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U.S. Out Now! From Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and all U.S. bases around the world; End all U.S. Aid to Israel; Get the military out of our schools and our communities; Demand Equal Rights and Justice for ALL!
TAX THE RICH NOT THE POOR! MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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TODAY!
Meeting to Plan a United October 17
Bay Area/Regional Antiwar Mass Demonstration
Saturday, August 15 at 3:30 pm
Committee of Correspondence Hall at:
522 Valencia Street, Third Floor
Between 16th and 17th Streets, San Francisco
National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations
https://www.natassembly.org/ActionProgram.html
https://www.natassembly.org/October17Endorsers.html
Dear All:
This is an urgent meeting for all social activists fighting for peace and human justice. We must begin organizing right here; right now, in San Francisco in unity with others across the country for a massive outpouring of opposition to the wars Saturday, October 17, marking the eighth year of the U.S. war on Afghanistan which began October 7, 2001; and seven years since Congress passed the resolution authorizing war against Iraq. In addition, October commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam Moratorium that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets to protest the war.
The U.S. Government military assault on humanity is escalating.
While banksters award themselves huge bonuses, and the government bolsters military might to protect their right to take these bonuses; the poor, underemployed, unemployed, destitute are being forced to pay for the bankster's luxury and their war machine!
U.S. military and "homeland security" costs are skyrocketing to protect U.S. corporate interests throughout the world. Meanwhile, schools are being closed and those that still exist are being turned into military training grounds; and our streets are being turned into armed camps to cage the impoverished and institute a school-to-prison trajectory for our youth.
It just doesn't have to be this way. But it's up to us to come together and take charge of the situation and put a stop to this injustice.
We are, after all, the majority and we're opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iran; and military and financial support to Israel; and the myriad of other secret and non-secret U.S. interventions throughout the world. Wherever there is a profit to be made for U.S. capital investment, innocent people are being killed, their lives and lands ruined, their childhood dreams are being dashed whether in off-shore slave shops or by U.S. bombs and bullets, poverty and hopelessness!
We must speak out--massively, peacefully, but powerfully and in unity--against these wars and bloodshed. And demand those trillions be spent, instead, on what human beings need desperately right now! We want food, water, housing, healthcare, jobs, education, freedom and equality and a just and peaceful world! Some of us have some of these things now, but we all have an inalienable right to all of these things. And without obscene private profits and the war machine to protect them, there's plenty to go around for all of us.
U.S. Out of Iraq and Afghanistan NOW! End the War on Terror! No U.S. Aid to Israel! Tax the rich! Feed the Poor! Money for Human Needs; Not War!
"It will be a great day when the schools get all the money they need and the Navy has to hold a bake sale to buy a ship!" --Sylvia Weinstein
http://www.holtlaborlibrary.org/SylviaWpg2.html
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
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Dialogues Against Militarism ~ Ice Cream Social
Fundraiser
Dialogues Against Militarism (D.A.M.) was created from the belief that the power of conversation can serve as a means to develop new ideas and advance the possibilities of moving beyond militarism. D.A.M.'s mission is to foster free and open conversations that engage and challenge issues of militarism through the relation of experiences by those who have been on its front lines. It is hoped through these dialogues that together we can build a better world.
A speaking tour is being organized in Israel/Palestine made up of US and Israeli ex-soldiers to discuss their experiences and strategize for ways to challenge militarism in their respective societies. This forum will be used as a means of education and mobilization in the fight against war and occupation.
We need funds to support these courageous former US soldiers. Join the fundraiser, eat delicious ice cream and meet the young ex-soldiers who will be traveling to Israel/Palestine to build people-to-people ties. http://www.againstmilitarism.org/
Sunday, August 23rd 3pm
446 Valencia St - Intersection for the Arts
Gallery, 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA
BART: 16th & Mission St. Station
with special guest Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, writer, teacher, historian and social activist
Supported by American Friends Service Committee, CODEPINK Women for Peace, Courage to Resist & others!
*Gallery not handicapped accessible
DAM TEAM
Stephen Funk, In 2003, US Marine Stephen Funk became the first person in the military to publicly denounce the War in Iraq and refuse to serve. He applied for conscientious objection and traveled the country for several months to speak out against the war, encouraging military service members to examine their own beliefs about the war, informing others about conscientious objection, and to caution young people to think twice before enlisting. For his public stand he was sentenced to six months in military prison, demoted to private, fined, and given a bad conduct discharge. Since being released he continues activism with several groups, primarily as the San Francisco chapter president of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Sarah Lazare, is an organizer and Program Coordinator with Courage to Resist, a national organization that supports members of the US military who refuse orders to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is also a freelance writer and columnist, with articles that have appeared in publications ranging from Adbusters to ZNet, and is currently co-editing a book about GI resistance against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sarah has a background in labor, community, and anti-war organizing and has done such organizing in the several cities where she has lived, including New York City, Washington, D.C., and Springfield, Illinois.
Matthew Edwards, is a conscientious objector from this most recent war in Iraq. He was discharged on March 19, 2003, the first day of the bombing campaign in Iraq, from the United States Marine Corps. Prior to his discharge he was held by the Marines for 5 months and was subjected to harsh and often illegal treatment that included food and sleep deprivation and physical mistreatment that culminated in a broken hip and finally a medical discharge. He lived in Damascus, Syria for just shy of one year where he lived, worked, and studied, picking up conversational Arabic. While there he was exposed to the refugee and social crises associated with the war and occupation of Iraq. Matt currently lives in San Francisco organizing with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).
David Zlutnick, has spent the last several years involved in social justice movements, mostly focusing on labor struggles and war opposition, and most recently housing justice. For several years he was involved in counter-recruitment and demilitarization campaigns aimed at getting the military and war profiteers out of high schools and colleges as well as participating in direct action organizing. David also has a strong history within independent media, both written and visual. He has worked with numerous independent print publications and his writing has been published in numerous media outlets, including The Friendly Fire Collective, of which he is a founding member.
Eddie Falcon, served four years in the Air Force as a C-130 Loadmaster. He was assigned to the 50th Airlift Squadron based at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. He deployed to Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, moving cargo, troops, senators, Special Forces units, medical evacuees, Afghan locals, vehicles, and more in and out of Afghanistan in the winter of 2003 and the winter of 2004. He was also forward deployed to Al Udeid, Qatar, to move troops, cargo, etc. in and out of Iraq. Falcon received an honorable discharge in December 2005 and is now using the Montgomery GI Bill to major in Spanish at San Francisco City College. He now studies Spanish at the Complutense University in Madrid. Since his discharge, Falcon has been involved in anti-war activities back home. He helped organize and testified in Winter Soldier San Francisco.
Nancy L. Mancias
CODEPINK Women for Peace
www.codepinkalert.org
PINKTank :: http://codepink4peace.org/blog/
Facebook :: http://www.facebook.com/nancymancias
Twitter :: nancymancias
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National Call For Action And Endorsements at the
G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, PA
Sept. 19 - 25, 2009
Endorsers (list in formation): Iraq Veterans Against the War Chapter 61, Pittsburgh; PA State Senator Jim Ferlo; Veterans for Peace Chapter 047, Pittsburgh; National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations; Thomas Merton Center Pittsburgh; Codepink Pittsburgh Women for Peace; Bail Out The People; Green Party of Allegheny County; World Can't Wait; ISO (International Socialist Organization); WILPF (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) Pittsburgh; Socialist Action; Ohio Valley Peace
Activists from Pittsburgh, the U.S., and across the globe will converge to protest the destructive policies of the G-20 - meeting in Pittsburgh this September 24-25.
The Group of Twenty (G-20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors represents the world's economic leaders, intimately connected to the most powerful multi-national corporations that dominate the global economy. Their neo-liberal policies have squandered billions on war, plunged economies into deep recessions, worsened social, economic and political inequality, and polluted the earth.
We believe a better world is possible. We anticipate involvement and support from like-minded people and organizations across the country for projected actions from September 19-25:
People's Summit - Sept. 19, 21-22 (Saturday, Monday, Tuesday)
A partnership of educators and social justice groups is organizing a People's Summit to discuss global problems and seek solutions that are informed by the basic principles of genuine democracy and human dignity. This will bring together informed speakers and panels to discuss problems we face and possible solutions, also providing interactive workshop discussions.
Mass March on the G-20 - Friday, Sept. 25:
Money for human needs, not for war!
Gather at 12 noon, march to the City County Building downtown
A peaceful, legal march is being sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center, an umbrella organization that supports a wide variety of peace and justice member projects in Pittsburgh. We will hold a mass march to demand "Money for human needs, not for war!"
WE SEEK THE BROADEST RANGE OF SUPPORT, PARTICIPATION, AND ENDORSEMENTS FOR THE MASS MARCH AND PEOPLE'S SUMMIT
To endorse, E-mail: info@pittsburghendthewar.org
Or contact: Thomas Merton Center AWC, 5125 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Several other events are being planned by a wide variety of community and social justice groups in Pittsburgh.
For more information and updates please visit:
http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/g20action.htm
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NATIONAL MARCH FOR EQUALITY
WASHINGTON, D.C. OCTOBER 10-11, 2009
Sign up here and spread the word:
http://www.nationalequalitymarch.com/
On October 10-11, 2009, we will gather in Washington DC from all across
America to let our elected leaders know that *now is the time for full equal
rights for LGBT people.* We will gather. We will march. And we will leave
energized and empowered to do the work that needs to be done in every
community across the nation.
This site will be updated as more information is available. We will organize
grassroots, from the bottom-up, and details will be shared on this website.
Our single demand:
Equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states.
Our philosophy:
As members of every race, class, faith, and community, we see the struggle
for LGBT equality as part of a larger movement for peace and social justice.
Our strategy:
Decentralized organizing for this march in every one of the 435
Congressional districts will build a network to continue organizing beyond
October.
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Scraping By
Opinion | Op-Ed
In the first of a series by the filmmaker Stewart Thorndike on life during the economic crisis, a tent city in Redmond, Wash., is filling up with the newly homeless who are forming a makeshift community.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/08/06/opinion/1247463860996/op-ed-scraping-by.html
06/26/1787 James Madison Statement: "The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge the wants or feelings of the day-laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe, - when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability."
As quoted in Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787 by Robert Yates. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/yates.asp
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Madison
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END THE DEATH PENALTY NOW! END "LIFE WITHOUT POSSIBILITY OF PAROLE"!
This video is a very compelling story of a man who spent 14 years on Death Row for murders he did not commit. He was finally released upon evidence of his innocence and of racial prejudice at his trial. The whole criminal "In-Justice" system in this country is racist to the core and corrupt. That's why the death penalty and life w/o possibility of parole must be overturned and all inmates should be awarded new chances for exoneration...Bonnie Weinstein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCZK7AxUCQ
Death Penalty Focus
870 Market St. Ste. 859 San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel. 415.243.0143 - Fax 415.243.0994 - www.deathpenalty.org
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This is a must-see video about the life of Oscar Grant, a young man who loved his family and was loved by his family. It's important to watch to understand the tremendous loss felt by his whole family as a result of his cold-blooded murder by BART police officers--Johannes Mehserle being the shooter while the others held Oscar down and handcuffed him to aid Mehserle in the murder of Oscar Grant January 1, 2009.
The family wants to share this video here with you who support justice for Oscar Grant.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/21/18611878.php
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
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Urgent: Ahmad Sa'adat transferred to isolation in Ramon prison!
August 11, 2009
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
Imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was transferred on August 11, 2009 to Ramon prison in the Naqab desert from Asqelan prison, where he had been held for a number of months. He remains in isolation; prior to his transfer from Asqelan, he had been held since August 1 in a tiny isolation cell of 140 cm x 240 cm after being penalized for communicating with another prisoner in the isolation unit.
Attorney Buthaina Duqmaq, president of the Mandela Association for prisoners' and detainees' rights, reported that this transfer is yet another continuation of the policy of repression and isolation directed at Sa'adat by the Israeli prison administration, aimed at undermining his steadfastness and weakening his health and his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Sa'adat has been moved repeatedly from prison to prison and subject to fines, harsh conditions, isolation and solitary confinement, and medical neglect. Further reports have indicated that he is being denied attorney visits upon his transfer to Ramon.
Ahmad Sa'adat undertook a nine-day hunger strike in June in order to protest the increasing use of isolation against Palestinian prisoners and the denial of prisoners' rights, won through long and hard struggle. The isolation unit at Ramon prison is reported to be one of the worst isolation units in terms of conditions and repeated violations of prisoners' rights in the Israeli prison system.
Sa'adat is serving a 30 year sentence in Israeli military prisons. He was sentenced on December 25, 2008 after a long and illegitimate military trial on political charges, which he boycotted. He was kidnapped by force in a military siege on the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where he had been held since 2002 under U.S., British and PA guard.
Sa'adat is suffering from back injuries that require medical assistance and treatment. Instead of receiving the medical care he needs, the Israeli prison officials are refusing him access to specialists and engaging in medical neglect and maltreatment.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat demands an end to this isolation and calls upon all to protest at local Israeli embassies and consulates (the list is available at: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ About+the+Ministry/Diplomatic+mission/Web+Sites+of+Israeli+ Missions+Abroad.htm) and to write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners receive needed medical care and that this punitive isolation be ended. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at jerusalem..jer@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat!
Ahmad Sa'adat has been repeatedly moved in an attempt to punish him for his steadfastness and leadership and to undermine his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Of course, these tactics have done nothing of the sort. The Palestinian prisoners are daily on the front lines, confronting Israeli oppression and crimes. Today, it is urgent that we stand with Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners against these abuses, and for freedom for all Palestinian prisoners and for all of Palestine!
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
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Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has spent the last 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted. New evidence and new testimony have been presented to the Georgia courts, but the justice system refuses to consider this evidence, which would prove Troy Davis' innocence once and for all.
Sign the petition and join the NAACP, Amnesty International USA, and other partners in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
http://www.iamtroy.com/
For Now, High Court Punts on Troy Davis, on Death Row for 18 Years
By Ashby Jones
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
June 30, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/30/for-now-high-court-punts-on-troy-davis-on-death-row-for-18-years/
Take action now:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12361&ICID=A0906A01&tr=y&auid=5030305
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Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
New videos from April 24 Oakland Mumia event
http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=jlboak
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501(c)(3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) U.S. to Resume Training Georgian Troops
By THOM SHANKER
August 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/world/europe/14military.html?ref=world
2) U.S. Army Reduces Soldiers’ Murder Sentences
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/14/world/AP-EU-Germany-US-Iraq-Deaths.html?ref=world
3) Judges’ Dissents for Death Row Inmates Are Rising [RE: Kevin Cooper...bw]
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
August 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/us/14dissent.html?ref=us
4) On 11th Try, Man Convicted in ’91 Killing Gets Hearing
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
August 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/nyregion/14retrial.html?ref=nyregion
5) Jobless Claims Post Increase [At the rate of over 500,000 per week!...bw]
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
August 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/business/14econ.html?ref=business
6) Britain Responds to Criticism of Its Universal Health System
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/world/europe/15britain.html?ref=world
7) U.S. Weighs Action Over Citi’s $100 Million Man
By STEPHEN LABATON and ERIC DASH
August 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/business/15pay.html?ref=us
8) The Expense of Eating With Celiac Disease
[Why we need free, universal healthcare for all NOW!...bw]
Patient Money
By LESLEY ALDERMAN
August 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/health/15patient.html?ref=business
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1) U.S. to Resume Training Georgian Troops [U.S. gathering cannon fodder world wide...bw]
By THOM SHANKER
August 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/world/europe/14military.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON — The United States is resuming a combat training mission in the former Soviet republic of Georgia to prepare its army for counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, despite the risks of angering Russia, senior Defense Department officials said Thursday.
The training effort is intended to prepare Georgian troops to fight at NATO standards alongside American and allied forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon officials said.
Russian officials have been informed, American officials said. The training should not worry the Kremlin, they said, because it would not involve skills that would be useful against a large conventional force like Russia’s.
“This training mission is not about internal defenses or any capabilities that the Georgians would use at home,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “This is about the United States supporting Georgia’s contribution to the war in Afghanistan, which everybody can recognize is needed and valued and appreciated.”
At the same time, officials in Washington said, the Georgians should not see the new training mission as a military counterweight to Russian influence along Georgia’s borders and within the separatist regions they fought over.
A year ago, the republic’s brief, disastrous war with Russia froze a similar American training operation that prepared Georgian troops for deployments to Iraq.
The new training mission is scheduled to begin Sept. 1. The first members of a Marine Corps training and advising team are to arrive in Georgia on Sunday or Monday, and the number of trainers will fluctuate between 10 and 69 over the next six months.
Georgia has pledged an army battalion — about 750 troops — to Afghanistan, and it should be ready to deploy next spring, perhaps by March.
It is unlikely that Kremlin officials could offer a convincing argument that training a single Georgian Army battalion amounted to a threat to Russian security. But the new training could be seen as a launching pad for increased military relations among Washington, NATO members and a former Soviet republic that aspires to NATO membership.
The Kremlin vehemently opposes any extension of NATO’s defensive umbrella over former Soviet republics, in particular Georgia and Ukraine. At the same time, some NATO officials view Georgia’s behavior before the war last year as needlessly provocative, and have said it harmed the country’s chances for alliance membership.
Shortly after taking office, President Obama ordered the doubling of American forces in Afghanistan, to about 68,000, and the administration has sought, with little success, to persuade NATO allies to add to their combat forces.
In contrast to some NATO allies that impose restrictions on where their forces can go and what they can do in Afghanistan, the Georgian military will send its troops with none of these so-called caveats, a decision viewed by American officials as intended to indicate Georgia’s worthiness for potential alliance membership.
Officials said Georgia’s troops would probably be assigned to operations in areas of Afghanistan under Marine command, so the training mission begins that partnership.
The United States has so far rebuffed requests from Georgia to rearm its military after its humiliating defeat by Russia. When the war began, Georgia recalled an army brigade serving in Iraq and never sent it back, and the Americans training the Georgians returned home.
Georgian troops that join the Afghan mission will bring their own small-caliber weapons, but the United States and other allies will supply vehicles, including armored transports, as well as logistical support and daily supplies, according to senior Defense Department officials.
Any weapons provided to the Georgians would stay in Afghanistan, the officials said.
Some military ties between the United States and Georgia resumed after the war with Russia, but they focused on officer development, improvement of command-and-control systems, and other such areas, officials said. There have been visits by senior American military officers and government leaders — most recently Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — and NATO has conducted some military exchanges.
Administration officials familiar with discussions with Russia said American officials emphasized that Russia had endorsed the international security assistance mission in Afghanistan. For example, Russia allows overflight rights and land access for the coalition supply mission for Afghanistan.
A senior Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to describe the diplomatic communications with Russia, acknowledged that “this is delicate for us — because while we want to be supportive of the Georgians, and look forward to their contribution in Afghanistan, we don’t want to be perceived incorrectly as supplying lethal capabilities that would elicit a Russian response.”
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2) U.S. Army Reduces Soldiers’ Murder Sentences
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/14/world/AP-EU-Germany-US-Iraq-Deaths.html?ref=world
Filed at 8:29 a.m. ET
FRANKFURT (AP) -- The U.S. Army said Friday it had reduced the sentences of three soldiers convicted of murder in the execution-style slayings of four bound and blindfolded Iraqi detainees.
Master Sgt. John Hatley, sentenced to life in prison in April, will instead receive 40 years, the military told the Associated Press.
He will still receive a dishonorable discharge and be reduced to the rank of private.
Sgt. Michael Leahy and Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Mayo -- sentenced respectively to life in prison in February and 35 years in March -- had their sentences reduced to 20 years, the military said. They will also receive bad conduct discharges instead of dishonorable discharges.
The sentence reductions came after a standard review of the cases, the Army said.
The soldiers were all with the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division while in Iraq. The unit is now part of the Germany-based 172nd Infantry Brigade.
According to court proceedings over the last year, the four Iraqis were taken into custody in spring 2007 after an exchange of fire with Hatley's unit.
The Iraqis were taken to the unit's base although there wasn't enough evidence to hold them for attacking the unit. Later that night patrol members took the Iraqis to a remote area and shot them, dumping the bodies in a canal.
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3) Judges’ Dissents for Death Row Inmates Are Rising [RE: Kevin Cooper...bw]
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
August 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/us/14dissent.html?ref=us
It took just 80 words for a federal appeals court to deny Kevin Cooper’s most recent plea to avoid execution. But attached to that order was a forceful 101-page dissent by a judge, all but pleading to spare Mr. Cooper’s life.
“The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man,” it began.
The judge who wrote the dissent, William A. Fletcher of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, argued that the police and prosecutors had withheld and tampered with evidence in the case for decades; Judge Fletcher even accused the district court of having sabotaged the case.
Compared with the dry, mannerly prose found in many opinions, Judge Fletcher’s passion in Cooper v. Brown is startling. But these kinds of fervent, lonely dissents, urging that a prisoner’s life be spared, have noticeably increased in the last decade, compared with previous years, according to a review of death penalty opinions by The New York Times, as confirmed by experts in the field.
In dozens of capital cases in recent years, appeals court judges, some of whom have ruled in favor of the death penalty many times, have complained that Congress and the Supreme Court have raised daunting barriers for death row prisoners to appeal their convictions, and in many cases the judges have taken on their colleagues.
“There is an increasing frustration among federal judges throughout the system,” said Eric M. Freedman, a critic of the death penalty who teaches on the subject at Hofstra Law School.
Mr. Freedman predicted that the level of dissatisfaction would increase. “Judges are likely to have less and less patience for being hogtied by legalistic mumbo-jumbo,” he said, “which prevents them from reaching fair results.”
The law that generates much of the judges’ ire is the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Since its passage, the act has been cited in a half-dozen to two dozen dissents a year, often in language forceful enough to rival Judge Fletcher’s. The law, championed by legislators who believed prisoners were abusing the federal appeals process, restricts federal court review of state court decisions in death penalty cases and puts strong limits on the ability of condemned prisoners to file habeas corpus petitions to get their cases reconsidered.
In April, Judge Rosemary Barkett of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, complained of the law’s “thicket of procedural brambles.” Dissenting from a decision by her colleagues, Judge Barkett noted that seven of the nine witnesses in the murder trial of Troy Davis, a death row inmate in Georgia, had recanted their testimony. To execute Mr. Davis without fully considering that evidence would be “unconscionable and unconstitutional,” wrote Judge Barkett, who has voted in more than 200 other cases to uphold the death penalty.
Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit, a critic of capital punishment, took on the constitutionality of the 1996 death penalty act itself in a dissent in the case of Andrew C. Crater, who had been convicted of taking part in a robbery and shooting spree that killed a Sacramento musician, James Pantages. Judge Reinhardt, appointed by President Jimmy Carter, wrote in 2007 that the act made “a mockery of the careful boundaries between Congress and the courts that our Constitution’s framers believed so essential to the prevention of tyranny.”
The dissents rarely have any practical effect in changing the outcome of the cases they address. But Howard J. Bashman, an appellate lawyer in Philadelphia, said such dissents were often directed toward audiences to come: the next appeals court, lawmakers and academics.
“You have to think that these judges do have some valid reason for putting all this effort into the exercise than just feeling better about it after they’re done,” Mr. Bashman said.
Judge Barkett, whom President Bill Clinton appointed, declined to discuss individual cases but agreed that a dissent tried to persuade many audiences — the first, in her case, being the other judges of her court, who circulate dissents among themselves as they are coming to a decision.
Judge Barkett said she did not see her opinions as “emotive,” adding that dissents were about policy, not feelings. But the feeling that motivates her to write them, she said, is “mostly frustration that I cannot make people see what I see.”
Judge Fletcher’s frustration was on display in the case of Mr. Cooper, who he concluded was “probably innocent” of the 1983 murders of Douglas and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and an 11-year-old houseguest, Christopher Hughes, who were hacked to death in the Ryens’ home.
Judge Fletcher argued that the evidence had been tainted by bumbling and misconduct and suggested that blood linking Mr. Cooper to the crime had been planted by overzealous investigators. And while the Ninth Circuit in 2004 ordered new DNA tests, Judge Fletcher wrote that the lower court had set conditions rendering the results useless. “There is no way to say this politely,” he wrote. “The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and flouted our direction to perform the two tests.”
Judge Fletcher, who declined to be interviewed, was appointed by Mr. Clinton.
Jesse H. Choper, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the judge was hardly a fierce opponent of capital punishment. “I don’t see him as someone who is unexceptionally opposed,” Mr. Choper said.
In the Cooper case, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, was among 11 of the circuit’s 27 judges who joined dissents.
Elisabeth A. Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at Berkeley, which trains lawyers to defend people facing the death penalty, said many jurists had been shaken by the rise of exonerations due to DNA evidence. “I think it’s been shattering to judges who had a fair amount of confidence in the system,” she said.
The next step in the Cooper case is a long-shot appeal to the Supreme Court, which Mr. Cooper’s lead lawyer, Norman C. Hile, said was likely to be filed this year.
Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a group in Sacramento that favors the death penalty, said substantial claims of innocence in such appeals remained rare.
In Mr. Cooper’s case, Mr. Scheidegger said, the defendant has been given ample opportunity to exonerate himself. “It is high time to bring this case to a close,” Mr. Scheidegger said.
Judge Fletcher argued otherwise. “If he is innocent, the real killers have escaped,” he wrote. “They may kill again. They may already have done so.
“We owe it to the victims of this horrible crime, to Kevin Cooper, and to ourselves, to get this one right.”
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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4) On 11th Try, Man Convicted in ’91 Killing Gets Hearing
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
August 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/nyregion/14retrial.html?ref=nyregion
After 11 legal attempts to overturn a 1992 Manhattan murder conviction that was based on testimony since recanted or found to be false, Fernando Bermudez will have a day in court next month that his defenders say could free him from an upstate prison.
A state judge has ordered a hearing on Sept. 1 to determine, in effect, whether Mr. Bermudez deserves a new trial on charges that he fatally shot a man on a Greenwich Village street corner nearly two decades ago.
Last week, Justice John Cataldo of State Supreme Court in Manhattan indicated his concern that witnesses who placed Mr. Bermudez at the scene of the shooting may have conferred before identifying him and, further, that the prosecution’s only witness to the actual shooting lied in parts of his testimony.
“The People’s only trial witness who testified to having known the shooter prior to the night of the crime, is now conceded by the People to have committed perjury throughout his trial testimony,” Justice Cataldo wrote in an Aug. 5 decision.
Mr. Bermudez, now 40, was a young man living with his parents in Upper Manhattan when he was convicted in 1992 in the murder of Raymond Blount on the corner of University Place and 13th Street. Several of Mr. Blount’s friends picked Mr. Bermudez’s photo from an array of suspects after the police improperly allowed them to openly discuss his resemblance to the man they saw pull the trigger, a federal magistrate later found. But that magistrate found in 2004 that the impropriety was not sufficient to overturn the conviction.
Mark Dwyer, the chief assistant district attorney in Manhattan, said in an interview that if Justice Cataldo ordered a new trial, his office would vigorously appeal the order. Mr. Bermudez has always maintained that he did not know Mr. Blount and had never met the witnesses who picked out his photo. He and his friends who were with him that night said they had not been at the crime scene at any time on the night of the killing.
Since his conviction, he has married, become a father and earned two associate’s degrees through correspondence programs at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y. This month, he began his 19th year as New York State Prisoner No. 92A8325. His lawyers have spent most of that time pressing 11 appeals or motions to set aside his conviction. None have led a judge to question the conviction, until last week.
In ordering a hearing, Justice Cataldo said in his 13-page decision that the 2004 magistrate’s finding that witnesses had conferred before collectively picking Mr. Bermudez’s mug shot “cannot be ignored.” If he comes to the same conclusion as the magistrate, Justice Cataldo wrote, state law would require a reversal of the conviction and a new trial.
Mr. Dwyer said prosecutors would present Justice Cataldo with “additional evidence” not seen by the federal magistrate in 2004, to argue that witnesses did not discuss and collectively pick Mr. Bermudez’s photo.
“We will continue to represent the evidence that has persuaded triers of fact in the past that there is no merit to defendant’s claim,” Mr. Dwyer said. But Justice Cataldo said evidence presented to him by Mr. Bermudez’s lawyers raised “a viable claim of actual innocence” that would be explored at the Sept. 1 hearing. Justice Cataldo also ordered an inquiry into whether prosecutors should have known before Mr. Bermudez’s sentencing that the prosecution’s only witness to Mr. Blount’s killing had lied on the stand.
That witness, Efraim Lopez, identified Mr. Bermudez at trial as someone he had known for years, a familiar figure who sold drugs in the neighborhood around West 92nd Street. Mr. Lopez told the court that he knew Mr. Bermudez by his street name, Wool Lou, because he said Mr. Bermudez sold “wools,” slang for crack cocaine.
None of those assertions were true, prosecutors have since acknowledged. In fact, Mr. Lopez was describing another man, Luis Munoz — the real Wool Lou. In 1993, Mr. Lopez signed a sworn affidavit recanting his testimony and saying that before the trial, he had been coerced by police detectives to identify Mr. Bermudez as the killer.
In late 2007, after The New York Times published an examination of the Bermudez case, investigators from the Manhattan district attorney’s office interviewed Mr. Munoz for the first time. In court papers, they described him as “quite cooperative” and having no knowledge of the 1991 killing.
The Sept. 1 hearing could signify an extraordinary turning point in a 18-year effort among numerous criminal defense lawyers to clear Mr. Bermudez’s name and overturn his conviction, said one of his lawyers, Barry J. Pollack.
“The facts keep getting stronger and stronger,” Mr. Pollack said in an interview Tuesday, “and the conviction keeps getting weaker and weaker.”
Prosecutors have acknowledged in court that given the recantations and false testimony, there is virtually no evidence to prosecute Mr. Bermudez again.
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5) Jobless Claims Post Increase [At the rate of over 500,000 per week!...bw]
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
August 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/business/14econ.html?ref=business
More Americans than forecast filed claims for unemployment insurance last week, the Labor Department said Thursday, underscoring the threat to spending from the continued deterioration in the job market.
The Labor Department said 558,000 people filed first-time claims for jobless benefits last week, up from 554,000 the week before.
“Until we start seeing job growth, consumers are still going to be very cautious,” said Michael Gregory, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto. “It’s premature to talk about the sustainability of a recovery,” he said, until there’s “follow-through on the demand side.”
Other reports showed companies trimmed inventories in June for a 10th consecutive month, and prices of imported goods dropped in July for the first time in six months as the cost of commodities such as petroleum and chemicals decreased.
The economy has lost about 6.7 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007, the worst of any downturn since World War II.
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6) Britain Responds to Criticism of Its Universal Health System
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/world/europe/15britain.html?ref=world
LONDON (AP) — The British love to mock their National Health Service, but they have been incensed by its being used as a punching bag in the fight over President Obama’s proposed reforms.
Conservatives in the United States have relied on horror stories from Britain’s system to warn Americans of the dangers of the socialized health care system that they say President Obama is trying to impose.
In an interview widely interpreted here as an attack on the British health system, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, told a local radio station last week that “countries that have government-run health care” would not have given Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who suffers from a brain tumor, the same standard of care as in the United States because they would rather “spend money on people who can contribute more to the economy.”
An editorial in an American newspaper, Investor’s Business Daily, stated that the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who is almost entirely paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, “wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K.” Dr. Hawking, who is British, dismissed the assertion as absurd, and the newspaper has run a correction. “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the N.H.S.,” Mr. Hawking said.
Britons say the country’s universal health care system, which provides free medical care, is much fairer than the current American system. Behind the criticism is a popular British view that American society represents unbridled capitalism run amok, with catastrophic results for people left behind.
The business minister, Lord Mandelson, who is usually pro-American, strongly criticized the United States’ system on Friday, suggesting that it was fine for the wealthy but failed the poor. “If you can’t pay, you have a very, very second-rate service or you can’t get health service at all,” he said.
Britain’s Labour government has responded to criticism by offering selected statistics that show Britain outperforming the United States in a number of categories, including health spending per capita and life expectancy. The United States has long lagged behind other advanced nations in vital health care categories, like life expectancy and infant mortality.
Newspapers here have jumped into the debate, with The Daily Mirror calling the United States “the land of the fee,” because of the steep costs patients are forced to pay.
The National Health Service, one of the world’s largest publicly financed health services, was set up in 1949 with the intention of providing everyone with access to health care regardless of their ability to pay. Despite the widespread show of support for the British system recently, the N.H.S. has been struggling to cope with rising medical costs, and there are fears it could be overwhelmed if swine flu cases surge this winter.
Doctors and nurses warn that the organization faces a $24 billion deficit, and hospitals are often overcrowded, dirty and understaffed. Many people have to wait weeks or months for medical care despite government promises to shorten waiting lists. But even those who complain say they want it to be improved, not dismantled or transformed into an American-style, profit-oriented system.
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7) U.S. Weighs Action Over Citi’s $100 Million Man
By STEPHEN LABATON and ERIC DASH
August 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/business/15pay.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON — Senior Obama administration officials were wrestling on Friday with how to handle an explosive executive pay issue involving two traders’ compensation package of nearly $130 million that Citigroup says is exempt from government review.
Citigroup’s decision leaves top White House and Treasury Department officials unable to do much about some of the highest-paid employees at the deeply troubled bank just two months after the administration announced, with great fanfare, the appointment of an official to crack down on lucrative payouts at companies that have become wards of the state.
On Friday, Citigroup, which is facing a government deadline, submitted the pay packages for its 25 senior executives and highest-paid employees. People involved in that process said Citi advised the Treasury that an energy trader named Andrew J. Hall, due $98 million, was exempt from federal review, and so was a second unidentified trader who received more than $30 million.
Mr. Hall, 58, and the other trader were paid under an employment contract signed last October, said a person briefed on the contract who was granted anonymity because of not being authorized to disclose the information. That was before a law went into effect instructing the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, to examine the pay packages of top executives at companies that received exceptional bailout assistance from the government.
In recent weeks, Treasury officials had warned top Citigroup executives that the administration would reject the contract, hoping to persuade the bank to rewrite it. Now the bank’s decision presents the administration with an awkward political choice between doing little or doing nothing about the contract.
Treasury officials could issue a nonbinding advisory opinion critical of the pay package that that would carry no legal weight but could ameliorate some of the expected political fallout. Or it could do nothing and face the wrath of the public and Congress, which will consider legislation to limit executive pay after its August recess.
The government’s special compensation master, Kenneth R. Feinberg, has two months to decide how to proceed. On the touchiest contracts, he is expected to take his cue from top Treasury and White House officials when they decide whether to criticize those deals. Mr. Geithner and two top aides to the president — Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, and David Axelrod, a senior political adviser, were calculating the political options.
Contract information was also filed this week by Bank of America, American International Group, General Motors, Chrysler and the financing companies of the two automakers.
People with knowledge of those contracts, granted anonymity because privacy laws prohibit them from disclosing detailed information, said they generally posed none of the political problems of the Citi pay packages. Executives at A.I.G. have been given the informal impression that Mr. Feinberg will not have a problem with the contract, although the company has not received any official word, a person briefed on those discussions said. This person was granted anonymity because the packages are supposed to remain private.
Mr. Hall’s contract highlights the government’s uncomfortable position now that it owns — but cannot control — some of the nation’s largest companies.
Citi has received $45 billion in taxpayer assistance to avert a collapse, and in exchange, the government now holds a 34 percent ownership interest in the bank. But Congress has given the administration limited legal authority to change a corporate culture that promoted outsize compensation that many people believe encouraged unacceptably risky business decisions.
Moreover, Treasury officials are wary of doing anything that could cause an exodus of executives and cause more damage to the fragile companies — and ultimately could lead to higher costs to taxpayers.
Senior company executives have justified Mr. Hall’s contract by noting that his trading resulted in earnings for the bank that were many multiples of his pay.
A Citigroup executive who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company, said that Mr. Hall’s pay was based on a percentage of the pretax profit at the Phibro trading unit he leads and that the payouts were adjusted for risk so that the more leverage taken by the firm, the lower the potential bonus. Phibro is in Westport, Conn.
Nothing prevents Mr. Hall from bolting to a less regulated company on Wall Street, although he has apparently sought to understand what the administration might do about reworking any future employment contracts he signs with Citi, the executive said.
An aide to Mr. Hall said on Friday that he was unavailable for comment.
Citigroup is in a delicate political position, with a wide array of requests and issues involving its operations now pending before regulators and Congress.
“We recognize there is a political problem, even though we have the rule of law on our side,” said a senior Citigroup official who has direct knowledge of the situation but was granted anonymity because the person was also unauthorized to speak for the company. “It may not be the smartest thing for shareholders, but you sometimes have to do things,” given the government’s large ownership stake and the highly charged political climate, the person said.
Citigroup officials said they want to honor Mr. Hall’s current contract, and are hoping to convince the Treasury Department that the steps they are taking to sell or reorganize the Phibro trading unit where Mr. Hall works would address pay concerns. Bank officials have considered turning Phibro into a partnership in which they would hold a minority stake, and have reached out to a handful of potential buyers.
Eric Dash reported from New York. Edmund L. Andrews contributed from Washington.
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8) The Expense of Eating With Celiac Disease
[Why we need free, universal healthcare for all NOW!...bw]
Patient Money
By LESLEY ALDERMAN
August 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/health/15patient.html?ref=business
YOU would think that after Kelly Oram broke more than 10 bones and experienced chronic stomach problems for most of his life, someone (a nurse? a doctor?) might have wondered if something fundamental was wrong with his health. But it wasn’t until Mr. Oram was in his early 40s that a doctor who was treating him for a neck injury became suspicious and ordered tests, including a bone scan.
It turned out that Mr. Oram, a music teacher who lives in White Plains, had celiac disease, an underdiagnosed immune disorder set off by eating foods containing gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley.
Celiac disease damages the lining of the small intestine, making it difficult for the body to absorb nutrients. Victims may suffer from mild to serious malnutrition and a host of health problems, including anemia, low bone density and infertility. Celiac affects one out of 100 people in the United States, but a majority of those don’t know they have the disease, said Dr. Joseph A. Murray, a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota who has been studying the disease for two decades. The disease can be detected by a simple blood test, followed by an endoscopy to check for damage to the small intestine.
Seven years after receiving his diagnosis, Mr. Oram, who is married and has one daughter, is symptom-free, but the cost of staying that way is high. That’s because the treatment for celiac does not come in the form of a pill that will be reimbursed or subsidized by an insurer. The treatment is to avoid eating products containing gluten. And gluten-free versions of products like bread, pizza and crackers are nearly three times as expensive as regular products, according to a study conducted by the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University.
Unfortunately for celiac patients, the extra cost of a special diet is not reimbursed by health care plans. Nor do most policies pay for trips to a dietitian to receive nutritional guidance.
In Britain, by contrast, patients found to have celiac disease are prescribed gluten-free products. In Italy, sufferers are given a stipend to spend on gluten-free food.
Some doctors blame drug makers, in part, for the lack of awareness and the lack of support. “The drug makers have not been interested in celiac because, until very recently, there have been no medications to treat it,” said Dr. Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University. “And since drug makers are responsible for so much of the education that doctors receive, the medical community is largely unaware of the disease.”
As awareness grows and the market expands, perhaps the prices of gluten-free products will come down. Meanwhile, if you suffer from the disease, here are some ways to keep your costs down.
When people first learn they have celiac disease, they tend to stock up on gluten-free versions of breads, crackers and pizza made from grains other than wheat, like rice, corn and buckwheat. But that can be expensive and might not even be that healthy, since most gluten-free products are not fortified with vitamins.
“The most important thing to do after being diagnosed is to get a dietary consultation,” Dr. Murray said. With planning, you can learn to base your diet on fruits, vegetables, rice and potatoes. “I have some patients who rarely use those special gluten-free products,” he said.
Get in the habit of reading labels, advises Elaine Monarch, executive director of the Celiac Disease Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Studio City, Calif. Soy sauce, for instance, often has wheat protein as a filler. But Ms. Monarch found a brand of light soy sauce at her local grocery with no wheat that cost much less than one specifically marked as gluten-free. “There are often alternatives to specialty products, but you have to look,” she said.
Gluten-free bread is more expensive than traditional bread and often less palatable. And that holds for many gluten-free items. Some people, including Mr. Oram, end up buying a bread machine and making their own loaves. Nicole Hunn, who cooks gluten-free meals for her family of five and just started the Web site glutenfreeonashoestring.com, avoids mixes, which she says are expensive and not that tasty, and instead bakes with an all-purpose gluten-free flour from a company called Bob’s Red Mill, which can be used in place of wheat flour in standard recipes.
If you’re too busy to cook, look for well-priced gluten-free food at large chains like Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s. “Trader Joe’s now carries fantastic brown rice pasta that is reasonably priced and brown rice flour tortillas that can sub for bread with a variety of things,” says Kelly Courson, co-founder of the advice site CeliacChicks.com. Ms. Courson put out a Twitter message to her followers and learned that many were fans of DeBoles gluten-free pastas, which can be bought in bulk on Amazon, and puffed brown rice cereal by Alf’s Natural Nutrition, just $1 a bag at Wal-Mart.
Finally, it may be worthwhile to join a celiac support group. You can swap cost-cutting tips, share recipes and learn about new products. Many groups invite vendors to bring gluten-free products to meetings for members to sample — members can buy items they like at a discount and skip the shipping charges. Support groups typically have meetings, as well as newsletters and Web sites where you can post questions. Groups to check out include the Celiac Disease Foundation and the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America.
Finally, if you itemize your tax return and your total medical expenses for the year exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income, you can write off certain expenses associated with celiac disease. You can deduct the excess cost of a gluten-free product over a comparable gluten-containing product.
Let’s say you spend $6.50 on a loaf of gluten-free bread, and a regular loaf costs $4; you can deduct $2.50. In addition, you can deduct the cost of products necessary to maintain a gluten-free diet, like xanthan gum for baking. If you mail order gluten-free products, the shipping costs may be deductible, too. If you have to travel extra miles to buy gluten-free goods, the mileage is also deductible. You’ll need a doctor’s letter to confirm your diagnosis and your need for a gluten-free diet, and you should save receipts in case of a tax audit.
Do you have a flexible spending account at work? Ask the plan administrator if you can use those flex spending dollars on the excess cost of gluten-free goods — many plans let you do this. For more on tax deductions, go to the tax section of the Celiac Disease Foundation’s Web site.
Yes, managing the disease is a hassle. But untreated celiac disease can wreak havoc with your health. A study published in the July issue of the journal Gastroenterology found that subjects who had undiagnosed celiac were nearly four times as likely to have died over a 45-year period than subjects who were celiac-free.
“Sometimes I resent how time-consuming it is to cook from scratch,” Ms. Courson of CeliacChicks.com said. “But I remind myself that my restrictions actually help keep me in line, more than the next person with unhealthy foods readily available.”
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