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Stop the Termination or the Cherokee Nation
http://groups.msn.com/BayAreaIndianCalendar/activismissues.msnw?action=get_message&mview=1&ID_Message=5580
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USLAW Endorses September 15 Antiwar Demonstration in Washington, DC
USLAW Leadership Urges Labor Turnout
to Demand End to Occupation in Iraq, Hands Off Iraqi Oil
By a referendum ballot of members of the Steering Committee of U.S. Labor Against the War, USLAW is now officially on record endorsing and encouraging participation in the antiwar demonstration called by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition in Washington, DC on September 15. The demonstration is timed to coincide with a Congressional vote scheduled in late September on a new Defense Department appropriation that will fund the Iraq War through the end of Bush's term in office.
U.S. Labor Against the War
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/
Stop the Iraq Oil Law
http://www.petitiononline.com/iraqoil/petition.html
2007 Iraq Labor Solidarity Tour
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?list=type&type=103
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September 15: A showdown march from the White House to Congress in Washington DC
North/Central California "End the War Now" March
Saturday, October 27, 2007, 11am, San Francisco Civic Center Plaza
I encourage anyone who can devote some time to contact the ANSWER office and sign up for one of the committees to build Oct. 27—two of the most important, of course, are outreach and fundraising.
Funds are urgently needed for all the material—posters, flyers, stickers and buttons, etc.—to get the word out! Make your tax-deductible donation to:
Progress Unity Fund/Oct. 27
and mail to:
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco, CA 94110
Please sign up to pass out flyers and to volunteer your time and energy to making this one of the truest expressions of the sentiment of we, the people this October 27.
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
To get more information on meeting times or distribution dates call or drop into the ANSWER office at the above address.
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.org
sf@internationalanswer.org
415-821-6545
(Call to check meeting and event schedules.)
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Young Black males the target of small-town racism
By Jesse Muhammad
Staff Writer
Updated Jul 22, 2007, 08:47 pm
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/printer_3753.shtml
FinalCall.com News
2)Humanity v. Hazleton
NYT Editorial
July 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/opinion/28sat1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
3) British Pullout Presages U.S. Hurdles in Iraq
By STEPHEN FARRELL
July 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/world/middleeast/29basra.html?hp
4) Getting the US Out of Iraq—
Some Reasons for Optimism
By Carole Seligman
July/August 2007
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/julaug_07/julaug_07_09.html
5) Healthcare for Profit is Sicko
By Bonnie Weinstein
July/August 2007
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/julaug_07/julaug_07_11.html
6) In Baghdad, Justice Behind the Barricades
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
July 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/world/middleeast/30military.html?ref=world
7) In Bid to Curb Violence, Cities File Lawsuits Against Gangs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/us/30gangs.html?ref=us
8) In Opposing Tax Plan, Schumer Breaks With Party
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and STEPHEN LABATON
July 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/washington/30schumer.html?ref=us
9) New Connecticut Law May Save a Troubled Prison for Juveniles
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
July 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/nyregion/30juvy.html?ref=nyregion
10) Defending the Cuba Embargo
David Rogers reports on Congress.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 30, 2007, 3:25 pm
From: Walter Lippmann
11) Temporary Status/Permanent Impact
By Gregg Shotwell/UAW Local 1753
July 25, 2007
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=5025
12) Credit Card Buyer Beware
NYT Editorial
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/opinion/31tue1.html?hp
13) G.M. Is Lifted to a Profit by Global Business
By JEREMY W. PETERS
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/business/31cnd-auto.html?hp
14) U.S. Arms Plan for Mideast Aims to Counter Iranian Power
By MARK MAZZETTI and HELENE COOPER
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/world/europe/31weapons.html?ref=world
15) Oxfam Reports Growing Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq
By DAMIEN CAVE
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/world/middleeast/31oxfam.html
16) States Export Their Inmates as Prisons Fill
By SOLOMON MOORE
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/us/31prisons.html?ref=us
17) Gang Members Targeted in Calif. Sweep
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:02 p.m. ET
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Calif-Gang-Busts.html
18) Nicotine Addiction Is Quick in Youths, Research Finds
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/health/31toba.html?ref=health
19) A Little Easier to Occupy from the Air
Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily*
Dahr Jamail's dispatches
dahr_jamail_dispatches@dahrjamailiraq.com
20) Stampeding Congress, Again
NYT Editorial
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/opinion/03fri1.html?hp
21) London Police Misled Public, Report Says
By JANE PERLEZ
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/world/europe/03britain.html
22) Marine Is Guilty of Unpremeditated Murder of an Iraqi Man
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/world/middleeast/03abuse.html
23) Rice Backs Appointed Palestinian Premier and Mideast Democracy
By HELENE COOPER and STEVEN ERLANGER
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/world/middleeast/03diplo.html
24) Man Killed by Gas Fumes After Electricity Is Cut Off
By PAUL VITELLO
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/nyregion/03monoxide.html
25) Victims of Katrina Floods Lose an Insurance Appeal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/business/03insure.html
26) H.I.V. Patients Anxious as Support Programs Cut
By ERIK ECKHOLM
August 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/washington/01aids.html
27) Cuba best for healthcare
Monday July 16, 2007
Georgina Kenyon
http://www.guardianabroad.co.uk/ngos/article/208
28) A Nail in Maliki Government’s Coffin?
By Ali al-Fadhily
August 3, 2007
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail's dispatches dahr_jamail_dispatches@dahrjamailiraq.com
29) Baghdad, Iraq:
6 million people, 117 degrees and no water
By Richard Becker, Western Regional Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition
Friday, August 3, 2007
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-821-6545
ANSWERcoalition.org
www.Sept15.org
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
Seattle: 206-568-1661
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1) Young Black males the target of small-town racism
By Jesse Muhammad
Staff Writer
Updated Jul 22, 2007, 08:47 pm
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/printer_3753.shtml
FinalCall.com News
JENA, La. (FinalCall.com) - Marcus Jones, the father of 16-year-old Jena High School football star Mychal Bell, pulls out a box full of letters from countless major colleges and universities in America who are trying to recruit his son. Mr. Jones, with hurt in his voice, says, “He had so much going for him. My son is innocent and they have done him wrong.”
An all-White jury convicted Mr. Bell of two felonies—aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery—and faces up to 22 years in prison when he is sentenced on July 31. Five other young Black males are also awaiting their day in court for alleged attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder charges evolving from a school fight: Robert Bailey, 17; Theo Shaw, 17; Carwin Jones, 18; Bryant Purvis, 17; and Jesse Beard, 15. Together, this group has come to be known as the “Jena 6.”
“This town has always had a history of racism towards the Black man,” said Mr. Jones to the Final Call. “I am going to continue to fight for justice for my son.”
Jena, a small town still considered segregated in rural Louisiana, is the largest in LaSalle Parish with a population of nearly 3,000. Of that number, 85 percent are White, while there are only 350 Blacks in the entire area.
The trouble surrounding this case began in September 2006. At Jena High School, Black and Whites sit separately from one another outside during their school breaks—Whites under the shaded “White tree,” and Blacks on worn out benches. One day, Black student asked permission from a school official to sit under the “White tree,” and the official told them to sit wherever they wanted, so the Black student did. The following day, three nooses were seen hanging from the “White tree,” which upset the Black students who make up only 20 percent of the school’s population.
The school principal found the three White students responsible and advised that they were to be expelled from school permanently. The White superintendent of LaSalle Parish schools, Roy Breithaupt, overturned the principal’s decision and instead gave the White students a three-day suspension. In statements made to the media, Superintendent Breithaupt said “Adolescents play pranks. I don’t think it was a threat against anybody.” Black parents, students and residents disagreed and became upset.
“That’s a federal hate crime when those White students hung up those nooses. I don’t care what anybody says,” Mr. Jones told The Final Call. “A three-day suspension was a slap in the face of us as Blacks in this town.”
Students began to voice their disgust and protest against the “slap on the wrist” the three White students received for what many are calling a hate crime. According to the parents of the Jena 6 and a testimony given in Mr. Bell’s trial, White District Attorney Reed Walters then visited Jena High School to address a school assembly, making remarks directed at the Black students that if they didn’t stop making a fuss about this “innocent prank,” he could take their lives away with the stroke of his pen. As a result of a fire that burned down the main building where clases are held ast Jena High School on November 30, 2006, Whites in the community started to blame the Blacks students of the school as the casue of the fire.
But the racial tensions at the school would spill over into the community and erupt into a series of incidents that led to the charges against the Jena 6:
On the night of December 1, 2006, Robert Bailey and his friends went to a party at Jena Fair Barn. Once inside the party, Robert was approached by a White male named Justin Sloan, who asked him “Is your name Robert Bailey?” When Robert said yes, Mr. Sloan, along with his sister Jessie, began to hit Robert, and from there, he was also attacked by several other White men before his own friends came to assist him in the brawl.
According to Robert’s mother, Caseptla Bailey, the police who came on the scene told the Black youth that they need to get back to their side of town. The next day, on December 2, Robert and two of his friends were at the local Gotta-Go convenience store. They spotted Matt Windham, one of White males who attacked Robert the previous night. An altercation started and Mr. Windham ran to his truck and pulled out a sawed-off shot gun, which Robert was able to wrestle away from him. The fight ensued and eventually all involved left the scene running.
Two days later, on December 4 at Jena High School, a White male student by the name of Justin Barker had been allegedly making racial taunts at the Blacks, which included calling them “n-----s” and expressing support for the noose hanging, as well as the attack made on Robert Bailey at Fair Barn. Right outside the school auditorium, Mr. Barker was suddenly knocked down, punched, beaten and kicked by Black students. According to interviews with The Final Call, parents of the Jena 6 stated that school officials randomly pointed out White students to write statements describing what they saw, as well as identify what Black students were involved in the fight or were just standing around during the fight. Moments later, after several statements were collected, six Black males were taken out of their classes, arrested and charged.
Many of the Jena 6 remained in jail for several months due to the high bails set between $70,000-$140,000 on them. All are talented athletes with what their families called “bright futures.”
“We had to put up property to bail out my son,” stated Ms. Bailey. “My son is innocent. This is a disgrace and it only manifested the racism that has always existed in this town and this country. They are attacking our young Black males so we have to fight.”
Tina Jones, the mother of Bryant Purvis, agreed. “My son was not involved in this fight. This is pure racism.”
Mr. Bell’s family was unable to bail him out and his father believed that is the reason his son’s case went to trial so quickly. A Black court-appointed attorney, Blaine Williams, represented Mr. Bell, pressuring him to plead guilty, but Mr. Bell refused. His attorney then gathered a list of proposed witnessed which included his father and mother, Michelle Bell. The judge put a gag order on all witnesses in the case and refused to allow his parents to be present in the court during the trial because they were potential witnesses although the victim, who was a witness, was allowed to stay inside the entire time.
When Mr. Bell’s father asked the defense lawyer to appeal the gag order so they can be inside the courtroom with their son, the lawyer replied “The best thing for you to do is to get the hell out of my face.”
“At that point I smelled a rat and I knew my son was being set up,” stated Mr. Jones to The Final Call. He also shared that the jury was all White, and that members of the jury were friends with the District Attorney as well as family members with the victim. The prosecution brought forth 17 witnesses of whom many stated that they did not see Mr. Bell hit Mr. Barker. The victim himself even testified that he did not know if Mr. Bell hit him or not. The defense lawyer did not call any witnesses and rested his case. After three hours of deliberation, Mr. Bell was convicted and is currently awaiting sentencing.
Members of the Houston Millions More Movement Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and the Muhammad’s Mosque No. 45 Fruit of Islam visited the families of the Jena 6 on July 14 to conduct an fact-finding mission along with The Final Call.
“Our mission to Jena made clear to me that the “old south” is not so old that it is not without a pulse and heartbeat,” stated Deric Muhammad, Houston MOJ Spokesman. “The U.S. congress and Black America doesn’t have to strain its eyes toward Darfur or South Africa to see apartheid and/or genocide. We need look no further than Jena, Louisiana.”
The Black residents have been mobilizing the last few months with protests, organizing meetings, developed a NAACP branch headed by Secretary Catrina Wallace and created the Jena 6 Defense Fund Committee. They are planning a major protest on the steps of the Jena courthouse on the day of Mr. Bell’s sentencing and are calling on everyone to support.
(For more information on the Mychal Bell’s case call Marcus Jones at (318) 316-1486. People interested in supporting the Jena 6 Defense Fund: Jena 6 Defense Committee can write to P.O. Box 2798, Jena, LA 71342, or email jena6defense@gmail.com. MMM LOCs interested in supporting the July 31st protest please email ministryofjustice@mmmhouston.net.)
© Copyright 2007 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com
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2) Humanity v. Hazleton
NYT Editorial
July 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/opinion/28sat1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
A federal judge has dealt what we can only hope is a decisive blow against a dangerous trend of freelance immigration policies by local governments. Judge James M. Munley of the central Pennsylvania district, struck down ordinances in the town of Hazleton that sought to harshly punish undocumented immigrants for trying to live and work there, and employers and landlords for providing them with homes and jobs.
The ruling was a well-earned embarrassment for Mayor Louis J. Barletta and his proclaimed goal of making Hazleton “one of the toughest places in the United States” for illegal immigrants. In doing so, Judge Munley laid down basic truths that every American should remember.
First, immigration is a federal responsibility. State and local governments have no right to usurp or upend a vast, “carefully drawn federal statutory scheme” that governs who enters the country and the conditions under which immigrants stay, study, work and naturalize. Congress may be botching the job, but it has not delegated it.
Second, the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection applies to all persons, not just citizens. The presumption that the 14th Amendment can be set aside while immigrants are hunted down and punished is widespread but false. The judge wrote: “We cannot say clearly enough that persons who enter this country without legal authorization are not stripped immediately of all their rights because of this single illegal act.”
It is not yet clear when or whether Hazleton’s vigilantism will finally be stifled. Mr. Barletta says he will appeal. He and others across the country can be expected to keep concocting ever-more-inventive strategies to deliver pain to immigrants.
But that is a legal and moral dead end. As long as people like Mr. Barletta persist in misusing the law to serve their prejudices, they will make the immigration system an ever more incoherent muddle. They will thwart reasonable efforts to grapple with the opportunities and problems borne in with the influx of newcomers. And they will continue to dehumanize not only their victims, but themselves.
Mayor Barletta says he is angry at the federal failure to control immigration. Good for him; he should join the club. But he should realize that it was his side — his restrictionist soul mates in the United States Senate — that last month took the most ambitious attempt in a generation to restore lawfulness and order to immigration, loaded it with unworkable cruelties, then pushed it into a ditch. They celebrated their victory, but their shortsighted insistence on border enforcement above all else will leave places like Hazleton to grapple with a failed immigration policy for years to come.
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3) British Pullout Presages U.S. Hurdles in Iraq
By STEPHEN FARRELL
July 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/world/middleeast/29basra.html?hp
BASRA, Iraq — As American troop levels are peaking in Baghdad, British force levels are heading in the opposite direction as the troops prepare to withdraw completely from the city center of Basra, 300 miles to the south.
The British intend to pull back to an airport headquarters miles out of town, a symbolic move widely taken by Iraqis as the beginning of the end of the British military presence in southern Iraq.
The scaling down by America’s largest coalition partner foreshadows many of the political and military challenges certain to face American commanders when their troops begin withdrawing.
Skepticism is widespread in Basra, as in Baghdad, about whether Iraqi forces are ready to take over. Both the British and Americans will have to assuage the fears of Iraqis that they are being abandoned to gunmen and religious extremists. And both are likely to face intensified attacks from propaganda-conscious enemies trying to claim credit for driving out the Westerners.
As the British prepare for the withdrawal from the city center — and the wider transition of handing over Basra Province to Iraqi security forces during the coming months — Brig. James Bashall, commander of the First Mechanized Brigade, concedes that his men will almost certainly “get a lot of indirect fire as we go backward.”
It is no coincidence that he is reading up on Britain’s withdrawal from its former crown colony Aden in what is now Yemen, and lessons from other theaters, with the American experience in Vietnam as the “obvious parallel.”
Rear Adm. Mark I. Fox, an American military spokesman in Baghdad, parried any suggestion that Basra was a model for the Americans.
“I think that our focus right now is on the operations that we are conducting,” he said. “Certainly that’s the thing that is in front of us right now, and I wouldn’t characterize us as necessarily peeking over the shoulders of somebody else to see how they are doing it.”
The British commanders studiously avoid talk of dates for the same reason American commanders are resisting such pressure in Congress — they fear it would embolden insurgents. But it has escaped no one’s notice that Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, could score political points by withdrawing from an unpopular war.
The British pullback, and British commanders’ talk of moving toward “overwatch,” and intervening “in a limited sense” if requested by the Iraqis, is viewed with dismay by many Iraqis in the city.
Mustapha Wali, a 49-year-old teacher, was blunt. “If they withdraw, we will live in a jungle, like the early days,” he said. “The parties control the government, and the aim of officials is to fill their pockets with money, millions of dollars inside their pockets and nothing to the city.”
The educated and secular middle classes fear that the Iraqi security forces — particularly the police — are hopelessly infiltrated by the extremist Shiite militias and Iranian-backed Islamist parties competing, often murderously, for control of Basra’s huge oil wealth.
An overwhelmingly Shiite port city controlling Iraq’s gateway to the Persian Gulf, Basra is much less affected by the Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence plaguing Baghdad. But, as a June 25 report by the International Crisis Group concluded, it is virtually controlled by Shiite militias.
Since the 2003 invasion the British-led coalition forces have adopted a far less aggressive and interventionist stance than American troops have farther north. Some contend that this was the only realistic approach, with far fewer troops at their disposal and a more benign environment.
But critics accuse the British of simply allowing the Shiite militias free rein to carry out their intolerant Islamist agenda, which involved killing merchants who sell alcohol, driving out Christians and infiltrating state institutions and the security forces.
“The British are very patient, they didn’t know how to deal with the militias,” said a 50-year-old Assyrian Christian who would identify herself only as Mrs. Mansour. “Some people think it would be better if the Americans came instead of the British. They would be harder on the militias.”
The report by the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization that seeks to prevent or resolve deadly conflicts, while conceding that a recent British-led crackdown was a “qualified success” in reducing criminality, political assassinations and sectarian killings, nevertheless concludes that Basra “is an example of what to avoid.”
It said the British had been driven into “increasingly secluded compounds,” a result, the report said, was viewed by Basra’s residents and militia as an “ignominious defeat.”
British and Iraqi leaders point out that although there have been problems with intimidation and infiltration, particularly of the Iraqi police, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has appointed new police and army commanders in recent months to take charge of the city. And the officials claim that there are encouraging signs.
But certainly a city that was once relatively safe for British troops is no longer.
Where they once patrolled in soft hats and open-topped vehicles, soldiers now move in heavily armored vehicles and are regularly attacked with mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs.
This year is already the most deadly since 2003 for British forces in Iraq, with 36 killed as of Saturday. Sixty-one rockets and mortar shells rained down on the palace in one day last week, a record high.
In such an environment, say British commanders, removing the troops from the city center removes a “magnet” for attacks, and deprives the Mahdi Army, led by Moktada al-Sadr, and other Iranian-backed militias of a cause to justify their continued violence. Instead there will be a transition to control by Iraqis.
When the withdrawal from the palace is complete, there will be 5,000 British soldiers here, 500 fewer than before.
Although American commanders are sure to watch the British pullout closely, there are distinct differences between the military situations in the north and south.
“Basra is a totally different environment from what the Americans are facing,” said a British official in Basra. “The problem here is gangsterism, not violent sectarianism. And a foreign military is not the right tool for closing down a mafia.”
“A Baghdad-style surge would be 100 percent counterproductive,” he added.
Nevertheless, everyone expects attacks to intensify, and soldiers on the ground have cautionary tales for American generals looking ahead to an eventual drawing down of troop levels.
On May 25, Basra’s small Permanent Joint Coordination Center — a joint British-Iraqi base in the city’s center — came under sustained attack by militias enraged by the killing of a senior Mahdi Army commander that day.
The lesson drawn by soldiers inside was that the militias had carefully watched the reduced British troop movements around the city, noticed where they were no longer patrolling and prepared accordingly.
Cpl. Daniel Jennings, 26, said the Mahdi Army appeared to have stockpiled rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns in advance.
“What they did was very well planned,” he said. “They knew they could pre-dump weapons and ammo. They knew that if they hid R.P.G.’s under a bridge or a gun under a tree it wasn’t going to be found.”
During one army patrol in a village overlooked by the palace’s watchtowers from the era of Saddam Hussein, residents were confused to find themselves in the cross-fire between the Mahdi Army and the British.
Picking from his car shrapnel from what appeared to be an errant rocket fired at the palace, Mohammed, 20, said he was angry at the militias for using the villagers’ houses as cover to fire, but also at the British for firing back, damaging the homes.
“We are caught in the middle,” he said.” At the start the American and British forces came and the situation was much better, but now it is beginning to get worse.”
Another Iraqi youth, when asked what the Iraqi police were doing about roadside bombs intended for British troops, said, “The police are the ones who are doing it.”
In Basra itself one 26-year-old Mahdi Army fighter was unequivocal about what he wanted. “I hope to see them withdraw today, before tomorrow,” he said.
But for most, it is an issue heavily shaded in gray.
“Some people are asking, ‘Are we any longer part of the solution, or part of the problem?’ ” said Capt. Toby Skinner, 26, of the Fourth Battalion, The Rifles Regiment, in Basra. “An Iraqi told me: ‘You stay here for three years you will be our friend. You stay for four years, you will be our enemy.’ ”
Riyadh, a 22-year-old Iraqi and Basra native who is working as an interpreter for the British, expressed little confidence that the Iraqi Army was ready to take over from his paymasters, and none at all in the Iraqi police.
“Right now the militias are busy concentrating on getting the British Army out of Iraq,” he said. “After that is done they will turn on the people and try to control them in a very difficult way.”
“They will kill people who don’t do what they want,” he added. “There will be no punishment by courts; they kill people on the streets.”
But he acknowledged that if British troops stayed they would be sucked into further deadly confrontations with militias using civilians as cover, leading to inevitable innocent casualties and more hostility.
“If they leave, the militias will eventually fall apart,” he said. “There will be no reason to join them because they will not be fighting the British Army.”
This is what the British hope, but cannot guarantee, will happen.
At Basra Palace, the rocket attacks at all hours of the day and night have led soldiers to christen it, with characteristic dark humor, “probably the worst palace in the world.”
Despite the rocket-shredded roof and garden labyrinth of head-high sandbags, morale remains high. However, some soldiers question their continued presence in the city center.
“I don’t see the point,” shrugged Trooper Charles Culshaw, 21, an armored vehicle driver. “ We are training the Iraqi Army and doing a couple of bits and pieces that are useful, but I don’t think it’s worth it, to be honest with you.”
“All we are doing now is resupplying ourselves,” he said. “It’s going round in circles. People are getting killed for us to resupply ourselves, and if we weren’t resupplying ourselves, people wouldn’t be getting killed.”
Unsurprisingly, Lt. Col. Patrick Sanders, commander of the Fourth Battalion, The Rifles Regiment, has a different view.
“If that were true and that were all we were doing, then I would be saying the same thing, but it’s not,” he said, pointing to recent battles in which the British had killed at least 100 insurgents.
But while such raids will continue to be launched against wanted men, a speedy transition to a Basra run by Iraqis is the game in this town.
“I think that the route is one of reconciliation, and that means taking some risk,” Lieutenant Colonel Sanders said. “The other option is that we do what has been done in the past and what is being done elsewhere, which is to thrash around killing people by the dozen because they are attacking us. But I’m not sure that is constructive.”
Mudhafer al-Husaini contributed reporting from Baghdad.
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4) Getting the US Out of Iraq—
Some Reasons for Optimism
By Carole Seligman
July/August 2007
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/julaug_07/julaug_07_09.html
The majority of the American people are now opposed to the war in Iraq and want the U.S. to get out, to withdraw our troops. This was thought to be an impossible situation just a year ago. People said that the American people would never actively oppose the war unless there was a draft. But, the people are already having an effect, despite the weaknesses of the organized antiwar movement.
The power of the antiwar position is already showing some results. More and more of the congressional representatives and senators, Democrats and Republicans, who voted for the funds to support the war, are now speaking out against it, now that they know that the people are against it. Not that they are calling for the immediate unconditional withdrawal of the U.S. from Iraq, far from it. But they are engaging in public relations activities that make them seem antiwar and they’re trying to do a public cleaning of their blood stained hands.
Another indication of the growing antiwar movement is that the Army has failed to meet its monthly recruitment goals for two months in a row. All branches of the military are stepping up their recruitment campaigns and pouring funds into recruitment. They need more meat for the war grinder, more fodder for their cannons.
One reason for the military’s problem in recruitment is what the news media is calling “The Mom Factor”. This is simply that mothers discourage their children from joining the military. Go moms!
I think we can credit Cindy Sheehan and other parents of soldiers who have been killed, wounded, or are still serving in Iraq, who are bravely speaking out and trying to keep other kids safe, despite a torrent of abuse from organ-ized rightwing war mongers. Many other moms can’t listen to a mother mourning the loss of her son, blaming the president of the country and the congress people who went along with the war and just voted to escalate it, without thinking very seriously about their own children’s safety. And the mainstream media is acknowledging that mothers are harming recruitment!
There are also a growing number of active duty soldiers and Iraq war veterans who are speaking out publicly and urging young people not to enlist, not to go to Iraq. There is active organizing against the war within the military services, including a petition for the redress of grievances related to the administration’s use of lies to justify the attack and occupation of Iraq, efforts to encourage soldiers to resist deployment to Iraq, soldiers attending antiwar demonstrations in uniform and otherwise using their rights to free speech and assembly to oppose the war. Protest and resistance has even reached into the ranks of military officers, such as Ehren Watada, now facing a second trial for his opposition to the war on the grounds of its illegality.
If you read the lists of soldiers killed in Iraq that are published in many newspapers and on some nationally televised news programs, you will notice that most of the American soldiers killed in Iraq come from small towns, suburbs, and rural areas. I have a theory. I cannot prove it, but I think it has merit. I think the reason for this unlikely phenomenon, that the most casualties come from the least populated areas of the country, is actually a negative a reflection of what the antiwar movement has been able to accomplish so far. Let me explain. The internet makes news, pictures, and casualty lists of this war more accessible to people all over the country than any previous war this country has fought. But direct contact with massive demonstrations of antiwar protesters has only occurred in the big cities. That is because the biggest acts of opposition to the war have all taken place in the big cities. This is not to say that important organizing is not happening in small towns. It is. But, the antiwar demonstrations of tens and hundreds of thousands represent a powerful pole of attraction, a source of power, an alternative to the government and it lies.
They show young people, who are deciding what to do as they graduate from high school, that enlistment in the military services is not a good choice if you value your own life and safety, or if you care about your fellow human beings in other countries. What I am saying is that people in the big cities have been exposed to many massive street demonstrations that have provided information and examples to potential military recruits. Most importantly, they have shown that large numbers of their fellow workers and students oppose the war.
What they do very concretely is show that there is strength in numbers. This truism, strength in numbers, is a deep and powerful idea. It is the essence of working class political action. After all, the war makers, the capitalist class, who are only a tiny number of people, have a monopoly on weapons. They have command of the financial resources of the country. They control all branches of the military and the bases all around the world. And they control the government, the state power, and the communications industry. This ownership of wealth and control of the state is the source of their power. They profit from war, from the manufacture of war materiel, the destruction and re-building of bombs, bullets, tanks, and planes. And because they profit from it, war is a constant fact of everyday life.
What do we have? We have ourselves and the fact that the overwhelming majority of our fellow human beings, the working class, have real, material interests in peace. That is the power of massive demonstrations. They can demonstrate our power, which is in our numbers. They show in action people vs. profit.
All the antiwar groups recognize the problem we are confronted with: How to activate and mobilize the huge numbers of people who are now opposed to the war? How can we bring the pressure of the majority to bear on the war itself? Can the United States government be forced to get out of Iraq? I believe that if the movement is able to overcome its artificial divisions and come together to build gigantic mass demonstrations, this will engender a chain of events that can stop the war. It can lead to worker action to stop the movement of war materials. It can lead to organized, coordinated, soldier action to come home.
This would not be the product of one demonstration, of course, but the potential result of a growing mass movement that actively involves more and more working people. It took ten years to build such a movement during the Vietnam War, not that that will be the case now. After all, hundreds of thousands of Americans do remember that their actions helped to end that war.
Right now, all the major national antiwar organizations and coalitions recognize this problem (of how to activate the antiwar majority) and are taking steps to solve it. They are setting dates for important, unified, massive actions. Dates to coincide with General Petraeus’ report on the “success” of the Iraq war escalation (the “surge”) on September 15th (an A.N.S.W.E.R. initiated coalition call); and Sept. 29th, (a Troops Out Now initiated call); and October 27th, which both the United for Peace and Justice Coalition and the Act Now to End War and Racism Coalition (A.N.S.W.E.R.) have called for as massive regional demonstrations for bringing the troops home now. There is no reason why these protests should not be the largest antiwar actions in this country. All the pre-conditions are there. All that is needed now is for everyone to pull together, unite in action, to stop this war. This can be a first step. It can be done. We can do it!
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5) Healthcare for Profit is Sicko
By Bonnie Weinstein
July/August 2007
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/julaug_07/julaug_07_11.html
Few stories exposed the sickness of medical care under capitalism than a story entitled, “Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts,” by Gardner Harris, which appeared in the June 27, 2007 issue of the New York Times. This could have been part of the script of Michael Moore’s new documentary film, “Sicko.”
This article points out that not only do most doctors accept payments from drug companies for prescribing medications, but, “...a pattern has emerged: Psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty.” And further, “...the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved,” proving that in the U.S., the Hippocratic Oath has been abandoned and the almighty dollar rules.
Michael Moore’s “Sicko” goes a long way toward exposing the fact that the U.S. healthcare system or lack thereof, is failing the nation’s sick because it is profit driven.
In case after case, and with powerful emotion, Moore follows patients battling the healthcare system—such as the experience of a man who accidentally severed two of his fingertips but couldn’t afford to pay for the re-attachment of both, so he had to choose which one to re-attach. Moore’s “Sicko” even showcases individuals who died because they couldn’t pay for their healthcare needs that had been denied them by their insurance companies.
His movie contrasts healthcare systems in Canada, England, France and Cuba. In one scene, Moore’s cameras followed a man who, while visiting Canada, had an accident that basically cut his hand in half. The man was taken to the hospital by ambulance, where a team of doctors had already been lined up for the 24-hour surgery that would be necessary to re-attach the hand. Each surgeon would work for a few hours and be relieved by the next doctor in line and so on. The operation was successful and the man went home and was not charged a dime.
Moore even goes as far as saying that the profit should be taken out of healthcare—and that’s a very good thing.
What Moore puts in and what he leaves out
While Moore did a good job showing the high quality of the Cuban healthcare system with its easy access to doctors and to medical procedures and most medicines free of charge or, in the case of some medicines, a prescription that would cost over one hundred dollars here, only costs a nickel in Cuba—there are a few big flaws in “Sicko.”
The most striking was the claim that those tortured and held illegally in Guantanamo Bay are getting good medical care! This doesn’t make sense in the face of the suicides and attempted suicides, the force-feedings of hunger strikers by shoving tubes down their throats, and tethering the men in cages.
It was not good enough for Moore to show American officials sadistically claiming that these prisoners had the best medical care. We know that whatever medical care they get is designed to keep them alive so they can be tortured again! Bush is proud of it and defends it. The congress has voted to fund it. This part of the film did a disservice to the truth and Moore certainly knows better.
And while giving glowing reports about the healthcare systems of Canada, England, France, Moore fails to mention that—across the board—these governments are cutting back on, and trying to undermine and privatize their own healthcare systems.
He does point out that Cuba, though not a profit driven system, somehow is able to provide free healthcare. In fact, even under the hardship of the U.S. trade embargo, it’s supplying not only free and comprehensive healthcare, including dentistry, medicines and eye care for all Cubans, but it is developing innovative cancer and other treatments and medical techniques; supplying free healthcare in countries around the world; and even training students free of charge to become doctors—even students from the inner cities of the U.S. who can’t afford to go to medical school otherwise. Healthcare is considered a basic human right in Cuba. And while their hospitals are not built of marble and glass with fine brass plaques, the priority they place on human life over profit comes through clearly in “Sicko.”
Money for war a key issue
Moore also fails to point out what U.S. public tax-payer funds do pay for instead of things like healthcare: two big wars—Iraq and Afghanistan; 700-plus bases around the world; Israel’s military; Colombia’s military—the entire huge U.S. war industry—including its nuclear weapons!
Even England, France and Canada—while they are also imperialist oppressor countries—don’t spend a fraction of what the U.S. spends on its worldwide military industrial complex. Certainly the U.S. is the top-ranking military force in the world today. And American workers and workers around the world under American corporate control and under American bombs and in front of American tanks are paying for it.
Our children are paying for it now in decreased wages and a shorter life span! And they are paying for it with their lives in an unjust and brutal war that is trading their blood for oil to increase profits for the few.
Money for police and jails not healthcare
Connected to this is the U.S. prison industrial complex—another profit driven industry. The U.S. has the highest percentage of its population in jail than any other country in the world—most for drug related charges—and at great expense to taxpayers. In fact, according to a May 21, 2007 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, entitled, “Prisons’ budget to trump colleges,” by James Sterngold,
“As the costs for fixing the state’s troubled corrections system rocket higher, California is headed for a dubious milestone—for the first time the state will spend more on incarcerating inmates than on educating students in its public universities.
“Based on current spending trends, California’s prison budget will overtake spending on the state’s universities in five years. No other big state in the country spends close to as much on its prisons compared with universities.”
So instead of spending money on education, jobs, housing and, especially, comprehensive drug treatment and rehabilitation programs—including education—they pour it instead into war, police occupation of the community, arrest, incarceration and economic induction into military service of the victims of poverty and racism.
Instead of solving drug problems, capitalism promotes them
In addition to the introduction of crack cocaine into our inner cities by the CIA, as exposed by reporter Gary Webb. many of those incarcerated are in trouble because they became addicted to one of the drugs that their doctors were paid to push on them, like the drug, OxyContin.
As a concrete example, according to a May 10, 2007 New York Times article entitled, “In Guilty Plea, OxyContin Maker to Pay $600 Million,” by Barry Meier, “The company that makes the narcotic painkiller OxyContin and three current and former executives pleaded guilty today in federal court here to criminal charges that they misled regulators, doctors and patients about the drug’s risk of addiction and its potential to be abused.”
Neither the makers of OxyContin nor the doctors, who over-prescribed it, will ever have to spend even a second in jail. And, in spite of the billions of dollars in profits the drug companies and their drug-pushing doctors have already earned due to increased sales to those they have addicted—their only punishment is that they must pay $600 million in fines—money that will never get to the victims of those incarcerated because of those drugs; or who have died from them; or to their families who have been so deeply impacted in a myriad of ways.
Money for human needs not war
While the mega-drug companies, HMOs and insurance companies rake in billions of dollars in profits off the sale of questionable drugs, by denying healthcare treatments to sick people, and by turning doctors into drug-pushers—the sick and the poor get the worst of all worlds.
They get bad drugs; get denied services; and they and their children are incarcerated even for the use of marijuana—a drug that has killed no one—while the conscious pushers of a deadly drug like OxyContin go free.
And, if that is not bad enough, working people have to pay for the insufficient care they do get—not only with the money taken out of their paycheck—not only with the increasing cost of their co-payments, and not only by the reduction of covered benefits (much of that hidden until they need it)—but sometimes at the cost of their lives.
Socialized medicine is a good thing
One of the strongest points in Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” comes when he points out that, indeed, we have many social welfare programs. Even here in the U.S., in the commanding heights of the capitalist world, we have socialized fire service, schools, police, civil servants of all kinds. The military and space programs are fully funded.
And while many of our most important services for the poor are being cut back, “society” is able to support some of these basic services. The conclusion to be drawn would be to support the funding of medical care instead of war. This point should have been made resoundingly clear in the film. It was not. (Moore has since made the point quite effectively on TV interviews and I give him credit for that.)
In spite of its weaknesses, Moore’s “Sicko” made it reasonable to think that socialized medicine—free, universal medical care for all—should be a part of these basic social services.
The mayhem of the profit motive
It is the height of hypocrisy that doctors-turned-drug pushers, and the drug manufacturers are being rewarded by the corporate profit system, while masses of drug-dependent people—instead of getting the healthcare and drug rehabilitation they need—are incarcerated at great expense to taxpayers and, in fact, denied healthcare altogether in some cases.
This is concrete evidence of the utter failure and total lack of rationality of the American capitalist system of healthcare ruled by the profit motive.
The profit motive permeates all areas of social concern from the lack of healthcare, to crumbling roads and schools, to the inability to rebuild New Orleans, just to name a few of the things the wealthiest nation in the world can’t seem to do.
The hypocrisy of a government spending billions of dollars on war, occupation and annihilation while denying healthcare to a dying child is the legacy of capitalism.
It is the legacy of a dying and rotting system spinning out of control in the hands of a tiny minority of desperados who will risk everything—except of course, themselves and their money—to maintain their world dominance. They will sacrifice any and all—social services and people—as needed—as war costs steadily increase.
At the helm of the greatest war machine on the planet are the corporate rulers who are at war against all working people the world over. And this is expensive. And they have no intention of paying for it themselves. That would defeat the purpose of their wars, which is to increase their profits for their own greedy enjoyment of obscene wealth, privilege and the power to maintain it.
What do we do about it?
Michael Moore’s, “Sicko” will resonate with millions of people. It has already opened up a discussion of possible solutions to the healthcare crisis we are currently facing in this country. Already, reforms are on the drawing boards in State and Federal governing bodies.
The most popular form are reactionary bills like the Massachusetts healthcare bill put forward by Republican Governor Mitt Romney which would require all uninsured adults in the state to purchase some kind of insurance policy or face a fine just like with auto insurance. Under this bill, those without insurance would apply to an insurance board, run by insurance companies, of course (much like how you buy auto insurance) and be offered coverage according to how much you can pay, while they decide exactly what medical services will or will not be covered.
The consumer’s choices would be expanded to include a range of new and inexpensive policies ranging from almost free to about $250 per month—from private insurers subsidized by the state. But this does not do away with private insurers. Instead, it helps them to increase their sales and profits by forcing everyone to purchase a plan from them, or face the penalties.
All the major Democratic and Republican candidates support some form of this bill. They only differ on how poor people will have to be to qualify for a subsidy; and exactly what the minimum coverage of the cheapest medical insurance will be.
None of the candidates supports a single-payer system—let alone free, universal and comprehensive healthcare for all as a basic human right—as it should be.
Single-payer healthcare
In California we have SB 840, the California Health Insurance Reliability Act, which, on the surface, seems pretty good. At least it gradually does away with the insurance companies, turning California healthcare into a “single payer” system. According to the bill summary,
“All federal, state and county monies currently spent on health care will be reallocated to the state Health Care Fund. This will supply about one-third of the needed funding. Federal waivers are required for allocation of federal dollars to the state Health Care Fund. The remaining funding will come from state health taxes that will replace health insurance premiums now paid to insurance companies and co-pays and deductibles now paid to providers. Premiums will be affordable for every Californian and every business because what families pay is in proportion to their income and what employers pay is in proportion to wages. Single-payer efficiencies control costs. Most businesses and families will save money...Imposes a waiting period for new residents, if a large number of people are entering the state for the purpose of obtaining health care; establishes consumer co-payments and/or deductibles, if necessary, only after the first two years, and limited to $250 per person or $500 per family; and establishes standards for waiver of co-payments for those with low income...when cost control measures are insufficient: it may ask the Legislature for an increase in health care taxes.”
Already, on the surface, this is unfair because taxes are not progressive. Employer’s profits far outweigh their labor costs! Workers pay a much higher proportion of their income in taxes than do the wealthy. The bosses designed this system so they can enjoy these huge tax breaks at the expense of working people.
The problem with single-payer healthcare is that eventually it will mean that everyone, indeed, will be forced to pay or not receive care—or perhaps even get fined for getting caught sick without healthcare.
Tax the rich not the poor. Money for human needs not war.
The only way a single-payer plan would be fair to working people is if it is combined with a progressive income tax, where the rich pay more according to a sliding scale (the richer you are the higher percentage of taxes you pay) and the poor pay no taxes at all and healthcare and all social services are provided free to all.
To put teeth into this, working people must be able to democratically decide where our tax money will be spent—whether we should spend billions of dollars on war—or on the things we want and need.
The profit system is making us ‘sicko’
None of these things can be accomplished in a society that puts the unrestricted accumulation of private profit for the rich above the interests of everyone else. Such a society is doomed to be thrust back into the dark ages. And, unfortunately, this is the very circumstance being played out in the world right now. Already Iraq and Afghanistan have been plunged into poverty, destruction and despair by imperialism’s war led by the U.S. bosses—the very same bosses ripping the guts out of all the basic social services here.
The only solution to this downward spiral is for working people here—and in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and all over the world—to unite and take matters into our own hands and depose and disarm the war profiteers and end the inhuman profit driven system of capitalism—with its ever-expanding wars and bigger prisons.
Human decency falters under the rule of capital
Films like “Sicko” serve to awaken the common thread of humanity within all of us, and to that we owe Michael Moore a great debt of gratitude. Sometimes the most obvious things get lost in the quagmire of capitalist media spin that constantly seeks to turn the victim into the criminal.
But the sight of a man who must choose which of his fingertips to save becomes like a blow-to-the-head-wake-up-call when you see the results as he tries to adjust his guitar playing to his new, unimproved circumstance a year or so later. That is the art of Michael Moore’s “Sicko.”
Capitalism and its profit motive don’t work for the overwhelming majority of humans on this planet. And, in fact, it is as a giant boulder tied in a knot around a drowning child. “Sicko” is a close-up look at that giant boulder and the hands that tied the knot.
It is up to us to put an end to this madness and create a society that puts human needs and the needs of the planet above private property and personal gain at the expense of the majority.
This can only be achieved through our unity and solidarity for an end to capitalism and the beginning of a socialist future.
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6) In Baghdad, Justice Behind the Barricades
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
July 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/world/middleeast/30military.html?ref=world
BAGHDAD, July 26 — In a city plagued by suicide bombers and renegade militias, the Americans and the Iraqi government have turned to an unusual measure to help implant the rule of law: they have erected a legal Green Zone, a heavily fortified compound to shelter judges and their families and secure the trials of some of the most dangerous suspects.
The Rule of Law Complex, as it is known by the Iraqi government, is in the Baghdad neighborhood of Rusafa and held its first trial last month.
For Iraqi officials, working at the compound is so fraught with risk that it often requires separating themselves and their families from life outside the complex’s gates.
“Our work is really a challenge,” said a judge who lives in the compound with his wife and children and whose identity is protected by the court’s security procedures. “I have not seen Baghdad for three months.”
The court’s first defendant was a Syrian militant, Ramsi Ahmed Ismael Muhammed, known by the nom de guerre Abu Qatada. Tried on charges of kidnapping, killing his hostages and carrying out other bloody attacks, he was convicted in the complex’s high-surveillance courtroom and sentenced to death.
The utility of the fortified complex, however, depends on more than a single high-profile case. Ultimately, it will depend on the Iraqis’ ability to expand their capacity to try cases at the complex as well as their track record in applying justice evenhandedly to Shiites and Sunnis alike.
The notion of helping the Iraqis establish protected legal enclaves is an important element of the American campaign plan prepared by Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq. The hope is that a network of legal complexes will be established in other parts of Iraq, starting with the capital of Anbar Province, Ramadi, where work is expected to begin in the next several months.
The Rusafa complex, across the Tigris River to the east of the government Green Zone in central Baghdad, is still in its early days. Since the court began hearing cases in June it has tried 43 suspects, a rate of about one suspect a day.
The United States provides criminal investigators, lawyers and a paralegal staff to train the Iraqis to run the complex, which also includes accommodations for witnesses, investigators, the Baghdad Police College and an expanding number of detainees. The 55-member American team includes Justice Department and military personnel as well as contractors, and there are only four Iraqi investigators.
But an additional 26 Iraqi investigators are being trained by the F.B.I., according to Michael F. Walther, a senior United States Justice Department official who runs the American military’s Law and Order Task Force. And by next March, the small courtroom where Abu Qatada was tried is to be replaced by an $11 million court built with American reconstruction funds.
The Central Criminal Court in Baghdad is expected to conduct about 5,000 trials this year. Col. Mark S. Martins, the staff judge advocate for General Petraeus’s military command, estimates that once the new Rusafa court is built the complex will be able to handle about one third of that caseload. The Iraqi government will take over the cost of protecting and operating the complex next month and has approved $49 million for the effort.
Despite its status as a protected area for trying Iraq’s most infamous terrorists and militants, the Rule of Law Complex is not immune from the many problems roiling Iraq’s legal system. They include the crush of detainees that has emerged with the surge of American and Iraqi military operations. To try to reduce the backlog of cases, detainees from overcrowded jails in Kadhimiya and elsewhere have been transported to Rusafa, where they are fingerprinted and given retina scans.
The Rusafa prison’s capacity, which started at 2,500, will expand by more than 5,000 by the end of the summer. The main detention building at Rusafa is cleaner and less malodorous than many Iraqis jails, but with 15 detainees in each cell the conditions had reached maximum capacity under international standards.
When a reporter was escorted by the Iraqi prison director through one of the newly erected tent-covered jails a short drive away, a detainee who gave his name as Dawood Yousef, 46, pressed his way to the bars and yelled that he had been picked up in a sweep of Abu Ghraib and had spent five months in various jails, including a month in Rusafa, without being told why he had been arrested or when his case would go to trial. Colonel Martins took down the details.
An Iraqi investigator at the Rusafa complex raised another concern: sectarian agendas at the Interior Ministry. The investigator, who cannot be identified under the complex’s security procedures, said ministry officials had made him the subject of an inquiry when he expressed his intention to marry a Sunni woman. “What kind of investigation is that?” he said with undisguised contempt.
Under Iraqi procedures, the main phase for recording evidence takes place before the trial when an investigative judge questions witnesses and prepares a report for the panel of judges to review. The trials themselves seem relatively brief to observers familiar with the American system. With the extensive security at Rusafa, it is not easy for Iraqis to attend the trials, so videotapes of the proceedings are made.
In a legal system that has relied heavily on confessions and less on forensic investigations at the crime scene, there are often allegations of torture. In a July 3 trial at the Rusafa court, the judges acquitted four defendants of murder and rape on the grounds that their confessions appeared coerced. Medical reports pointed to possible torture, and physical evidence was lacking. The stunned defendants received the verdict with enormous relief, according to a videotaped record of the trial.
The Americans say they have been encouraged by the tenacity with which the investigators pursued Abu Qatada, in particular. “We called him the wolf,” said a judge who was involved in investigating the case. “It was not easy to get him to talk.”
The investigators relied heavily on witnesses, who were taken through a special entrance in the court offices so they could be interviewed confidentially. Their statements were entered in a file that only the judges were allowed to read. The evidence in the file was enough to persuade the panel of three judges, one Sunni and two Shiites, to convict Abu Qatada on two counts: possessing weapons as part of an armed group opposing the state, which led to a 30-year sentence, and terrorist crimes, which were deemed a capital offense. His conviction and punishment are being appealed.
A more demanding test of the impartiality of the system will come soon when a Shiite national policeman comes to trial. Identified only as Lt. Col. A, he is being tried on charges that he assaulted and tortured dozens of Sunni captives in his custody on behalf of a Shiite militia.
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7) In Bid to Curb Violence, Cities File Lawsuits Against Gangs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/us/30gangs.html?ref=us
FORT WORTH, July 29 (AP) — Fed up with deadly drive-by shootings, incessant drug dealing and graffiti, cities nationwide are trying a different tactic to combat gangs: They are suing them.
Fort Worth and San Francisco are among the latest municipalities to file lawsuits against gang members, asking courts for injunctions barring them from gathering on street corners, in cars or anywhere else in certain areas.
The injunctions are intended to disrupt gang activity before it can escalate. They also give the police legal cause to stop and question suspected gang members, the authorities said. “It is another tool,” said Kevin Rousseau, a Tarrant County assistant prosecutor in Fort Worth, which recently filed its first civil injunction against a gang. “This is more of a proactive approach.”
But critics say such lawsuits go too far, limiting otherwise lawful activities and unfairly singling out minority youth.
“If you’re barring people from talking in the streets, it’s difficult to tell if they’re gang members or if they’re people discussing issues,” said Peter Bibring, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “And it’s all the more troubling because it doesn’t seem to be effective.”
Civil injunctions were first filed against gang members in the 1980s in the Los Angeles area, a breeding ground for gangs. The city attorney’s lawsuit in 1987 against the Playboy Gangster Crips covered the entire city but was scaled back after a judge deemed it too broad.
Chicago tried to limit gang activity with an antiloitering ordinance in 1992, but the Supreme Court struck it down in 1999, saying it allowed the police to arrest without cause.
Since then, cities have used injunctions to focus on specific gangs or gang members, and so far that strategy has withstood court challenges.
Los Angeles now has 33 permanent injunctions involving 50 gangs, and studies have shown that the injunctions do reduce crime, said Jonathan Diamond, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.
The injunctions prohibit gang members from associating with one another, carrying weapons, possessing drugs, committing crimes and displaying gang symbols in a safety zone — neighborhoods where suspected gang members live and are most active. Some injunctions set curfews for members and bar them from possessing alcohol in public areas, even if they are of legal drinking age.
Those who disobey the order can face a misdemeanor charge and up to a year in jail. Prosecutors say the possibility of a jail stay, however short, is a strong deterrent, even for gang members who have already served hard time for other crimes.
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8) In Opposing Tax Plan, Schumer Breaks With Party
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and STEPHEN LABATON
July 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/washington/30schumer.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON, July 29 — June was a busy month for Senator Charles E. Schumer. On the phone, at large parties and small gatherings around the nation, he raised more than $1 million from the booming private equity and hedge fund industries for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, of which he is chairman.
But there is another way Mr. Schumer has been busy with hedge fund and private equity managers, an important part of his constituency in New York. He has been reassuring them that he will resist an effort led by members of his own party to single out the industry with a plan that would more than double the taxes on the enormous profits reaped by its executives.
Mr. Schumer has considerable say on the issue. In addition to being the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate leadership, he is the only Democrat serving on both of the major committees, Banking and Finance, that have jurisdiction in the matter.
He has long been a pro-business Democrat and a fund-raising machine for the party, as well as a vociferous supporter of Wall Street issues in Washington, much the way Michigan lawmakers defend the auto industry and Iowa politicians work on behalf of corn farmers.
But in the case of the tax proposals, the strategy behind Mr. Schumer’s efforts is putting to the test another set of principles he is known for. He has regularly portrayed himself as a progressive politician who identifies with the struggles of the middle class and is sharply critical of the selfish “plutocrats” who he says control the Republican Party.
And he has written a book on the subject, advising policy makers to follow his strategy of deciding positions by identifying with the concerns of people like the Baileys, a fictional middle-class family from Long Island that he uses as a guide.
Now, leaders in his party are using similar language to justify their efforts to raise taxes on hedge funds and private equity firms, saying the new revenues will help pay for health and education programs and begin to reduce the impact of the alternative minimum tax on the middle class. The proposals have gained momentum in recent weeks but face formidable political obstacles, primarily in the Senate.
This month three leading Democratic candidates for president — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards — endorsed the tax-increase proposals.
Mr. Schumer said in an interview that he was torn between the need to protect an industry vital to his home state and the need to generate revenues to finance government programs. He said a tax increase on private equity and hedge fund executives could lead to an exodus of jobs and companies from New York, and even from the country. He said the plan, if enacted federally, would also lead to an increase in New York State tax that would further bear down on the industry. He said he worried that the industry was being unfairly singled out.
“Unintended consequences often occur when you do major tax work. And you have to be careful,” Mr. Schumer said in the interview, held in his office just off the Senate floor.
But even some of Mr. Schumer’s fellow New York Democrats dispute that notion, including Representative Charles B. Rangel, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax matters.
“If the businesses are so fragile that taxing them at an equitable rate will cause them to leave the city, I can’t picture that,” Mr. Rangel said.
Among the other prominent Democrats from New York to endorse raising taxes on the industry is Robert E. Rubin, the treasury secretary to President Bill Clinton, who has returned to Wall Street as a senior executive at Citigroup.
Some Republicans have taken a more jaundiced view of Mr. Schumer’s intentions. As Senator Charles E. Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, put it in a recent interview with Bloomberg News: “They contribute most of their money to the Democrat Party, and he wants to protect the income. It’s completely contrary to the position he took in the last election, when he was leading the Senate Democratic campaign committee and he talked about the inequity of the tax system.”
Later, in a statement to The New York Times, Mr. Grassley said, “I can sure understand that Senator Schumer has to represent his constituents’ economic interests, and some of those are financial people on Wall Street.”
Mr. Grassley is a co-sponsor of legislation filed last month by Senator Max Baucus of Montana, a Democrat and the chairman of the Finance Committee, that would raise to as much as 35 percent the 15 percent corporate tax rate on certain partnerships that go public, like the Blackstone Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.
In June, senior House Democrats separately proposed raising the tax rate on the investment gains of fund managers — known as “carried interest” — to the ordinary income tax rate of as much as 35 percent, from the capital gains rate of 15 percent.
If adopted, the House proposal would more than double the tax rate for most of the compensation received by the partners at private equity and hedge funds and would raise billions of dollars annually in tax revenue.
Mr. Schumer discounted any suggestion that the campaign contributions from the industry had influenced his thinking, and said he had heard from industry executives who supported some of the proposals to raise their taxes. But interviews with people in and outside the industry indicate that there is overwhelming opposition to the measures and that any support from within the industry ranks is token.
Joe Schocken, the chairman of Broadmark Capital, an investment banking and private equity firm in Seattle, said most others in the industry did not seem to share his support for a tax increase that would make the tax code fairer and raise revenue for the federal government. “I realize I am pretty lonely in that point of view,” he said.
Mr. Schumer has said he agrees with the general notion that Congress needs to raise more money for vital initiatives, and that the nation’s wealthiest should bear much of that burden. “I am not a populist, but I am a pro-government-type person who believes the government needs some revenues, and the only logical place to get it is from the very top end income-wise,” he said in the interview.
But in his conversations with Wall Street executives about the tax proposals, Mr. Schumer said, he has told them that he would oppose a tax increase as long as it did not also apply to other industries, like energy and real estate.
Both in and out of Congress, supporters of increasing taxes on hedge funds and private equity firms say Mr. Schumer’s proposal is a “poison pill” that would generate opposition to the measure from powerful groups — the energy and real estate industries — and derail its prospects for passage.
In the interview, Mr. Schumer acknowledged that expanding a tax increase to other industries might make it harder to pass. But he said the change also would make the plan fairer and raise more money.
“It’s fair for New York,” he said. “Almost no one I speak to disagrees with that proposition, that it’s right.”
As a campaign fund-raiser, Mr. Schumer has raised significantly more money than his Republican counterparts, largely because contributors sense that Democrats are headed toward victory in 2008. But the tax issue has significantly helped the Democratic fund-raising efforts.
From January through June, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised nearly $2 million from executives and employees of private equity and hedge fund firms like the Carlyle Group and the Blackstone Group, according to analyses of campaign finance disclosure reports conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that researches the influence of money in politics, and by The New York Times. The $2 million figure, which includes contributions from relatives of employees and executives, is a low-end estimate because many donors do not list their employers on financial disclosure reports.
Industry executives say they value the role Mr. Schumer plays. John G. Gaine, the president of the Managed Funds Association, the main hedge fund trade group, described the senator as a “critical figure in the debate” and a “guardian of America’s capital market and, more parochially, New York’s economic interest.”
Mr. Schumer says he is working on an alternative tax plan, the details of which he would not disclose. But in the interview he spoke approvingly of raising the tax rate on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans — those earning more than $400,000 a year — to 40 percent from 35 percent. He added that Congress could also once again set the capital gains tax rate at 20 percent, raising it from the current 15 percent.
He acknowledged the political reality that such an approach would be hard to get through Congress. But he suggested that it would be fairer than imposing all of the additional tax burden on an industry that is largely centered in his state. “It’s consistent and it’s right, and it doesn’t single out New York,” he said.
Ron Nixon contributed reporting.
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9) New Connecticut Law May Save a Troubled Prison for Juveniles
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
July 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/nyregion/30juvy.html?ref=nyregion
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — Two years ago, it appeared that the state youth prison here, a fortresslike compound whose scandal-scarred construction helped put the governor who built it into a prison cell of his own, was destined to close.
The state’s child advocate labeled the youth prison, called the Connecticut Juvenile Training School and opened in 2001 during Gov. John G. Rowland’s administration, “beyond repair.” Legislators piled on, and the current governor, M. Jodi Rell, called for it to be closed by next year, saying, “I cannot allow the failure of this institution to continue.”
Instead, the $57 million facility, which houses all but the state’s most serious juvenile offenders, is gearing up for a likely increase of its population, and an infusion of about $40 million a year. That is because of a state law Mrs. Rell signed last month that will raise the age at which criminal suspects are automatically charged as adults, to 18 from 16, starting in 2010.
Some say that the youth prison’s possible revival has been the result not only of the new law, but also of the power of the unions that represent the 300 employees who staff the place. Others cite a lack of resolve among politicians to shut down a boondoggle, while some point to fiscal and political realities, saying it would cost much more to close the prison and start again elsewhere.
Part of the reason, though, rests in the youth prison itself, which has undergone significant improvements during the last two years.
The building where the teenage offenders with the worst behavior problems had been housed in drab rooms, with slits for windows, has been converted into a youth center complete with arcade games and an art therapy room. Cinderblock cells once likened to “tiger cages” by Donald E. Williams Jr., a Democrat from Brooklyn, Conn., who is president pro tempore of the Senate, now have better shelving, desks, bulletin boards and carpet.
“It used to be a hellhole,” said Fred Phillips, a longtime youth services officer at the prison. What is there today, he said, “is a great improvement.”
Jeanne M. Milstein, the child advocate, said the prison, which opened six years ago, has improved enough that in April she agreed to shift the monitor she had installed there for the previous two years to a psychiatric hospital for children nearby.
She still favors closing the Middletown prison and opening smaller institutions for young offenders scattered around the state, so they can stay connected to their communities.
But, she said, “I don’t think there’s the political will right now by the legislature to close it.”
Connecticut has been one of three states, along with New York and North Carolina, that have set the age threshold at 16 for routinely charging criminal suspects as adults (and, as is common across the country, adult status is often given to those younger than 16 accused of serious felonies).
Under the new law, some of the 250 to 300 16- and 17-year-olds now sent each year to adult prisons run by the State Department of Correction will need to be housed in juvenile facilities. Those accused of the most serious felonies will still be handled in the adult system.
The change means the 16- and 17-year-olds who are to be treated as juveniles will get services including mental health treatment, family counseling and a probation officer as soon as they enter the system. Their records will also remain confidential — and invisible when they apply for jobs, professional licenses and schools.
“What we were doing was not working,” said Judge William J. Lavery, Connecticut’s chief court administrator. State Senator Toni N. Harp, a New Haven Democrat who pushed the legislation, said the old approach “hardens, rather than softens,” teenagers at risk of a life of crime.
Most states set the threshold for adult charges at 18, according to Melissa Sickmund, a senior policy associate for the National Center for Juvenile Justice in Pittsburgh, but 10 states have long used 17 as their cutoff age, and Rhode Island recently became the 11th, lowering from 18 largely because of budget pressures.
Incarceration at juvenile facilities is generally far more expensive than at adult prisons, even for inmates of the same age, because of the differing approaches used — one punitive, the other therapeutic.
In Connecticut, Leo C. Arnone, director of the Bureau of Juvenile Services, part of the Department of Children and Families, said the cost difference could be tenfold: The current annual budget for the Connecticut Juvenile Training School is $27.6 million, or $276,000 for each of about 100 residents, while the Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire, a correctional facility, spends about $27,000 per year for each of its 700 inmates.
“We either invest now or pay later,” said Ms. Milstein, the child advocate, arguing that the additional services rehabilitate young offenders and curtail recidivism.
But with the new state law, the budgetary considerations grow more complicated.
A report by the General Assembly’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis predicts that the cost of absorbing some of the additional teenage offenders at the Middletown center would run $38.8 million to $43.2 million per year. Housing them elsewhere — whether at existing private or public facilities or in some new state institutions — would cost an additional $5.5 million to $11.3 million annually beyond that. And that is on top of one-time capital costs estimated at $7.5 million to $10 million for improving the youth prison, or $22.5 million to $25 million to build alternatives.
The youth prison here, whose original capacity was estimated at 240, now has 97 teenagers on site, and officials say 50 empty beds could be available immediately.
Abby Anderson, a senior policy associate with the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, a Bridgeport-based advocacy group, said the conversation among policymakers amounted to: “How do we close a facility that has all these beds if we’re going to bring all these 16- and 17-year-olds into the system?”
The Middletown center played a key role in the corruption case against former Governor Rowland, who served 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to having conspired to deprive the public of his honest services and to commit tax fraud.
In the plea, Mr. Rowland acknowledged having approved the funding for the juvenile prison, which was built by the Tomasso family of New Britain, without disclosing that the Tomassos had previously given him gifts worth $15,000.
In the two years since Mrs. Rell and others denounced the youth prison as a boondoggle, some of its shortcomings have been addressed. Building 2, once Exhibit A of the dysfunction and faulty design, has been converted into a comfortably furnished chapter of the Boys and Girls Club, where residents can participate in life-skills training workshops. Painted murals and makeshift walls hide the ugly cells that ring the perimeter of the building and now sit empty; the interior has a pool table and an art therapy room where teenagers one recent afternoon were making go-carts.
Across the courtyard, in the younger children’s living area, kites dangled from the rafters. An Oriental-style carpet covered the floor in another wing. “That, we just bought ourselves to home up the unit,” said Susan Kunst, the staff member who runs it.
The residents of that unit, mostly older teenagers, occasionally get to cook their own breakfast and leave campus for driving lessons. Unlike inmates at Manson, residents can make free phone calls home and are given some access to the Internet. Recreational offerings include Frisbee golf and a driving range.
At the Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire — whose warden, Christine Whidden, said her charges were young enough that she had to remind them “to brush their teeth and pull up their pants” — the sports tend to be basketball and more basketball. Trees hardly exist. “They used them as climbing devices,” explained Ms. Whidden. Cellblocks lacked air-conditioning until this summer.
Chris Cooper, a spokesman for Mrs. Rell, a Republican, said she remained adamant that the Middletown center was not appropriate for younger teenagers, who are sent there starting at age 13. He said the governor had ordered the Department of Children and Families to develop other options, but the legislature had not funded that effort.
“You can’t just shut something down without any alternatives,” Mr. Cooper said.
As for the new population of 16- and 17-year-olds who could be sent here once the new law takes effect, Mr. Cooper said that Mrs. Rell was “willing to have it looked at.”
State Representative Michael P. Lawlor, a Democrat from East Haven who is co-chairman of the Joint Judiciary Committee, said he agreed with the governor and Ms. Milstein, the child advocate, that it would be better to house juvenile offenders in small facilities throughout the state.
Resistance to such a move, he said, has been led “first and foremost” by the unions that represent employees at the youth prison, the largest of which, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has substantial lobbying muscle in Hartford.
The unions do not “want it to close,” Mr. Lawlor said of the youth prison, adding that “if you create alternate programs, you have to site them somewhere, and there’s a great deal of resistance” from local communities.
“Those two factors together have made it almost impossible to shut down” the place, he added.
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10) Defending the Cuba Embargo
David Rogers reports on Congress.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 30, 2007, 3:25 pm
From: Walter Lippmann
Anti-Castro lawmakers are delighted by a House vote last week rejecting efforts to ease restrictions on financing for U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba.
The 245-182 vote quashes speculation that the new Democratic Congress will change U.S.-Cuban policy substantially. “The message is very clear,” said Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R., Fla.). “There will be no possibility of a relaxation of sanctions until there is a democratic constitution in Cuba.”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz( D., Fla.), a favorite of her party leaders, helped deliver 66 Democratic votes against an amendment sponsored by the House’s chief tax writer, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.).
Most striking, the fight came on an issue touching on agriculture — always a weak point for proponents of the U.S. trade embargo, which had been relaxed in the last years of the Clinton administration to allow U.S. exports of food and medicine. The Bush administration has imposed tough payment regulations, effectively requiring cash in advance of any shipment from American ports. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R., Mo.) has waged a running battle in the annual Treasury Department appropriations bill to try to get Congress to override these rules and allow cash on delivery.
Rangel’s amendment — offered to the farm bill last week — would have gone further, allowing direct payments to U.S. banks and permitted visas for Cuban officials traveling to U.S. to inspect agriculture export facilities. Rangel described the amendment as a “real win for America and a win for American farmers.”
But as John Kavulich, a senior policy adviser to the U.S. Cuba Trade and Economic Council, put it, “His timing was horrendous.” The farm bill happened to come to the floor after advocates of Cuban sanctions had mounted a lobbying campaign, and the vote on the Rangel amendment came the day after Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, addressed his nation on Revolution Day. Also, Wasserman Schultz warned colleagues against adding a politically volatile issue to the farm bill.
“It went too far. We could not let it go,” said Ms. Wasserman Schultz. “The message,” she said, “is there has not been a lessening of support for the sanctions against Cuba. Among Democrats there is a solid base for pushing for reform on the island
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11) Temporary Status/Permanent Impact
By Gregg Shotwell/UAW Local 1753
July 25, 2007
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=5025
The most important issue in upcoming UAW negotiations with GM, Ford, and Cerberus is temporary members. How we treat the temporaries will be the measure of our union. If temporary members don’t get dignity and justice, we can’t expect dignity and justice in retirement.
New hires, not retirees, are the future of the union. Two tier is not a collective bargaining agreement, it’s a prepaid funeral arrangement. If you are retired, or preparing for retirement in the near future, it would be wise to defend the temporaries. Make them permanent and equal members. Someday, they’ll be watching your back.
Since Gettelfinger cracked open the door to takeaways from retirees, no one is safe from the slash and burn of concession bargaining. The only bulwark against the attack on workers is a militant rank and file — a rank and file that is willing to lay down tools with or without the approval of the Administration; a rank and file that feels a legacy of solidarity down to the soles of their boots.
Recent history does not bode well. At Delphi, Visteon, American Axle, Lear, and Guide the Concession Caucus sacrificed new hires for phantom “job security”. At GM, Ford, and Chrysler the Con Caucus sanctioned the expanded utilization of temporary workers effectively saving the corpo…… Let’s do a little math.
The Big Three estimate labor costs at $70-75 per hour. But temps don’t get any benefits and make less than $20 per hour. So let’s say, for the sake of easy math, that temps represent a $50 per hour savings. $50 times 40 hours equals $2,000 times 50 weeks equals $100,000 per year per temp.
The companies refuse to admit how many temps are employed, but Ford and GM retired over 70,000 workers and less than half were replaced by transfers from Delphi and Visteon. A nice round low ball estimate of 5,000 temps equals $500 million dollars a year. You’d think management would treat them a little nicer than they do. No dice. They kick them to the curb and treat them like dirt while the big bad UAW holds the boss’s coat and……. Wait!
This just in on UAWire: “Full-time workers are being replaced with temporary workers who are paid half what regular team members earn and and cannot afford health insurance. Temporary workers are real people, not cushions or buffers to be used and discarded whenever it suits you. They work just as hard as your full-time workers and deserve real jobs with good wages, benefits and security for their families.”[http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/Toyota]
Sorry. Never mind. That message is designed by the UAW for Toyota, not UAW represented companies. I mean, UAW represented workers.
Negotiations with the Big Three are scheduled to begin July 23, but we all know the truth: negotiations began when Gettelfinger opened the contracts at GM and Ford two years ago.
While we wait for the shot across the bow the corpos and their flunkies are drilling holes in the hull. With undo diligence the Concession Caucus dismantles solidarity by whipsawing local unions into thousands of job cuts through outsourcing, subcontracting, and the expanded utilization of temps.
The scheme is referred to as a Competitive Operating Agreement rather than a Collective Bargaining Agreement for good reason. It is not a collective bargaining solution designed for the common good of the working class, it is the epitome of dog eat dog-ism. By the time negotiations for the national contract begin our solidarity will be shredded. The Big Three will have reduced labor costs by 30% through cut throat attrition at the local level. The purported excuse is that they have to be competitive with Toyota but Toyota has already signaled that they will not be left behind in the race to the bottom.
The sad fact of the matter is: capitalism has no bottom other than that imposed by collective action. Without a struggle all that workers can expect is a downward spiral.
Job cuts, outsourcing, subcontracting, and the expanded utilization of temps will allow the UAW to present the membership with an agreement that retains the wage and benefit level to which we are accustomed, and all we have to sell is our souls…….. a little more COLA diversion…… some minor cost control in health care…… and the new hires, the future of the union.
The auto companies may call them temporary, but their impact on the UAW will be permanent. If we don’t demand justice and equality for temporary members, we don’t deserve to call ourselves union.
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12) Credit Card Buyer Beware
NYT Editorial
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/opinion/31tue1.html?hp
The federal agencies that are supposed to regulate the banking and credit card industries have failed utterly to keep pace with deceptive and unfair practices that have become shamefully standard in the business. As a consequence many hard-working Americans who pay their bills are mired in debt — and in danger of losing whatever savings they have, and perhaps their homes. Congress, which sat on its hands while the problem got worse and worse, needs to rein in this sometimes predatory industry.
The scope of the problem was laid out in Congressional hearings this spring held by Senator Carl Levin, the Democrat from Michigan. According to testimony, one witness exceeded his charge card’s $3,000 limit by $200 — triggering what eventually amounted to $7,500 in penalties and interest. After paying an average of $1,000 a year for six years, the man still owed $4,400.
That experience has become all too common as the credit card industry has stealthily adopted methods designed to maximize burdensome penalties and fees, while ratcheting up interest rates as high as 30 percent. Companies bombard unwary consumers with teaser packages that promise very low interest rates to start, while reserving for themselves the right to raise rates whenever they choose. The details are buried in deliberately arcane contracts that run 30 pages long and that even lawyers have trouble understanding.
Congressional investigations and studies by consumer advocates have exposed other unsavory practices. Some card companies apply penalty rates retroactively — to purchases that were made before the penalty was incurred or in some cases to debts that were even paid off. As one Congressional witness pointed out, the credit card industry is the only one allowed to increase the price of a product after it has been sold.
Under a provision known as “universal default,” a cardholder who pays a credit card company faithfully can still be hit with a high penalty interest rate for missing payments with another creditor. In another despicable tactic known as “double cycle billing,” a cardholder who pays $450 of a $500 balance is charged interest on the entire amount as opposed to the unpaid balance.
State usury laws would once have precluded many of these practices, but those have been preempted by federal regulations that are increasingly designed to make banks and credit card companies happy — rather than protect consumers.
A bill introduced by Senator Levin would limit “penalty” interest rates to an additional 7 percent above the previous rate. It would also prohibit retroactive penalties and double cycle billing, and it would limit the amount of fees companies could charge customers who exceed their credit limit.
Passing the Levin bill would be a good start. But Congress needs a comprehensive approach to this problem. Lawmakers need to ban deceptive card offers outright, strengthen federal oversight and toughen truth-in-lending laws.
Meanwhile, American consumers should think long and hard before they accept credit card offers that are too good to be true.
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13) G.M. Is Lifted to a Profit by Global Business
By JEREMY W. PETERS
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/business/31cnd-auto.html?hp
General Motors’ global business helped lift the company to a profit in the second quarter, the company said today, but problems in North America continued to act as a drag.
Over all, G.M. earned $891 million, or $1.56 a share, compared with a loss of $3.4 billion, or $5.98 a share, in the period a year earlier.
The company’s North American operations — the centerpiece of its business — lost $39 million in the quarter. That was an improvement from the second quarter of 2006, when losses totaled $3.95 billion in North America.
Still, the company acknowledged that it has not made enough progress.
“It’s true that our North America team has made huge improvements,” Rick Wagoner, G.M.’s chief executive, said in a statement. “But our current earnings clearly demonstrate we’ve got more to do.”
G.M. embarked on a restructuring plan in late 2005 that called for it to close all or part of a dozen plants and eliminate 30,000 jobs. The plan was aimed primarily at stemming G.M.’s red ink in North America, the main reason for a near-record loss of $10.6 billion in 2005 and a $2 billion loss last year.
The company said today that restructuring costs led to a special charge of $88 million in the second quarter. Costs for assisting its former parts supplier Delphi with bankruptcy restructuring added another $374 million in special charges.
G.M.’s North American loss in the second quarter, usually the strongest of the year for the Detroit auto companies, is more proof of the continued problems the automakers are having in fighting foreign competition despite their aggressive restructuring plans.
Ford, which posted an $750 million profit during the quarter, said last week that it lost $279 million in North America. It, too, plans to cut about 44,000 jobs in North America and close factories.
Even so, analysts were pleased that G.M. had positive cash flow of about $1.1 billion during the quarter, although they noted the company has reduced its capital spending plans to about $8 billion a year from a previous forecast of $8 billion to $9 billion annually.
Jonathan Steinmetz, an analyst with Morgan Stanley, termed the results “better than expected.” Like Ford, G.M. does not issue guidance to Wall Street, a reason both companies’ second-quarter profits were above analysts’ estimates.
Shares of G.M. jumped once trading opened on the New York Stock Exchange, rising as much as 5 percent this morning.
Elsewhere in the world, G.M. posted improved profits. In Europe, the company earned $217 million; profits in Asia reached $227 million; and $213 million in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. The profit from worldwide automotive operations, including the loss in North America, was $618 million.
Profits from G.M.’s financial services division, GMAC, added $139 million to net income.
G.M.’s first-quarter earnings did little to inspire confidence on Wall Street that the company’s turnaround plan was gaining traction. While the automaker earned $62 million, or 11 cents a share, over all, it lost $85 million in its North American automotive operations.
The company offered a rather upbeat assessment for the rest of the year, noting that its cash flow had strengthened from 2006 and that it expects an infusion of $5.6 billion next quarter when it finalizes the sale of its Allison Transmission business.
Micheline Maynard contributed reporting from Detroit.
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14) U.S. Arms Plan for Mideast Aims to Counter Iranian Power
By MARK MAZZETTI and HELENE COOPER
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/world/europe/31weapons.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON, July 30 — The Bush administration said Monday that its plan to provide billions of dollars in advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel over the next 10 years was intended in part to serve as a bulwark against Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East.
The White House plan must overcome opposition from lawmakers who are skeptical that the weapons will have any effect in blunting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and who worry that a flood of new weapons could ignite a tinderbox in the region.
In closed briefings last week on Capitol Hill, participants in the sessions said, some lawmakers had asked pointed questions about why the White House was using the Iranian threat to justify the arms sales. They expressed doubt that the new weaponry, which includes satellite-guided bombs, missiles and new naval vessels, could deter Iran from proceeding with its nuclear program.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the plans on Monday before she left for the Middle East to meet with officials from Egypt, Jordan and the Persian Gulf states, though details of the planned weapons sales were first reported over the weekend. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates also left Monday for a visit to the region.
The final package will be formally presented for Congressional approval in September, and for now many influential lawmakers appear to have adopted a wait-and-see approach. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, and Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, who lead the Congressional committees that will consider the proposal, indicated Monday that they would reserve judgment on the merits of the plan until September.
But signaling a possible battle between the White House and Congress, Mr. Lantos said lawmakers wanted assurances that the weapons package “include only defensive systems,” not weaponry that could be used by Arab states to attack Israel’s military.
Ms. Rice took pains to dispute the notion that the Bush administration was trying to buy Saudi cooperation on American policy initiatives in Iraq and Israel in exchange for the military package. Three times during a briefing with reporters aboard her plane en route to the Middle East, she said no quid pro quo was involved in the arms sale.
“We are working with these states to give a chance to the forces of moderation and reform,” she said on an overnight flight before a refueling stop in Shannon, Ireland.
Ms. Rice’s deputies and other administration officials have voiced complaints that Saudi Arabia is financing opponents of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and that the Saudis have been rejecting American pleas to be friendlier to the Maliki government. But Ms. Rice chose to strike a positive note in advance of her scheduled meeting on Tuesday night with King Abdullah in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, instead blaming Iran and Syria for trouble in Iraq.
“It’s very interesting that the Saudis, on the border issue with Iraq, have been very active on the entry of terrorists trying to cross into Iraq from Saudi Arabia,” she said. That was one reason, she said, that militants often entered through Syria.
Mr. Gates told reporters traveling with him that the trip with Ms. Rice was meant to convey “the importance we attach to reassuring our friends out here of our staying power.”
A senior Defense Department official on Mr. Gates’s plane said Mr. Gates also planned to encourage Saudi Arabia to enforce international sanctions meant to punish Iran for its nuclear activities.
R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, said Monday that a majority of the weapons systems intended for the Gulf states were defensive.
But some defense experts said any battle between Congress and the White House over the definition of “defensive” versus “offensive” weapons systems might be futile because the terms can be malleable.
“There is no bright-line distinction,” said John Pike, a weapons expert at GlobalSecurity.org, a research group. “They would be talking about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”
The Bush administration plan already appears to have the blessing of Israel’s government, which has historically opposed American weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. On Sunday, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said at a cabinet meeting that Israelis “understand the need of the United States to support the Arab moderate states, and there is a need for a united front between the U.S. and us regarding Iran.”
Administration officials said that the nations receiving weapons under the plan had all voiced growing concern about Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon and its financial support for terrorism, and that the new weaponry would counterbalance Iran’s regional ambitions.
Mr. Burns said that under the plan American military aid for Israel would increase to $3 billion annually over 10 years, from $2.4 billion now. Mr. Burns said Egypt, another crucial Sunni Arab country under pressure from Washington to embrace Iraq’s Shiite-led government, would receive a total of $13 billion.
But Mr. Burns declined to provide specifics about the packages intended for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations, saying those details were still being hammered out.
In the past, Israel has successfully lobbied the United States against selling AIM-9X missiles, used on jet fighters for aerial combat, to countries like Egypt out of fear that they could shift the military balance in the Middle East. A Congressional aide familiar with details of the Bush administration plans said AIM-9X missiles were part of the package planned for Egypt.
Mark Mazzetti reported from Washington, and Helene Cooper from Washington and Shannon, Ireland.
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15) Oxfam Reports Growing Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq
By DAMIEN CAVE
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/world/middleeast/31oxfam.html
AMMAN, Jordan, July 30 — Poverty, hunger and public health continue to worsen in Iraq, according to a report released Monday by Oxfam International, which says that more aid is needed from abroad and calls on the Iraqi government to decentralize the distribution of food and medical supplies.
The report, based on a compendium of research from the United Nations, the Iraqi government and nonprofit organizations Oxfam works with or finances, offers little original data. But it provides one of the most comprehensive pictures to date of the human crisis within Iraq and what it describes as a slow-motion response from Iraq’s government, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union.
The report states that roughly four million Iraqis, many of them children, are in dire need of food aid; that 70 percent of the country lacks access to adequate water supplies, up from 50 percent in 2003; and that 90 percent of the country’s hospitals lack basic medical and surgical supplies.
One survey cited in the report, completed in May by the Iraqi Ministry of Planning, found that 43 percent of Iraqis live in “absolute poverty,” earning less than $1 a day.
Unemployment and hunger are particularly acute among the estimated two million people displaced internally from their homes by violence, many of whom are jobless, homeless and largely left on their own.
“The government of Iraq, international donors and the United Nations system have been focused on reconstruction, development and building political institutions, and have overlooked the harsh daily struggle for survival now faced by many,” the report says.
The solutions proposed by Oxfam, an international aid organization that opposed the 2003 American invasion and helps groups in Iraq from an office in Amman, focus on both Iraqi policy and international financing.
The report — which also includes contributions from the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq, a network of Iraqi and international aid agencies — calls on Iraq to expand and decentralize its distribution of food rations and emergency cash payments to widows. NGO refers to nongovernmental organizations.
Medical and other aid supplies kept in seven Baghdad warehouses should be distributed to the provinces and managed by local authorities rather than the inefficient central government, the report said.
Citing the policies of aid organizations that will not accept money from countries involved in Iraq’s conflict, Oxfam also called on countries without troops in Iraq to send more money for aid. According to the report, cuts in financing and the challenge of providing assistance in an insecure environment have limited what both the United Nations and its partners can do for Iraqis. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, for example, used to work with 20 partners in Iraq; it now has only 11, the report says.
Oxfam’s analysis offers no suggestions on how to root out the corruption that has hobbled the Iraqi government and international aid efforts in the past, nor does it address the links between criminal militias and Iraqi government agencies, like the Ministry of Health, which is run by the political party loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
It also presents its statistics as hard facts, without acknowledging the wide margin of error that typically accompanies social research in a war zone. Rather, the report focuses almost exclusively on the need for more money and better distributed aid.
Joost Hiltermann, deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, an organization of experts on conflicts, said that at this point in Iraq, the focus is justified. Corruption, he said, is beyond the purview of groups like Oxfam and the lack of organized aid needs to be immediately addressed.
“The priority,” he said, “is to get aid going regardless of such problems.”
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16) States Export Their Inmates as Prisons Fill
By SOLOMON MOORE
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/us/31prisons.html?ref=us
ELOY, Ariz. — For Bob Weier, a Hawaiian convicted of armed robbery, incarceration at the Red Rock Correctional Center on the outskirts of this dusty town is the latest stop in a far-flung and nomadic exile.
Since his imprisonment 12 years ago on Maui, Mr. Weier, 53, has served his sentence in prisons in Minnesota, Oklahoma and Arizona. He last saw his daughter 11 years ago and has five grandchildren he has never met.
“To them, I’m just a voice who talks to them on the phone for a while,” said Mr. Weier, a heavyset man who expects to be released next year.
Chronic prison overcrowding has corrections officials in Hawaii and at least seven other states looking increasingly across state lines for scarce prison beds, usually in prisons run by private companies. Facing a court mandate, California last week transferred 40 inmates to Mississippi and has plans for at least 8,000 to be sent out of state.
The long-distance arrangements account for a small fraction of the country’s total prison population — about 10,000 inmates, federal officials estimate — but corrections officials in states with the most crowded prisons say the numbers are growing.
One private prison company that houses inmates both in-state and out of state, the Corrections Corporation of America, announced last year that it would spend $213 million on construction and renovation projects for 5,000 prisoners by next year.
“They find that their prison populations are at or beyond capacity and they have to relieve that capacity,” Tony Grande, the company’s president for state relations, said of states turning to private prisons. “They quickly turn to us and we have open prison capacity where we can accommodate growth.”
About one-third of Hawaii’s 6,000 state inmates are held in private in Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Kentucky. Alabama has 1,300 prisoners in Louisiana. About 360 inmates from California, which has one of the nation’s most crowded prison systems, are in Arizona and Tennessee.
But while the out-of-state transfers are helping states that have been unwilling, or too slow, to build enough prisons of their own, they have also raised concerns among some corrections officials about excessive prisoner churn, consistency among the private vendors and safety in some prisons.
Moving inmates from prison to prison disrupts training and rehabilitation programs and puts stress on tenuous family bonds, corrections officials say, making it more difficult to break the cycle of inmates committing new crimes after their release.
Several recidivism studies have found that convicts who keep in touch with family members through visits and phone privileges are less likely to violate their parole or commit new offenses. There have been no studies that focused specifically on out-of-state placements.
Paige M. Harrison, a researcher for the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, said the out-of-state inmates faced problems familiar to the large number of in-state prisoners incarcerated hundreds of miles from their homes. A study in 1997 found that more than 60 percent of state inmates were held more than 100 miles from their last place of residence.
“If you’re being held on the other side of Texas or California, you better believe that for many inmates, they’re beyond visitation,” Ms. Harrison said.
The frequent moves can also have a disruptive effect on prisons, whether the transfers occur within a state or not, corrections officials said. In California, a federal court official overseeing a revamping of the prison medical system reported more than 170,000 prisoner moves within the state in the first three months of this year. The moves were found to be inhibiting the ability of inmates to receive health care and draining resources.
In Arizona, where more than 2,000 inmates have been exported to prisons in Oklahoma and Indiana, corrections officials are struggling to provide consistent and effective programming for them, said Dora B. Schriro, the director of the Arizona Department of Corrections.
“Having a long-term impact on public safety and recidivism is that much more challenging,” Ms. Schriro said of the arrangements.
The number of inmates shipped out of Arizona would be even larger, but plans for additional transfers to Indiana had to be called off in April after 500 inmates from Arizona rioted at a privately run prison in New Castle, Ind., in part because of complaints about the long distance. Two correctional officers and five inmates were injured in the two-hour incident. Officials there assigned blame to poorly trained guards, many of whom were hired just days before the transfers.
Ms. Schriro said the riot showed how desperate the situation had become. The state’s overcrowding worsened, she said, after two private prisons in Texas now run by the GEO Group, canceled Arizona’s contract and instead signed more lucrative deals with federal corrections agencies.
“We started to add provisional beds in-state through double-bunking, converting several kitchens to bed space and making preparations to bring additional tents online,” Ms. Schriro said.
Eli Coates, a 26-year-old inmate from Arizona serving 10 years for armed robbery, did time at six Arizona prisons and one in Oklahoma before arriving at the New Castle prison early this year. New Castle is managed by the GEO Group.
Mr. Coates said his frequent moves had made it hard to complete educational programs that he hoped would help him get a steady job upon release.
“I was on my way to being able to finish a college program and vocational programs to get a trade,” Mr. Coates said. “But they snatched me up from those opportunities, and here I have to start all over again.”
Mr. Weier, the Hawaiian prisoner here in Arizona, said that each time he moved, he had to reapply for phone privileges, a process that can take six months. Even when he was allowed to call home, he said, he could not always afford the long-distance bills.
“You lose your family identity,” said Mr. Weier. “And that’s not good, because when we go back into society — and more than 95 percent of us will — the only ones who are going to take care of you are your family.”
Without big construction plans or radical sentencing reforms in the offing, Arizona will continue to rely on out-of-state alternatives. The state has some of the toughest sentencing laws in the country and an inmate population exceeding 37,000, or 127 percent of the state’s official prison capacity. Several public prisons are already surrounded by tent cities to accommodate the overflow.
Adam Ramirez, 35, an inmate from Tucson serving six years for a parole violation, sat sweating recently in a 16-man tent at the 100-year-old Florence State Prison, about 15 miles northeast of Eloy in Florence, Ariz.
“It’s always crowded in here,” said Mr. Ramirez, pointing to an empty bed next to his. “They sent that guy out to Oklahoma today and there will be somebody else here today or tomorrow.”
Overcrowding has been a problem in prisons for decades, and the country’s prison and jail population has never been higher, rising 2.8 percent from July 2005 to July 2006 to reach 2,245,189, according to the most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics bulletin. A report by the Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that the prison population will grow by another 192,000 in the next five years.
State corrections officials and prison industry executives say that prison companies are an attractive alternative when cash-strapped state governments need additional prison space faster than they can build it. Private prisons can also provide political cover to elected officials seeking to avoid charges of coddling criminals and spending large sums on prison construction.
Alabama officials turned to the Corrections Corporation of American for space after a judge threatened to hold the overloaded state corrections department in contempt for failing to pick up inmates from county jails, said Mr. Grande, the company official. The company found out-of-state space for 1,500 inmates within 30 days. When hurricanes beset Florida in 2003, Mr. Grande said, the company found alternative prison space within 72 hours.
But state governments often pay a premium for those spaces. The riot in Indiana in April came after Ms. Schriro, the Arizona corrections director, agreed to pay about $14 million a year to house 610 prisoners there. That is about $3 million more than the state would have paid for inmates at in-state public prisons, said a spokeswoman for Arizona corrections, Robin Wilkins.
Ms. Schriro is moving forward with plans to expand prison space for Arizona prisoners locally and in private prisons in Oklahoma. But she expects the state prison population to exceed capacity by the time those expansion projects are complete.
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17) Gang Members Targeted in Calif. Sweep
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:02 p.m. ET
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Calif-Gang-Busts.html
LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Federal agents and police fanned out across the city early Tuesday in a huge sweep of gang members aimed at taking down violent offenders.
More than 400 officers took part in the campaign that started at around 4 a.m., said Mike Campbell, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
He said the daylong operation was one of the largest he had seen.
The effort was part of a wider crackdown, spearheaded by the U.S. Justice Department in cities nationwide and aimed at gang members suspected of dealing drugs and committing violent crimes.
Tuesday's operation followed a six-month investigation and focused on a neighborhood near Long Beach known locally as ''Ghost Town.''
Authorities were looking for at least 25 leaders of a street gang called the East Side Pain, said police Lt. Ruben Delatorre.
''It's an effort to retake a violent neighborhood, and it's long overdue,'' he said.
Authorities blocked off an entire street in the neighborhood, as agents charged through front doors setting off ''flash-bang'' grenades to stun suspects inside.
Several residents were detained and a large number of guns and drugs were seized, Delatorre said, although he did not immediately have any figures.
Officials didn't immediately report any injuries.
A neighborhood resident for 34 years, Rigoberto Martinez, said three of his grandchildren, ages 18 to 20, were injured in a drive-by shooting in January.
''You get accustomed to the violence,'' said Martinez, 71. ''You just live with it.''
According to FBI statistics, there are some 30,000 street gangs in the U.S. with about 800,000 members. In Los Angeles and Chicago, more than half of the combined 1,000 or so homicides reported in 2004 were blamed on gangs.
Los Angeles saw a 15 percent increase in gang-related crimes in 2006 at the same time general crime declined citywide.
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18) Nicotine Addiction Is Quick in Youths, Research Finds
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/health/31toba.html?ref=health
A young cigarette smoker can begin to feel powerful desires for nicotine within two days of first inhaling, a new study has found, and about half of children who become addicted report symptoms of dependence by the time they are smoking only seven cigarettes a month.
“The importance of this study is that it contradicts what has been the accepted wisdom for many decades,” said Dr. Joseph R. DiFranza, the lead author, “which is that people had to smoke at least five cigarettes a day over a long period of time to risk becoming addicted to nicotine. Now, we know that children can be addicted very quickly.” Dr. DiFranza is a professor of family medicine at the University of Massachusetts.
The researchers recruited 1,246 sixth-grade volunteers in public schools in Massachusetts, interviewing them 11 times over a four-year period. They also took saliva samples to determine blood levels of nicotine and link them to addictive behavior. At some time during the four years almost a third of the children puffed on a cigarette, more than 17 percent inhaled, and about 7.5 percent used tobacco daily.
Since inhaling is required for sufficient drug delivery to cause dependence, the researchers limited their analysis, published in the July issue of The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, to the 217 inhalers in the group. Their average age when they first inhaled was 12.8 years. Of these, almost 60 percent had lost some control over their smoking, and 38 percent developed tobacco dependence as defined by the widely used diagnostic manual published by the World Health Organization.
In the 10 percent of children who were most susceptible, cravings began within two days of the first inhalation, and saliva analysis showed that being dependent did not require high blood levels of nicotine throughout the day. In some cases dependence could be diagnosed as early as 13 days after the first smoking episode.
For most inhalers, daily smoking was not required to cause withdrawal symptoms. More than 70 percent had cravings that were difficult to control before they were smoking every day. The biochemical analyses confirmed this: the symptoms of dependence began mostly at the lowest levels of nicotine intake.
“We know very little about the natural history of dependence,” said Denise B. Kandel, a professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia and a widely published addiction researcher who was not involved in the study. “This is really the first study that addresses the issue. Its strength is that DiFranza has followed a community sample of adolescents and interviewed them every three months, which is very difficult to do.
“On the other hand,” she continued, “his definition of dependence is based on single symptoms, which may be open to question.”
The definition of tobacco addiction is controversial, but the scientists used widely accepted criteria to diagnose dependence and a well-validated questionnaire to determine the extent to which smokers had allowed the habit to dictate their behavior.
The researchers write that it may seem implausible that intermittent smoking could provide relief from withdrawal symptoms. But in fact a single dose of nicotine has effects on the brain that can last as long as a month, and the nicotine obtained from just one or two puffs on a cigarette will occupy half of the brain’s nicotinic receptors, the molecules specifically sought by nicotine in tobacco addiction.
The authors acknowledge that some of their data is retrospective and comes from self-reports, which can be unreliable, and that it is not possible to draw conclusions about other populations from their sample. In addition, they did not consider the roles of puberty, alcohol and other drug use. But the study has considerable strengths in measuring frequency and duration of smoking and in collecting exposure data by biochemical analysis as well as by repeated interviews.
“People used to think that long-term heavy use caused addiction,” Dr. DiFranza said. “Now, we know it’s the other way around: addiction is what causes long-term heavy use.”
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19) A Little Easier to Occupy from the Air
Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily*
Dahr Jamail's dispatches
dahr_jamail_dispatches@dahrjamailiraq.com
BAGHDAD, Jul 31 (IPS) - Many Iraqis believe the dramatic escalation in U.S. military use of air power is a sign of defeat for the occupation forces on the ground.
U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped five times as many bombs in Iraq during the first six months of this year as over the first half of 2006, according to official information.
They dropped 437 bombs and missiles in Iraq in the first half of 2007, compared to 86 in the first half of 2006. This is also three times more than in the second half of 2006, according to Air Force data.
The Air Force has also been expanding its air bases in Iraq and adding entire squadrons. It is now preparing to use a new robotic fighter known as the Reaper. The Reaper is a hunter-killer drone that can be operated by remote control from thousands of miles away.
"We find it strange that the big strategists of the U.S. military have actually failed in finding solutions on the ground and are now back to air raids that kill more civilians than militants," former Iraqi army brigadier-general Ahmed Issa told IPS.
"On the other hand, they are giving away the land to local forces that they know are incapable of facing the militants, who will grab the first chance of U.S. withdrawal to bases to hit back and hold the ground again."
"Going back to air raids is an alarming sign of defeat," Salim Rahman, an Iraqi political analyst from Baghdad told IPS. "To bombard an area only means that it is in the hands of the enemy."
"Our area is under threat of air raids all the time," Mahmmod Taha from the Arab Jboor area southwest of Baghdad told IPS. "Each time they bombed our area, civilians were killed by the dozens, and civilians' houses were destroyed. They could not fight the resistance face to face, and so they take revenge from the air."
May 2007 was the most violent month for U.S. forces in Iraq in nearly three years, according to the U.S. Department of Defence.
There were 6,039 attacks on U.S. and Iraqi government forces, 1,348 roadside bombs detonated under their vehicles, 286 "complex ambushes" involving roadside bombs and coordinated teams of attackers were carried out, 102 car bombs exploded, 126 U.S. soldiers were killed and 652 were wounded.
The U.S. forces have been hitting back at predominantly Sunni areas such as those around Fallujah. But the forces have also targeted Shia pilgrims around Najaf in the south.
"Air raids are back even in Shia areas like Sadr City in Baghdad and many southern cities like Diwaniya, Samawa, and Kut where the al-Mehdi militia (of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr) controls the ground," Abbas Abdul-Mehdi from Diwaniya told IPS while on a visit to Baghdad. "Their bombs fall on our heads, while the militiamen know how to hide and escape."
The U.S. forces are looking to do more of all this. "There are times when the Army wishes we had more jets," F-16 pilot Lt. Col. Steve Williams, commander of the 13th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron told reporters.
"What the U.S. forces are doing now is increasing their air force potential in a last attempt to crush the fighters with the minimum casualties possible," retired Iraqi Army colonel Mustafa Abbood from Baghdad told IPS. "It is a desperate attempt to make Iraqis turn against their fellow-fighters. It failed in Fallujah, and I do not see how it will work elsewhere."
Iraqis around Baghdad say they have noticed more air traffic in recent months. "There is a notable increase in the number of airplanes flying in the Iraqi skies," Amjad Fadhil, a farmer from Latifiya, south of Baghdad, told IPS. "F-16s and helicopters are roaring like monsters everywhere." There are more than 100 U.S. aircraft crisscrossing Iraqi air space at any one time.
Air Force engineers are working long hours to upgrade Balad air base, just north of Baghdad, which already supports 10,000 air operations per week. One of the two 11,000-foot runways has been reinforced to withstand five to seven years more of hard use.
Ten-year-old Salli Hussein lost both her legs when her home was bombed by a U.S. jet fighter near the Abu Ghraib area of Baghdad in November 2006. Her 11-year-old brother, Akram, and cousin Tabarak were torn to pieces in that missile attack.
"I want to have legs again so that I can play with my friends and make Mama happy," she told this IPS correspondent.
(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)
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20) Stampeding Congress, Again
NYT Editorial
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/opinion/03fri1.html?hp
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not feel bound by the law or the Constitution when it comes to the war on terror. It cannot even be trusted to properly use the enhanced powers it was legally granted after the attacks.
Yet, once again, President Bush has been trying to stampede Congress into a completely unnecessary expansion of his power to spy on Americans. And, hard as it is to believe, Congressional Republicans seem bent on collaborating, while Democrats (who can still be cowed by the White House’s with-us-or-against-us baiting) aren’t doing enough to stop it.
The fight is over the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping on electronic communications that involve someone in the United States. The test is whether there is probable cause to believe that the person being communicated with is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist.
Mr. Bush decided after 9/11 that he was no longer going to obey that law. He authorized the National Security Agency to intercept international telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans and other residents of this country without a court order. He told the public nothing and Congress next to nothing about what he was doing, until The Times disclosed the spying in December 2005.
Ever since, the White House has tried to pressure Congress into legalizing Mr. Bush’s rogue operation. Most recently, it seized on a secret court ruling that spotlighted a technical way in which the 1978 law has not kept pace with the Internet era.
The government may freely monitor communications when both parties are outside the United States, but must get a warrant aimed at a specific person for communications that originate or end in this country. The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that the court that issues such warrants recently ruled that the law also requires that the government seek such an individualized warrant for purely foreign communications that, nevertheless, move through American data networks.
Instead of asking Congress to address this anachronism, as it should, the White House sought to use it to destroy the 1978 spying law. It proposed giving the attorney general carte blanche to order eavesdropping on any international telephone calls or e-mail messages if he decided on his own that there was a “reasonable belief” that the target of the surveillance was outside the United States. The attorney general’s decision would not be subject to court approval or any supervision.
The White House, of course, insisted that Congress must do this right away, before the August recess that begins on Monday — the same false urgency it used to manipulate Congress into passing the Patriot Act without reading it and approving the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, offered a sensible alternative law, as did his fellow Democrat, Senator Russ Feingold. In either case, the attorney general would be able to get a broad warrant to intercept foreign communications routed through American networks for a limited period. Then, he would have to justify the spying in court. This fix would have an expiration date so Congress could then dispassionately consider what permanent changes might be needed to FISA.
Congress was debating this issue yesterday, and the final outcome was unclear. But there are very clear lines that must not be crossed.
First, all electronic surveillance of communication that originates or ends in the United States must be subject to approval and review by the FISA court under the 1978 law. (That court, by the way, has rejected only one warrant in the last two years.)
Second, any measure Congress approves now must have a firm expiration date. Closed-door meetings under the pressure of a looming vacation are no place for such serious business.
The administration and its Republican supporters in Congress argue that American intelligence is blinded by FISA and have seized on neatly timed warnings of heightened terrorist activity to scare everyone. It is vital for Americans, especially lawmakers, to resist that argument. It is pure propaganda.
This is not, and has never been, a debate over whether the United States should conduct effective surveillance of terrorists and their supporters. It is over whether we are a nation ruled by law, or the whims of men in power. Mr. Bush faced that choice and made the wrong one. Congress must not follow him off the cliff.
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21) London Police Misled Public, Report Says
By JANE PERLEZ
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/world/europe/03britain.html
LONDON, Aug. 2 — The London police misinformed the British public about an innocent man shot dead by the police at a subway station the day after an attempted terrorist attack in London in 2005, an investigation by a police watchdog group concluded Thursday.
The finding says that an assistant police commissioner knew that police officers had mistakenly concluded that a Brazilian electrician they saw entering the subway was a possible suicide bomber but failed to tell the police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, thus allowing erroneous reports to be perpetuated in the British media.
Television and newspaper reports after the shooting of the Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, on the morning of July 22, 2005, said that the dead man was wearing a bulky jacket that could have concealed explosives and that he might have been one of the four men who had tried to detonate backpacks laden with explosives on three subway trains and a bus.
But a chronology compiled by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, a group that investigates complaints against the police, shows that three hours after the shooting, information from the cellphone of the victim, who was shot eight times, had names that seemed to be Latin, casting doubt on whether the victim had ties to Islamic militants.
Shortly after 3 p.m., Sir Ian’s staff knew that a Brazilian had been shot and by 4:15 his staff members were discussing among themselves the public impact if the dead man were found to be innocent.
But at 3:30 p.m., Sir Ian said at a news conference that the dead man was “directly linked to the ongoing and expanding antiterrorist operation,” the report said.
The report laid the blame for the misinformation with the second in charge, Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman.
The oversight group said that Mr. Hayman had failed to tell Sir Ian what was known about Mr. de Menezes as the information unfolded, and that Mr. Hayman had personally approved a news release the evening of July 22 stating it was “not yet clear” whether the man who had been shot was one of the bombers on July 21.
But adding to the confused information put out by the police, the report said that at 4:30 p.m. on July 22, Mr. Hayman told a select group of reporters who specialize in police affairs and belong to the Crime Reporters’ Association that the dead man was not one of the bombers.
Sir Ian was kept in the dark about the rapidly unfolding information about the identity of Mr. de Menezes and was not told his identity until the morning of July 23, 24 hours after Mr. de Menezes’s death, the report said.
After the report was issued on Thursday saying that Sir Ian had been kept in the dark, he said at a news conference that he had not lied to the public. “I have always made it clear that it was not my intention to mislead and, that if I had lied, I would not be fit to hold this office,” he said. “I did not lie.”
He also said he retained confidence in Mr. Hayman but that the Metropolitan Police Authority would consider whether disciplinary action should be taken against him.
The watchdog group said that Mr. Hayman chose to mislead the public by wording a news release issued on the evening of July 22, “which stated it was not clear if the deceased was one of the four wanted suicide bombers from the previous day.” Once the identity of Mr. de Menezes became clear, his shooting sent shock waves through the British public, already traumatized by successful suicide bombings on the London transit system on July 7, 2005, which resulted in the deaths of 52 rush-hour commuters.
The Brazilian’s family filed the complaint that led to the report issued on Thursday. The family reacted angrily to what it viewed as the report’s disclosure of the lenient treatment of senior British police officers over the episode. A cousin of Mr. de Menezes, Alessandro Pereira said that the report showed that the “police were a shambolic mess, and that senior officers should be held to account.”
Four Muslim men of East African origin were found guilty last month of plotting the attacks on the London transit system on July 21, 2005.
The findings by the watchdog group are likely to do little to improve the poor perceptions of the police among Britain’s Muslim population. A telephone poll of 500 Muslim adults in Britain from April 2 to April 19 this year by the GfK NOP polling organization for Channel 4 News in Britain said 55 percent of the respondents reported that they had no confidence in the police.
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22) Marine Is Guilty of Unpremeditated Murder of an Iraqi Man
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/world/middleeast/03abuse.html
A Marine Corps squad leader was found guilty yesterday of killing an Iraqi man whom he and several other service members abducted last year while searching for an insurgent leader who lived nearby.
The marine, Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, was convicted by a military jury at Camp Pendleton, Calif., of unpremeditated murder, larceny and making a false official statement in the man’s death in April 2006 near Hamdania, Iraq. The jury found Sergeant Hutchins not guilty of kidnapping, assault, housebreaking and obstruction of justice.
On Wednesday, another military jury convicted Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda of conspiracy to murder, larceny and housebreaking in the same case. But that jury acquitted Corporal Magincalda of premeditated murder and kidnapping; jury members have not yet imposed a sentence.
Sergeant Hutchins, 23, of Plymouth, Mass., had been charged with premeditated murder, but the jury hearing his case, all fellow marines who have served in Iraq, declined to convict him on that charge. Under military law, a premeditated murder conviction requires a jury to impose a sentence of life in prison, either with or without possibility of parole; unpremeditated murder allows the jury to impose any punishment except the death penalty.
Sergeant Hutchins is the fifth member of his eight-man squad to be convicted of crimes in connection with the killing of the Iraqi man, Hashim Ibrahim Awad. Four lower-ranking marines and a Navy corpsman pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for their testimony against the other squad members; they received sentences ranging from one to eight years in prison.
Sergeant Hutchins’s squad abducted Mr. Awad during a nighttime search for his neighbor, whom the marines suspected of coordinating roadside attacks on American forces, in Hamdania, a mostly Sunni Arab town west of Baghdad in Anbar Province.
Marine prosecutors said Sergeant Hutchins came up with a plan to kill Mr. Awad and then plant a stolen shovel and AK-47 assault rifle near his body, to make it seem as if he had been digging a hole to plant a roadside bomb.
In testimony last week, another squad member, Navy Hospitalman Melson Bacos, testified that Sergeant Hutchins shot Mr. Awad in the head as part of what is known as a “dead check” — to make sure previous gunshots had killed him. The shots also reduced the man’s head and face to bloody pulp, Hospitalman Bacos said, which he said was intended to prevent the body from being identified. Hospitalman Bacos also testified that Sergeant Hutchins told his men after the killing, “Congratulations gents, we’ve just gotten away with murder.”
During his court-martial, Sergeant Hutchins’s civilian lawyer, J. Richardson Brannon, argued that his client’s actions were the result of his commanders’ poor leadership and of what the lawyers said was the commanders’ tacit approval of using violence in capturing and interrogating people suspected of being insurgents.
Mr. Brannon did not respond to phone and e-mail messages late yesterday.
Last month, a military jury at Camp Pendleton acquitted Cpl. Trent Thomas, another member of the squad, of murder but found him guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and of kidnapping. Corporal Thomas was sentenced to a reduction in rank and a bad-conduct discharge but no prison time.
The squad, part of the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, was removed from combat duty after the killing.
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23) Rice Backs Appointed Palestinian Premier and Mideast Democracy
By HELENE COOPER and STEVEN ERLANGER
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/world/middleeast/03diplo.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Aug. 2 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, embracing an appointed Palestinian prime minister here in the West Bank, said Thursday that the United States still supported democracy in the Middle East. But she defended the American refusal to recognize the earlier, elected, Hamas-led government.
Standing next to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, during a news conference here, Ms. Rice said, “We believe strongly in the right of people to express themselves and their desires, in elections.” But, she added, once elected, “ you have the obligation to govern responsibly.”
She said that the United States and other Western nations had been right to boycott Hamas and the elected Palestinian government. “You can’t have one foot in the path of terror and one foot in the path of politics,” she added.
Ms. Rice met with Salam Fayyad, the prime minister selected by Mr. Abbas after he ousted the Hamas-led government.
Mr. Abbas of Fatah has been seeking to consolidate his power since a June coup left the rival Hamas movement in power in the Gaza Strip. He has held out the prospect of new elections soon. He appointed Mr. Fayyad after firing the Hamas-led government of Ismail Haniya.
Hamas won a legislative majority in January 2006, but Fatah never agreed to accept it, and the United States and Israel refused to deal with Hamas, which they classify as a terrorist organization, unless it accepted Israel’s right to exist and agreed to give up violence.
Ms. Rice said it was up to the Palestinians to decide when to hold a new vote, but the Americans, like the Israelis, have told Mr. Abbas they will not accept a renewal of a unity government with Hamas.
Mr. Abbas said Thursday that he would not try to reconcile with Hamas unless they “reverse everything they did” and “apologize to the Palestinian people — then we might reconsider.”
It would be nearly impossible for Mr. Abbas to hold an early vote unless Hamas agreed to one. Mr. Abbas told Ms. Rice that he was ready to work with Israel on a “declaration of principles” as an interim step toward a full peace agreement, an idea floated last week by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. Such a declaration, as envisioned by Israel, would outline the contours of a future Palestinian state, without immediately tackling the most explosive issues, like final borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
Mr. Abbas said Thursday that once such a declaration had been negotiated, “what is important is that we arrive at a result and that we know what that result is, what is the roof that we need to reach, but the stages of implementation can be agreed on later.”
Separately on Wednesday and Thursday, Ms. Rice met with Mr. Olmert and other senior Israeli officials to discuss plans for Mr. Bush’s fall conference on Palestinian-Israeli peace.
Her meetings in the West Bank ended a three-day swing through the region that included stops in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where she pressed for Arab support for the conference.
Ms. Rice’s trip was the first high-level American visit to Israel and the West Bank since the Gaza takeover.
Since then, Mr. Abbas — and the world — have largely left Gaza to itself to be governed by Hamas, focusing aid and diplomatic efforts on the West Bank, where Mr. Abbas’s Fatah forces remain in control. The United States, Israel and the European Union have all welcomed the dissolution of the Palestinian government.
Mr. Bush quickly unfroze $86 million in aid, which was put into the deep freeze after Hamas won the 2006 elections. On Thursday, Ms. Rice signed a so-called framework agreement with Mr. Fayyad, which ostensibly released the first $10 million in aid. The money is intended to strengthen Mr. Abbas’s security forces.
A spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, criticized the Rice visit and the release of the aid.
“She came to incite one Palestinian side against another,” he said. “She came to provide $80 million to stamp out resistance forces. Rice did not come to the region to establish a Palestinian state, as she and her master Bush claimed, but instead she came to support one Palestinian party against another, and to support the Zionist occupation.”
In a statement, Mr. Olmert praised the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, who said Wednesday that his country was leaning toward attending the Middle East meeting, but wanted it to be substantive. Mr. Olmert “shares the same approach, that the international meeting will be serious and meaningful, and he welcomes the participation of leaders of Arab countries in the meeting,” his office said.
But Israeli officials also emphasized that, unlike the Saudis, the Israelis believe that the core issues of the conflict should be discussed in a bilateral format with the Palestinians, rather than in an international framework that might make them more difficult to solve.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the most delicate issues should not be addressed immediately.
In Gaza City on Wednesday night, at least one Palestinian was killed when Hamas tried to arrest a member of Islamic Jihad after he fired into the air at a wedding.
Medical officials said that in subsequent clashes between Islamic Jihad and Hamas’s Executive Force, acting as the police, one Executive Force member was killed.
Helene Cooper reported from Ramallah, and Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem.
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24) Man Killed by Gas Fumes After Electricity Is Cut Off
By PAUL VITELLO
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/nyregion/03monoxide.html
MASTIC BEACH, N.Y., Aug. 2 — A 19-year-old Long Island man was killed Thursday and seven members of his family were sickened when a gasoline-powered generator they were using because their power had been shut off for nonpayment spewed carbon monoxide fumes into their home, the authorities said.
The man, Emmanuel Cassaberry, 19, was found unconscious on the floor of the kitchen of the family’s modest two-story house about 8 a.m. Thursday. He was pronounced dead at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital in Patchogue.
Cheryl Cassaberry, 39, and Steven Vaughn, 41, his mother and stepfather, called 911 and collapsed moments later, the Suffolk County police said.
The couple were hospitalized, along with their five other children: Peter Cassaberry, 22; Chaniece Cassaberry, 11; Shawan Vaughn, 10; Shalana Vaughn, 7; and Shanelle Vaughn, 22 months. All seven were reported in stable condition and were expected to survive.
Neighbors said the family moved into the house in this working-class suburban community about a year ago and were recently left in dire financial straits when Mr. Vaughn lost a longstanding construction job. They said he worked at odd jobs while looking for more permanent employment, but had had no luck.
“He is a good man, a hard worker,” said Johanna Morano, a neighbor. “He would drop the little ones off at the school bus every morning and then ride off on his bike looking for work. He would do anything for work. Push a broom, drive an ice cream truck. He just couldn’t find anything that lasted.”
The family fell behind on its utility bills last year, but managed to avoid shutoffs until Wednesday by paying small amounts, according to Bert Cunningham, a spokesman for the Long Island Power Authority, the utility that supplies electricity and natural gas to 1.1 million customers on Long Island.
In April, the Vaughn-Cassaberry family received help from a Suffolk County assistance program known as HEAP, for Home Energy Assistance Program. But beyond a one-time grant, which Mr. Vaughn used to make his last payment that month, no further assistance was received, and no further payments were made.
The family owed an amount that Mr. Cunningham would describe only as “in the five figures.”
“This is a significant tragedy, and our heartfelt condolences go out to the whole family,” Mr. Cunningham said. “But we did try very hard to accommodate the family’s needs.”
He said that after phone calls and letters failed to produce any further payments, an authority bill collector was sent to the home on Wednesday afternoon: “The collector was instructed to either collect something, or turn off the account.” The collector cut off the power.
Another neighbor, Eileen Miller, said she understood that Mr. Vaughn borrowed the generator “just to keep the refrigerator and the fans going.”
Another neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said: “I used to live in that house myself, and it has a very large basement. I don’t know, but he may have thought it was so large it would be safe to run a generator down there.”
LIPA has disconnected the electrical service of an average of 13,000 residential customers on Long Island each year since 2002, Mr. Cunningham said. The vast majority of customers are restored to service after making payments.
“It is a last resort,” he said.
In most states, including New York, utility customers are protected from shutoffs only in limited circumstances, most often in cases in which someone in the household is seriously ill or has a life-threatening illness.
For some others, there are further protections against shutoffs that affect home heat during the winter season, usually between November and April. For most, however, avoiding shutoffs involves applying for emergency assistance through social service agencies.
Neighbors were critical of the utility company in this case. “I don’t think the utility company should be able to do this to a family,” Mrs. Miller said. “It just seems so cruel.”
Angela Macropoulos contributed reporting.
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25) Victims of Katrina Floods Lose an Insurance Appeal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/business/03insure.html
NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 2 (AP) — Hurricane Katrina victims whose homes and businesses were destroyed when floodwaters breached levees in the 2005 storm cannot recover money from their insurance companies for the damages, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.
The case could affect tens of thousands of rebuilding residents and business owners in Louisiana, said Daniel E. Becnel Jr., who represented 21 plaintiffs in the case.
David Rossmiller, an insurance lawyer and analyst, said insurers could have taken a “multibillion-dollar hit” if the ruling had gone against them.
“This event was excluded from coverage under the plaintiffs’ insurance policies, and under Louisiana law, we are bound to enforce the unambiguous terms of their insurance contracts as written,” Judge Carolyn D. King wrote for a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
As a result, the panel found those who filed the suit “are not entitled to recover under their policies,” she said.
More than a dozen insurance companies, including Allstate and Travelers, were defendants. Mr. Becnel said he planned to appeal.
The decision overturns a ruling by United States District Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr., who in November sided with policyholders arguing that language excluding water damage from some of their insurance policies was ambiguous.
Judge Duval said the policies did not distinguish between floods caused by an act of God — such as excessive rainfall — and floods caused by an act of man, which would include the levee breaches after Katrina’s landfall.
But the appeals panel concluded that “even if the plaintiffs can prove that the levees were negligently designed, constructed or maintained and that the breaches were due to this negligence, the flood exclusions in the plaintiffs’ policies unambiguously preclude their recovery.”
This was a consolidated case, including about 40 named plaintiffs, including Xavier University, and more than a dozen insurance companies. It is just one of the cases pending in federal court over Katrina damage. The Army Corps of Engineers faces thousands of claims for damage after the levees breached; Judge King noted in her opinion that dozens more cases, some consolidated and involving property owners suing insurers, are pending in federal court in New Orleans.
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26) H.I.V. Patients Anxious as Support Programs Cut
By ERIK ECKHOLM
August 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/washington/01aids.html
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — In the golden hills of Marin County, it is hard to imagine that free food or emergency cab fares could matter much to anyone.
But for hundreds of people who were thrown into poverty by AIDS, like Wade Flores, 45, a former distributor for a chocolate company who lives alone and is getting sicker and weaker, recent cutbacks seem like a matter of life and death.
“These nonmedical services are what keep people like me alive,” Mr. Flores said.
Here and in many other cities, AIDS advocates say, changes in the distribution of federal assistance for indigent H.I.V. and AIDS patients are causing hardship and deep anxiety.
Congress rewrote the Ryan White Care Act in December in ways that expanded the regions eligible for money and allowed less assistance for support programs like meals and legal aid. Five new cities have joined the list of recipients, but without any increase in overall financing.
Because of strict limits on discretionary spending and the competing demands of other health initiatives, the Republican-led Congress and the Bush administration kept appropriations for the Ryan White program at about $2.1 billion over the last several years. At the same time, H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, spreads to an estimated 40,000 more people each year, more people are getting tested and seek care, and more patients live longer, requiring medicines costing thousands of dollars a month.
“We have a growing population of needy patients and a growing cost of care, and the funding is not keeping pace,” said Jennifer Kates, director of H.I.V. policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “If we have someone in South Carolina not getting medicines and someone in San Francisco not getting housing, how do we choose?”
But Republicans like Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma say that with the federal government spending more than $20 billion on AIDS treatment, prevention and research, a stronger focus on prevention and medical care is the main need, not more federal money.
Given the financing limits set by the White House and Congress, administration officials who run the program agree. “We want to make sure that the majority of Ryan White dollars are spent on medical services that can impact the clinical picture of people living with H.I.V.,” said Deborah Parham Hopson, associate administrator for H.I.V./AIDS at the Health Resources and Services Administration. Many regions face “tough decisions,” Dr. Parham Hopson acknowledged.
Patient advocates say that the Ryan White program meets vital needs that other programs do not — Medicaid coverage of care and drugs, for example, varies wildly among states — and that many of the imperiled side services are, as Mr. Flores suggested, nearly as important to patients as medicines.
Advocates say the program has been a godsend for hundreds of thousands of AIDS patients since it was established in 1990 as a “payer of last resort.” It provides aid to hard-hit cities for a wide range of medical and support services, and money to states to help pay for drugs.
“Ryan White is the safety net under the safety net,” said Murray Penner, deputy executive director of the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors.
According to federal officials, nearly half the estimated 1.2 million people living with H.I.V. or AIDS are benefiting from Ryan White assistance, which is often passed to nonprofit groups, and one of every four people in antiviral therapy has some of the costs covered by them.
The reauthorization in December followed partisan and regional conflict over how to adjust to the changing nature of the AIDS epidemic, which affects more regions, increasingly afflicts women and members of minorities and has more long-term survivors needing aid.
Southern states with emerging problems argued that the cities where the epidemic began, like San Francisco and New York, were getting an unfair share. The new formula has spread money to five other cities — Baton Rouge, La.; Charlotte, N.C.; Indianapolis, Memphis and Nashville — for a total of 56.
With the pie sliced more thinly, 29 metropolitan areas lost money, compared with last year, while 27 are receiving more.
Among the major recipients, the San Francisco area, including Marin County, saw the greatest cut, 31 percent. Grants to New York City and Atlanta were cut by 7 percent and those for Newark, 9 percent. While the exact tally will change in August when money under a minority AIDS initiative is awarded, the dilution of money will remain.
On July 10, groups helping AIDS patients in New York received a letter from H.I.V. Care Services, which administers the city’s Ryan White money, detailing cuts in 14 activities including housing placement, legal services and nutrition aid.
In Connecticut, where Hartford and New Haven lost large sums, the state is providing some emergency help. But service groups have cut some 65 staff positions, said Shawn Lang, policy director of the Connecticut AIDS Coalition.
“It’s been pretty devastating,” Ms. Lang said.
San Francisco and Marin County have received temporary help from the state and local governments. Still, in Marin County food deliveries have stopped, money for emergency cab rides has shrunk and volunteer “buddy” programs are in danger, according to the Marin AIDS Project.
Mr. Flores, in San Rafael, has lived with H.I.V. for 20 years, but now the antiviral medicines have stopped working. The loss of food boxes and the cutbacks in free rides and other emergency money have left him poorer and more scared.
During his latest hospital stay the other day, he said, “If I decide to keep fighting this disease, I wonder if I’ll get the help I need.”
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27) Cuba best for healthcare
Monday July 16, 2007
Georgina Kenyon
http://www.guardianabroad.co.uk/ngos/article/208
While the media usually focuses on Cuba's poor human rights record, it
doesn't tend to notice that Cuba's national health system is praised by
British and Americans alike as one of the world's best. Indeed, it is the
envy of public health officials in many developed countries, both for its
effectiveness and cost efficiency.
Little freedoms
With its free access to care and one doctor provided for every 150 people
(at relatively low cost compared to Britain's one for every 1000) medical
experts in Britain who have studied Cuba say that the Cuban health system is
one of the best in the world. Even the World Bank cites Cuba’s social
performance as exemplary, especially in light of the country’s economic
hardships.
Cuba’s consultorios – a system of three-storey buildings with a surgery on
the ground floor, a doctor with a flat on the second, and a nurse on the top
– allows Cubans to receive treatment quickly. It’s also cheap, at an average
£7 per person compared to £750 in Britain.
According to a spokesperson for MEDICC, the US Medical Education Cooperation
with Cuba, 'the level of integration between the consultorios and their
local communities is one of the main indicators for its success.' MEDICC
arranges for healthworkers in deprived areas of Los Angeles (where there is
a high rate of poverty, unemployment and disease) to go to Cuba to study,
visiting clinics and meeting Cuban doctors.
Teams of doctors from the United Kingdom have also travelled to Cuba to
study its cheap public healthcare. They analyse health statistics, such as
those from the World Health Organisation, to find out how Cuba has managed
to turn around life expectancy and child mortality figures in the past
decade.
Cuban men currently have a life expectancy of 74 years old – the same as in
Britain. The life expectancy of women in Cuba is 76, compared to 79 in
Britain.
In the public interest
Good public health services are not necessarily proportional to a country's
financial resources, as a 2006 report from Oxfam proves. Middle-income
countries, such as Peru, have also been lauded by international
organisations, including the WHO, for good quality public medical care.
Oxfam has devised an Essential Services Index, which compares the various
public health and education systems in the developing world. The index was
published in an Oxfam report that focused on health systems in developing
and developed countries.
It is clear from the index that Cuba is not an anomaly, at least not in its
combination of good healthcare provision with scarcity of resources. The
system in Sri Lanka also has its fans.
According to Oxfam’s UK spokesperson, Nicky Wimble: 'Sri Lanka is one of the
world's poorest countries, yet its maternal mortality rates are among the
lowest in the world. When a woman gives birth, there is a 96% chance she
will be attended to by a qualified midwife. If she or her family need
medical treatment, it is available free of charge from a public clinic
within walking distance of her home, staffed by a qualified nurse.'
The index ranks countries by four social criteria: child survival rates,
schooling, access to safe water and access to sanitation. Then it judges the
country’s performance against its national income per capita. Although it is
accepted that countries do not have to be wealthy to have comprehensive and
effective public healthcare systems, this index quantifies such findings to
the public.
Public or private
Oxfam's report stresses the need for private companies to be properly
regulated and integrated into strong public systems, and not seen as
substitutes for them. 'Only governments can effectively deliver services
like health and education to the poorest,' it states. When government
services fail, many look to the private sector for answers.
In the case of South Korea and Chile, private sector involvement did not
have a negative impact. And opinion polls in the UK support mixed
public/private healthcare provision. A Mori poll for the British Medical
Association in 2002 found that more than half of the respondents believed
that the British National Health Service could be improved by involving the
private sector.
'Building strong public services for all is hardly a new idea. It is the
foundation upon which today's rich country societies are built,' claims the
Oxfam report. 'More recently, developing countries have followed suit, with
impressive results. In one generation Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Kerala in
India have made advances in health and education that took industrialised
countries 200 years to achieve.'
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28) A Nail in Maliki Government’s Coffin?
By Ali al-Fadhily
August 3, 2007
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail's dispatches dahr_jamail_dispatches@dahrjamailiraq.com
The recent resignations of Iraq’s Army Chief of Staff and several of his council military leaders underscore a continuing decomposition of Iraq’s U.S.-backed government.
Everybody in Iraq—politicians, political analysts, poets, scientists, porters—seems to agree that the U.S.-backed Iraqi government headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is a total failure.
Security, basic services, and all measurable levels of Iraq’s infrastructure are worse now than under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, the U.S., Britain and Iran all continue to support this government.
“Politicians in this country are the best at serving their personal interests, and that is what has kept al-Maliki in power,” Amjad Hussein, an Iraqi journalist in Baghdad told IPS. “Wherever I go in Iraq, people complain of the very bad living conditions caused by the wrong policies of this government. Even those who voted for the (Shia) Iraqi coalition bite their fingers in regret for the support they gave to this group of people who have led the country into darkness.”
Withdrawals from the government by individual ministers and by political groups was the first sign of the end of al-Maliki’s political life, but the U.S. government has remained insistent on keeping al-Maliki at the top of Iraq’s leadership.
“I strongly believe that it was American pressure on the (Sunni) al-Tawafuq Sunni group that stopped them from withdrawal from the government,” a senior member of al-Tawafuq told IPS on condition of anonymity. “I preferred to clear my conscience and so I have decided to end my political activities. I am looking for a way to take my family across the border for their safety. It is a sin to be a politician in Iraq nowadays.”
On August 1 Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab political bloc, the Accordance Front, announced its withdrawal from the splintering government, dealing another huge blow to al-Maliki’s hopes of maintaining a unity government.
The Front has 44 of parliament’s 275 seats, and its withdrawal from the 14-month-old government is the second such action by a faction. Five ministers loyal to Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr quit the government in April to protest al-Maliki’s reluctance to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
One of the biggest blows to al-Maliki has come from the Iraqi army after Major General Babaker Zebari, a Kurd who was army chief of staff, resigned on Jul. 31 to leave for Kurdish controlled northern Iraq. The resignation of Maj. Gen Zebari was followed by the resignation of nine other generals in protest against “al-Maliki’s interference with their professional work, and the weakness of the defense minister.”
According to some reports al-Maliki rejected Zebari’s resignation. The regional president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, will address the issue with al-Maliki during an upcoming meeting in Baghdad.
“Only those who have strong ties with Iran will stay with al-Maliki,” one of the nine officers told a source close to IPS. “We would rather be assassinated by death squads than be part of this government that insists on being sectarian and Iranian by all measures.”
Prime Minister Maliki is secretary general of the al-Dawa Party, and was in exile in Iran after leading insurgent groups against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Relations between Maliki and U.S. officials have also collapsed. Last weekend the Daily Telegraph in London reported that relations between the top U.S. general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and al-Maliki are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal U.S. President to George Bush for removal of Petraeus.
An Iraqi source said Maliki made the appeal to Bush through a videoconference for Petraeus’s military strategy of arming Sunni tribal fighters to battle al-Qaeda to be abandoned.
“He told Bush that if Petraeus continues, he would arm Shia militias,” the official said. “Bush told Maliki to calm down.”
Petraeus’s spokesman Col. Steve Boylan denied these reports, but evidence suggests that Maliki has been allowing Shia militias to arm themselves and control vast areas of Iraq for some time now.
A member of al-Maliki’s al-Dawa Party, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS that al-Maliki’s opponent, former prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, is leading a revolt against him and that al-Maliki is no longer the party’s favorite.
“This American and Iranian made government in Baghdad was brought to power for known reasons,” Sheikh Ali Mansoor, a member of the Sunni anti-occupation group the Association of Muslim Scholars told IPS. “They brought in al-Maliki in order to pass laws that serve American interests, and to guarantee their long-term stay in Iraq. Now he is working for Iran, and Americans are losing Iraq once and for all.”
Maliki came to be Prime Minister after political pressure from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former British foreign secretary Jack Straw forced former al-Jaafari to resign.
“They must change the faces again, but who could the replacement be,” Dr. Lukman Salim, a physician from Baghdad told IPS. “Americans and Iranians will definitely employ someone who is worse for Iraqis and better for them.”
(Ali al-Fadhily, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)
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29) Baghdad, Iraq:
6 million people, 117 degrees and no water
By Richard Becker, Western Regional Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition
Friday, August 3, 2007
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-821-6545
ANSWERcoalition.org
www.Sept15.org
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
Seattle: 206-568-1661
A crime against humanity committed by the occupying power
For the past 24 hours, Baghdad has had virtually no running water.
Major parts of the city of six million people have lacked running water for six days, while daily high temperatures have ranged from 115 to 120 degrees. The tiny amount of water dripping through the pipes is causing many of those who must drink it to suffer acute intestinal illness.
According to reports, not enough electricity is available to run Baghdad’s water pumps. This in a country with vast energy resources.
Corporate media outlets—to the extent they have reported this horrific and mind-boggling story at all—have treated it as a failure on the part of Iraqis.
In reality, it is an appalling war crime committed by the occupying power, the U.S. military. It threatens the lives of tens of thousands of people in the short term and unthinkable numbers of people unless it is rectified immediately.
According to Article 55 of Geneva Conventions (1949) to which the U.S. government is a signatory: "To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate."
Article 59 states: "If the whole or part of the population of an occupied territory is inadequately supplied, the Occupying Power shall agree to relief schemes on behalf of the said population, and shall facilitate them by all the means at its disposal."
To say that a huge city deprived of running water is "inadequately supplied" would rank as one of the great understatements of human history.
Of course, the shortage of water—the most vital of all necessities—does not extend to the U.S. personnel and contractors occupying Iraq.
The U.S. government tries to relieve itself of its obligations by pretending that Iraq’s "sovereignty" was restored in June 2004. But that is just another hoax.
Since its illegal invasion and conquest of Iraq in the spring of 2003, the real state power in the country has been the U.S. military.
This latest catastrophe to afflict the Iraqi people is another poisonous fruit of imperialist occupation. Not even in the worst times during the U.S. blockade of Iraq from 1990-2003, did such a disaster occur.
The U.S. regime in Iraq must provide the people of Baghdad with relief in the short-term to avert unprecedented disaster. The U.S. occupation must come to an immediate end. The officials responsible for the terrible crimes committed against the Iraqi people must be held accountable. The U.S. government owes Iraq vast reparations for the death and destruction imposed on that society by an illegal war of aggression.
All Out for the September 15 Mass March!
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LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES
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Sean Penn applauds as Venezuela's Chavez rails against Bush
The Associated Press
August 2, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/03/arts/LA-A-E-CEL-Venezuela-Sean-Penn.php
California: Gore’s Son Pleads Guilty to Drug Charges
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Al Gore III, son of the former vice president, pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana and other drugs, but a judge said the plea could be withdrawn and the charges dropped if Mr. Gore, left, completed a drug program. The authorities have said they found drugs in Mr. Gore’s car after he was pulled over on July 4 for driving 100 miles an hour. He pleaded guilty to two felony counts of drug possession, two misdemeanor counts of drug possession without a prescription and one misdemeanor count of marijuana possession, the district attorney’s office said. Mr. Gore, 24, has been at a live-in treatment center since his arrest, said Allan Stokke, his lawyer.
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/us/31brfs-gore.html
United Parcel Service Agrees to Benefits in Civil Unions
By KAREEM FAHIM
July 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/nyregion/31civil.html?ref=nyregion
John Stewart demands the Bay View retract the truth, Editorial by Willie Ratcliff, http://www.sfbayview.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=278&Itemid=14
Minister to Supervisors: Stop Lennar, assess the people’s health by Minister Christopher Muhammad, http://www.sfbayview.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=306&Itemid=18
OPD shoots unarmed 15-year-old in the back in East Oakland by Minister of Information JR, http://www.sfbayview.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=308&Itemid=18
California: Raids on Marijuana Clinics
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided 10 medical marijuana clinics in Los Angles County just as Los Angeles city leaders backed a measure calling for an end to the federal government’s crackdown on the dispensaries. Federal officials made five arrests and seized large quantities of marijuana and cash after serving clinics with search warrants, said a spokeswoman, Sarah Pullen. Ms. Pullen refused to disclose other details. The raid, the agency’s second largest on marijuana dispensaries, came the same day the Los Angeles City Council introduced an interim ordinance calling on federal authorities to stop singling out marijuana clinics allowed under state law.
July 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/us/26brfs-RAIDSONMARIJ_BRF.html
States Weigh Safety With Dog Owners’ Rights
By IAN URBINA
July 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/us/23dogs.html
Guantanamo Hunger Strikers Stay Defiant
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072007R.shtml
Pentagon Extends Iraq Tours for 2,200 Marines
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072007S.shtml
Bush Executive Order Targets Domestic Assets
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072207A.shtml
Texas: 274 Immigrants Arrested in Raids
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Federal agents arrested 274 illegal immigrants over five days during raids in Dallas, Fort Worth and surrounding suburbs, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. The authorities took into custody 233 men, 28 women and 13 children, said an agency spokesman, Carl Rusnok. The operation, which began Monday and ended yesterday, yielded illegal immigrants, people wanted by immigration authorities and immigrants with criminal records. Of those arrested, 99 had criminal convictions, the agency said. “These operations are a critical element in removing threats to public safety,” said Nuria T. Prendes, field office director for the agency’s Office of Detention and Removal Operations.
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/us/21brfs-274IMMIGRANT_BRF.html
California: Ruling on Veterans’ Benefits
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A federal appeals court said the Veterans Affairs Department was obliged to pay retroactive disability benefits to Vietnam War veterans who contracted a form of leukemia after exposure to Agent Orange. The ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, was on a technical matter involving whether a lower court had properly interpreted an agreement in 1991 on benefits, stemming from a lawsuit filed in 1986.
July 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/us/20brfs-RULINGONVETE_BRF.html
Bush Denies Congress Access to Aides
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
July 9, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/washington/09cnd-prexy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
California: No Jail for Marijuana Advocate
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A marijuana advocate will not spend time in prison despite a conviction for growing and distributing hundreds of marijuana plants, a federal judge ruled. The man, Ed Rosenthal, 63, was convicted in May on three cultivation and conspiracy charges. But the judge, Charles Breyer of Federal District Court, said a one-day prison sentence was punishment enough for Mr. Rosenthal, who said he planned to appeal his conviction. “I should not remain a felon,” he said. Mr. Rosenthal was convicted on the same charges four years ago. Judge Breyer sentenced him to one day in prison because Mr. Rosenthal reasonably believed he was immune from prosecution because he was acting on behalf of Oakland city officials. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned that 2003 conviction and ordered a retrial because of juror misconduct.
July 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/07/us/07brfs-advocate.html
Patterns: In Studies, Surprise Findings on Obesity and Heart Attacks
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Two new studies shed light on the role obesity may play in causing heart attacks and, surprisingly, keeping them from being fatal.
In one study, published by the European Heart Journal, researchers followed more than 1,600 patients who were given angioplasty and, usually, stents after a type of heart attack known as unstable angina/non-ST-segment elevation. They found that the obese and very obese patients were only half as likely as those of normal weight to die in the three years after the attack.
Part of the explanation may be that obese people are more likely to have their heart problems detected by doctors and treated with medications that later help them recover from heart attacks.
Heart attack patients who are obese also tend to be younger. And other changes in the body that often occur with obesity may also help, the study said. (Of course, as the researchers noted, obesity is not desirable when it comes to heart disease; it causes medical problems that can lead to heart attacks in the first place.)
In the second study, presented at a recent meeting of the American Society of Echocardiography, researchers reported that excess weight was associated with a thickening of muscle in the left ventricle, the part of the heart that acts as a pump. The study was led by researchers from the University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center.
July 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/health/03patt.html
New Scheme Preys on Desperate Homeowners
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON and VIKAS BAJAJ
July 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/business/03home.html?ref=us
Keeping Patients’ Details Private, Even From Kin
By JANE GROSS
July 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/health/policy/03hipaa.html?ref=us
Lessons from Katrina
How to Destroy an African American City in 33 Steps
By BILL QUIGLEY
June 28, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.com/quigley06282007.html
After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay
By GARDINER HARRIS and JANET ROBERTS
June 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/health/03docs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Somalia: The Other (Hidden) War for Oil
by Carl Bloice; Black Commentator
May 07, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=12768
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION
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FREE THE JENA SIX
http://www.mmmhouston.net/loc/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=114&Itemid=66
This is a modern day lynching"--Marcus Jones, father of Mychal Bell
WRITE LETTERS TO:
JUDGE J.P. MAUFFRAY
P.O. BOX 1890
JENA, LOUISIANA 71342
FAX: (318) 992-8701
WE NEED 400 LETTERS SENT BEFORE MYCHAL BELL'S SENTENCING DATE ON JULY 31ST. THEY ARE ALL INNOCENT!
Sign the NAACP's Online Petition to the Governor of Louisiana and Attorney General
http://www.naacp.org/get-involved/activism/petitions/jena-6/index.php
JOIN THE MASS PROTEST IN SUPPORT OF
MYCHAL BELL & THE JENA 6
WHERE: JENA COURTHOUSE in Louisiana
WHEN: TUESDAY, JULY 31ST
TIME: 9:00AM
THE HOUSTON MMM MINISTRY OF JUSTICE IS ORGANIZING A CARAVAN TO JOIN FORCES WITH THE JENA 6 FAMILIES, THE COLOR OF CHANGE, LOCs, AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS ON THE STEPS OF THE COURTHOUSE THAT DAY TO DEMAND JUSTICE!
ALL INTERESTED IN GOING TO THE RALLY CALL:
HOUSTON RESIDENTS: 832.258.2480
ministryofjustice@mmmhouston.net
BATON ROUGE RESIDENTS: 225.806.3326
MONROE RESIDENTS: 318.801.0513
JENA RESIDENTS: 318.419.6441
Send Donations to the Jena 6 Defense Fund:
Jena 6 Defense Committee
P.O. Box 2798
Jena, Louisiana 71342
BACKGROUND TO THE JENA SIX:
Young Black males the target of small-town racism
By Jesse Muhammad
Staff Writer
"JENA, La. (FinalCall.com) - Marcus Jones, the father of 16-year-old Jena High School football star Mychal Bell, pulls out a box full of letters from countless major colleges and universities in America who are trying to recruit his son. Mr. Jones, with hurt in his voice, says, “He had so much going for him. My son is innocent and they have done him wrong.”
An all-White jury convicted Mr. Bell of two felonies—aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery—and faces up to 22 years in prison when he is sentenced on July 31. Five other young Black males are also awaiting their day in court for alleged attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder charges evolving from a school fight: Robert Bailey, 17; Theo Shaw, 17; Carwin Jones, 18; Bryant Purvis, 17; and Jesse Beard, 15. Together, this group has come to be known as the “Jena 6.”
Updated Jul 22, 2007
FOR FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3753.shtml
My Letter to Judge Mauffray:
JUDGE J.P. MAUFFRAY
P.O. BOX 1890
JENA, LOUISIANA 71342
RE: THE JENA SIX
Dear Judge Mauffray,
I am appalled to learn of the conviction of 16-year-old Jena High School football star Mychal Bell and the arrest of five other young Black men who are awaiting their day in court for alleged attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder charges evolving from a school fight. These young men, Mychal Bell, 16; Robert Bailey, 17; Theo Shaw, 17; Carwin Jones, 18; Bryant Purvis, 17; and Jesse Beard, 15, who have come to be known as the “Jena 6” have the support of thousands of people around the country who want to see them free and back in school.
Clearly, two different standards are in place in Jena—one standard for white students who go free even though they did, indeed, make a death threat against Black students—the hanging of nooses from a tree that only white students are allowed to sit under—and another set of rules for those that defended themselves against these threats. The nooses were hung after Black students dared to sit in the shade of that “white only” tree!
If the court is sincerely interested in justice, it will drop the charges against all of these six students, reinstate them back into school and insist that the school teach the white students how wrong they were and still are for their racist attitudes and violent threats! It is the duty of the schools to uphold the constitution and the bill of rights. A hanging noose or burning cross is just like a punch in the face or worse so says the Supreme Court! Further, it is an act of vigilantism and has no place in a “democracy”.
The criminal here is white racism, not a few young men involved in a fistfight!
I am a 62-year-old white woman who grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Fistfights among teenagers—as you certainly must know yourself—are a right of passage. Please don’t tell me you have never gotten into one. Even I picked a few fights with a few girls outside of school for no good reason. (We soon, in fact, became fast friends.) Children are not just smaller sized adults. They are children and go through this. The fistfight is normal and expected behavior that adults can use to educate children about the negative effect of the use of violence to solve disputes. That is what adults are supposed to do.
Hanging nooses in a tree because you hate Black people is not normal at all! It is a deep sickness that our schools and courts are responsible for unless they educate and act against it. This means you must overturn the conviction of Mychal Bell and drop the cases against Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, and Jesse Beard.
It also means you must take responsibility to educate white teachers, administrators, students and their families against racism and order them to refrain from their racist behavior from here on out—and make sure it is carried out!
You are supposed to defend the students who want to share the shade of a leafy green tree not persecute them—that is the real crime that has been committed here!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War
www.bauaw.org
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"They have a new gimmick every year. They're going to take one of their boys, black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar. Fire on one end and fool on the other end. And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: 'Look how much progress we're making. I'm in Washington, D.C., I can have tea in the White House. I'm your spokesman, I'm your leader.' While our people are still living in Harlem in the slums. Still receiving the worst form of education.
"But how many sitting here right now feel that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, in which you are struggling against, you can't identify with that, you step back.
"It's easy to become a satellite today without even realizing it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power of economic dollarism. You can cut out colonialism, imperialism and all other kind of ism, but it's hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you'll fold though."
—MALCOLM X, 1965
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=987
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Youtube interview with the DuPage County Activists Who Were Arrested for Bannering
You can watch an interview with the two DuPage County antiwar activists
who arrested after bannering over the expressway online at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DuPageFight4Freedom
Please help spread the word about this interview, and if you haven't
already done so, please contact the DuPage County State's attorney, Joe
Birkett, to demand that the charges against Jeff Zurawski and Sarah
Heartfield be dropped. The contact information for Birkett is:
Joseph E. Birkett, State's Attorney
503 N. County Farm Road
Wheaton, IL 60187
Phone: (630) 407-8000
Fax: (630) 407-8151
Email: stsattn@dupageco.org
Please forward this information far and wide.
My Letter:
Joseph E. Birkett, State's Attorney
503 N. County Farm Road
Wheaton, IL 60187
Phone: (630) 407-8000
Fax: (630) 407-8151
Email: stsattn@dupageco.org
Dear State's Attorney Birkett,
The news of the arrest of Jeff Zurawski and Sarah Heartfield is getting out far and wide. Their arrest is outrageous! Not only should all charges be dropped against Jeff and Sarah, but a clear directive should be given to Police Departments everywhere that this kind of harassment of those who wish to practice free speech will not be tolerated.
The arrest of Jeff and Sarah was the crime. The display of their message was an act of heroism!
We demand you drop all charges against Jeff Zurawski and Sarah Heartfield NOW!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War, www.bauaw.org, San Francisco, California
415-824-8730
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A little gem:
Michael Moore Faces Off With Stephen Colbert [VIDEO]
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/57492/
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LAPD vs. Immigrants (Video)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/qr?term=lapd&Submit=S&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Search&st=s
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Dr. Julia Hare at the SOBA 2007
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/proudtobeblack2/
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"We are far from that stage today in our era of the absolute
lie; the complete and totalitarian lie, spread by the
monopolies of press and radio to imprison social
consciousness." December 1936, "In 'Socialist' Norway,"
by Leon Trotsky: “Leon Trotsky in Norway” was transcribed
for the Internet by Per I. Matheson [References from
original translation removed]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/12/nor.htm
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Wealth Inequality Charts
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
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MALCOLM X: Oxford University Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmzaaf-9aHQ
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ADDICTED TO WAR
Animated Video Preview
Narrated by Peter Coyote
Is now on YouTube and Google Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZwyuHEN5h8
We are planning on making the ADDICTED To WAR movie.
Can you let me know what you think about this animated preview?
Do you think it would work as a full length film?
Please send your response to:
Fdorrel@sbcglobal. net or Fdorrel@Addictedtow ar.com
In Peace,
Frank Dorrel
Publisher
Addicted To War
P.O. Box 3261
Culver City, CA 90231-3261
310-838-8131
fdorrel@addictedtow ar.com
fdorrel@sbcglobal. net
www.addictedtowar. com
For copies of the book:
http://www.addictedtowar.com/book.html
OR SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO:
Frank Dorrel
P.O. BOX 3261
CULVER CITY, CALIF. 90231-3261
fdorrel@addictedtowar.com
$10.00 per copy (Spanish or English); special bulk rates
can be found at: http://www.addictedtowar.com/bookbulk.html
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"There comes a times when silence is betrayal."
--Martin Luther King
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YouTube clip of Che before the UN in 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtATT8GXkWg&mode=related&search
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The Wealthiest Americans Ever
NYT Interactive chart
JULY 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html
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New Orleans After the Flood -- A Photo Gallery
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=795
This email was sent to you as a service, by Roland Sheppard.
Visit my website at: http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret
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DEMAND THE RELEASE OF SAMI AL-ARIAN
The National Council of Arab Americans (NCA) demands the immediate
release of political prisoner, Dr. Sami Al-Arian. Although
Dr. Al-Arian is no longer on a hunger strike we must still demand
he be released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). After an earlier
plea agreement that absolved Dr. Al-Arian from any further questioning,
he was sentenced up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify before
a grand jury in Virginia. He has long sense served his time yet
Dr. Al-Arian is still being held. Release him now!
See:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/16/1410255
ACTION:
We ask all people of conscience to demand the immediate
release and end to Dr. Al- Arian's suffering.
Call, Email and Write:
1- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax Number: (202) 307-6777
Email: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
2- The Honorable John Conyers, Jr
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax
John.Conyers@mail.house.gov
3- Senator Patrick Leahy
433 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202)224-4242
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov
4- Honorable Judge Gerald Lee
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314
March 22, 2007
[No email given...bw]
National Council of Arab Americans (NCA)
http://www.arab-american.net/
Criminalizing Solidarity: Sami Al-Arian and the War of
Terror
By Charlotte Kates, The Electronic Intifada, 4 April 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6767.shtml
Related:
Robert Fisk: The true story of free speech in America
This systematic censorship of Middle East reality
continues even in schools
Published: 07 April 2007
http://news. independent. co.uk/world/ fisk/article2430 125.ece
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[For some levity...Hans Groiner plays Monk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bsCRv6kI0
...bw]
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Excerpt of interview between Barbara Walters and Hugo Chavez
http://www.borev.net/2007/03/what_you_had_something_better.html
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Which country should we invade next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3g_zqz3VjY
My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic
Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE
Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LsGoDWC0o
Free Speech 4 Students Rally - Media Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCjfod8yuw
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'My son lived a worthwhile life'
In April 2003, 21-year old Tom Hurndall was shot in the head
in Gaza by an Israeli soldier as he tried to save the lives of three
small children. Nine months later, he died, having never
recovered consciousness. Emine Saner talks to his mother
Jocelyn about her grief, her fight to make the Israeli army
accountable for his death and the book she has written
in his memory.
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2042968,00.html
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Introducing...................the Apple iRack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KWYYIY4jQ
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"A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind."
[A T-shirt worn by some teachers at Roosevelt High School
in L.A. as part of their campaign to rid the school of military
recruiters and JROTC--see Article in Full item number 4, below...bw]
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THIS IS AN EXCELLENT VIDEO DESTRIBUTED BY U.S. LABOR AGAINST
THE WAR (USLAW) FEATURING SPEAKERS AT THE JANUARY 27TH
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOCUSING ON THE DEMAND - BRING
THE TROOPS HOME NOW.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6935451906479097836&hl=en
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Defend the Los Angeles Eight!
http://www.committee4justice.com/
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George Takai responds to Tim Hardaway's homophobic remarks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcJoJZIcQW4&eurl_
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Iran
http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html
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Another view of the war. A link from Amer Jubran
http://d3130.servadmin.com/~leeflash/
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Petition: Halt the Blue Angels
http://action.globalexchange.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=458
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/289327
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A Girl Like Me
7:08 min
Youth Documentary
Kiri Davis, Director, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, Producer
Winner of the Diversity Award
Sponsored by Third Millennium Foundation
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1091431409617440489
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Film/Song about Angola
http://www.prisonactivist.org/angola/
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"200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today.
Not one of them is Cuban."
(A sign in Havana)
Venceremos
View sign at bottom of page at:
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/index.html
[Thanks to Norma Harrison for sending this...bw]
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"Cheyenne and Arapaho oral histories hammer history's account of the
Sand Creek Massacre"
CENTENNIAL, CO -- A new documentary film based on an award-winning
documentary short film, "The Sand Creek Massacre", and driven by
Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people who tell their version about
what happened during the Sand Creek Massacre via their oral
histories, has been released by Olympus Films+, LLC, a Centennial,
Colorado film company.
"You have done an extraordinary job" said Margie Small, Tobient
Entertainment, " on the Colorado PBS episode, the library videos for
public schools and libraries, the trailer, etc...and getting the
story told and giving honor to those ancestors who had to witness
this tragic and brutal attack...film is one of the best ways."
"The images shown in the film were selected for native awareness
value" said Donald L. Vasicek, award-winning writer/filmmaker, "we
also focused on preserving American history on film because tribal
elders are dying and taking their oral histories with them. The film
shows a non-violent solution to problem-solving and 19th century
Colorado history, so it's multi-dimensional in that sense. "
Chief Eugene Blackbear, Sr., Cheyenne, who starred as Chief Black
Kettle in "The Last of the Dogmen" also starring Tom Berenger and
Barbara Hershey and "Dr. Colorado", Tom Noel, University of Colorado
history professor, are featured.
The trailer can be viewed and the film can be ordered for $24.95 plus
$4.95 for shipping and handling at http://www.fullduck.com/node/53.
Vasicek's web site, http://www.donvasicek.com, provides detailed
information about the Sand Creek Massacre including various still
images particularly on the Sand Creek Massacre home page and on the
proposal page.
Olympus Films+, LLC is dedicated to writing and producing quality
products that serve to educate others about the human condition.
Contact:
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
7078 South Fairfax Street
Centennial, CO 80122
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103
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A NEW LOOK AT U.S. RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS
Join us in a campaign to expose and stop the use
of these illegal weapons
http://poisondust.org/
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You may enjoy watching these.
In struggle
Che:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqcezl9dD2c
Leon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukkFVV5X0p4
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FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-fightback-intro.html
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[The Scab
"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad,
and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with
which he made a scab."
"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul,
a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten
principles." "When a scab comes down the street,
men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and
the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out."
"No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there
is a pool of water to drown his carcass in,
or a rope long enough to hang his body with.
Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab.
For betraying his master, he had character enough
to hang himself." A scab has not.
"Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.
Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of
a commision in the british army."
The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife,
his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled
promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor
to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country;
a scab is a traitor to his God, his country,
his family and his class."
Author --- Jack London (1876-1916)...Roland Sheppard
http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret]
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END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?
JServSessionIdr003=cga2p2o6x1.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=177
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Sand Creek Massacre
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
On November 29, 1864, 700 Colorado troops savagely slaughtered
over 450 Cheyenne children, disabled, elders, and women in the
southeastern Colorado Territory under its protection. This act
became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. This film project
("The Sand Creek Massacre" documentary film project) is an
examination of an open wound in the souls of the Cheyenne
people as told from their perspective. This project chronicles
that horrific 19th century event and its affect on the 21st century
struggle for respectful coexistence between white and native
plains cultures in the United States of America.
Listed below are links on which you can click to get the latest news,
products, and view, free, "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" award-
winning documentary short. In order to create more native
awareness, particularly to save the roots of America's history,
please read the following:
Some people in America are trying to save the world. Bless
them. In the meantime, the roots of America are dying.
What happens to a plant when the roots die? The plant dies
according to my biology teacher in high school. American's
roots are its native people. Many of America's native people
are dying from drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, hunger,
and disease, which was introduced to them by the Caucasian
male. Tribal elders are dying. When they die, their oral
histories go with them. Our native's oral histories are the
essence of the roots of America, what took place before
our ancestors came over to America, what is taking place,
and what will be taking place. It is time we replenish
America's roots with native awareness, else America
continues its decaying, and ultimately, its death.
You can help. The 22-MINUTE SAND CREEK MASSACRE
DOCUMENTARY PRESENTATION/EDUCATIONAL DVD IS
READY FOR PURCHASE! (pass the word about this powerful
educational tool to friends, family, schools, parents, teachers,
and other related people and organizations to contact
me (dvasicek@earthlink.net, 303-903-2103) for information
about how they can purchase the DVD and have me come
to their children's school to show the film and to interact
in a questions and answers discussion about the Sand
Creek Massacre.
Happy Holidays!
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
SHOP:
http://www.manataka.org/page633.html
BuyIndies.com
donvasicek.com.
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