately, the two men didn't get their stories straight. The four news
reports below tell the sorry tale. Roberts has now been charged by police
with filing a false report, and the cousin has been charged with aggravated
assault, the Associated Press reported.[1]
Local press gave more details. The *Philadelphia Daily News* identified the
place where the incident was supposed to have occurred: Somerville Avenue
near
15th in Olney.[2] The *Philadelphia Inquirer*, which gave the most
detailed
account of the plan, said that Marquise Roberts lived on Williams Ave. in
the
Cedarbrook section of Philadelphia.[3]
Williams Avenue is near the City of Brotherly Love's northern border --
"heavily black North Philadelphia" near "the neighborhood where the various
*Rockys* were filmed and the original Philadelphia cheesesteaks are sold,"
and
where about one quarter of the population lives in poverty (*Almanac of
American Politics 2004*, pp. 1363-66).
None of the news reports really raised the issue of why Marquise Roberts was
in the army in the first place. But critics like Charles Rangel (D-NY 15th)
see people like Roberts as victims of an "economic draft," whereby
low-income
people with few job prospects sign up for military service.
Activist Sam Anderson puts it this way: "For Black, Latino, Native
American,
Asian and poor white youth, there is a powerful economic draft that forces
our
children into the military with promises of discounted higher education,
benefits, job skills development and traveling the world. The shrinking
civilian job market with sweatshop labor conditions helps create this
economic
draft." (http://www.sfbayview.com/092904/draftingeveryone092904.shtml)
Roberts's act also comes at a time of growing restiveness and resistance
within the ranks of the military.
The *Los Angeles Times* summarized the other forms of resistance and made
clear the fact that Robert's self-inflicted wound is the expression of a
widespread sentiment:
"More than 5,000 soldiers have been charged with desertion from bases in the
U.S. and overseas since the invasion of Iraq in early 2003. . . . Two
soldiers
have received publicity for resisting their return to duty in Iraq while on
home leave. . . . More than 800 former soldiers have failed to comply with
orders to report for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army reported in
October. Those ex-soldiers [were] called back to duty under the military's
Individual Ready Reserve program."[4]
As for Marquise Roberts, at least his plan was not a total failure, since he
won't be returning to Iraq. The *L.A. Times* reported he's sitting in a
Philadelphia jail, "held under $50,000 bail pending a court hearing."
1.
Nation/World
SOLDIER CHARGED WITH HAVING HIMSELF SHOT
By Randy Pennell
Associated Press
December 17, 2004
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Sol
dier%20Charged
PHILADELPHIA -- A soldier who allegedly had a relative shoot him so he
wouldn't have to return to Iraq could face military discipline.
Army Spc. Marquise J. Roberts, of Hinesville, Ga., suffered a minor wound
Tuesday to his left leg from a .22-caliber pistol, police said. He was
treated at a hospital, then arrested after he and a relative allegedly
admitted making up a story about the shooting.
After giving differing accounts, "they just broke down and confessed that
they
concocted the whole story so he didn't have to go back to the war," police
Lt.
James Clark said Thursday.
Police charged Roberts with filing a false report and charged a cousin,
Roland
Fuller, with aggravated assault and other charges.
Roberts could face military discipline if the charges prove true, said Lt.
Col. Cliff Kent, a spokesman for the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, but the
civilian case probably would proceed first.
Roberts, who was visiting family in Philadelphia, initially claimed he was
shot during an attempted robbery, but Fuller had said the incident occurred
at
another location during an argument, according to Clark.
Roberts, 23, was on a two-week leave from the 3rd Infantry Division, which
led
the assault on Baghdad in 2003. He had been scheduled to return this week
to
Fort Stewart, Ga., and to return to Iraq within the next few months. The
division has been home since the summer of 2003.
Police said Roberts, a supply specialist who had spent seven months in Iraq,
was distraught about having to return to combat duty and wanted to stay with
his family.
2.
City and Local News
COPS: SOLDIER HAD PAL SHOOT HIM TO AVOID IRAQ
By Gloria Campisi
Philadelphia Daily News
December 17, 2004
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/10437106.htm
A soldier who police said was distraught at having to return to Iraq
allegedly
had another man shoot him in the leg so he wouldn't have to go back.
Army Spc. Marquise J. Roberts, 23, stationed at Fort Stewart, Ga., was in
Philadelphia on a two-week leave from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division,
which
led the assault on Baghdad in 2003, according to an Army spokesman.
Lt. Col. Cliff Kent, a 3rd Infantry spokesman, said Roberts had been
scheduled
to return from leave this week. The 3rd Infantry is scheduled to return to
Iraq within the next few months.
Lt. James Clark of the Northwest Detective Division said Roberts, of
Hinesville, Ga., admitted under questioning that "he did seven months there
[Iraq] and he didn't want to go back."
Clark said Roberts and Ronald Fuller, who police identified as Roberts'
cousin, "concocted the whole story" that Roberts was shot in the left leg
when
two men tried to rob them Tuesday on Somerville Avenue near 15th in Olney.
He
was treated at Einstein Medical Center for a wound described as minor.
A woman who answered the phone at a Cedarbrook address listed to Roberts
said
Fuller was not Roberts' cousin, but that the family didn't want to make any
immediate statement. Fuller was identified as Roberts' cousin by marriage
in
a televised report.
Clark said the deception was uncovered when the two men gave different
accounts of the shooting.
Roberts was charged with filing a false police report and obstruction of
justice and Fuller with aggravated and simple assault.
--campisg@phillynews.com
3.
Local & Regional
FACING IRAQ, SOLDIER GOT HIMSELF SHOT, POLICE SAY
By Thomas J. Gibbons Jr.
** Rather than be redeployed, Marquise Roberts plotted with relatives to be
hurt in a bogus robbery, officials said. **
Philadelphia Inquirer
December 17, 2004
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/10435471.h
tm
Marquise Roberts absolutely did not want to return to Iraq, where he
previously served a seven-month Army tour, police said yesterday.
So Roberts, they said, who lives on Williams Avenue in the Cedarbrook
section
of Philadelphia, concocted a plan to have a relative shoot him during a
purported robbery.
But detectives said they unraveled the plot after Roberts, 23, went to a
city
hospital for treatment of a bullet wound to one of his legs. Now, Roberts
and
his wife's cousin are charged with a series of offenses.
In addition, Roberts missed his date Wednesday to return to Fort Stewart,
Ga.,
where he probably will be extradited to face further action.
"They are extremely interested," Philadelphia Police Lt. James Clark said
yesterday, referring to inquiries from military officials. "He didn't want
to
go back."
Police said Roberts' plan to desert the Army came to their attention about 2
p.m. Tuesday, when officers were notified that Roberts had arrived at Albert
Einstein Medical Center with a gunshot wound. Roberts told police he was
shot
while walking in the 1500 block of Somerville Avenue in Logan.
Roberts said he was walking with his wife's cousin, Roland Fuller, 28, when
they passed two men arguing.
Suddenly, Roberts said, shots rang out and he was shot in the back of the
leg.
Roberts went to the hospital for treatment and was released.
However, detectives from the Special Investigations Unit of the Northwest
Detective Division weren't through with Roberts.
They drove him to the spot where Roberts said the shooting had occurred. No
evidence of gunfire was found.
Other investigators tracked down Fuller, whose account contradicted
Roberts',
police said. Fuller told investigators the shooting occurred in the 1500
block of Duncannon Avenue, several blocks from Somerville Avenue.
Investigators later tracked down Roberts' wife, Donna Roberts, who gave yet
a
third version of events. Clark said the conflicting versions piqued
detectives' interest.
The victim and his two family members were kept separated and questioned at
length. During that time, Fuller tried to escape but was caught, police
said.
Later, a different story began to emerge.
Detectives said they discovered that Roberts was in the Army, assigned to
Fort
Stewart, and due to return there the next day.
They said they found that Roberts, his wife, and Fuller concocted a plan in
which Fuller would shoot Roberts, and all three family members would report
that that the shooting was committed by two men during a robbery.
The motive was to prevent Roberts from being redeployed to Iraq, detectives
said.
Roberts later told police he had served seven months in the war zone and did
not want to return.
Police said they recovered the gun used to shoot Roberts, who also lists an
address in Hinesville, Ga.
Fuller was charged with aggravated assault, weapons offenses, and filing a
false police report. Roberts was charged with recklessly endangering
another
person and filing a false police report.
Detectives said they were not ruling out charges against Donna Roberts.
--Contact staff writer Thomas J. Gibbons Jr. at 215-854-2642 or
tgibbons@phillynews.com.
4.
The Nation
SHOOTING ALLEGEDLY STAGED TO AVOID RETURNING TO IRAQ
By David Zucchino
** Philadelphia police say a soldier whose unit has been ordered back to the
war had his wife's cousin wound him in the leg as part of the scheme. **
Los Angeles Times
December 17, 2004
PHILADELPHIA -- A U.S. Army combat veteran on leave from a unit headed back
to
Iraq arranged for a friend to shoot him in the leg in an attempt to avoid
returning to the war zone, Philadelphia police said Thursday.
Spc. Marquise Roberts, 23, told police he had been shot Tuesday afternoon as
he walked past two men arguing on a North Philadelphia street. But police
said their investigation found that Roberts actually was shot once in the
leg
by a friend as part of a scheme to avoid returning to Iraq.
Roberts, who served seven months in Iraq during the U.S. invasion in 2003,
was
due to report back to Ft. Stewart, Ga., on Wednesday, police said. He is a
supply specialist with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized),
according to commanders at Ft. Stewart. They said Roberts, who has been in
the Army since 2001, was on a two-week holiday leave to his home in
Philadelphia.
The division, which helped topple the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad in
April 2003, has been ordered to begin heading back to Iraq next month.
Roberts had returned from Iraq in midsummer 2003.
Philadelphia Police Inspector William Colarulo said Roberts was shot by his
wife's cousin, Roland Fuller, 28, in North Philadelphia on Tuesday
afternoon.
Hospital officials called police after Roberts sought medical treatment --
standard policy for gunshot wounds, Colarulo said.
Roberts told police he heard a gunshot as he walked past the men arguing in
the street and realized he had been shot in the leg. But Fuller told
detectives that Roberts had been shot during an attempted robbery, Colarulo
said.
Detectives who searched the scene where Roberts said he was shot found no
bullet casings, blood or witnesses who recalled seeing or hearing gunshots.
"The investigation determined that he didn't want to go back to Iraq and
staged the shooting to avoid having to return," Colarulo said.
Police Lt. James Clark, who directed the investigation, said Roberts "said
he
had done seven months there and he didn't want to go back. He wanted to
stay
with his family."
Roberts was treated for the wound and handed over to police Wednesday.
Roberts and Fuller were charged with conspiracy, recklessly endangering
another person and filing a false police report. Fuller also was charged
with
aggravated assault and weapons offenses.
Roberts was shot with a handgun, police said.
Pentagon officials said they could recall no other instance in which a
soldier
on leave from Iraq or Afghanistan had been accused of deliberately harming
himself or herself to avoid returning to duty.
Of the 136,000 soldiers and Army civilians who took home leaves as of early
November, they said, only one soldier had been classified as AWOL. An Army
program entitles soldiers to two weeks at home midway through their
deployment.
More than 5,000 soldiers have been charged with desertion from bases in the
U.S. and overseas since the invasion of Iraq in early 2003, according to
Pentagon statistics.
But the number of desertions in the fiscal year that ended in September was
half the number for the fiscal year that ended the month of the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks, before troops were sent to fight in Afghanistan and
Iraq.
The military defines desertion as more than 30 consecutive days absent
without
leave.
Two soldiers have received publicity for resisting their return to duty in
Iraq while on home leave.
Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, 28, a National Guardsman from Florida, refused to
return to Iraq after home leave in October 2003. He asked to be declared a
conscientious objector.
This month, Spc. David Qualls filed a lawsuit challenging the Army's
authority
to extend his service and threatened not to return to Iraq from home leave
in
Arkansas. A federal judge denied Qualls' request to remain in the U.S.
until
his case was heard, and his lawyer said he would return to Iraq.
More than 800 former soldiers have failed to comply with orders to report
for
duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army reported in October. Those
ex-soldiers,
called back to duty under the military's Individual Ready Reserve program,
were not charged with desertion. Most had requested delays or exemptions
for
school, medical emergencies or family hardships.
In Roberts' case, his return to duty is delayed indefinitely. He was being
held under $50,000 bail pending a court hearing, police said.
Army officials said Roberts also could face punishment under the military
justice system. They said the Army normally waited until civilian courts
had
ruled before deciding whether to charge soldiers in military court.
UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545
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---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
18) Days of Protest Jan. 20 Inauguration Day and
Jan.22, 32nd Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade:
OK We all know at this point that January 20 is going
to be a national day of protest against the
re-crowning of the Emperor thief. Yes.
ANSWER will be having a permitted march at 5pm that
evening. It's a Thursday, unfortunately. The NLG
will prepare for break-aways, as they tend to follow
ANSWER or NION marches.
Interestingly enough, the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade
(turning 32 Jan. 22, 2004) occurs Sat. A group called
Walk for Life West Coast will be having a permitted
march through the embarcadero etc. that day. They are
pro-life. There has been a call for action for
counter protests that day. And so Jan. 21 has been
called a day of teach-ins and awareness of issues
related to abortion rights. Check out more on
Indymedia: http://sfbay.indymedia.org/womyn/
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/12/1708701.php Time to take to the streets
my friends.
In resistance,
carey
"Art begins with resistance-at the point where resistance is overcome.
No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor."-Andre
Gide
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
19) Guard Reports Serious Drop in Enlistment
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
December 17, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/politics/17reserves.html?oref=login
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - In the latest signs of strains on the military
from the war in Iraq, the Army National Guard announced on Thursday
that it had fallen 30 percent below its recruiting goals in the last two
months and would offer new incentives, including enlistment bonuses
of up to $15,000.
In addition, the head of the National Guard Bureau, Lt. Gen. H Steven
Blum, said on Thursday that he needed $20 billion to replace arms and
equipment destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan or left there for other Army
and Air Guard units to use, so that returning reservists will have enough
equipment to deal with emergencies at home.
The sharp decline in recruiting is significant because National Guard
and Army Reserve soldiers now make up nearly 40 percent of the
148,000 troops in Iraq, and are a vital source for filling the ranks,
particularly those who perform essential support tasks, like truck drivers
and military police.
General Blum said the main reason for the Army National Guard's
recruiting shortfall was a sharp reduction in the number of recruits
joining the Guard and Reserve when they leave active duty. In
peacetime the commitment means maintaining their ties to the
military with a weekend of service a month and two weeks in the
summer.
Over the last 30 years, General Blum said, the Guard has counted
on these soldiers with prior military service for about half of its
recruits. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, many of these soldiers
have been hesitant to join the Guard because of the increasing
likelihood that America's citizen-soldiers will be activated and sent
to Iraq or Afghanistan for up to 12 months. Indeed, many of the
active-duty soldiers the Army would like to enlist in the Reserves
have recently fought in Afghanistan or Iraq, and some have no
inclination to do so again.
In an effort to halt the slide, the Army National Guard this week
approved recruiting incentives that triple the enlistment bonuses
to $15,000 for soldiers with prior military experience who sign up
for six years (tax-free if soldiers enlist overseas), Guard officials
said. Bonuses for new enlistees will increased to $10,000 from
$6,000.
The Guard has already said it intends to increase the number of
recruiters to 4,100 from 2,700 over the next three months, the
first large increase since 1989.
"We're in a more difficult recruiting environment, period," General
Blum told reporters in disclosing the new figures and the new
incentives. "There's no question that when you have a sustained
ground combat operation going that the Guard's participating in,
that makes recruiting more difficult."
There are 42,000 Army National Guard soldiers serving in Iraq and
Kuwait, and 8,200 serving in Afghanistan. Since Sept. 11, General
Blum said, there have been about 100,000 Army National Guard
troops activated for duty at home or abroad at any given time.
General Blum's remarks come just a few days after the chief of the
Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, told The Dallas Morning
News that the Army Reserve recruiting was in a "precipitous decline"
that if unchecked could inspire renewed debate over the draft. General
Helmly told the newspaper that he personally opposed reviving the draft.
For the first two months of the fiscal year 2005, which started
Oct. 1, the Army Reserve has also stumbled, falling 315 recruits
short of its goal of 3,170 soldiers, a drop of 10 percent.
In November, the Guard recruited 2,902 enlistees, about 26 percent
below its target of 3,925 recruits. In October and November combined,
the Guard recruited 5,448 enlistees, nearly 30 percent below its goal
of 7,600. At full strength, the Guard has 350,000 soldiers.
In the 2004 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the Guard missed its
overall recruiting target of 56,000 soldiers by more than 5,000, the
first time it had missed its yearly goal since 1994. The active-duty
branches of the armed services all met their recruiting goals last year.
As a result, General Blum said, the Guard has lowered its reliance on
recruits with military experience to just 35 percent of its overall total
and will seek a much larger pool of recruits with no military experience.
"We are correcting, frankly, some of our recruiting themes and slogans
to reflect a reality of today," he said. "We're not talking about one
weekend a month and two weeks a year and college tuition. We're
talking about service to the nation."
General Blum expressed confidence that the nearly $300 million in
recruiting bonuses in this year's budget and the increase in the number
of recruiters would propel the Guard to meet its yearly goal but said
that probably would not happen until August or so. "I think we'll
recover," he said.
Some military personnel specialists offered a much more pessimistic
forecast and said the lower recruiting numbers were the harbingers
of tougher times to come.
"I don't think this is an aberration," said David R. Segal, a military
sociologist who directs the Center for Research on Military
Organization at the University of Maryland. "I think we're going
to see significant shortfalls in recruitment, and I think we're to
begin to see retention problems. We're also going to see increasing
concerns at the state level about how the Guard will man itself and
perform its state missions."
The Guard's woes do not end with recruiting. General Blum said the
Army National Guard needed $20 billion over the next three years
to buy additional radios, trucks, aircraft, engineering equipment
and other materiel that have been wrecked or left behind in Iraq
or Afghanistan..
"Otherwise, the Guard will be broken and not ready for the next
time it's needed, either here at home or for war," General Blum said.
A spokesman for the Florida National Guard, Lt. Col. Ron Tittle,
said Guard units in the state, which mobilized some 5,000 troops
to deal with the three hurricanes in August and September, were
already experiencing some shortages.
"It could hinder us to some degree," Colonel Tittle said. "But we
adapt and make do. We'll accomplish the mission."
Soldier Accused of Asking to Be Shot
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 16 (AP) - A soldier on leave has been accused
of having his cousin shoot him so he would not have to return to
Iraq, the police say.
The soldier, Specialist Marquise J. Roberts, 23, of Hinesville, Ga.,
suffered a minor wound to his left leg from a .22-caliber pistol on
Tuesday, the police said. Specialist Roberts was treated at a hospital,
then arrested after he and his cousin admitted having made up
a story about the shooting, the authorities said.
After giving differing accounts of the incident, "they just broke
down and confessed that they concocted the whole story so he
didn't have to go back to the war," Lt. James Clark of the Philadelphia
police department said on Thursday.
Specialist Roberts, who was visiting family members in Philadelphia,
was charged with filing a false report. His cousin, Ronald Fuller, was
charged with aggravated assault and other charges.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
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