1) STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!
ALL OUT JANUARY 20TH, 5:00 P.M., CIVIC CENTER, S.F.
Washington, D.C.:
Converge at 4th St. & Pennsylvania Ave.
on the north side of the parade route
2) Let's Hit the Streets
On the 32nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
To Defend Abortion Rights!
Saturday, January 22
10 am Rally at Powell & Market Streets, San Francisco
11 am March to the Embarcadero
www.indybay.org/womyn
Driving? Need a ride? Visit
http://drivingvotes.org/rides/sfprochoice.php
ALSO: Join the Women‚s Rights Contingent in the San Francisco
Counter-Inaugural Protest on January 20th. Meet at 5 pm at the
corner of Grove and Polk in Civic Center Plaza.
3) PICTURES OF WAR
4) ITALIAN.QUEER.DANGEROUS
a one-man show featuring Tommi Avicolli Mecca
directed by Francesca Prada, Jan. 14-19, 8:00pm,
JON SIMS CENTER
1519 Mission, Between Van Ness and 11th Sts., SF
5) *****URGENT*****
Please Help Us Demand Clemency for Donald Beardslee
by Attending These Important Events!
Beardslee is scheduled to be executed by the State of
California on January 19th.
Urgent Press Conference & Rally
Tuesday, January 11th
4:00-5:00 PM
California State Building
505 Van Ness Ave. (Corner of Van Ness & McAllister)
Death Penalty Focus
870 Market St. Ste. 859
San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel. 415-243-0143
Fax 415-243-0994
stefanie@deathpenalty.org
www.deathpenalty.org
www.californiamoratorium.org
http://www.californiamoratorium.org/
6) You are invited To Celebrate and claim victory on
James Yee's case and his Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Army
Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday
JOIN THOUSANDS in the Freedom March
When: Monday, January 17, 2005
11:30 A.M. TO 12:30 p.m.
Where:J4NA members will meet at
3rd & Mission at 11:30 a.m and join the parade.
The big march will start at the San Francisco Caltrain Station (
4th St. and Townsend St., ) proceeding to Mission Street @
Third Street, continuing to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
7) Indonesia Restricts Aid Workers in Aceh
By Dan Eaton and Jeff Franks
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters)
Tue Jan 11, 2005 05:13 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7290072&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
8) PEOPLE'S NONVIOLENT RESPONSE COALITION (PNVRC)
SPECIAL EVENT
BREAKING THE SILENCE . . .JUSTICE NOT WAR
Friday January 14 from noon until sundown at the
Oakland Federal Building 1301 Clay Street
9) Is This Call A justice? Torturer Got Some Charges Dropped
While Military Jailed A Solider Who Refuse to Kill!
Iraq Watch Specials: From Peace No War Network
January 7, 2004
http://www.PeaceNoWar.net http://www.peacenowar.net/
10) Subject: Lynne Stewart on Democracy Now 1/6/05
From: "Larry Felson"
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 07:10:35 +0000
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
11) Subject: Seven Palestinian Children Killed in Strawberry
Fields by Israeli Anti-Personnel Shells
From: "Justice Freedom"
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 20:05:33 -0800
12) The other tsunami
By John Pilger
While the sea may have killed tens of thousands, western
policies kill millions every year. Yet even amid disaster,
a new politics of community and morality is emerging.
http://www.newstatesman.com/nscoverstory.htm
13) 'The Salvador Option'
The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or
kidnapping teams in Iraq
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Hirsh and John Barry
Newsweek
Updated: 10:22 a.m. ET Jan. 9, 2005,
MSNBC.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/
14) US deserters flee to Canada to avoid service in Iraq
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 09/01/2005)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/09/wus09.xml&sS
heet=/portal/2005/01/09/ixportal.html
15) Second US attack on civilians feeds calls for Iraq withdrawal
By Stephen Negus in Baghdad
Published: January 10 2005 02:00
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/07926a26-62ac-11d9-8e5d-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.
html
16) How much "aid" will reach the tsunami survivors?
By Richard Phillips
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
11 January 2005
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jan2005/tsun-j11.shtml
17) IRAQ IN TRANSITION: COST OF OCCUPATION
Grind of Insurgency
Eroding U.S. Military
By Robert Burns
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
January 9, 2005
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501090305jan09,1,741531.
story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
18) STEELERS FANS AGAINST THE WAR KICKS OFF JANUARY 15TH
AT HEINZ FIELD IN FRONT OF THE ENTRANCE TO GREAT HALL
(the entrances to Heinz Field have names engraved
above them..look for the one that says the Great Hall)
Press Conference at 2:30pm
Contact: Etta Cetera 412- 802-8575
19) A Better World Is Under Construction!
Call for a Mass Mobilization during the 2005
Spring Meetings of the World
Bank and International Monetary Fund
April 15-17th, Washington DC.
The main action will be April 16.
For more Information: www.globalizethis.org
20) ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
http://www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545
SATURDAY, MARCH 19:
GLOBAL DAY OF PROTEST ON THE TWO-YEAR
ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR
* End the War * Bring the Troops Home Now * Rebuild Our Communities *
21) Bush Plans to Screen Whole
US Population for Mental Illness
Jeanne Lenzer
New York
BMJ 2004;328:1458 (19 June),
doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7454.1458 k
22) City of Ghosts
On November 8, the American army launched its biggest ever
assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, considered
a stronghold for rebel fighters. The US said the raid had
been a huge success, killing 1,200 insurgents. Most of
the city's 300,000 residents, meanwhile, had fled for their
lives. What really happened in the siege of Falluja?
In a joint investigation for the Guardian and Channel 4 News,
Iraqi doctor Ali Fadhil compiled the first independent
reports from the devastated city, where he found scores of
unburied corpses, rabid dogs - and a dangerously embittered
population Watch an extract from the documentary
Ali Fadhil
Tuesday January 11, 2005
Guardian
December 22 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1387460,00.html
23) U.S. Military Families Bring Help
Families of the Fallen Unite in Grief - And Anger
January 11, 2005
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/hard_news/000166.php#more
24) "This is not a life."
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
January 11, 2005
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!
ALL OUT JANUARY 20TH, 5:00 P.M., CIVIC CENTER, S.F.
Washington, D.C.:
Converge at 4th St. & Pennsylvania Ave.
on the north side of the parade route
A permit has been obtained for a mass convergence at 4th St. and
Pennsylvania Ave. along the north side of the parade route. You can
bring your own signs or pick up signs, banners and other materials
at this location. Any sign that is made of cardboard, posterboard
or cloth and that is no larger than 3 feet by 20 feet and 1/4 inch in
thickness can be brought to the parade route. We will provide
additional logistical information in the coming days.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) Let's Hit the Streets
On the 32nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
To Defend Abortion Rights!
Saturday, January 22
10 am Rally at Powell & Market Streets, San Francisco
11 am March to the Embarcadero
Jan. 22 is the 32nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court
decision that established the constitutional right to reproductive freedom.
On the same day, anti-choice extremists plan to march in San Francisco
against women‚s health and rights. The anti-choice minority might be
emboldened by the climate in Washington, DC but they are not
welcome here!
Join the San Francisco Area Pro-Choice Coalition to Stand Up for
Reproductive Freedom and Demonstrate that San Francisco is PRO-CHOICE!
Sponsored by the San Francisco Area Pro-Choice Coalition. For more
information or to get involved, visit www.indybay.org/womyn
Driving? Need a ride? Visit http://drivingvotes.org/rides/sfprochoice.php
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) PICTURES OF WAR
PLEASE ACCESS:
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
I have obtained the originals of the photos I recently posted which were
taken from inside Fallujah.
These are of much higher quality.
Some of the comments have been updated, and there are some additional
pictures added which I did not have before.
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/
view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1
More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com
You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/ to subscribe or
unsubscribe to the email list.
(c)2004 Dahr Jamail.
All images and text are protected by United States and
international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's
Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice
and a prominent link to the DahrJamailIraq.com website. Any
other use of images and text including, but not limited to,
reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing
requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free
to forward Dahr's dispatches via email.
Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/
view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia/message/26138
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia/message/26138
Virginion Pilot via AP - Photos - click here
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=79598&ran=187050
TSUNAMI PHOTOS:
A Community Labor News E-Zine
Hi, folks -
I thought this group would be interested in seeing how
different places are using a lot of different technologies
to display various aspects of the tsunami.
I belong to another list for map librarians as a result of
my background with them when I was working at the
Library of Congress.
The two best references are one that shows before
and after pictures of several areas and a comprehensive
site put together at the University of Buffalo website.
In the first one the button immediately above the picture
indicates whether you are looking at a before or an after.
If you click the button, you'll shortly be looking at the opposite
picture of the same area, approximately georeferenced as
best as possible in the short time they had to put these
pages together.
http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/2.html
This one has a BUNCH of different sources. I liked the
CTV site and the maps on the Washington Post site.
ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/asl/guides/indian-ocean-disaster.html
virginia
Readers may email your article submissions
or your comments to ListAdmin@CLNews.org
You may Subscribe or Un-Subscribe through a
Confirmed Opt-In or Opt-out Automatic Process at
http://www.clnews.org/MailList/subscribtion.htm
"Freedom is always and exclusively
freedom for the one who thinks differently"
--Rosa Luxemburg
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) ITALIAN.QUEER.DANGEROUS
a one-man show featuring Tommi Avicolli Mecca
directed by Francesca Prada, Jan. 14-19, 8:00pm,
JON SIMS CENTER
1519 Mission, Between Van Ness and 11th Sts., SF
(The most important thing is for folks to make reservations ASAP.
Seating is limited. Please take a moment to call 554-0402 if you plan
to come to the show.)
JANUARY 14-29 (Friday and Saturday nights only: 14, 15; 21, 22; 28, 29)
JON SIMS CENTER, 1519 Mission/between Van Ness and 11th
8pm, $5-10 sliding scale (no one turned away)
seating is limited, for reservations: 415-554-0402
to volunteer to help with the show, call 415-552-6031
Through monologue and spoken word, well-known San Francisco
queer activist and writer Tommi Avicolli Mecca tells his story of growing
up in South Philly's working-class Little Italy. At age 19, fired up with
new pride in being gay, he came out to the world--and his traditional
Roman Catholic southern Italian famiglia--on a TV talk show.
The rest is history, and the subject of this performance.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) *****URGENT*****
Please Help Us Demand Clemency for Donald Beardslee
by Attending These Important Events!
Beardslee is scheduled to be executed by the State of
California on January 19th.
Urgent Press Conference & Rally
Tuesday, January 11th
4:00-5:00 PM
California State Building
505 Van Ness Ave. (Corner of Van Ness & McAllister)
We need a huge crowd to rally on the steps!!!
Feel free to bring signs and banners.
We need to show the Governor that the public is demanding
clemency for Donald Beardslee.
Clemency Hearing
January 14, 2005 - 10 AM
Auditorium - Capitol East End Facility
1500 Capitol Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95814
This event is open to the public and members of the public
may have an opportunity to give a short comment.
It is extremely important that we pack the room.
No signs or banners will be allowed but you may wear buttons
or stickers.
Please continue flooding the Governor's office with letters
and calls!
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633
To send an Email, please visit: http://www.govmail.ca.gov
For sample letters, event information, and more information on Donald
Beardslee: http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=Executions
Stefanie L. Faucher
Program Director
Death Penalty Focus
870 Market St. Ste. 859
San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel. 415-243-0143
Fax 415-243-0994
stefanie@deathpenalty.org
www.deathpenalty.org
www.californiamoratorium.org
http://www.californiamoratorium.org/
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) You are invited to Celebrate and claim victory on
James Yee's case and his Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Army
Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday
JOIN THOUSANDS in the Freedom March
When: Monday, January 17, 2005
11:30 A.M. TO 12:30 p.m.
Where:J4NA members will meet at
3rd & Mission at 11:30 a.m and join the parade.
The big march will start at the San Francisco Caltrain Station
(4th St. and Townsend St., )proceeding to Mission Street
@ Third Street, continuing to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
BART FREEDOM TRAINS
For free flash passes go to the transportation page
call (510) 268-3777
We encourage you to take home made signs to celebrate honorable
discharge of Chaplain James Yee
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Indonesia Restricts Aid Workers in Aceh
By Dan Eaton and Jeff Franks
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters)
Tue Jan 11, 2005 05:13 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7290072&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia told thousands
of aid workers helping tsunami victims in its worst-hit region,
Aceh, on Tuesday not to venture beyond two large cities because
of what it said were militant threats.
Budi Atmaji, Indonesia's head of relief operations, said
agencies would need permission to work outside the provincial
capital, Banda Aceh, and the ravaged west coast town of Meulaboh.
Asked if Aceh was unsafe for international aid workers, he
said: "Yes, in some places."
However, separatist rebels said they would never attack aid
workers -- who in turn said they were not overly worried.
Huge waves unleashed by an earthquake 94 miles out to sea
from Meulaboh killed at least 156,000 people on coasts around
the Indian Ocean -- 104,000 in Indonesia, 30,000 in Sri Lanka,
15,000 in India and more than 5,000 in Thailand.
GAM (Free Aceh Movement) separatists and Indonesia's
government made conciliatory gestures after the tsunami but
have since accused one another of initiating several clashes as
their three-decade-old conflict drags on despite the devastation.
Indonesian military chief General Endriartono Sutarto said
GAM might attack foreign aid workers or troops in Aceh.
"Killing a foreigner here will attract international
attention and they need it," the Jakarta Post newspaper quoted
him as saying. GAM dismissed his remarks as propaganda.
"We never attacked and will never attack aid workers, be it
foreign or Indonesian," GAM military wing spokesman Sofyan
Dawood told Reuters by telephone.
Mike Huggins, spokesman for the World Food Program in Banda
Aceh, appeared surprised by the Indonesian warning, but not too
concerned that the safety of aid workers could be threatened.
"We have no reason to believe GAM would want to do anything
untoward," he said.
No aid workers have been caught to date in the conflict.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation and
fears exist that radical Islamic groups could suspect Western
aid workers of pursuing a Christian agenda.
Indonesia said it was sending around 2,000 more troops and
1,000 military cadets to Aceh to help with reconstruction.
MASS GRAVES
In Thailand, Interpol launched the world's biggest disaster
victim identification system to unravel forensic data from the
bodies of more than 5,000 tsunami dead and, adding to
relatives' anguish, said it could take many months to identify
them all.
Bodies hastily buried in mass graves around Khao Lak beach
resort to avoid disease are now being exhumed for DNA and
dental tests to identify them.
About 3,400 people are missing in Thailand in addition to
5,300 reported dead. Many were Western tourists.
People also died in the Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh and
several east African nations.
Aid donations have been unprecedented, with governments and
agencies pledging $5.5 billion and companies and individuals
almost $2 billion.
However, the scale brings its own problems.
"The government faces a second tsunami of aid," said Luky
Djani of Indonesia Corruption Watch, a non-governmental group.
"They are deluged by the huge amount of donations and they
don't know how to manage and how to deliver it in the right way."
The airport at Banda Aceh is clogged with planes flying in
relief material, water and workers.
In Sri Lanka, food has rotted at airports while awaiting
clearance. Mountains of clothes lie unused with victims loath
to wear second-hand garments, but graft is the biggest worry.
"Problems with corruption are so high it is almost
inevitable," said Sidney Jones, an Indonesia expert with the
International Crisis Group. "There is simply no history in
Indonesia of the monitoring mechanism necessary to stop it."
U.N. officials said they would adopt new steps to guard
against improprieties such as those alleged in the oil-for-food
program for Iraq.
Among measures in the works are a way to let the public
track every tsunami aid dollar via a Web site and rules to
protect U.N. staff whistle-blowers.
President Bush said the United States should keep up its
aid effort even after attention moves on from the devastation,
which has left a million homeless and five times as many
needing help.
"The intense scrutiny may dissipate, it probably will. But
our focus has got to stay on this part of the world. We have a
duty," Bush said.
SURVIVOR
In India, the sea again washed into the heart of Port Blair
in the Andaman islands at high tide on Monday night, lapping at
doors before receding. People fled to nearby hillocks and many
slept on the pavements on high ground.
"We did not sleep last night as the waters crossed the
road, and the drain and came right up to our house," said Ram
Kumar, a sailor living in a military housing estate. The
tsunami killed an estimated 6,800 people on the remote islands.
Long after the world had given up hope of finding more
survivors, a ship brought an Aceh man into port in Malaysia. He
had been swept out to sea by the tsunami and survived adrift
living on coconuts and chancing upon a leaky boat that saved
him.
(For more news on emergency relief from Reuters AlertNet
visit http://www.alertnet.org email: alertnet@reuters.com; +44
20 7542 2432)
(Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani in Port Blair,
Achmad Sukarsono in Banda Aceh and Ed Cropley in Khao Lak)
(c) Reuters 2005
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) PEOPLE'S NONVIOLENT RESPONSE COALITION (PNVRC)
SPECIAL EVENT
BREAKING THE SILENCE . . .JUSTICE NOT WAR
Friday January 14 from noon until sundown at the
Oakland Federal Building 1301 Clay Street
Friday January 14 from noon until sundown at the Oakland Federal
Building 1301 Clay Street, join the Peoples NonViolent Response
Coalition (PNVRC) and Jobs with Justice for a continuous public
reading of Dr. Martin Luther King's 1967 speech, Beyond Vietnam:
A Time to Break Silence, featuring East Bay workers, labor leaders,
local elected offices, students, members of the faith community,
and members of the public. A noon rally will launch this celebration
of the life and work of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as East Bay
workers speak-out for workers rights right here. We will honor the
full legacy of Dr. King's work with the community reading of his words
that oppose militarism, racism and poverty.
Volunteers needed. Please call Jackie Cabasso at 510. 839.5877.
Sponsored by Peoples NonViolent Response Coalition and the
Alameda County Central Labor Council//Jobs with Justice Bay
Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Is This Call A justice? Torturer Got Some Charges Dropped
While Military Jailed A Solider Who Refuse to Kill!
Iraq Watch Specials: From Peace No War Network
January 7, 2004
http://www.PeaceNoWar.net
Spc. Charles Graner, the soldier accused of being the ringleader of
the Abu Ghraib prison scandal who facing up to 24 1/2 years in a
military prison on charges of conspiracy to maltreat detainees,
assault and committing indecent acts. For some reason, yesterday
(1/6) the prosecutors "dropped" two other charges (obstruction
of justice and adultery) against him.
Graner still could go to prison for his role on the torture case, but
why he can get a little "break" when on the same day, another soldier
who re-enlisted with the Marines after becoming a Seventh-Day
Adventist, has been jailed for refusing to pick up a gun?
Peace No War Commantary
Lists of Articles
1) Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Soldier (AP)
2) Marine Jailed for Refusing to Pick Up Gun (AP)
1) Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Soldier
By T.A. BADGER
.c The Associated Press
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - On the eve of the first trial stemming
from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, prosecutors dropped two
charges against the soldier accused of being the ringleader of
the abuse.
Charges of obstruction of justice and adultery were dropped
Thursday against Spc. Charles Graner, of Uniontown, Pa. Capt.
Steven Neill, a spokesman for the prosecution, would not say why
they were dropped, only that it is usually done for evidentiary
issues or strategic reasons.
Guy Womack, Graner's attorney, said he thinks the charges were
dropped because his client was wrongly accused of those counts.
Graner, 36, faces up to 24 1/2 years in a military prison on charges
of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, assault and committing
indecent acts. Jury selection was to begin Friday.
Three other soldiers from the Maryland-based 372nd Military
Police Company also face charges.
Among them is Pfc. Lynndie England, who gave birth in October
to a child that Army prosecutors claim was fathered by Graner.
Her trial at Fort Hood has not yet been scheduled.
In one photo taken at Abu Ghraib, Graner is shown giving
a thumbs-up behind a pile of naked Iraq prisoners. Another photo
shows him cocking his fist as if to punch a hooded detainee.
Graner, a former prison guard, is also accused of jumping on
detainees, stomping on their hands and feet, and punching one
man in the temple hard enough to knock him out and require
medical treatment.
Womack, a former Marine Corps lawyer, made his client's defense
clear at a pretrial hearing last month: Graner was ordered by
higher-ranking soldiers and other government agents to go rough
on detainees to soften them up for interrogators.
Womack said any abusive acts Graner may have committed at
Abu Ghraib were not crimes because the soldier had no choice
but to obey orders.
Lawyers for the other Abu Ghraib defendants will be closely
watching Graner's trial.
``If Graner is successful in his defense, then we've been assured
that the prosecution will take an entirely different, enlightened
position pertaining to our case,'' said attorney Paul Bergrin of
Newark, N.J., whose client Sgt. Javal Davis is scheduled for trial
in February.
Should Graner be convicted, Bergrin said he may rethink his
strategy of going to trial and instead pursue a plea bargain for Davis.
Three other soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company have
already made plea deals, among them Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick
of Buckingham, Va.
Frederick, sentenced to eight years in prison, is to date the
highest-ranking soldier charged with abuses at Abu Ghraib.
01/07/05 05:12 EST
Photos of U.S. Military Torture in Abu Ghraib Prison
http://www.peacenowar.net/Iraq/News/April%2004-Photos/Abu%20Ghraib.htm
2) Marine Jailed for Refusing to Pick Up Gun
By ESTES THOMPSON
.c The Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A soldier who re-enlisted with the Marines
after becoming a Seventh-Day Adventist has been jailed for refusing
to pick up a gun.
Cpl. Joel D. Klimkewicz, 24, of Birch Run, Mich., was sentenced last
month in a court-martial to seven months in Camp Lejeune's brig.
He also received a reduction in rank to private and a bad conduct
discharge.
Klimkewicz was charged with refusing to obey order two years to
draw a weapon from his unit's armory for a training exercise in
preparation for an Iraq deployment.
In refusing the order, Klimkewicz told his superiors he was
a conscientious objector and cited his new status as a member
of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
The church supports noncombatant status for its members who
serve in the military, but leaves such decisions to a member's
individual conscience.
Klimkewicz joined an Adventist church in Jacksonville in 2003,
a year after he re-enlisted. He sought conscientious objector
status, which was rejected in last March.
``Conscientious objector status has to be granted,'' said
Capt. Jeff Pool, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division at
Lejeune. ``Since his package was denied, it was just simply
disobeying an order. That is what he was charged with.''
The timing of Klimkewicz's conversion and re-enlistment were
issues in his case, church attorney Mitchell Tyner said Tuesday.
The Marine Corps said he should have known better than to re-enlist
after joining the church, he said.
``Marines are not big on this kind of thing,'' Tyner said in a telephone
interview from the church office in Silver Spring, Md. ``The whole
thing comes down to the timing.''
Tyner said Klimkewicz was to be one of 10 troops sent to Iraq
as replacements for other Marines. He told authorities he would
work removing mines in Iraq, but did not want to carry a weapon.
01/05/05 04:46 EST
Useful Links:
Los Angeles Times has a complete biographical Information on
U.S. Soldiers Killed:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/external/fmmac2.mm.ap.org/war2/adv_search.php?S
ITE=CALOS&SECTION=MIDEAST
For more photos and Videos from Iraq, visit:
"Report from Baghdad" July, 2003
http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/intro.html
Peace, No War
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---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) Subject: Lynne Stewart on Democracy Now 1/6/05
From: "Larry Felson"
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 07:10:35 +0000
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge, however donations help us
provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our
TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate -$25 ,$50 ,$100 ,more...
AMY GOODMAN: Lynne Stewart will be headed to the trial right
after this program. Your response so far, Lynne Stewart. Your lawyer
calls you courageous, brash and feisty. The thousands of tape
recordings that have been made, did this number surprise you?
What is it now, 8,500? ?
LYNNE STEWART: No, 85,000. ?
AMY GOODMAN: 85,000. ?
LYNNE STEWART: They were mainly made of Mr. Sattar's telephone,
and then laterly Mr. Yousry's telephone. I was never tapped. I was
never a target until John Ashcroft decided to make me the
centerpiece of this particular prosecution. But it is notable that
with all of these calls, and supposedly a conspiracy, that we
question, I'm not on any of those calls. I'm just not there. It's
just not -- my name is not mentioned. There's no reference to
the female lawyer who's going to help us out with this or
anything else. So, the absence of evidence is also supposed to
count for something, I think. So, we're a winding down, in
answer to the first question, I guess. The six month-trial.
I was on the witness stand for three weeks, which Michael will
be commenting on today. At least at this point it will be in the
hands of the jury, and as I have said to you before, Amy,
I have great faith in the jury system. I'm not saying it works
perfectly, because of course, it brings inherently all of the
prejudices of the society. ?
AMY GOODMAN: The prosecutors have raised a lot of questions,
and in the summary arguments as well, about why you went and
visited the sheikh in prison. I mean, they say it's a life sentence,
no chance of getting out. Raised questions, and of course,
focusing on that 2000 release that you were trying to communicate
with his supporters in Egypt, when the government was trying
to cut off all communication to say -- end the cease-fire? ?
LYNNE STEWART: Well, of course, we do. As Michael said yes, we
lawyers do this kind of pro bono work for people who are despised
or thought little of, we wear that as a badge of honor. It wasn't
me alone, of course. That's one of the big points of our case. It
was me. It was Ramsey Clarke, Abdean Jabar. We were all doing
this. The tapes show we all dealt with him in pretty much the same
way. It was mainly done because you want to keep pressure on the
government so the conditions don't worsen. You want to bring up
a lawsuit if the time is right to make a lawsuit. You cannot let the
government dictate how you practice law. Lawyers being
autonomous is really to some degree the backbone of the entire
legal system when it does work well, and lawyers making decisions
based on the rules of ethics. So, those things are all in the case,
but I always like to say, there's absolutely no proof that I'm linked
to any terrorist conspiracy. That they have to prove. The second
thing is, everything I did Ramsey Clarke did, Abdean Jabar did,
and I'm sure the jurors are going to say, why aren't they arrested
and why aren't they part of this? ?
JUAN GONZALEZ: Why do you think that Ashcroft decided to target
you specifically, and to go after you in this way that even most
defense lawyers, no matter what their political persuasion
cannot believe happened? ?
LYNNE STEWART: Yeah, I think that. well, Ashcroft, as we know,
has a certain viewpoint, and a certain viewpoint towards women,
I think is clear also. So, my friends do say, if you don't think this
has to do with your being a woman, you're crazy. But I also think
that one of the things they said in their summation was something
like, if it's a revolution, Stewart's for it. She will back any revolution.
Like I'm some wingnut -- left wing -- wingnut out there, espousing
soapbox violence for everything. They sort of wanted to commingle
my personal politics with my work as a lawyer. They are really, very,
very separate. I'm hardly a fundamentalist. But I think Ashcroft saw
me as an easy target. I hope he now knows that he was wrong. ?
AMY GOODMAN: They also accuse you of covering up political
conversations that your translator was having with Sheikh Abdel
Rahman, putting out words that might cover as they were having
a conversation, since you weren't supposed to have political
conversations, but only legal conversations. They knew this
because they were recording your conversations. ?
LYNNE STEWART: Exactly. You know, when you visit someone in
a jail, when the guards seem to get too interested, we now realize
they were so interested because the F.B.I. was in the next room taping
all of this. It was a different scenario, but we couldn't understand
why they were leaning in, why they would turn around and look at
us. We said, let's deal with this. I know that I have the right as
a lawyer to protect my client's confidences, whatever they may be.
If he says, I'm having trouble with my teenage son, I'd like you to
tell my wife to do this and that. He has to have confidence in
saying that to me, confidence in me and also a confidence. So,
when we whisper, we lawyers, when we talk in somebody's ear,
whatever way we do it, even Patrick Fitzgerald, who was their
first witness, the government's first -- the sinny qua non
prosecutor, said there are things that lawyers do that are
secret and we are bound to protect them. Thats all we were
doing. There was no big secret. When they recorded it, we were
equally protecting conversations that are totally innocuous to
those which might have had political content. ?
JUAN GONZALEZ: In other words, they are prosecuting you for
being too good at preventing them from being able to listen
in on what should be confidential conversations with your clients? ?
LYNNE STEWART: Exactly, Juan. As Michael Tiger likes to say,
they were not supposed to be listening in, but you're wrong
for preventing them from listening to what they're not supposed
to listen to. It's a little convoluted, but it is sort of the hallmark
of the entire case. ?
AMY GOODMAN: We will continue to follow this case, again
closing arguments continue today in New York at 40 Foley
Square. It is open to the public. We went down yesterday afternoon
to hear the beginning of these closing argument, and we will
continue to follow your case, Lynne Stewart, the attorney who
faces 45 years in prison.
To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program,
click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (800) 881-2359
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) Subject: Seven Palestinian Children Killed in Strawberry
Fields by Israeli Anti-Personnel Shells
From: "Justice Freedom"
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 20:05:33 -0800
Israeli violence has intensified in the run-up to the first Palestinian
presidential elections in eight years. Since Yasser Arafat died, during
a much-vaunted "window of opportunity for peace", more than
75 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, many of them
children. In the same period, no Israeli civilians have been killed
by Palestinians.
Seven Palestinian Children Killed in Strawberry Fields by Israeli
Anti-Personnel Shells
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/new_web/Jan_05_archive.htm
January 5, 2005
Israeli anti-personnel shells, which throw out thousands of metal
darts in a deadly cloud that rips apart everything it encounters,
killed seven children between the ages of ten and 17 in a strawberry
field in northern Gaza yesterday. Dr. Mohamed Sultan of the Beit
Lahiya hospital said eleven were also wounded, four critically.
Two of the survivors had double leg amputations, another
a single leg amputation.
According to eyewitnesses, Israeli occupation military posts
between the illegal Israeli settlements of Elei Sinai and Nisanit,
located north of the Palestinian town of Beit Lahiya, fired a tank
shell at a Palestinian agricultural area south of the fence that
separates the two settlements from Beit Lahiya. The shell
directly hit a number of Palestinian children who were farming
their land.
Six of the boys who were killed were from the same family,
and three were brothers. The names of the dead children are:
Hani Mohammed Ghaben (17), and his brothers Bassam (14)
and Mohammed (12); their cousins Rajeh Ghassan Ghaben (10),
Jaber Abdullah Ghaben (15), Mohammed Hassan Ghaben (17);
and a neighbor named Jibril Abdul Fattah al-Kaseeh (16).
The father of the three dead brothers was among the villagers
who came to see the effects of the shelling. When he reached
the site, he was shocked to see the scattered and bloody remains
of his dead children. Medical staff and family members gathered
the shredded body part of the children from the grass and clay.
Israeli violence has intensified in the run-up to the first
Palestinian presidential elections in eight years. Since Yasser
Arafat died, during a much-vaunted "window of opportunity
for peace", more than 75 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli
forces, many of them children. In the same period, no Israeli
civilians have been killed by Palestinians.
- 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
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) The other tsunami
By John Pilger
While the sea may have killed tens of thousands, western
policies kill millions every year. Yet even amid disaster,
a new politics of community and morality is emerging.
http://www.newstatesman.com/nscoverstory.htm
The west's crusaders, the United States and Britain, are giving less
to help the tsunami victims than the cost of a Stealth bomber or
a week's bloody occupation of Iraq. The bill for George Bush's
coming inauguration party would rebuild much of the coastline
of Sri Lanka. Bush and Blair increased their first driblets of "aid"
only when it became clear that people all over the world were
spontaneously giving millions and that a public relations problem
beckoned. The Blair government's current "generous" contribution
is one-sixteenth of the £800m it spent on bombing Iraq before
the invasion and barely one-twentieth of a £1bn gift, known as
a soft loan, to the Indonesian military so that it could acquire
Hawk fighter-bombers.
On 24 November, one month before the tsunami struck, the Blair
government gave its backing to an arms fair in Jakarta, "designed
to meet an urgent need for the [Indonesian] armed forces to review
its defence capabilities", reported the Jakarta Post . The Indonesian
military, responsible for genocide in East Timor, has killed more than
20,000 civilians and "insurgents" in Aceh. Among the exhibitors at
the arms fair was Rolls-Royce, manufacturer of engines for the Hawks,
which, along with British-supplied Scorpion armoured vehicles,
machine-guns and ammunition, were terrorising and killing people
in Aceh up to the day the tsunami devastated the province.
The Australian government, currently covering itself in glory for its
modest response to the historic disaster befallen its Asian neighbours,
has secretly trained Indonesia's Kopassus special forces, whose
atrocities in Aceh are well documented. This is in keeping with
Australia's 40-year support for oppression in Indonesia, notably
its devotion to the dictator Suharto while his troops slaughtered
a third of the population of East Timor. The government of John
Howard - notorious for its imprisonment of child asylum-seekers
- is at present defying international maritime law by denying East
Timor its due of oil and gas royalties worth some $8bn. Without
this revenue, East Timor, the world's poorest country, cannot build
schools, hospitals and roads or provide work for its young people,
90 per cent of whom are unemployed.
The hypocrisy, narcissism and dissembling propaganda of the rulers
of the world and their sidekicks are in full cry. Superlatives abound
as to their humanitarian intent while the division of humanity into
worthy and unworthy victims dominates the news. The victims of
a great natural disaster are worthy (though for how long is uncertain)
while the victims of man-made imperial disasters are unworthy and
very often unmentionable. Somehow, reporters cannot bring
themselves to report what has been going on in Aceh, supported
by "our" government. This one-way moral mirror allows us to ignore
a trail of destruction and carnage that is another tsunami.
Consider the plight of Afghanistan, where clean water is unknown
and death in childbirth common. At the Labour Party conference
in 2001, Tony Blair announced his famous crusade to "reorder the
world" with the pledge: "To the Afghan people, we make this
commitment . . . We will not walk away . . . we will work with you
to make sure [a way is found] out of the miserable poverty that is
your present existence." The Blair government was on the verge of
taking part in the conquest of Afghanistan, in which as many as
25,000 civilians died. In all the great humanitarian crises in living
memory, no country suffered more and none has been helped less.
Just 3 per cent of all international aid spent in Afghanistan has been for
reconstruction, 84 per cent is for the US-led military "coalition"
and the rest is crumbs for emergency aid. What is often presented
as reconstruction revenue is private investment, such as the $35m
that will finance a proposed five-star hotel, mostly for foreigners.
An adviser to the minister of rural affairs in Kabul told me his
government had received less than 20 per cent of the aid promised
to Afghan-istan. "We don't even have enough money to pay wages,
let alone plan reconstruction," he said.
The reason, unspoken of course, is that Afghans are the unworthiest
of victims. When US helicopter gunships repeatedly machine-gunned
a remote farming village, killing as many as 93 civilians, a Pentagon
official was moved to say, "The people there are dead because we
wanted them dead."
I became acutely aware of this other tsunami when I reported from
Cambodia in 1979. Following a decade of American bombing and
Pol Pot's barbarities, Cambodia lay as stricken as Aceh is today.
Disease beckoned famine and people suffered a collective trauma
few could explain. Yet for nine months after the collapse of the
Khmer Rouge regime, no effective aid arrived from western
governments. Instead, a western- and Chinese-backed UN
embargo was imposed on Cambodia, denying virtually the
entire machinery of recovery and assistance. The problem for
the Cambodians was that their liberators, the Vietnamese, had
come from the wrong side of the cold war, having recently
expelled the Americans from their homeland. That made them
unworthy victims, and expendable.
A similar, largely unreported siege was forced on Iraq during
the 1990s and intensified during the Anglo-American "liberation".
Last September, Unicef reported that malnutrition among Iraqi
children had doubled under the occupation. Infant mortality is
now at the level of Burundi, higher than in Haiti and Uganda.
There is crippling poverty and a chronic shortage of medicines.
Cases of cancer are rising rapidly, especially breast cancer;
radioactive pollution is widespread. More than 700 schools are
bomb-damaged. Of the billions said to have been allocated for
reconstruction in Iraq, just $29m has been spent, most of it
on mercenaries guarding foreigners. Little of this is news in
the west.
This other tsunami is worldwide, causing 24,000 deaths every
day from poverty and debt and division that are the products of
a supercult called neoliberalism. This was acknowledged by the
United Nations in 1990 when it called a conference in Paris of
the richest states with the aim of implementing a "programme
of action" to rescue the world's poorest nations. A decade later,
virtually every commitment made by western governments had
been broken, making Gordon Brown's waffle about the G8
"sharing Britain's dream" of ending poverty as just that: waffle.
Very few western governments have honoured the United
Nations "baseline" and allotted a miserable 0.7 per cent or
more of their national income to overseas aid. Britain gives
just 0.34 per cent, making its "Department for International
Development" a black joke. The US gives 0.14 per cent, the
lowest of any industrial state.
Largely unseen and unimagined by westerners, millions of
people know their lives have been declared expendable. When
tariffs and food and fuel subsidies are eliminated under an IMF
diktat, small farmers and the landless know they face disaster,
which is why suicides among farmers are an epidemic. Only the
rich, says the World Trade Organisation, are allowed to protect
their home industries and agriculture; only they have the right
to subsidise exports of meat, grain and sugar and dump them
in poor countries at artificially low prices, thereby destroying
livelihoods and lives.
Indonesia, once described by the World Bank as "a model pupil
of the global economy", is a case in point. Many of those washed
to their deaths in Sumatra on Boxing Day were dispossessed by
IMF policies. Indonesia owes an unrepayable debt of $110bn.
The World Resources Institute says the toll of this man-made
tsunami reaches 13-18 million child deaths worldwide every
year; or 12 million children under the age of five, according to
a UN Human Development Report . "If 100 million have been
killed in the formal wars of the 20th century," wrote the
Australian social scientist Michael McKinley, "why are they to
be privileged in comprehension over the annual [death] toll
of children from structural adjustment programmes since 1982?"
That the system causing this has democracy as its war cry is
a mockery which people all over the world increasingly understand.
It is this rising awareness, consciousness even, that offers more
than hope. Since the crusaders in Washington and London
squandered world sympathy for the victims of 11 September
2001 in order to accelerate their campaign of domination, a
critical public intelligence has stirred and regards the likes of
Blair and Bush as liars and their culpable actions as crimes. The
current outpouring of help for the tsunami victims among
ordinary people in the west is a spectacular reclaiming of the
politics of community, morality and internationalism denied
them by governments and corporate propaganda. Listening to
tourists returning from stricken countries, consumed with
gratitude for the gracious, expansive way some of the poorest
of the poor gave them shelter and cared for them, one hears
the antithesis of "policies" that care only for the avaricious.
"The most spectacular display of public morality the world has
ever seen", was how the writer Arundhati Roy described the
anti-war anger that swept across the world almost two years
ago. A French study now estimates that 35 million people
demonstrated on that February day and says there has never
been anything like it; and it was just a beginning.
This is not rhetorical; human renewal is not a phenomenon, rather
the continuation of a struggle that may appear at times to have
frozen but is a seed beneath the snow. Take Latin America, long
declared invisible and expendable in the west. "Latin Americans
have been trained in impotence," wrote Eduardo Galeano the other
day. "A pedagogy passed down from colonial times, taught by
violent soldiers, timorous teachers and frail fatalists, has rooted
in our souls the belief that reality is untouchable and that all
we can do is swallow in silence the woes each day brings."
Galeano was celebrating the rebirth of real democracy in his
homeland, Uruguay, where people have voted "against fear",
against privatisation and its attendant indecencies. In Venezuela,
municipal and state elections in October notched up the ninth
democratic victory for the only government in the world sharing
its oil wealth with its poorest people. In Chile, the last of the
military fascists supported by western governments, notably
Thatcher, are being pursued by revitalised democratic forces.
These forces are part of a movement against inequality and
poverty and war that has arisen in the past six years and is
more diverse, more enterprising, more internationalist and
more tolerant of difference than anything in my lifetime. It is
a movement unburdened by a western liberalism that believes
it represents a superior form of life; the wisest know this is
colonialism by another name. The wisest also know that just
as the conquest of Iraq is unravelling, so a whole system of
domination and impoverishment can unravel, too.
www.johnpilger.com
(c) New Statesman 1913 - 2004
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) 'The Salvador Option'
The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or
kidnapping teams in Iraq
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Hirsh and John Barry
Newsweek
Updated: 10:22 a.m. ET Jan. 9, 2005,
MSNBC.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/
Jan. 8 - What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon's
latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"-and the fact that it
is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald
Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can't just go on
as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find
a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are
playing defense. And we are losing." Last November's operation in
Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back"
of the insurgency-as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared
at the time-than in spreading it out.
Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an
option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan
administration's battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in
El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war
against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or
supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called
death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and
sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many
U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success-
despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent
Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current
administration officials who dealt with Central America back
then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to
Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras.)
Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special
Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads,
most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite
militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers,
even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders
familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however,
whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called
"snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret
facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while
U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria,
activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi
paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.
Also being debated is which agency within the U.S. government-
the Defense department or CIA-would take responsibility for
such an operation. Rumsfeld's Pentagon has aggressively
sought to build up its own intelligence-gathering and clandestine
capability with an operation run by Defense Undersecretary
Stephen Cambone. But since the Abu Ghraib interrogations
scandal, some military officials are ultra-wary of any operations
that could run afoul of the ethics codified in the Uniform Code
of Military Justice. That, they argue, is the reason why such
covert operations have always been run by the CIA and
authorized by a special presidential finding. (In "covert"
activity, U.S. personnel operate under cover and the U.S.
government will not confirm that it instigated or ordered
them into action if they are captured or killed.)
Meanwhile, intensive discussions are taking place inside the
Senate Intelligence Committee over the Defense department's
efforts to expand the involvement of U.S. Special Forces personnel
in intelligence-gathering missions. Historically, Special Forces'
intelligence gathering has been limited to objectives directly related
to upcoming military operations-"preparation of the battlefield," in
military lingo. But, according to intelligence and defense officials,
some Pentagon civilians for years have sought to expand the use
of Special Forces for other intelligence missions.
Pentagon civilians and some Special Forces personnel believe CIA
civilian managers have traditionally been too conservative in
planning and executing the kind of undercover missions that
Special Forces soldiers believe they can effectively conduct. CIA
traditionalists are believed to be adamantly opposed to ceding
any authority to the Pentagon. Until now, Pentagon proposals for
a capability to send soldiers out on intelligence missions without
direct CIA approval or participation have been shot down. But
counter-terrorist strike squads, even operating covertly, could
be deemed to fall within the Defense department's orbit.
The interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is said to
be among the most forthright proponents of the Salvador option.
Maj. Gen.Muhammad Abdallah al-Shahwani, director of Iraq's
National Intelligence Service, may have been laying the groundwork
for the idea with a series of interviews during the past ten days.
Shahwani told the London-based Arabic daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat
that the insurgent leadership-he named three former senior figures
in the Saddam regime, including Saddam Hussein's half-brother-
were essentially safe across the border in a Syrian sanctuary. "We
are certain that they are in Syria and move easily between Syrian
and Iraqi territories," he said, adding that efforts to extradite
them "have not borne fruit so far."
Shahwani also said that the U.S. occupation has failed to crack the
problem of broad support for the insurgency. The insurgents, he
said, "are mostly in the Sunni areas where the population there,
almost 200,000, is sympathetic to them." He said most Iraqi people
do not actively support the insurgents or provide them with material
or logistical help, but at the same time they won't turn them in.
One military source involved in the Pentagon debate agrees that
this is the crux of the problem, and he suggests that new offensive
operations are needed that would create a fear of aiding the
insurgency. "The Sunni population is paying no price for the
support it is giving to the terrorists," he said. "From their point
of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation."
Pentagon sources emphasize there has been no decision yet to
launch the Salvador option. Last week, Rumsfeld decided to send
a retired four-star general, Gary Luck, to Iraq on an open-ended
mission to review the entire military strategy there. But with the
U.S. Army strained to the breaking point, military strategists note
that a dramatic new approach might be needed-perhaps one as
potentially explosive as the Salvador option.
With Mark Hosenball
(c) 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) US deserters flee to Canada to avoid service in Iraq
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 09/01/2005)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/09/wus09.xml&sS
heet=/portal/2005/01/09/ixportal.html
American Army soldiers are deserting and fleeing to Canada rather than
fight in Iraq, rekindling memories of the thousands of draft-dodgers
who flooded north to avoid service in Vietnam.
An estimated 5,500 men and women have deserted since the invasion
of Iraq, reflecting Washington's growing problems with troop morale.
Jeremy Hinzman: a 'wrong career choice'
Jeremy Hinzman, 26, from South Dakota, who deserted from the 82nd
Airborne , is among those who - to the disgust of Pentagon officials -
have applied for refugee status in Canada.
The United States Army treats deserters as common criminals, posting
them on "wanted" lists with the FBI, state police forces and the
Department of Home Security border patrols.
Hinzman said last week: "This is a criminal war and any act of violence
in an unjustified conflict is an atrocity. I signed a contract for four
years,
and I was totally willing to fulfil it. Just not in combat arms jobs."
Hinzman, who served as a cook in Afghanistan, was due to join
a fighting unit in Iraq after being refused status as a conscientious
objector.
He realised that he had made the "wrong career choice" as he
marched with his platoon of recruits all chanting, "Train to kill,
kill we will".
He said: "At that point a light went off in my head. I was told in basic
training that if I'm given an illegal or immoral order, it is my duty to
disobey it. I feel that invading and occupying Iraq is an illegal and
immoral thing to do.''
Pte Brandon Hughey, 19, who deserted from the 1st Cavalry
Division at Fort Hood, Texas, said that he had volunteered because
the army offered to pay his college fees. He began training soon
after the invasion of Iraq but became disillusioned when no
weapons of mass destruction were found.
"I had been willing to die to make America safe," he said. "I found
out, basically, that they found no weapons of mass destruction
and the claim that they made about ties to al-Qaeda was coming
up short. It made me angry. I felt our lives as soldiers were being
thrown away."
When he was ordered to deploy to Iraq, Hughey searched the
internet for an "underground railroad" operation, through which
deserting troops are helped to escape to Canada.
He was put in touch with a Quaker pacifist couple who had helped
Vietnam draft-dodgers and was driven from Texas to Ontario.
The Pentagon says that the level of desertion is no higher than usual
and denies that it is having difficulty persuading troops to fight. The
flight to Canada is, however, an embarrassment for the military, which
is suffering from a recruiting shortfall for the National Guard and the
Army Reserves.
The deaths of 18 American soldiers in a suicide bomb attack in Mosul,
northern Iraq, last month, was a further blow to morale. Soon after,
the number of American soldiers killed since President Bush declared
that large-scale combat operations were at an end passed the
1,000 mark.
Lt Col Joe Richard, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the US government
wanted the deserters to be returned from Canada. "If you don't want
to fight, don't join," he said.
"The men in Canada have an obligation to fulfil their military contracts
and do their duty. If and when they return to this country, they will
be prosecuted."
The penalty for desertion in wartime can be death. Most deserters,
however, serve up to five years in a military prison before receiving
a dishonourable discharge.
In order to stay in Canada, deserters must convince an immigration
board that they would face not just prosecution but also "persecution"
if they returned to America. Hinzman's hearing has begun in Toronto
and a decision is expected next month.
During the Vietnam war an estimated 55,000 deserters or draft-
dodgers fled to Canada. There were amnesties for both groups in
the late 1970s under President Jimmy Carter, but many stayed.
One who did so is Jeffrey House, a Toronto-based lawyer, who
represents some of the deserters. He said that at least 25 had
reached Canada in recent months with the help of "railroad"
organisations, and believed that the immigration board would
back his clients.
19 April 2004: US 'soldiers of conscience' take Sixties route to
Canada
18 December 2004: US military sees sharp fall in black recruits
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of
Telegraph Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any
medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see
Copyright
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
15) Second US attack on civilians feeds calls for Iraq withdrawal
By Stephen Negus in Baghdad
Published: January 10 2005 02:00
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/07926a26-62ac-11d9-8e5d-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.
html
US soldiers mistakenly opened fire on Iraqi police and civilians after
an ambush south of Baghdad yesterday, killing five people.
The incident came less than 24 hours after a mis-aimed US bomb was
dropped on a home in the north of the country, killing another five Iraqis.
Combined, the incidents will feed calls that US forces set a date for
their withdrawal, a demand made by several Iraqi political factions
during the run-up to the January 30 elections.
On Saturday the conservative Sunni organisation, the Association of
Muslim Scholars, joined the calls after meeting US representatives to
demand a timetable for withdrawal. The group was reported to have
said it would abandon its election boycott in return for a departure
date for US forces.
However, despite the rhetoric about withdrawal, a senior US official
said last week that representatives of Iraqi political groups in regular
contact with the embassy were not pushing for a departure date,
while Iyad Allawi, prime minister, argues that most Iraqis support
the presence of foreign forces.
According to Iraqi police, the soldiers shot dead two police and two
civilians after their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in the town
of Yusufiya, while a fifth Iraqi died of a heart attack at the scene.
The US military did not have information on the shooting of civilians,
but reported one soldier killed by a roadside bomb in or near Baghdad.
Iraqis say US soldiers, fearing suicide car bombers, are quick to
shoot at civilian vehicles, but the incidents often go unreported.
Meanwhile, seven Ukrainian soldiers and an eighth from Kazakhstan
were killed in a blast that occurred when they were loading an
unexploded bomb.
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16) How much "aid" will reach the tsunami survivors?
By Richard Phillips
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
11 January 2005
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jan2005/tsun-j11.shtml
While the corporate media has hailed the increased promises of
assistance from the US, Australia and other wealthier countries to the
tsunami-hit nations, the almost $5 billion pledged over the past fortnight
will do little to overcome the extraordinary problems confronting survivors.
According to Britain's Overseas Development Institute, at least $25 billion
is needed to restore basic infrastructure and provide shelter. This raw
estimate, however, does not take into account the amounts required to
provide adequate food and health services to the more than five million
people facing the outbreak of dysentery, malaria, pneumonia, cholera
and other life-threatening diseases.
In Sri Lanka, for example, the United Nations World Food Program
announced last week that it would distribute some 4,000 tons of rice,
wheat flour, lentils and sugar. But this is enough only to supply
approximately 500,000 people for two weeks. On current estimates,
over one million people are now homeless in Sri Lanka, with around
400,000 having taken refuge in public buildings, schools and
makeshift camps.
In Indonesia, where over 80 percent of western Sumatra's towns
and villages have been destroyed and more than 100,000 are dead,
thousands face dying because no mechanisms exist for the rapid
distribution of assistance. Aceh, the worst hit, has no airport
capable of receiving heavy transport planes, with the nearest
facility located in Medan, 400 kilometres from Banda Aceh, the
regional capital. Two weeks after the tsunami, parts of the province
have not received any assistance.
Even within the framework of official government assistance, the a
mount spent on foreign aid from the world's richest nations has
declined dramatically over the past decade or more. According to
Paying the Price , a report published last December by Oxfam, the
annual aid budgets of the top 20 donor nations are half what they
were in 1960, in real terms. On average, G7 nations-Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US-allocate only 0.19 percent
of their Gross National Income (GNI) for international assistance.
The combined annual foreign aid from the world's wealthiest nations
is about $55 billion-far less than capital expenditure on the military.
Britain currently spends eight times as much on its military as it does
on aid, France 9, Italy 15 and the US 33 times. The US annual defence
budget in 2003 was over $400 billion, or 3.6 percent of its Gross
National Income (GNI), while its foreign aid was only $16 billion or
just 0.14 percent of GNI. This is about a ninth of the $148 billion
it has spent invading and occupying Iraq.
The reality of international aid
While aid from the economically powerful nations has always been
devised to promote donors' interests, the amounts and political
purpose of this assistance has changed dramatically over the past
two decades.
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the US provided millions
of dollars through the Marshall Plan to help rebuild war-devastated
Europe, boost world trade and improve markets for American goods.
This program was expanded and became the model for the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
and other Cold War international aid programs. It was never devised
to eliminate poverty, but to try and undermine the Soviet Union's
economic and political sphere of influence. Within this framework,
other imperialist nations, France and Britain and lesser ones such as
Australia, set up assistance programs for their former colonies.
Various underdeveloped countries, or, at least, the ruling elites
within them, benefited from these arrangements and some rudimentary
infrastructure was developed during the Cold War period. But all this
changed with the collapse and liquidation of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The US and other imperialist nations slashed funds and adjusted their
aid programs to the new reality. The US aid budget, for example,
dropped by 32 percent between 1985 and 1995. International
assistance to sub-Saharan Africa declined in real terms by almost
50 percent in the 1990s.
Behind the official government rhetoric of "poverty reduction" and
"development assistance", the international financial institutions also
began devising new methods to extract more from the
underdeveloped world.
Assistance and development loans to the less-developed nations
started to come with increasing demands from donor nations and
the international banks. From 1995 to 2000, for example, there were,
on average, 41 conditions attached to every International Monetary
Fund (IMF) loan to poorer countries. These included specific demands
on exchange rates, pricing and market privatisation, financial sector
regulation and privatisation of education, health and social welfare
systems.
By 1999, IMF loans to sub-Sahara African countries had 114
conditions on average, with most requiring prior compliance before
the finance, or part thereof, was granted. These directives were
made irrespective of the social and economic impact on the
recipient nations or factors outside their control, such as currency
and commodity price fluctuations or access to international markets.
In other words, compliance, rather than improving living conditions
in the under-developed nations, worsened the poverty and
undermined the existing, and generally inadequate, basic
infrastructure in water, power, health, education and transport.
As Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner and chief economist at
the World Bank from 1996 until November 1999, admitted in
2000, the policies pursued by Washington and the international
banks during the 1990s were akin to "using a flamethrower to
burn off an old coat of house paint, and then lamenting that you
couldn't finish the new paint job because the house had burned down".
The "aid" offered to Indonesia following the 1997-98 Asian
economic crisis, for example, increased poverty significantly.
To secure emergency assistance, the Indonesian government
had to agree to privatise state services, restructure national banks,
cut social spending and move to abolish price subsidies on fuel,
electricity and food. These measures were clearly incompatible
with the basic needs of the majority of Indonesians. The number
living in poverty doubled to 100 million, and real wages
plummeted by 30 percent during this period.
According to a World Bank report in 2002, Indonesia was the only
country directly affected by the Asian financial crisis where current
economic activity remained "significantly below pre-crisis levels ...
[with] more than half of Indonesia's population living on less than
$US2 per day". A UN World Food Program reported that 90 percent
of Aceh's population lived in poverty in 2002, with illness from
malaria, dengue fever and hepatitis a "significant problem" for
the overwhelming majority of the province, the layers most
affected by the December 26 tsunami.
Like Indonesia, Sri Lanka is also dependent on international aid.
But apart from some basic health programs and other limited
measures, recent foreign assistance packages have done little
to improve the position of the poor.
A high-profile international aid project was launched in June 2003,
following the Tokyo aid conference, with representatives from the
US, Japan, the European Union, the IMF, World Bank and Asian
Development Bank. The $4.5 billion promised at the meeting was
to be provided only after the Sri Lankan government agreed to
introduce a number of so-called "poverty reduction" programs.
One of these, entitled "Regaining Sri Lanka," drawn up by the Sri
Lankan government in conjunction with donor countries and the
banks, included agreements to increase the privatisation of Sri
Lanka's ports, health, education and other state sectors.
Tied aid
"Tied aid", which forces countries receiving assistance to purchase
goods and services from donor nations, is another notorious
technique that ensures most foreign aid flows back to the donor.
Although officially condemned by international financial
institutions and the UN, "tied aid" has increased over the
past 20 years
According to a recent UN survey, 84 cents of every US aid dollar
returns to America in the form of purchased goods and services.
Up to 75 percent of Canadian aid is tied, while Germany, Japan,
France, Australia and numerous other donors insist that a large
of proportion of these funds must be used to buy their goods
and services. This can include anything from food products,
telecommunications, transport, and technical advice to policing
and security.
Last week, Australian Prime Minister John Howard made clear
that his government's $A1 billion tsunami aid package to
Indonesia would not be channeled through the UN or other
international aid agencies. His government, he said, did not
want to see any "unnecessary bureaucratising" of the relief
effort or the money being "put into the hands of others".
Australian aid will be distributed via a Jakarta-based planning
agency and overseen by a committee headed by Howard and
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. How this
will work and how much will be distributed is still not clear,
but much of it will flow back to Australian corporations.
In fact, approximately $1.8 billion per annum in official
Australian foreign assistance is distributed to a select group
of wealthy local companies involved in the "aid" industry. GRN
International, which is owned by Kerry Packer, Australia's richest
individual, for example, receives $200 million per year for
Australian aid projects. As AusAID, the official donor of
Australian aid money, declares in its mission statement,
its prime objective is to improve Australia's "national interest".
A large component of Australian overseas aid consists of
payment for its military and police operations in the South
Pacific. Australian Defence Forces have occupied the Solomon
Islands since 2003, claiming this as international aid, and the
Howard government recently threatened to suspend all
assistance to Vanuatu unless it agreed to accept Australian
police and government "advisors" inside the poverty-stricken
South Pacific country.
Washington's African Growth and Opportunity Act is another
example of how foreign aid is directed back to US banks and
corporations. Adopted by the US Congress in May 2000, the
Act stipulates that African countries seeking American aid
must comply with IMF "structural adjustment" conditions.
Free market access to the US for African textile, clothing and
footwear, however, is only provided if the manufacturers use
nominated American raw materials.
One of the more blatant examples of "tied aid" is Washington's
HIV/AIDS assistance program. Under this policy, African
governments seeking help for HIV/AIDS treatment are
compelled to purchase all anti-AIDS drugs from the US,
instead of cheaper generics from South Africa, India or Brazil.
US drugs cost up to $15,000 per year compared to $350 for
their generic versions.
The September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the US also provided
Washington with the opportunity to radically transform its
international assistance. Aid would now be distributed according
to Washington's immediate military requirements and its so-
called "war on terror".
Pakistan became a major recipient of US aid, receiving over
$600 million in 2001. Other countries previously deemed ineligible
for assistance, but vital strategically for the "war on terror", also
began to receive funds. At the same time, under-developed
countries that refused to back US demands in the United
Nations for war against Iraq had their development funds cut.
Washington followed this by blocking assistance to any
country that refused to grant American citizens immunity for
human rights violation cases in the International Criminal
Court. Likewise, underdeveloped countries that supported
abortion rights were cut out of US aid.
Foreign aid redefined
Foreign assistance for long-term development not only
dropped during the 1990s but donors also expanded their
definition of aid to include spending on refugees in the donor
country and the education costs of overseas students from the
recipient nations. Debt relief was added into the donor nation's
overall aid spending. These calculations cut real assistance to
the underdeveloped countries and artificially boosted official
aid budgets.
Another means of inflating aid figures has been "technical
assistance". This involves forcing recipient countries to use
expensive consultants and financial corporations from the
donor nations. According to a 1999 UN estimate, technical
assistance swallows up $14 billion per year, or about a quarter
of total annual development aid.
Even as overseas aid to the less developed nations remains close
to an all-time low, moves are afoot to modify OECD rules so that
spending on so-called peace-keeping operations, or the training
of foreign armies, can be counted as aid spending.
Last month, a coalition of Non Government Organisations warned
that several countries, including Australia, Denmark and others,
were lobbying for this change. This would allow them to artificially
boost their aid budgets and claim to be meeting previously agreed
UN Millennium Project targets, under which wealthy nations were
to increase foreign assistance spending to 0.7 percent of their
GNI by 2015.
Even this brief overview shows that foreign aid from the world's
wealthiest nations in the twenty-first century has little to do with
overcoming the terrible poverty that afflicts most of the world's
population. On the contrary, it is a multi-billion dollar exercise that
ultimately worsens the conditions of life for the oppressed.
Having ignored the deaths of thousands each year in South East Asia
and the Indian sub-continent from typhoons, floods and other
natural disasters, donor governments and the corporate interests
they represent are using the tsunami disaster to expand their
political, economic and military influence in the region. Their
concerns are not and never have been humanitarian.
In January 2004, a major earthquake hit the ancient Iranian city of
Bam, killing almost 32,000 people and destroying the city. While
more than $1 billion in aid was promised by Western governments,
only $17.5 million arrived. Twelve months after the catastrophe,
survivors are still living in temporary accommodation, with little
of the city's infrastructure rebuilt. Given the recent history of
"aid" what, therefore, is to be the fate of the tsunami survivors?
Copyright 1998-2004
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
17) IRAQ IN TRANSITION: COST OF OCCUPATION
Grind of Insurgency
Eroding U.S. Military
By Robert Burns
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
January 9, 2005
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501090305jan09,1,741531.
story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
WASHINGTON -- The strain of fighting an insurgency war in Iraq, on
a scale not foreseen even a year ago and with no end in sight,
is taking a startling toll on the U.S. military.
The U.S. death count is rising by 70 or more each month, adding
to the more than 1,330 deaths already recorded.
Costs of the occupation and rebuilding are also escalating--at more
than $1 billion a week, with the total now exceeding $100 billion.
While Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld remains focused on his
exit strategy of training Iraqis for security units so U.S. troops can
return home, even he has recently used the term "bleak" to describe
the situation.
Rumsfeld says he remains convinced that the only way out is to
exercise patience and fortitude while a reliable Iraqi security force
is developed. In echoing him, U.S. military commanders in Iraq
make almost daily pronouncements of optimism that the tide
is beginning to turn against the insurgents.
Indeed, Iraqi security forces are growing in numbers and U.S.
troops continue to kill or capture combatants, destroy uncovered
weapons caches and support the country's rebuilding efforts.
The administration has said it hopes the Jan. 30 election will mark
a turning point for the better.
Yet, the Pentagon is so strapped to sustain a force of 150,000
troops in Iraq that some senior Army leaders are worried that the
war--combined with the conflict in Afghanistan--is wearing out
their squads and other units.
The question is being raised: How does the military retain an all-
volunteer force at the current level of U.S. commitment overseas?
One way, a senior Army official suggested, would be to spend an
additional $3 billion a year to expand the Army by 30,000 soldiers.
Another way would be to loosen restrictions on the use of the
National Guard and Reserve units, so those soldiers could be
called to active duty for more than 24 months.
In putting together a force to rotate into Iraq starting this
summer--the fourth rotation since the war began in 2003--
the Army found itself with a smaller proportion of National
Guard members and reservists available because there just
were not enough left.
"We've tapped 'em out," the senior Army official said last week,
speaking on condition of anonymity because the manpower
question has not been settled within the Pentagon.
The Army has about 135,000 soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait, and the
official said that for planning purposes the service is figuring it
will have to maintain that level for four or five more years. That
is in addition to the Army's many other obligations, including
deterring war on the Korean Peninsula and peacekeeping roles
in the Balkans.
And there is the war in Afghanistan, now heading toward its
fourth year.
When President Bush made the decision to invade Iraq and topple
Saddam Hussein's government in March 2003, battlefield success
came so quickly that military planners foresaw withdrawing
50,000 U.S. troops within weeks, with even more coming home
in the fall of 2003. Instead, the size of the U.S. force has grown
and now stands at the highest level of the entire war.
Among the indicators of how troubled the situation appears:
- Despite a long and determined effort to build a competent
Iraqi security force that could take over from the U.S. troops,
the Iraqi force is only half the size that U.S. commanders consider
is needed to do the job.
- Even after an offensive in November against insurgents in Fallujah,
rebels remain capable of killing U.S. troops and Iraqi police and
soldiers in Baghdad, Mosul and elsewhere almost daily. A roadside
bomb killed seven U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Thursday. On Friday,
a police captain was killed in a drive-by shooting in Abu Ghraib west
of the capital, and gunmen shot to death a police officer walking
near his house in Mosul.
- A U.S. military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, said Friday the
worst may be yet to come. "I think a worst case is where they have
a series of horrific attacks that cause mass casualties in some
spectacular fashion in the days leading up to the elections," he
said. "A year ago you didn't see these kinds of horrific things."
Copyright (c) 2005, Chicago Tribune
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18) STEELERS FANS AGAINST THE WAR KICKS OFF JANUARY 15TH
AT HEINZ FIELD IN FRONT OF THE ENTRANCE TO GREAT HALL
(the entrances to Heinz Field have names engraved
above them..look for the one that says the Great Hall)
Press Conference at 2:30pm
Contact: Etta Cetera 412- 802-8575
Steelers Fans Against the War (SFAW) will be hosting a
press conference and rally in favor of the Steelers
stellar 15 and 1 season but against George Bushes'
unjust and unsportsmanlike conduct against Iraq. We
think it's great to see today's Iron Curtain keep the
Jets out of their endzone, but sheesh, sure is
embarrassing when they sack the Iron City Beer dudes.
Just as we don't want to see the Steelers sack people
on the sidelines we certainly don't want to see the
president rushing into war against the wrong enemy.
Osama Bin Laden is NOT the quarterback of Iraq. Iraq
and Al Quaeda are two different teams. We charge
George Bush not only with an illegal use of arms but
an illegal use of arms against the wrong team. We
would expect such tactics from a team like the
Cleveland Browns but not by someone who is supposed to
be the leader of the United States. We also charge the
U.S. government with unnecessary roughness on the
grounds that no weapons of mass destruction were ever
found. Iraq never had the ball and since the sanctions
they haven't even had the pigs to make a pigskin. On
the other hand, George Bush has been lobbing long
bombs all over the Middle East ever since the second
invasion of Iraq. But he ain't in Heinz field he's in
left field in PNC Park hitting foul balls. If you
want to challenge these calls we will show you the
instant replays.
When the SFAW marched against the war on January 20th,
2002, we said "Make Touchdowns NOT War" and "YARDLINES
NOT FRONT LINES" and we will continue to raise our
voice in protest this Saturday. Even after the U.S.
Government claims to have already sacked Iraq's
quarterback, Saddam Hussein, Bush continues the
Blitz. George Bush's encroachment has cost the lives
of 100,000 Iraqi's and the lives of 1,313 U.S.
soldiers. The number of people that have died because
of this war would fill up Heinz Stadium one and 1ÂŽ2
times. Not to mention, the U.S. disabled list bares
10,000 names and the number is rising. .
We call TIME OUT to rethink this war. The United
States is off sides and out of bounds. The penalties
committed by the U.S. government are costing more than
a few yards, they are costing lives. We are running
out of TIME OUTS.
SFAW will stand with our WAR IS TERRIBLE towels in
solidarity with people across the country that are
demanding no more war games.
UP WITH THE SUPERBOWL! DOWN WITH THE DEATH TOLL!
GO STEELERS.
If for some reason the armed referees move us from the
front of the great hall gate, just look for people
waving war is terrible towels or listen for the
marching band.
To engage in online discussion of UFPJ matters, join our
discussion list by sending a blank email to
ufpj-disc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ufpj-news/
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19) A Better World Is Under Construction!
Call for a Mass Mobilization during the 2005
Spring Meetings of the World
Bank and International Monetary Fund
April 15-17th, Washington DC.
The main action will be April 16.
For more Information: www.globalizethis.org
The 2005 meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank
will represent the five year anniversary of the first major demonstrations
against these institutions in the United States. Again we will gather in the
streets of D.C. on A16 to show that our resistance to these institutions and
their greed only grows stronger. A16 will once more be the day we show that
our dreams for a better world are not only possible, but under construction
at this moment, in all corners of the globe- and the IMF and World Bank,
with all their efforts to demolish these dreams and actions, can never stop
us.
The World Bank claims to combat world poverty. The IMF claims to promote
global economic stability. For the 60 years of their existence, they have
done neither. The World Bank has poured billions into dams, mining, and
other projects that have caused immense social and environmental
destruction, displacing poor, often indigenous, people from their lands and
livelihoods, and destroying fragile ecosystems. The IMF has destabilized the
economies of countries like Korea, Thailand, and Argentina, creating mass
unemployment. Together, the IMF and World Bank have trapped poor countries
in a cycle of unpayable debt. To extract debt repayment from them, they have
imposed conditions such as budget caps, user fees for health care, and
privatization of water. These policies have impoverished billions. They have
also corroded self-determination and corrupted political systems, making
governments accountable to foreign creditors rather than their own people.
Instead of building the world that they have promised, the World Bank and
IMF have plunged it into a global crisis that is now more urgent than ever.
The number of people in abject poverty worldwide is at an all-time high, and
more and more people lack access to water, healthcare, education and other
basic services. The world is headed for environmental disaster, while World
Bank fossil fuel projects account for half of world carbon dioxide
emissions. The global AIDS epidemic is spreading - 7,000 people in Africa
die of AIDS every day. And now it is quickly reaching crisis proportions in
the Caribbean, India, Thailand, and Eastern Europe. According to the United
Nations, 30,000 people worldwide die every day as a direct consequence of
IMF and World Bank-imposed cuts in social services.
Over the 60 years of their existence, the IMF and World Bank have shown
themselves to be utterly arrogant institutions which completely ignore
people's voices worldwide and systematically enrich multinational corporate
interests at the expense of nature and of the rest of humanity. It's time to
demolish these institutions and build a better world.
Each day people around the world people are coming together to construct a
better, more just world. Not only are they demonstrating in the streets, but
they are actively reclaiming their communities. In South Africa, citizens
too poor to afford the privatized water have dismantled water meters and
learned plumbing to connect homes to water services. In Argentina unemployed
workers are taking over the factories they used to work in and running them
as collectives. Facing the devastating effects of World Bank and IMF
Structural Adjustment Policies, people throughout the Global South are
working everyday to take back their rights to water, health, land, a clean
environment, and self-determination. Five years after thousands of
activists came to Washington DC in the first mass show in the U.S. of
dissent and solidarity with the global struggle against the World Bank and
IMF, the Mobilization for Global Justice is calling for people to come to
Washington DC April 15-17th, 2005 to protest the institutions during their
semi-annual spring meetings and to celebrate the other, more just world that
is under construction due to the daily resistance of millions of people
worldwide!
For more Information: www.globalizethis.org
The Mobilization for Global Justice is committed to making all events safe
spaces that are open, accessible, and accepting of all. We welcome everyone
to participate in making this happen. If you have any special needs, please
let us know.
mgj-discuss mailing list
mgj-discuss@lists.mutualaid.org
http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/mgj-discuss
free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
Christy Pardew
Communications Coordinator
School of the Americas Watch
202-234-3440
cpardew@soaw.org; www.SOAW.org
* To visit your group on the web, go to:
* http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ufpj-global/
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20) ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
http://www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545
SATURDAY, MARCH 19:
GLOBAL DAY OF PROTEST ON THE TWO-YEAR
ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR
* End the War * Bring the Troops Home Now * Rebuild Our Communities *
March 19-20 marks the two-year anniversary of the U.S. bombing
and invasion of Iraq. After all of the death and destruction, and with
the Bush administration claiming a mandate to continue their war,
thereÂ’s a new urgency and a stronger determination within the
global antiwar movement to bring the troops home now.
LOCAL ACTIONS NATIONWIDE
UFPJ calls on supporters of peace and justice in every corner of
the country, in communities large and small, to organize local
protests against the war on Saturday, March 19. These can take
many forms: vigils, rallies, marches, nonviolent civil disobedience.
We especially encourage creative efforts to put the spotlight on
the institutions of militarism at home by organizing actions
outside military bases or military recruitment offices. List your
activities on the UFPJ website calendar at
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/events (select “March 19”
under Event Type).
On the first anniversary of the war, at least 319 cities and
towns across the United States organized protests. This year
there is the potential to organize even more demonstrations,
and to bring more people than ever out into the streets. The
Bush Administration will soon ask Congress to pump as much
as $100 billion more into the war; March 19 is an opportunity
to call for an end to this disaster, and to demand that the
billions be allocated instead for rebuilding our communities
at home and paying for the damage in Iraq.
MAJOR REGIONAL PROTEST IN FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.
UFPJ is also supporting a major regional demonstration in
Fayetteville, North Carolina. We hope those of you within
driving distance of Fayetteville will make this action your
priority. Fayetteville is home to Fort Bragg – ground zero
for the 82nd Airborne Division and many of the ArmyÂ’s elite
units. Beyond Fort Bragg, North Carolina hosts four other of
the nationÂ’s largest military bases, making the state one of
the friendliest to the military-industrial complex.
Less well-known is the fact that Fayetteville is also home to
a growing base of anti-war activists and organizations. They
are military folks, veterans, families of active-duty soldiers
and veterans, students, workers, housewives, clergy, educators,
and all are part of a vibrant, and growing, statewide network.
They stand firm in the knowledge that organizing in Fayetteville
is a key to bringing the troops home from Iraq.
Military Families Speak Out (http://www.mfso.org/), Bring
Them Home Now (http://www.bringthemhomenow.org), Iraq
Veterans Against the War (http://www.ivaw.net), Veterans For
Peace (http://www.veteransforpeace.org), Quaker House,
Fayetteville Peace with Justice, the North Carolina Peace and
Justice Coalition (http://www.ncpeacejustice.org), and the
North Carolina Council of Churches
(http://www.nccouncilofchurches.org) are spearheading the
Fayetteville action. Please do all you can to be in Fayetteville
this year; by actively building and participating in this demonstration,
we have the opportunity to support the efforts of Southern
organizers to build a Southern network, and a Southern movement,
to replace war and occupation with justice and self-determination.
BE PART OF A GLOBAL ANTIWAR MOVEMENT
In addition to the many protests already being planned in the United
States, people all around the world will be taking action on
March 19 as well. Responding to a call from the European Social
ForumÂ’s Assembly of Social Movements, European activists are
organizing national mobilizations across Europe. Brussels will be
the site of a central demonstration on the eve of a meeting of the
European Council, where demonstrators will march against war,
racism, and a corporate-dominated Europe. IndiaÂ’s national Anti-
War Assembly recently committed to major protests on the second
anniversary of the war. And we anticipate that the World Social
Forum will join this call when it meets later this month in
Sao Paolo, Brazil.
GET OUT THE WORD
Circulate this email wide and far. UFPJ will soon have flyers,
stickers, and other resources available to help you get out the word.
BEGIN PLANNING LOCAL MARCH 19th ACTIONS
Bring together local groups to plan March 19th actions in your
community. Post your plans at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/events
ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
http://www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.unitedforpeace.org/email
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---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
21) Bush Plans to Screen Whole
US Population for Mental Illness
Jeanne Lenzer
New York
BMJ 2004;328:1458 (19 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7454.1458 k
A sweeping mental health initiative will be unveiled by President
George W Bush in July. The plan promises to integrate mentally
ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the
community, rather than institutions," according to a March 2004
progress report entitled New Freedom Initiative
(www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/newfreedom/toc-2004.html).
While some praise the plan's goals, others say it protects the
profits of drug companies at the expense of the public.
Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health
in April 2002 to conduct a "comprehensive study of the United
States mental health service delivery system." The commission
issued its recommendations in July 2003. Bush instructed more
than 25 federal agencies to develop an implementation plan
based on those recommendations.
The president's commission found that "despite their prevalence,
mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and recommended
comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers of all
ages," including preschool children. According to the commission,
"Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and
childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviours and
emotional disorders." Schools, wrote the commission, are in a
"key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million
adults who work at the schools.
The commission also recommended "Linkage [of screening]
with treatment and supports" including "state-of-the-art
treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions."
The commission commended the Texas Medication Algorithm
Project (TMAP) as a "model" medication treatment plan that
"illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better
consumer outcomes."
Dr Darrel Regier, director of research at the American Psychiatric
Association (APA), lauded the president's initiative and the
Texas project model saying, "What's nice about TMAP is that
this is a logical plan based on efficacy data from clinical trials."
He said the association has called for increased funding for
implementation of the overall plan.
But the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer,
more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs,
sparked off controversy when Allen Jones, an employee of
the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General, revealed
that key officials with influence over the medication plan in
his state received money and perks from drug companies
with a stake in the medication algorithm (15 May, p1153).
He was sacked this week for speaking to the BMJ and the
New York Times.
The Texas project started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals
from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas, and
the mental health and corrections systems of Texas. The project
was funded by a Robert Wood Johnson grant-and by several
drug companies.
Mr Jones told the BMJ that the same "political/pharmaceutical
alliance" that generated the Texas project was behind the
recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, which,
according to his whistleblower report, were "poised to consolidate
the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat
mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable
benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to
pick up more of the tab"
(http://psychrights.org/Drugs/AllenJonesTMAPJanuary20.pdf).
Larry D Sasich, research associate with Public Citizen in Washington,
DC, told the BMJ that studies in both the United States and Great
Britain suggest that "using the older drugs first makes sense.
There's nothing in the labeling of the newer atypical antipsychotic
drugs that suggests they are superior in efficacy to haloperidol
[an older "typical" antipsychotic]. There has to be an enormous
amount of unnecessary expenditures for the newer drugs."
Drug companies have contributed three times more to the
campaign of George Bush, seen here campaigning in Florida,
than to that of his rival John Kerry (photo not included...bw)
Credit: GERALD HERBERT/AP
Olanzapine (trade name Zyprexa), one of the atypical
antipsychotic drugs recommended as a first line drug in
the Texas algorithm, grossed $4.28bn (£2.35bn; 3.56bn)
worldwide in 2003 and is Eli Lilly's top selling drug. A 2003
New York Times article by Gardiner Harris reported that 70%
of olanzapine sales are paid for by government agencies,
such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Eli Lilly, manufacturer of olanzapine, has multiple ties to the
Bush administration. George Bush Sr was a member of Lilly's
board of directors and Bush Jr appointed Lilly's chief executive
officer, Sidney Taurel, to a seat on the Homeland Security
Council. Lilly made $1.6m in political contributions in 2000-
82% of which went to Bush and the Republican Party.
Jones points out that the companies that helped to start up
the Texas project have been, and still are, big contributors
to the election funds of George W Bush. In addition, some
members of the New Freedom Commission have served on
advisory boards for these same companies, while others
have direct ties to the Texas Medication Algorithm Project.
Bush was the governor of Texas during the development of the
Texas project, and, during his 2000 presidential campaign, he
boasted of his support for the project and the fact that the
legislation he passed expanded Medicaid coverage of psychotropic
drugs.
Bush is the clear front runner when it comes to drug company
contributions. According to the Center for Responsive Politics
(CRP), manufacturers of drugs and health products have
contributed $764 274 to the 2004 Bush campaign through
their political action committees and employees-far
outstripping the $149 400 given to his chief rival, John Kerry,
by 26 April.
Drug companies have fared exceedingly well under the Bush
administration, according to the centre's spokesperson,
Steven Weiss.
The commission's recommendation for increased screening
has also been questioned. Robert Whitaker, journalist and
author of Mad in America, says that while increased screening
"may seem defensible," it could also be seen as "fishing for
customers," and that exorbitant spending on new drugs
"robs from other forms of care such as job training and
shelter programmes."
But Dr Graham Emslie, who helped develop the Texas project,
defends screening: "There are good data showing that if you
identify kids at an earlier age who are aggressive, you can
intervene... and change their trajectory."
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
22) City of ghosts
On November 8, the American army launched its biggest ever
assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, considered
a stronghold for rebel fighters. The US said the raid had
been a huge success, killing 1,200 insurgents. Most of
the city's 300,000 residents, meanwhile, had fled for their
lives. What really happened in the siege of Falluja?
In a joint investigation for the Guardian and Channel 4 News,
Iraqi doctor Ali Fadhil compiled the first independent
reports from the devastated city, where he found scores of
unburied corpses, rabid dogs - and a dangerously embittered
population Watch an extract from the documentary
Ali Fadhil
Tuesday January 11, 2005
Guardian
December 22 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1387460,00.html
It all started at my house in Baghdad. I packed my equipment, the
camera and the tripod. Tariq, my friend, told me not to take it with
us. "The fighters might search the car and think that we are spies."
Tariq was frightened about our trip, even though he is from Falluja
and we had permission from one group of fighters to enter under
their protection. But Tariq, more than anyone, understands that the
fighters are no longer just one group. He is quite a character,
Tariq: 32 and an engineer with a masters degree in embryo
implantation, he works now at a human rights institute called
the Democratic Studies Institute for Human Rights and
Democracy in Baghdad. He is also deeply into animal rights.
Foolishly, I took a pill to try to keep down the flu, which made
me sleepy. It was 9am when we crossed the main southern gate
out of Baghdad, taking care to stay well clear of American convoys.
The southern gate is the scene of daily attacks on the Americans
by the insurgents - either a car-bomb or an ambush with rocket
-propelled grenades.
It took just 20 minutes from Baghdad to reach the area known
as the "triangle of death", where the kidnapped British contractor
Kenneth Bigley was held and finally beheaded in the town of Latifya.
It is supposed to be a US military-controlled zone, but insurgents
set up checkpoints here. As the road became more rural and more
isolated, I got nervous that at any moment we would be stopped
by carjackers and robbed of our expensive equipment. At a checkpoint
a hooded face came to the window; he was carrying an old AK47 on
his shoulder and looking for a donation towards the jihad. There were
six fighters in total, all hooded. The driver and Tariq both made
a donation; I was frightened he would search the car and find the
camera, so I gave him my Iraqi doctor's ID card, hoping that would
work. He apologised and asked that we excuse him.
Now, there was nothing ahead but the sky and the desert. It was
1.30pm and a bad time to use this road; we had been told that
carjackers were particularly active at this time of day. Tariq pointed
out four young men dressed in red, their two motorbikes parked by
the side of the road. They were planting a small, improvised explosive
device made out of a tin of cooking oil for the next American convoy
to leave the base outside Falluja.
It was 3.30pm before we got to Habbanya, a tourist resort on
a lake supplied with fresh water by the Euphrates, which was once
controlled by Uday, Saddam's oldest son. It was here that Fallujans,
who used to be wealthy as they supplied a lot of the top military
for Saddam's army, came for holidays.
Now the place was freezing, and full of refugees. All the holiday
houses were crammed with people, sometimes two families to
a room. The first family we came across had been there since a
month before the attack started. A man called Abu Rabe'e came
up. He was 59 and used to be a builder; he said he had a message
for our camera. "We're not looking for this sort of democracy, this
attacking of the city and the people with planes and tanks and
Humvees." He had also fled Falluja with his family. They were
all living in a former mechanic's garage in Habbanya.
Most of the people we spoke to in Habbanya were poor and
uneducated, and had fled Falluja in anticipation of the US attack.
Some were in tents; others were sharing the old honeymoon
suites where newlyweds used to come when this was a holiday
resort. They squabbled among themselves to persuade me to
film the conditions they were living in. There was still a fairground
in Habbanya, but nothing was working. In the middle of the
bumper cars an old lady had pitched a tent with bricks, where
she was living with her son. I tried to talk to her but she told me
to go away. There was no cooking gas in Habbanya, so the
Fallujan refugees were cutting down trees to keep warm and
cook food.
Then someone came up and said the resistance fighters had
heard we were asking questions. We decided to put the camera
away and go to a friendly village that our driver knew. It was
also filled with refugees from Falluja.
One 50-year-old man, a major in the Iraqi Republican Guards
under the former regime, took us in. There were four families
squeezed into one apartment, all of them once wealthy. The major,
like the others, was sacked after the liberation when the US
disbanded the army and police. Now jobless, his house in Falluja
was wrecked and he was a refugee with his five children and
wife near the town where he used to spend his holidays. He
was angry with the Americans, but also with the Iraqi rebels,
whom he blamed, alongside the clerics in the mosques, for
causing Falluja to be wrecked.
"The mujahideen and the clerics are responsible for the destruction
that happened to our city; no one will forgive them for that," he
said with bitterness.
"Why are you blaming them - why don't you blame the Americans
and Allawi?" said Omar, the owner of the apartment.
"We told the mujahideen to leave it to us ordinary Fallujans, but
those bloody bastards, the sheikhs and the clerics, are busy painting
some bloody mad picture of heaven and martyrs and the victory of
the mujahideen," said Ali, another refugee. "And, of course, the kids
believe every word those clerics say. They're young and naive, and
they forget that this is a war against the might of the machine of
the American army. So they let those kids die like this and our city
gets blown up with the wind."
I wanted to ask the tough old Republican guard why they had let
these young muj have the run of the city, but I actually didn't have
to. I remember being in Falluja just before the fighting started and
seeing a crowd gathered around a sack that was leaking blood.
A piece of white A4 paper was stuck on to the sack, which read:
"Here is the body of the traitor. He has confessed to acting as
a spotter for American planes and was paid $100 a day."
At the same time as we were standing looking at the sack,
I knew I would be able to buy a CD of the man in this sack
making his confession before he was beheaded in any CD
shop in Falluja. These were the people who controlled Falluja
now - not old majors from Saddam's army.
December 24
In the morning we went back towards Falluja and heard that
there were queues of people waiting to try to get back into
the city. The government had made an announcement saying
that the people from some districts could start to go back home;
they promised compensation. About midday we got a mile east
of the city and saw that four queues had formed near the
American base. They were mostly men, waiting for US military
ID to allow them back home.
The men were angry: "This is a humiliation. I say no more than
that. These IDs are to make us bow Fallujan heads in shame,"
one of them said.
I met Major Paul Hackett, a marine officer in the Falluja liaison
base. He said that the US military was not trying to humiliate
anyone, but that the IDs were necessary for security. "I mean,
my understanding is that ultimately they can hang this ID card
on a wall and keep it as a souvenir," he said.
They took prints of all my fingers, two pictures of my face in
profile, and then photographed my iris. I was now eligible to
go into Falluja, just like any other Fallujan.
But it was late by then, somewhere near 5pm (the curfew is at
6pm). After that anyone who moves inside the city will be shot
on sight by the US military. Tomorrow, we would try again to
get into the city.
December 25
At around 8am, Tariq and I drove towards Falluja. We didn't
believe that we might actually get into the city.
The American soldiers at the checkpoint were nervous. The
approach to the checkpoint was covered in pebbles so we had
to drive very slowly. The soldiers spent 20 minutes searching
my car, then they bodysearched Tariq and me. They gave me a
yellow tape to put on to the windscreen of the car, showing
I had been searched and was a contractor. If I didn't have this
stripe of yellow, a US sniper would shoot me as an enemy car.
By 10am we were inside the city. It was completely devastated,
destruction everywhere. It looked like a city of ghosts. Falluja
used to be a modern city; now there was nothing. We spent
the day going through the rubble that had been the centre of
the city; I didn't see a single building that was functioning.
The Americans had put a white tape across the roads to stop
people wandering into areas that they still weren't allowed to
enter. I remembered the market from before the war, when you
couldn't walk through it because of the crowds. Now all the
shops were marked with a cross, meaning that they had been
searched and secured by the US military. But the bodies, some
of them civilians and some of them insurgents, were still rotting
inside.
There were dead dogs everywhere in this area, lying in the middle
of the streets. Reports of rabies in Falluja had reached Baghdad,
but I needed to find a doctor.
Fallujans are suspicious of outsiders, so I found it surprising when
Nihida Kadhim, a housewife, beckoned me into her home. She
had just arrived back in the city to check out her house; the
government had told the people three days earlier that they
should start going home. She called me into her living room.
On her mirror she pointed to a message that had been written
in her lipstick. She couldn't read English. It said: "Fuck Iraq and
every Iraqi in it!"
"They are insulting me, aren't they?" she asked.
I left her and walked towards the cemetery. I noticed the dead
dogs again. I had been told in Baghdad by a friend of mine,
Dr Marwan Elawi, that the Baghdad Hospital for Infectious Diseases
admits one case of rabies every week. The problem is that infected
dogs are eating the corpses and spreading the disease.
As I was walking by the cemetery, I caught the smell of death
coming from one of the houses. The door was open and the
first thing I saw was a white car parked in the driveway and
on top of it a launcher for an RPG.
I went inside, and the sound of the rain on the roof and the
darkness inside made me very afraid. The door was open, all
the windows were broken and there were bullet holes running
down the hall to a bathroom at the end - as if the bullets were
chasing something or somebody. The bathroom led on to
a bedroom and I stepped inside and saw the body of a fighter.
The leg was missing, the hand was missing and the furniture
in the house had been destroyed. I couldn't breathe with the
smell. I realised that Tariq wasn't with me, and I panicked and
ran. As I got out of the house I saw a white teddy bear lying
in the rain, and a green boobytrap bomb.
Some of the worst fighting took place here in the centre of the
city, but there was no sign of the 1,200 to 1,600 fighters the
Americans said they had killed. I had heard that there was
a graveyard for the fighters somewhere in the city but people
said that most of them had withdrawn from the city after the
first week of fighting. I needed to find one of the insurgents
to tell me the real story of what had happened in the city.
The Americans had said that there had been a big military
victory, but I couldn't understand where all the fighters
were buried.
After I saw the body I felt uncomfortable about sleeping in
Falluja. The place was deserted and polluted with death and
all kinds of weapons. Imagine sleeping in a place where any
of the surrounding houses might have one, two or three
bodies. I wanted out.
We went back to my friend the old Republican guard officer.
I was so tired I could hardly take my clothes off to go to sleep
but I couldn't sleep with the smell of death on my clothes.
December 26
In the morning, I went back to find the cemetery and look for
evidence of the fighters who had been killed. It was about
4pm before I got inside the martyrs' cemetery; people kept
waylaying me, wanting to show me their destroyed houses
and asking why the journalists didn't come and show what
the Americans had done to Falluja. They were also angry at
the interim President Allawi for sending in the mainly Shia
National Guard to help the Americans.
At the entrance to the fighters' graveyard a sign read: "This
cemetery is being given by the people of Falluja to the heroic
martyrs of the battle against the Americans and to the martyrs
of the jihadi operations against the Americans, assigned and
approved by the Mujahideen Shura council in Falluja."
As I went into the graveyard, the bodies of two young men
were arriving. The faces were rotting. The ambulance driver
lifted the bones of one of the hands; the skin had rotted
away. "God is the greatest. What kind of times are we living
through that we are holding the bones and hands of our
brothers?"
Then he began cursing the National Guard, calling them
even worse things than the Americans: "Those bastards,
those sons of dogs." It wasn't the first time I had heard
this. It was the National Guard the Americans used to
search the houses; they were seen by the Fallujans as
brutal stooges. Most of the volunteers for the National
Guard are poor Shias from the south. They are jobless
and desperate enough to volunteer for a job that makes
them assassination targets. "National infidels", they were
also called.
I counted the graves: there were 74. The two young men
made it 76. The names on the headstones were written in
chalk and some had been washed away. One read: "Here lies
the heroic Tunisian martyr who died", but I didn't see any
other evidence of the hundreds of foreign fighters that the
US had said were using Falluja as their headquarters.
People told me there were some Yemenis and Saudis,
some volunteers from Tunisia and Egypt, but most
of the fighters were Fallujan. The US military say they
have hundreds of bodies frozen in a potato chip factory
5km south of the city, but nobody has been allowed to
go there in the past two months, including the
Red Crescent.
Salman Hashim was crying beside the grave of his son, who
had been a fighter in Falluja.
"He is 18 years old. He wanted to be a doctor or engineer after
this year; it was his last year in high school." At the same grave,
the boy's mother was crying and remembering her dead son,
who was called Ahmed. "I blame Ayad Allawi. If I could I would
cut his throat into pieces." Then, to the mound of earth covering
her son's body, she said: "I told you those fighters would get
you killed." The boy's father told her to be quiet in front of
the camera.
On the next grave was written the name of a woman called
Harbyah. She had refused to leave the city for the camps with
her family. One of her relatives was standing by her grave.
He said that he found her dead in her bed with at least
20 bullets in her body.
I saw other rotting bodies that showed no signs of being fighters.
In one house in the market there were four bodies inside the guest
room. One of the bodies had its chest and part of its stomach opened,
as if the dogs had been eating it. The wrists were missing, the
flesh of the arm was missing, and parts of the legs.
I tried to figure out who these four men were. It was obvious
which houses the fighters were in: they were totally destroyed.
But in this house there were no bullets in the walls, just four
dead men lying curled up beside each other, with bullet holes
in the mosquito nets that covered the windows. It seemed to
me as if they had been asleep and were shot through the
windows. It is the young men of the family who are usually
given the job of staying behind to guard the house. This is
the way in Iraq - we never leave the house empty. The four
men were sleeping the way we sleep when we have guests -
we roll out the best carpet in the guest room and the men
lie down beside each other.
"Its Abu Faris's house. I think that the fat dead body belongs
to his son, Faris," said Abu Salah, whose chip shop was also
destroyed in the bombing.
It was getting dark and it was time to go, but I needed some
overview shots of the city. There was a half-built tower, so
I climbed it and looked around. I couldn't see a single building
that hadn't been hit.
After a few minutes I got the sense that this wasn't a good place
for me to be hanging around, but I had to pee urgently. I found
a place on the roof of the building. While I was doing that a warning
shot passed so close to my head that I ducked and didn't even wait
to pull up my zip, but ran to the half-destroyed stairs to climb down
the building. I felt as if the American sniper was playing with me;
he had had plenty of time to kill me if he wanted to.
For the rest of the day people were pulling on me to come and
see their houses. Again, they asked where all the journalists were.
Why were they not coming to report on what has happened in
Falluja? But I have worked with journalists for 18 months and
I knew it would be too dangerous for them to come to the city,
that they are seen as spies and could end up in a sack. So since
I was the only one there with a camera, everyone wanted to
show me what happened to their house. It took hours.
Back in Baghdad that night, I changed my clothes and decided
to send them to the public laundry. I was worried about
contaminating my family with Falluja. I was thinking that
nobody was going to be able to live there for months.
Then, I took a very long bath.
December 27
I woke up at home in Baghdad around 9am. I had had enough
of Falluja, but I still felt that I didn't understand what had happened. The
city was completely devastated - but where were the bodies of all
the dead fighters the Americans had killed?
I wanted to ask Dr Adnan Chaichan about the wounded. I found him
at the main hospital in Falluja at midday. He told me that all the
doctors and medical staff were locked into the hospital at the
beginning of the attack and not allowed out to treat anyone.
The Iraqi National Guard, acting under US orders, had tied him
and all the other doctors up inside the main hospital. The US had
surrounded the hospital, while the National Guard had seized all
their mobile phones and satellite phones, and left them with no
way of communicating with the outside world. Chaichan seemed
angrier with the National Guards than with anyone else.
He said that the phone lines inside the town were working, so
wounded people in Falluja were calling the hospital and crying,
and he was trying to give instructions over the phone to the local
clinics and the mosques on how to treat the wounds. But nobody
could get to the main hospital where all the supplies were and people
were bleeding to death in the city.
It was late afternoon when I drove out of Falluja and back to Baghdad,
feeling that I had just scratched the surface of what really happened
there. But it is clear that by completely destroying this Sunni city,
with the help of a mostly Shia National Guard, the US military has
fanned the seeds of a civil war that is definitely coming. If there are
elections now and the Shia win, that war is certain. The people
I spoke to had no plans to vote. No one I met in those five days
had a ballot paper.
A week after I arrived in London to make the film for Channel 4
News, the tape of the final interview arrived by Federal Express.
It was the interview with Alzaim Abu, who had led the fighters in
the centre. We had been been trying to track him down for nearly
three weeks. Then Tariq had got a call from him the night I had
left for London saying that he would talk.
There was a lot of bullshit in the interview; lots of bravado about
how many Americans they had killed and about never surrendering
and how Fallujans would win. He said that there were a few foreign
fighters in the city, but none in his units; mostly, they were Fallujans.
But one thing stood out for me that explained the empty graveyard
and the lack of bodies. He said that most of the fighters had been
given orders to abandon the city by November 17, nine days after
the assault began. "The withdrawal of the fighters was carried out
following an order by our senior leadership. We did not pull out
because we did not want to fight. We needed to regroup; it was
a tactical move. The fighters decided to redeploy to Amiriya and
some went to Abu Ghraib," he said.
The US military destroyed Falluja, but simply spread the fighters
out around the country. They also increased the chance of civil
war in Iraq by using their new national guard of Shias to suppress
Sunnis. Once, when a foreign journalist, an Irish guy, asked me
whether I was Shia or Sunni - the way the Irish do because they
have that thing about the IRA - I said I was Sushi. My father is
Sunni and my mother is Shia. I never cared about these things.
Now, after Falluja, it matters.
Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
23) U.S. Military Families Bring Help
Families of the Fallen Unite in Grief - And Anger
January 11, 2005
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/hard_news/000166.php#more
AMMAN, Jordan, Jan 11 (IPS) - It has been nearly two years since
Fernando Suarez del Solar's son Jesus, a lance corporal in the U.S.
Marines, died during the invasion of Iraq.
The father's grief is still fierce, but rather than succumbing to feelings
of vengeance, he has chosen instead to bring medical aid to Iraqi
children and speak out against what he believes is an unjust and
ill-advised war.
Suarez has every right to be angry. He was initially told that his son,
one of the first U.S. casualties, was killed by a gunshot to the head
on Mar. 27, 2003. Later, Suarez was informed that his 20-year-old
son was killed by a landmine.
Still later, based on information confirmed by an ABC reporter
embedded with Jesus' unit, Suarez learned that his son died from
stepping on an unexploded cluster bomb, a weapon that many
argue is illegal under the Geneva Conventions.
"This has given me a lesson that we can work together, no matter
if we are Arab, Mexican or American," Suarez told a meeting of the
Arab Human Rights Association in Amman, Jordan late last month.
"The blood of our people who have died should serve to unite us
against this corrupt government in the U.S."
While several Arab attendees nodded in agreement, Suarez added,
"I ask for the forgiveness in the name of my people, but this is not
enough. We have to do something to end this."
Laden with three bulging suitcases of medical supplies he collected
in California, Suarez had come to Jordan with his wife on a mission
to help Iraqis, particularly children, who are suffering and dying
amidst the occupation.
Sponsored by the human rights group Global Exchange and the
Los Angles-based peace group, Code Pink, the delegation included
members of two other families who lost loved ones in Iraq, as well
as a woman who lost her son in the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks
on the United States.
Emotions ran high at a meeting between the delegation and Iraqis
who have lost relatives to the violence, and many began crying,
including Suarez, a native of Mexico who moved to the United
States when Jesus was a teen.
"You have to understand that our children were forced to go to
Iraq, they didn't want to go," he said. "Sometimes it is survival,
but that doesn't justify that they don't help people, or that they
abuse prisoners. Maybe the medicine we bring can help 100
children survive. But we are working to help the whole country
survive."
Later, at another meeting with Iraqi families, Suarez listened to
the story of a sheikh -- a religious and community leader --
from Fallujah, who said his son-in-law had been executed by
U.S. soldiers in his home the previous week.
Asking to remain nameless for his own safety, the sheikh took
great personal risks to travel to Amman to share his story. He
said his son-in-law had been executed during a home raid,
while his wife was in the next room. Later, the U.S. military
informed the sheikh that they had mistakenly killed the
wrong man.
"This man was killed last weekend," the bearded sheikh said,
holding up a photo of his dead son-in-law in one hand and
a picture of two little girls in the other. "These two kids will
not see their father again."
"This moment should be a lesson for us all. Let us say the truth
for all the people. To the people whose presidents lied to them,
and the media who helps them in their lies," continued the sheikh.
After pausing to wipe his tears, Suarez took the opportunity to
address the group. "I understand we are united here in our grief,"
he said, "The pain of having lost a part of our lives...No matter
what I say, your own suffering is not going to change. But we can
hopefully avoid that other people suffer what we have suffered.
Thank you for being together today, my brother, and you are all
part of my family."
For a moment nobody in the room could speak, until the sheikh
added, "Thank you for these words that come from the heart."
"I am going to try to continue the campaign to bring medicine for
Iraq," Suarez told IPS near the end of his trip last week. "This is
important because the war is not going to stop today. The victims
are increasing every single day. The Iraqi children need more help."
It is estimated that the medical supplies and funding totaling
600,000 dollars brought in by Suarez and the delegation will bring
relief to at least 10,000 Iraqis, the majority of them women and
children in refugee camps along the border.
He knows the bond of grief between himself and people like the
sheikh is a touchstone for unity and action.
"When the Iraqi families listen to my story, hear that my son died,
it opens their hearts and they give me a beautiful welcome," he
explained, "The Iraqi families see that Americans cry too, that
Americans have pain, and we are humans and they see this.
It doesn't matter where we come from."
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at January 11, 2005 05:58 PM
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24) "This is not a life."
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
January 11, 2005
Already today at least 18 Iraqis have died as violence continues to
escalate as the so-called elections approach.
Suicide car bombers are striking Iraqi Police (IP) stations on nearly a
daily basis now.
Today's target was in Tikrit, where U.S. military spokesman Major Neal
O'Brien said six were killed when the police headquarters was bombed.
He also said, "As the Iraqi police continue to get stronger, and
continue to pose a threat to the insurgents and terrorists, they will be
targeted."
Most Iraqis I've spoken with appear to disagree with Mr. O'Brien.
"The Iraqi Police are puppets of the Americans," says Abdulla Khassim,
an Iraqi man selling vegetables in central Baghdad, "Who can respect
them when they are so ashamed themselves many of them wear
masks to hide their faces."
Of course the IP's who wear the face masks do so for their own security,
and that of their families. As anyone seen as a collaborator with the
occupiers is immediately subject to attacks by the resistance, as are
their families. Many of the Iraqi National Guard, which has now been
folded into the Iraqi Army, wear black face masks as well for the same
reason.
"Nobody respects them because they obviously cannot provide the
security," Abu Talat tells me as we drive past a truck with two IP's in
it in front of a closed gas station today.
During my last trip I interviewed several IP's who complained of lack of
weapons, radios and vehicles from the occupation forces. Their
complaints were centered on the fact that the resistance had better
weapons than the police.
Later in my room we watched a press conference on the television with
the so-called interim prime minister Iyad Allawi. A journalist asked him
if it was true that the cell phone service would be cut on the 15th of
this month because of the upcoming "elections."
He dodged the question...deferring it to the ministry of defense. The same
ministry of defense who yesterday announced that the Iraqi Army was
50,000 troops and hoped that it would be increased to 70,000. Just today
Allawi announced that it was comprised of 100,000 troops.
Of course the gas crisis continues to worsen. Most of the stations in
Baghdad are closed
Rather than cars filling their tanks, strands of razor wire
and empty fuel tanker trucks sit in many of them.
Ugly reminders of the lack of reconstruction about in Baghdad, like this
building
that was destroyed during the invasion.
Iraqis are reminded daily of the 70% unemployment with the gas shortage
driving the costs of everything through the roof. Even petrol is 1000
Iraq Dinars (ID) per liter on the black market, which unless you are
willing to endure 12-24 hours waiting in a line, is the only way to get
your tank filled.
When I was in Iraq one month ago it was 300 ID per liter. Imagine what
you would do if in your country you had 70% unemployment, were without a
job, and the cost of fuel rose 333% in one month, thus driving the costs
of everything from food to heating oil up?
Speaking of the gas crisis, this morning a pipeline between Kirkuk and
the Beji refinery was exploded, and several lines southwest of Kirkuk
were also destroyed.
In central Samarra today a car bomb detonated as a US convoy was
passing, but no word from the military on casualties, which means there
probably were some. A second bomb detonated shortly thereafter, killing
at least one Iraqi soldier and a civilian.
Also, a roadside bomb intended for a US convoy near Yusufiyah missed and
struck a mini-bus, killing 8 Iraqis and wounding three others. For
unknown reasons the mini-bus was then attacked by gunmen, who kidnapped
three Iraqis.
Keep in mind that Yusufiyah, just south of Baghdad and in the "triangle
of death" was recently the scene of large scale US/UK military
operations to rid the area of resistance fighters. Looks like those
operations were about as successful as Fallujah, were fighting also
continues on a near daily basis.
Driving through Baghdad today, en route to an interview, we are once
again spending most of the time sitting in traffic. At most
intersections, women and children begging for dinars walk between cars
with their hands out...pleading.
Abu Talat fumbles in his pocket for some dinars while an old man
pleading for God to help him stands at the car window.
Holding a cane, he is blessing Abu Talat repeatedly for his kindness as
he is handed some money.
"Look at what has become of Baghdad Dahr," he tells me as the traffic
finally begins to inch forward again, "All of us are suffering now. This
is not a life."
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