*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
URGENT PLEA FOR LYNNE STEWART:
Greetings,
We need your signatures asap for Lynne -- FREE LYNNE STEWART NOW! -- she must not be operated on in a prison hospital.
Please get the signatures out asap.
Thank you,
Ralph Poynter, New Abolitionist Movement
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/091127ls/petition.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FTA [F**k The Army] Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HlkgPCgU7g
Emergency Protest: No Escalation! U.S./NATO Out Now!
Wed. Dec. 2, 5pm
Powell and Market Sts., San Franciscco
An emergency protest against the escalating U.S./NATO war in Afghanistan will be held on Wednesday, December 2, 5 p.m. at Powell and Market Sts. in San Francisco. On Tues., Dec. 1, Pres. Obama is expected to announce that tens of thousands additional U.S. troops will be sent to Afghanistan in the coming months.
A call for protest actions across the country against the war and escalation following the announcement has been issued by several national organizations including: A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition, World Can't Wait, United for Peace and Justice, Veterans For Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, National Assembly, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Pledge of Resistance and Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
Join us to demand: No Escalation - Bring ALL the Troops Home Now! No to War and Occupation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Everywhere! Money for People's Needs, Not War!
Call 415-821-6545 for more info or to volunteer.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.answersf.org
answer@answersf.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Bay Area United Against War endorses this emergency action.
bauaw.org
Buffy Sainte Marie - No No Keshagesh
[Keshagesh is the Cree word to describe a greedy puppy that wants to keep eating everything, a metaphor for corporate greed]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKmAb1gNN74&feature=player_embedded#
Buffy Sainte-Marie - No No Keshagesh lyrics:
http://www.lyricsmode.com/?i=print_lyrics&id=705368
I never saw so many business suits.
Never knew a dollar sign that looked so cute.
Never knew a junkie with a money Jones:
He's singing, "Who's selling Park Place. Who's buying Boardwalk"?
These old men they make their dirty deals.
Go in the back room and see what they can steal.
Talk about your beautiful and spacious skies.
It's about uranium; it's about the water rights.
Put Mother Nature on a luncheon plate.
They cut her up and call it real estate.
Want all the resources and all of the land.
They make a war over it: Blow things up for it.
The reservation now is poverty row.
There's something cooking and the lights are low.
Somebody's trying to save our mother earth.
I'm gonna help them to save it,
To sing it and bring it
Singing: No no Keshagesh:
You can't do that no more, (no more, no more no more)
No, no, no, no Keshagesh
You can't do that no more, (no more, no more no more)
No, no, no, no Keshagesh
You can't do that no more, (no more, no more no more)
No, no, no, no Keshagesh
You can't do that no more, (no more, no more no more)
Ole Columbus he was looking good,
When he got lost in our neighborhood.
Garden of Eden right before his eyes.
Now it's all spy ware: now it's all income tax.
Ole' brother Midas looking hungry today.
What he can't buy he'll get some other way.
Send in the troopers if the natives resist.
Old, old story boys, that's how you do it boys.
Look at these people; ah they're on a roll.
Gonna have it all, gonna have complete control.
Want all the resources and all of the land.
They'll break the law for it: Blow things up for it.
When all our champions are off in the war,
Their final rip off here and is always on.
Mr. greed I think your time has come.
We're gonna sing it and pray it and live it then say it.
Singing: No no Keshagesh:
You can't do that no more, (no more, no more no more)
No, no, no, no Keshagesh
You can't do that no more, (no more, no more no more)
No, no, no, no Keshagesh
You can't do that no more, (no more, no more no more)
No, no, no, no Keshagesh
You can't do that no more, (no more, no more no more)
Lyrics provided by LyricsMode.com
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
United Anti-War Movement Tells Obama: No Escalation!
Letter ties economic pain at home to suffering in Afghanistan Urges widespread, massive protests day after announcement
Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/11/30-1
CONTACT: Anti-War Groups
Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace 419-360-3621
Michael McPhearson, Exec. Dir., Veterans for Peace 314-303-8874
WASHINGTON - November 30 - On November 30th, representatives of 34 antiwar groups delivered an open letter to President Obama strongly opposing his anticipated decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan with the commitment of tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops.
The document called increased war spending, in light of the ongoing U.S. economic crisis, an "utter folly" and named the war "a war against ordinary people, both here in the United States and in Afghanistan," which "if continued, will result in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of U.S. troops and untold thousands of Afghans" and "cause other people in other lands to despise the U.S." as "the world's richest nation making war on one of the world's very poorest."
The signatories pledged "to keep opposing this war in every nonviolent way possible. We will urge elected representatives to cut all funding for war. Some of us will be led to withhold our taxes, practice civil resistance, and promote slowdowns and strikes at schools and workplaces."
Signed by veterans and peace activists and religious leaders the document represents one of the most widespread antiwar coalitions in decades, including many of the organizations which, in 2003, brought millions onto the streets to oppose the U.S.-Iraq war.
Signers to the letter are urging their colleagues to participate in local demonstrations the day after an announcement of troop escalations is made.
The letter ends by warning President Obama, "we will do everything in our power, as nonviolent peace activists, to build the kind of massive movement -- which today represents the sentiments of a majority of the American people - that will play a key role in ending U.S. war in Afghanistan. Such is the folly of your decision and such is the depth of our opposition to the death and suffering it will cause."
###
President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, D.C.
November 30, 2009
Dear President Obama,
With millions of U.S. people feeling the fear and desperation of no longer having a home; with millions feeling the terror and loss of dignity that comes with unemployment; with millions of our children slipping further into poverty and hunger, your decision to deploy thousands more troops and throw hundreds of billions more dollars into prolonging the profoundly tragic war in Afghanistan strikes us as utter folly. We believe this decision represents a war against ordinary people, both here in the United States and in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan, if continued, will result in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of U.S. troops, and untold thousands of Afghans.
Polls indicate that a majority of those who labored with so much hope to elect you as president now fear that you will make a wrong decision -- a tragic decision that will destroy their dreams for America. More tragic is the price of your decision. It will be paid with the blood, suffering and broken hearts of our young troops, their loved ones and an even greater number of Afghan men, women and children.
The U.S. military claims that this war must be fought to protect U.S. national security, but we believe it is being waged to expand U.S. empire in the interests of oil and pipeline companies.
Your decision to escalate U.S. troops and continue the occupation will cause other people in other lands to despise the U.S. as a menacing military power that violates international law. Keep in mind that to most of the peoples of the world, widening the war in Afghanistan will look exactly like what it is: the world's richest nation making war on one of the world's very poorest.
The war must be ended now. Humanitarian aid programs should address the deep poverty that has always been a part of the life of Afghan people.
We will keep opposing this war in every nonviolent way possible. We will urge elected representatives to cut all funding for war. Some of us will be led to withhold our taxes, practice civil resistance, and promote slowdowns and strikes at schools and workplaces.
In short, President Obama, we will do everything in our power, as nonviolent peace activists, to build the kind of massive movement --which today represents the sentiments of a majority of the American people--that will play a key role in ending U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Such would be the folly of a decision to escalate troop deployment and such is the depth of our opposition to the death and suffering it would cause.
Sincerely, (Signers names listed in alphabetical order)
Jack Amoureux, Executive Committee Military Families Speak Out
Michael Baxter, Catholic Peace Fellowship
Medea Benjamin, Co-founder Global Exchange
Frida Berrigan, Witness Against Torture
Elaine Brower, World Can't Wait
Leslie Cagan, Co-Founder United for Peace and Justice
Tom Cornell, Catholic Peace Fellowship
Matt Daloisio, War Resisters League
Marie Dennis, Director Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Robby Diesu, Our Spring Break
Pat Elder, Co-coordinator National Network Opposing Militarization of Youth
Mike Ferner, President Veterans For Peace
Joy First, Convener National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance
Sara Flounders, Co-Director International Action Center
Sunil Freeman, ANSWER Coalition, Washington, D.C.
Diana Gibson, Coordinator Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice
Jerry Gordon, Co-Coordinator National Assembly To End Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupation
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence
David Hartsough, Peaceworkers San Francisco
Mike Hearington, Steering Committee Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, Atlanta
Larry Holmes, Coordinator Troops Out Now Coalition
Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D., Executive Director Fellowship of Reconciliation
Hany Khalil, War Times
Kathy Kelly, Co-Coordinator Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Leslie Kielson , Co-Chair United for Peace and Justice
Malachy Kilbride, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance
Adele Kubein, Executive Committee Military Families Speak Out
Jeff Mackler, Co-Coordinator National Assembly to End Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations
Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, Chair-Elect World Parliament of Religion
Michael T. McPhearson, Executive Director Veterans For Peace
Gael Murphy, Co-founder Code Pink
Michael Nagler, Founder Metta Center for Nonviolence
Max Obuszewski, Director Baltimore Nonviolence Center
Pete Perry, Peace of the Action
Dave Robinson, Executive Director Pax Christi USA
Terry Rockefeller, September 11th Families For Peaceful Tomorrows
Samina Sundas, Founding Executive Director American Muslim Voice
David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet.org
Carmen Trotta, Catholic Worker
Nancy Tsou, Coordinator Rockland Coalition for Peace and Justice
Kevin Zeese, Voters for Peace
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
"The End of Poverty?"
Democracy Now Interview with Filmmaker Philippe Diaz
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/10/filmmaker_philippe_diaz_on_the_end
The film opens in San Francisco on December 4 at the 4-Star Theatre on Clement Street.
http://www.theendofpoverty.com/
Mark you calendar to GO SEE this movie, starts Friday 12/4 for a one week run at 4 Star Theatre. It’s the first film to connect the dots between colonialism, globalization and poverty.
Director Philippe Diaz will be in attendance for Q&A on Friday and Saturday and joined by Global Exchange’s Kevin Danaher on Saturday 12/5.
“****..EXCELLENT”
Kam Williams, NewsBlaze.com
“POWERFUL”
Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com
“…should be required viewing by every politician in the world.”
Eric Monder, Film Journal International
“Simply the finest documentary ever made about global inequality. Puts the victims of the capitalist system in the forefront and allows them to tell their stories.”
Louis Proyect, The Unrepentant Marxist
Sold out shows during its opening weekend in NYC, beating out at the box office every film playing at City Cinemas Village East including Disney’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ starring Jim Carrey!
Narrated by Martin Sheen, The End of Poverty? is a daring, thought-provoking and very timely documentary by award-winning filmmaker, Philippe Diaz, revealing that poverty is not an accident. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in forced labor and the seizure of land and minerals. Today, global poverty has reached new levels because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies -- in other words, wealthy countries exploiting the weaknesses of poor, developing countries.
The End of Poverty? asks why today 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate? Can we really end poverty within our current economic system? Think again.
Official Selection to over 25+ International Film Festivals
Watch the Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRZnEBFYNS0
One Week run starts in San Francisco December 4th
4-Star Theatre
2200 Clement Street
San Francisco, CA 94121
(415) 666-3488
http://www.hkinsf.com/4star/
Showtimes: 12:25 2:25 4:25 6:25 8:25
*Q&A with director following the Fri. (12/4) 8:25p show & Sat. (12/5) 2:25p show
& with special guest, Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange following the 8:25 show.
Admission: $9.00 for general admission
$7.00 for bargain shows & seniors 65 and over/children 11 and under
(Bargain matinee shows are before 4pm Mon to Fri, before 2pm on Sat, Sun and Holidays.
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=1118&rdate=12%2F4%2F2009
Also in coming to theatres in Los Angeles , Irvine , Seattle , Portland , Austin and Atlanta with more cities to follow – for details, visit http://www.theendofpoverty.com
Read reviews:
Louis Proyect’s: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/the-end-of-poverty/
Andrew Schenker @ Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-11-10/film/the-end-of-poverty-maps-post-colonial-injustice/
Andrew O’ Hehir@ Salon.com: http://www.salon.com/entertainment/the_end_of_poverty/index.html?story=/ent/movies/btm/feature/2009/11/13/poverty
Find us on:
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/endpovertymovie
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/endpovertymovie
Social Network – http://www.endpoverty.ning.com
Join our mailing list: http:/Re/www.cinemalibrestudio.com/mailinglist/
Please help us spread the word about this important and powerful film. We are a small, independent distribution company dedicated to social issue films.
Thank you,
The Cinema Libre Studio team
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
DEFEND JR VALREY!
Drop all Charges Against the Activists in the Protests of the Police Murder of Oscar Grant!
Rally at JRs Next Court Hearing
Monday, December 7, 2009, 8:00 A.M.
Alameda County Courthouse
1225 Fallon Street
Oakland, CA
Journalist JR Valrey was arrested by Oakland Police on the night of January 7, 2009, for covering the street uprising following the police murder of Oscar Grant. JR has consistently covered police brutality and terrorism. The bogus charge he faces: felony arson!
JR Varley is a POCC (People of Color Conference) Minister of Information, host of Block Report Radio, a producer at KPFA and associate editor of the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper.
PROTEST THE POLICE MURDER OF OSCAR GRANT!
The BART cop who put a bullet in the back of the young Oscar Grant while Grant was lying face-down on a BART platform is Johannes Mehserle. With 45 police killings in Oakland in the past five years, Mehserle is the only cop to be charged with murder while on duty. But the cops are pulling out all the stops to avoid a conviction. With a starkly racist argument, Mesherle's lawyer has succeeded in getting hte trial moved out of Oakland--to Los Angeles.
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 16222
Oakland, CA 94610
(510) 763-2347
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Four years ago activists around the world were mobilizing and organizing against the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. We need to continue that fight today.
Fourth Annual Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Summit
MOBILIZING THE MOVEMENT FOR JUSICE
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13TH, 3:00-6:00 P.M.
MERRITT COLLEGE
Huey P. Newton/Bobby Seale Student Lounge
12500 Campus Drive, Oakland
For directions go to www.merritt.edu
For more information: 510-235-9780
KEVIN COOPER, TROY DAVIS, MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: THREE INNOCENT MEN ON DEATH ROW
Featuring:
Angela Davis, author and activist.
Barbara Becnel, co-author and friend of Stanley Tookie Williams
Martina Correia, sister of Troy Davis
Release of report, "What's Really Happening on California's Death Row?"
Messages from "The Three Innocent Men"
Sneak Preview, "The Justice Chronicles," dramatic presentation of prison writings
Memorial Movie, for Oscar Grant III
Sponsors:
Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network; Campaign to End the Death Penalty; Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, African American Studies Department, Merritt College
URGENT -- THIS JUST IN -- KEVIN COOPER'S APPEAL DENIED!
Dear supporters,
The news just broke that the U.S. Supreme Court denied Kevin Cooper's appeal. Below is an LA Times story.
This is very bad news. But it is important that we do not give up hope - we need to continue the fight! California won't be able to set an execution date at the present time because of the ongoing lethal injection legal challenges in the state. This means we need to use this window to educate people about Kevin's case, expose the racism and
injustice, and grow our movement for real justice for Kevin Cooper - to free Kevin Cooper.
We will be sending out more updates and stories soon, and plans for how you can help. In the meantime, feel free to call or e-mail with any questions or ideas.
Crystal Bybee
Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
510-333-7966
crystal@nodeathpenalty.org
www.savekevincooper.org
Supreme Court rejects appeal from California death row inmate convicted of killing 4
By Associated Press
November 30, 2009
latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-us-supreme-court-cooper-execution,0,6189324.story
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a California death row inmate who was convicted in the gruesome murders of four people in 1983.
The justices said Monday they would not review an appeals court ruling that upheld the murder conviction and death sentence of Kevin Cooper.
Cooper came within a few hours of execution in 2004 before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in to order genetic testing on a hair and a bloody shirt found at the murder scene that Cooper said would prove he was not the killer.
The San Francisco-based appeals court later backed a district judge's ruling that the test results did not show Cooper's innocence.
Cooper, who has long maintained his innocence, had escaped from a California state prison. He was convicted of the murders of Douglas and Peggy Ryen, both 41, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and Christopher Hughes, her friend. They were stabbed and hacked repeatedly with a hatchet and buck knife. Joshua Ryen, then 8, survived a slit throat.
Cooper claimed a trio of murderers committed the attacks and said the DNA tests would exonerate him.
Prosecutors persuaded a jury of Cooper's guilt, but the investigation was plagued with problems.
Judge M. Margaret McKeown agreed with the outcome in the 9th Circuit, but noted that important evidence in Cooper's case was "lost, destroyed or left unpursued." That included blood-covered overalls that a detective threw away and a missing bloody T-shirt.
"The forensic evidence in this case is critical and yet was compromised," she wrote. "These facts are all the more troubling because Cooper's life is at stake."
McKeown also said the criminologist in charge of the evidence turned out to be a heroin addict who was later fired for stealing drugs seized by the police.
"The result is wholly discomforting," she wrote. "But one that the law demands."
The case is Cooper v. Wong, 09-363.
LETTER FROM KEVIN COOPER'S ATTORNEY:
Kevin Cooper's Attorneys Will Continue Fight To Stop Execution Of Innocent Man
Contacts: Norman Hile (916) 329-7900
John Pitts 202-339-8605
Contacts: Norman Hile (916) 329-7900
John Pitts 202-339-8605
To learn more about Kevin Cooper's case, including the unprecedented 103-page dissent
by five federal judges, go to: http://www.savekevincooper.org/
After U.S. Supreme Court Refuses To Consider Appeal, Additional Witnesses With
Information To Save Cooper's Life Should Come Forward
Attorneys Urge U.S. Attorney General Holder To Investigate Civil Rights Violations
Washington, D.C. -- Kevin Cooper's attorneys said today they would continue to
fight to prevent his execution, notwithstanding the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to
consider Cooper's appeal.
"Evidence that we discovered after trial shows that Kevin is innocent of the crime
for which he is now sentenced to die. We urge any and all witnesses with information
about Kevin's case to come forward," said Norman Hile, Cooper's lead attorney and a
partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. "Time is running out. Many witnesses
have come forward with helpful evidence, but we now need more. Anyone with
information about this case should examine their conscience and ask whether they are
willing to let their silence contribute to the execution of a man for crimes he did not
commit."
Cooper's case was on appeal from a U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threejudge
panel decision denying his habeas corpus petition. At least eleven judges on the
Ninth Circuit voted in favor of giving Mr. Cooper a further hearing on his claims of
innocence and evidence-tampering, noting that "a full and fair evidentiary hearing
would have given us confidence that Cooper received his due opportunity to prove the
innocence he has insisted upon since his arrest." An unprecedented 103-page dissent
signed by five of those judges warned that "the State of California may be about to
execute an innocent man."
Cooper's habeas petition was based on new evidence that his attorneys and
investigators discovered while working at the Northern California Innocence Project's
request. In the 103-page dissent pleading for a fair hearing for Mr. Cooper, the appellate judges identified multiple instances of police and prosecutorial misconduct, including:
--False testimony- Josh Ryen, the only eyewitness to the murders and the
victims' 8-year old son, initially told the police that three white men killed
his family. According to the dissent, after the police arrested Cooper, who
is black, "[d]eputies misrepresented [Josh's] recollections and gradually
shaped his testimony so that it was consistent with the prosecution's
theory that there was only one killer."
--Destruction of evidence and lying at trial- A witness told the police that
her boyfriend, a white supremacist gang member and convicted murderer,
came to her house covered in blood on the night of the murders. She
turned a pair of his blood-spattered coveralls over to the sheriff as
evidence. The sheriff discarded the coveralls without testing the blood
stains and did not tell Cooper's defense lawyer about this evidence until
the middle of his preliminary hearing. This witness is now dead and
unable to testify to Cooper's innocence. At trial, the sheriff's deputy who
discarded the coveralls testified he did so without sheriff-department
approval, testimony that has recently been shown to be a lie. As the five
federal judges wrote, "a responsible officer . . . deliberately destroyed
material evidence that should have been provided to Cooper."
--Undisclosed exculpatory evidence: The prosecution retrieved a blue
shirt with blood on it near the crime scene a few days after the crimes but
never disclosed this to Cooper's defense. "The prosecution committed a .
. . violation by not making the blue shirt available to Cooper's attorneys."
What's worse, "the prosecution committed a . . . violation in not turning
over a copy of the [sheriff's] daily logs that recorded the discovery of the
blue shirt."
--Planting false evidence- Prosecution lab tests of a second bloody shirt
showed "an extremely high level of EDTA in the sample that was
supposed to contain Cooper's blood." According to five federal judges,
"[i]f that test result was valid, it showed that Cooper's blood had been
planted on the t-shirt, just as Cooper maintained."
--Falsified lab reports- A drop of blood was taken from the crime scene,
labeled "A-41," and tested by police criminologist Daniel Gregonis.
According to five federal judges, "[w]hen the results of Gregonis's tests
on A-41 were initially inconsistent with . . . a known sample of Cooper's
blood, Gregonis altered his lab notes and claimed that he had
misrepresented his results."
--Presenting false evidence- Trying to tie Cooper to the crime scene,
prosecutors presented evidence that has now been shown to be false: that
only prison-issue shoes could have made footprints at the crime scene. As
five federal judges found, these shoes "were, contrary to testimony at trial,
available (though not in large quantities) at retail stores in the United
States."
Despite these constitutional violations which have prevented Cooper from ever
receiving a fair hearing, Cooper now faces execution. Hile called on U.S. Attorney
General Eric Holder to investigate Cooper's case and the local prosecutorial and police
misconduct. "Multiple witnesses have provided testimony suggesting that the police
planted evidence against Kevin Cooper and destroyed evidence that demonstrated his
innocence, and that local prosecutors violated Kevin Cooper's Constitutional rights," Mr. Hile said. "We need a federal investigation to get to the bottom of this and stop the killing of an innocent man."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!
FREE PALESTINE!
San Francisco March and Rally
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
11am, Civic Center Plaza
National March on Washington
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
Fri., March 19 Day of Action & Outreach in D.C.
People from all over the country are organizing to converge on Washington, D.C., to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan and Iraq.
On Saturday, March 20, 2010, there will be a massive National March & Rally in D.C. A day of action and outreach in Washington, D.C., will take place on Friday, March 19, preceding the Saturday march.
There will be coinciding mass marches on March 20 in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The national actions are initiated by a large number of organizations and prominent individuals. (see below)
Click here to become an endorser:
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=5940&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&autologin=true&link=endorse-body-1
Click here to make a donation:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=2302&autologin=true&donate=body-1&JServSessionIdr002=2yzk5fh8x2.app13b
We will march together to say "No Colonial-type Wars and Occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine!" We will march together to say "No War Against Iran!" We will march together to say "No War for Empire Anywhere!"
Instead of war, we will demand funds so that every person can have a job, free and universal health care, decent schools, and affordable housing.
March 20 is the seventh anniversary of the criminal war of aggression launched by Bush and Cheney against Iraq. One million or more Iraqis have died. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have lost their lives or been maimed, and continue to suffer a whole host of enduring problems from this terrible war.
This is the time for united action. The slogans on banners may differ, but all those who carry them should be marching shoulder to shoulder.
Killing and dying to avoid the perception of defeat
Bush is gone, but the war and occupation in Iraq still go on. The Pentagon is demanding a widening of the war in Afghanistan. They project an endless war with shifting battlefields. And a "single-payer" war budget that only grows larger and larger each year. We must act.
Both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were predicated on the imperial fantasy that the U.S. could create stable, proxy colonial-type governments in both countries. They were to serve as an extension of "American" power in these strategic and resource-rich regions.
That fantasy has been destroyed. Now U.S. troops are being sent to kill or be killed so that the politicians in uniform ("the generals and admirals") and those in three-piece suits ("our elected officials") can avoid taking responsibility for a military setback in wars that should have never been started. Their military ambitions are now reduced to avoiding the appearance of defeat.
That is exactly what happened in Vietnam! Avoiding defeat, or the perception of defeat, was the goal Nixon and Kissinger set for themselves when they took office in 1969. For this noble cause, another 30,000 young GIs perished before the inevitable troop pullout from Vietnam in 1973. The number of Vietnamese killed between 1969 and 1973 was greater by many hundreds of thousands.
All of us can make the difference - progress and change comes from the streets and from the grassroots.
The people went to the polls in 2008, and the enthusiasm and desire for change after eight years of the Bush regime was the dominant cause that led to election of a big Democratic Party majority in both Houses of Congress and the election of Barack Obama to the White House.
But it should now be obvious to all that waiting for politicians to bring real change - on any front - is simply a prescription for passivity by progressives and an invitation to the array of corporate interests from military contractors to the banks, to big oil, to the health insurance giants that dominate the political life of the country. These corporate interests work around the clock to frustrate efforts for real change, and they are the guiding hand behind the recent street mobilizations of the ultra-right.
It is up to us to act. If people had waited for politicians to do the right thing, there would have never been a Civil Rights Act, or unions, women's rights, an end to the Vietnam war or any of the profound social achievements and basic rights that people cherish.
It is time to be back in the streets. Organizing centers are being set up in cities and towns throughout the country.
We must raise $50,000 immediately just to get started. Please make your contribution today. We need to reserve buses, which are expensive ($1,800 from NYC, $5,000 from Chicago, etc.). We have to print 100,000 leaflets, posters and stickers. There will be other substantial expenses as March 20 draws closer.
Please become an endorser and active supporter of the March 20 National March on Washington.
Please make an urgently needed tax-deductible donation today. We can't do this without your active support.
The initiators of the March 20 National March on Washington (preceded by the March 19 Day of Action and Outreach in D.C.) include: the ANSWER Coalition; Muslim American Society Freedom; National Council of Arab Americans; Cynthia McKinney; Malik Rahim, co-founder of Common Ground Collective; Ramsey Clark; Cindy Sheehan; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK; Deborah Sweet, Director, World Can't Wait; Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild; Ron Kovic, author of "Born on the 4th of July"; Juan Jose Gutierrez, Director, Latino Movement USA; Col. Ann Wright (ret.); March Forward!; Partnership for Civil Justice; Palestinian American Women Association; Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines; Alliance for Global Justice; Claudia de la Cruz, Pastor, Iglesia San Romero de Las Americas-UCC; Phil Portluck, Social Justice Ministry, Covenant Baptist Church, D.C.; Blase & Theresa Bonpane, Office of the Americas; Coalition for Peace and Democracy in Honduras; Comite Pro-Democracia en Mexico; Frente Unido de los Pueblos Americanos; Comites de Base FMLN, Los Angeles; Free Palestine Alliance; GABRIELA Network; Justice for Filipino American Veterans; KmB Pro-People Youth; Students Fight Back; Jim Lafferty, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild - LA Chapter; LEF Foundation; National Coalition to Free the Angola 3; Community Futures Collective; Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival; Companeros del Barrio; Barrio Unido for Full and Unconditional Amnesty, Bay Area United Against War.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The US Social Forum II
• June 22-26, 2010 •
Detroit, Michigan, USA
Another World Is Possible! Another US is Necessary!
http://www.ussf2010.org/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FREE LYNNE STEWART NOW!
Lynne Stewart in Jail!
For further information contact: Jeff Mackler, Coordinator, West Coast Lynne Stewart Defense Committee 510-268-9429 jmackler@lmi.net
Mail tax free contributions payable to National Lawyers Guild Foundation. Write in memo box: "Lynne Stewart Defense." Mail to: Lynne Stewart Defense, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.
SEND RESOLUTIONS AND STATEMENTS OF SUPPORT TO DEFENSE ATTORNEY JOSHUA L. DRATEL, ESQ. FAX: (212) 571 3792 AND EMAIL: jdratel@aol.com
SEND PROTESTS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Department of Justice Main Switchboard - 202-514-2000
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line - 202-353-1555
To send Lynne a letter, write:
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY NY 10007
Lynne Stewart speaks in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOQ5_VKRf5k&feature=related
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The trial of Johannes Mehserle, killer of unarmed Oscar Grant, has been moved to Los Angeles.
In the case of an innocent verdict, folks are encouraged to head to Oakland City Hall ASAP to express our outrage in a massive and peaceful way! Our power is in our numbers! Oscar Grant's family and friends need our support!
For more information:
Contact BAMN at 510-502-9072
letters@bamn.com
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
URGENT! Dhoruba Bin Wahad and Naji Mujahid detained at Israeli checkpoint
http://www.indybay.org/ newsitems/2009/11/25/18630531. php
Please help us spread the word. Dhoruba bin-Wahad (a former Black Panther political prisoner) and Naji Fenwick have been prevented from entering Palestine (11-23-09). They were going to attend a political Prisoner conference. They are asking for our support by contacting the US Embassy and anyone else we can think of that can help. Below is a sample letter for sending an email to the US Embassy in Amman, Jordan
MESSAGE FROM DHORUBA BIN WAHAD:
Greetings:
What obviously began as racial profiling, ended up as an Israeli
attempt to conceal their treatment of Palestinian Detainees from the
African-American community. As a former political prisoner, and
international activist concerned with human rights and civil
liberties, I along with Naji Mujahid, a DC based college student and
videographer, were invited to an international conference on Political
Detainees in the occupied Territories sponsored by the Palestinian
Authority. Unlike most international representatives attending the
conference, who were white and could therefore avoid pre-emptive
scrutiny for entering the occupied territory, I could not (and would
not) enter a country on disingenuous grounds. It is one thing to be
cooperative with officials while traveling, quite another to be
detained and interrogated like a common criminal about your religious
beliefs, personal associations, and family relations with no apparent
objective other than to find some excuse to ban you from entry into a
country that is under international censure for its treatment of an
entire people, the Palestinians.
When I was asked by the Political Prisoner support group Jericho to
answer the Palestinian invitation to the Conference On the Palestinian
Political Detainees in Israeli jails, I accepted. I also was asked by
"Still Here Harlem Productions" to cover the conference because the
African-American community know very little about the middle east.
This lack of knowledge is not coincidental. Many Black elected
officials in America have succumbed to the influence and financial
subsidies of the Israeli lobby, and are fearful for their political
careers should they oppose the racist practices of the Israeli
government toward peoples of color in general and the Palestinian
people in particular. African-Americans have no advocates on capital
hill who will demand their fair treatment while traveling abroad,
except where the governments in question are critical of U.S. foreign
policies. For these reason I undertook the task of reporting the
Conference on Palestinian Detainees.
SAMPLE LETTER BELOW:
----------------------------
DATE:
To Ambassador Robert Beecroft, et al.:
Yesterday, 11-23-09, two American citizens, Dhoruba Bin Wahad and William Fenwick were denied entry into Israel at the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge. After being singled out of a crowd of people that arrived via bus to cross the border, they were kept there for approximately 11hrs (most of those hours they were held incommunicado) and subjected to several searches of their persons and luggage (including strip searches) and questioned extensively; many of the questions were completely irrelevant to legitimate security concerns. Finally, they were told they were being refused entry for "security reasons". Before leaving, they were photographed and fingerprinted and their passports were stamped three times (once stamp that oddly granted them access and two stamps that denied access).
The nature of their business in Jericho, was upon invitation by the Palestinian Authority to attend/participate/document a conference on Palestinian Political Prisoners and Detainees in Israel. The official title of the conference is "The International Conference on Prisoners and Detainees in Israeli Prisons" and it features a keynote address by PA President Mahmoud Abbas. It should be noted that EVERY conference attendee that arrived for the conference through Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv were allowed access into the Territory. This is a blatant disregard for the right of tax-paying American citizens to travel (ironically, millions of those tax dollars go to subsidize the Israeli security apparatus) and International Law that supports freedom of movement and travel. Moreover, it is and a denial of their 1st Amendment rights; Israel is supposed to be a US ally.
Finally, considering the nature of how this encounter between Fenwick and Bin Wahad and the Israeli security began, it looks strikingly familiar to what the United States would consider to be racial profiling. The US consulate has a duty to secure for its citizens the same rights guaranteed at home while abroad and to protect them from arbitrary harassment and discrimination from foreign governments. Therefore, we urge you to express emphatic dismay and disappointment that the only, purportedly, "democratic nation" in the Middle East curtails the free flow of information and ideas, particularly regarding the treatment of the Palestinian people.
Respectfully yours,
John Q. Citizen
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The Tar Sands Blow
Hi -
I just signed the Tar Sands Blow petition -- and I hope you'll do the same.
The Canadian tar sands produce the dirtiest oil on earth -- including five times the greenhouse gases of conventional oil. World leaders meet next month in Copenhagen to deal with climate change. Sign the petition -- so that we all don't get a raw deal.
http://ien.thetarsandsblow.org/
The Story of Mouseland: As told by Tommy Douglas in 1944
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqgOvzUeiAA
The Communist Manifesto illustrated by Cartoons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KUl4yfABE4
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Holiday gifts from Courage to Resist
www.couragetoresist.org/orders
Free and fast 2-3 day priority shipping!*
Please place your order this week to ensure holiday delivery.
Support mom still facing Afghanistan deployment, court martial
By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist. November 16, 2009
"I currently don't have a family care plan, but they told me they did not
care and for me to get ready to go to Afghanistan," explained Oakland,
California native Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a 21-year-old soldier based at
Hunter Army Airfield outside of Savannah, Georgia.
As I spoke to Alexis on the phone, I believed if I found her a civilian
lawyer to work with the military, a reasonable resolution would be quickly
found. Unlike most service members Courage to Resist assists, Alexis was not
refusing to deploy. She was not looking to speak out against war. She was
simply asking for more time to find someone to care for her 11-month old son
Kamani. Within a few days, however, the Army had tossed Alexis in the
stockade and turned Kamani over to the Chatham County (Georgia) foster care
system.
Read more...
http://couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/792/1/
Please make a tax-deductible donation to Alexis' legal and family support
fund.
http://couragetoresist.org/alexis
Details:
Courage to Resist Urgent Action Alert
Army sends infant to protective services, mom to Afghanistan this weekend
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/789/1/
Army has mom, Alexis Hutchinson, arrested and 11-month old son put into county foster care system. Alexis has now been ordered to deploy to Afghanistan on Sunday, November 15, where she will be court martialed.
Action Alert: Contact Congresswoman Barbara Lee to urge her to "Request that the Army not deploy Alexis Hutchinson to Afghanistan so that she can care for her son." From the 9th District (Oakland-Berkeley, CA) phone: 510-763-0370 (fax: 510-763-6538). Nationwide: 202- 225-2661 (fax: 202-225-9817).
Donate to Alexis' legal and family support fund (couragetoresist.org/alexis)
Alexis' attorney now available for media interviews.
By friends of Alexis and Courage to Resist. November 12, 2009
Also in the news:
Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan
by Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service. November 13, 2009
Online version with possible updates
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/789/1/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
HANDS OFF JUANITA YOUNG!
Statement from the NY October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality
http://www.petitiononline.com/JYoungNY/petition.html
Soon after 6:00am on October 27th, five cops raided the house of Juanita Young, the mother of Malcolm Ferguson who was gunned down by a plainclothes cop in 2000. They threatened to break down her door, tried to climb in through her bathroom window, put a gun in Juanita's face and took away her son, Buddy. The cops justified their outrageous and illegal behavior by citing a warrant, refusing to identify who or what the warrant was for. Later it was claimed that the warrant was for Buddy failing to appear in court for a Desk Appearance Ticket on October 13th, just two weeks earlier. This made it clear that it was both an unusually quick response and out of the ordinary violence for this offense.
This is not the first time cops have run roughshod over the rights of Juanita and her family. Juanita Young has been an outspoken opponent of police brutality, fighting for justice not only for her son Malcolm, but for all victims of police brutality. This has made her a target of persistent persecution by the police:
--June 2003: During an illegal eviction carried out by the NYPD, Juanita was arrested for trespassing in her own home. She was handcuffed and aggressively pushed out of her apartment and building, falling twice and injuring her arm. In October 2007, a Bronx civil jury determined that the arresting officer used excessive force in her arrest.
--November 2005: After voicing her disapproval of a brutal arrest at a demonstration, Juanita was arrested after a commanding officer said, "Get her, too." She was refused medical attention that she needed due to an asthma attack. Young was hospitalized for three days and faced criminal charges, but before the date of her arraignment, she received notice in the mail that the charges were dropped.
--November 2006: Juanita was arrested after more than 8 cops entered her apartment during an ambulance call for her daughter. The cops jumped her, punched and kicked her. She was taken to the hospital, where she was handcuffed to the bed and tortured by police for four days, only to be handed a ticket on the last day an hour after a press conference about her attack took place. In October 2008, a Bronx jury acquitted Young of all charges.
--August 2009: During a cookout in front of Juanita's building, over a dozen cops broke down the front door, slammed her oldest son up behind the door, and beat him on the head. The cops also arrested her daughters. This was another attempt to intimidate Juanita Young - through striking out at her loved ones - in hopes of silencing this powerful voice against police brutality.
All these attacks are outrageous, illegitimate and illegal. We say: HANDS OFF JUANITA YOUNG! The NYPD must stop this intimidation and harassment of Juanita and her family. Speaking out against police brutality is no crime. But targeting someone in retaliation for speaking out is illegal.
From Juanita Young's statement to supporters:
"Not only have my rights been violated in the most blatant ways, but I feel physically and psychologically terrorized. I fear for my safety, my very life, and the lives of my children and grandchildren." (October 29, 2009)
We refuse to allow Juanita Young, this fighter against police brutality and injustice, to stand alone against this onslaught.
We demand:
1: The NYPD stop its persecution of Juanita Young!
2: Bronx DA Robert Johnson investigate the role of the 43rd Precinct in this persecution.
3: An investigation of the Warrant Squad and how they were charged, and how they went about, in serving the warrant at Juanita Young's house on October 27th.
Sign Petition Here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/JYoungNY/petition.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
VIDEO INTERVIEW: Dan Berger on Political Prisoners in the United States
By Angola 3 News
Angola 3 News
37 years ago in Louisiana, 3 young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola. In 1972 and 1973 prison officials charged Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King with murders they did not commit and threw them into 6x9 ft. cells in solitary confinement, for over 36 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
http://angola3news.blogspot.com/2009/09/video-dan-berger-on-political-prisoners.html
Taking Aim Radio Program with
Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone
The Chimera of Capitalist Recovery, Parts 1 and 2
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
JROTC MUST GO!
The San Francisco Board of Education has re-installed the Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps in San Francisco schools -- including allowing it to count for Physical Education credits.
This is a complete reversal of the 2006 decision to end JROTC altogether in San Francisco public schools. Our children need a good physical education program, not a death education program!
With the economy in crisis; jobs and higher education for youth more unattainable; the lure, lies and false promises of military recruiters is driving more and more of our children into the military trap.
This is an economic draft and the San Francisco Board of Education is helping to snare our children to provide cannon fodder for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and for over 700 U.S. military bases around the world!
We can't depend upon "friendly politicians" who, while they are campaigning for office claim they are against the wars but when they get elected vote in favor of military recruitment--the economic draft--in our schools. We can't depend upon them. That has been proven beyond doubt!
It is up to all of us to come together to stop this NOW!
GET JROTC AND ALL MILITARY RECRUITERS OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS NOW!
Write, call, pester and ORGANIZE against the re-institution of JROTC in our San Francisco public schools NOW!
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
San Francisco Board of Education
555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
415/241-6427, (415) 241-6493
cascoe@sfusd.edu
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
HELP VFP PUT THIS BOOK IN YOUR HIGH SCHOOL OR PUBLIC LIBRARY
For a donation of only $18.95, we can put a copy of the book "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military" into a public or high school library of your choice. [Reason number 1: You may be killed]
A letter and bookplate will let readers know that your donation helped make this possible.
Putting a book in either a public or school library ensures that students, parents, and members of the community will have this valuable information when they need it.
Don't have a library you would like us to put it in? We'll find one for you!
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/826/t/9311/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=4906
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Urgent: Ahmad Sa'adat transferred to isolation in Ramon prison!
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) The Jobs Imperative
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NYT Op-Ed Columnist
November 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/opinion/30krugman.html
2) City's Schools Share Their Space, and Bitterness
By JENNIFER MEDINA
November 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/education/30space.html?hp
3) For Forest Kindergartners, Class Is Back to Nature, Rain or Shine
By LIZ LEYDEN
November 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/nyregion/30forest.html?ref=education
4) Blogger Accused of Threatening U.S. Judges Was Reportedly Paid by F.B.I.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/nyregion/30blogger.html?ref=business
5) In Support of Abortion, It's Personal vs. Political
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: November 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/weekinreview/29stolberg.html?ref=health
6) Tiger Woods Deserves Your Scrutiny
By Dave Zirin
November 30, 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/tiger-woods-deserves-your_b_374029.html
7) New Push on Mortgage Relief
Treasury Seeks to Increase Permanent Modifications; Borrowers Fault Companies
By RUTH SIMON
November 30, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125952206832568569.html#printMode
9) Obama Sets Faster Troop Deployment to Afghanistan
By DAVID E. SANGER and PETER BAKER
December 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/world/asia/02policy.html?hp
10) Cole Attack Trial Will Test Tribunal System
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01cole.html?hp
11) Oil Companies Look to the Future in Iraq
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/middleeast/01iraqoil.html?ref=world
12) Fate of Ousted Leader Clouds Election Result in Honduras
By ELISABETH MALKIN
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/americas/01honduras.html?ref=world
13) Britain to Send 500 More Troops to Afghanistan
By JOHN F. BURNS
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/europe/01britain.html?ref=world
14) In Job Hunt, College Degree Can't Close Racial Gap
By MICHAEL LUO
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01race.html?ref=us
15) Supreme Court Overturns Decision on Detainee Photos
By ADAM LIPTAK
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/politics/01scotus.html?ref=us
16) California: Inmate's Appeal Is Rejected
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
National Briefing | West
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01brfs-INMATESAPPEA_BRF.html?ref=us
17) Kentucky: Conviction Is Challenged
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01brfs-CONVICTIONIS_BRF.html?ref=us
18) A Conversation With Laurence Steinberg
Developmental Psychologist Says Teenagers Are Different
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01conv.html?ref=education
19) A Familiar Fall
The Dubai Disaster
By AFSHIN RATTANSI
December 1, 2009
http://www.counterpunch.com/rattansi12012009.html
The real story about Dubai
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/740.html
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) The Jobs Imperative
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NYT Op-Ed Columnist
November 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/opinion/30krugman.html
If you're looking for a job right now, your prospects are terrible. There are six times as many Americans seeking work as there are job openings, and the average duration of unemployment - the time the average job-seeker has spent looking for work - is more than six months, the highest level since the 1930s.
You might think, then, that doing something about the employment situation would be a top policy priority. But now that total financial collapse has been averted, all the urgency seems to have vanished from policy discussion, replaced by a strange passivity. There's a pervasive sense in Washington that nothing more can or should be done, that we should just wait for the economic recovery to trickle down to workers.
This is wrong and unacceptable.
Yes, the recession is probably over in a technical sense, but that doesn't mean that full employment is just around the corner. Historically, financial crises have typically been followed not just by severe recessions but by anemic recoveries; it's usually years before unemployment declines to anything like normal levels. And all indications are that the aftermath of the latest financial crisis is following the usual script. The Federal Reserve, for example, expects unemployment, currently 10.2 percent, to stay above 8 percent - a number that would have been considered disastrous not long ago - until sometime in 2012.
And the damage from sustained high unemployment will last much longer. The long-term unemployed can lose their skills, and even when the economy recovers they tend to have difficulty finding a job, because they're regarded as poor risks by potential employers. Meanwhile, students who graduate into a poor labor market start their careers at a huge disadvantage - and pay a price in lower earnings for their whole working lives. Failure to act on unemployment isn't just cruel, it's short-sighted.
So it's time for an emergency jobs program.
How is a jobs program different from a second stimulus? It's a matter of priorities. The 2009 Obama stimulus bill was focused on restoring economic growth. It was, in effect, based on the belief that if you build G.D.P., the jobs will come. That strategy might have worked if the stimulus had been big enough - but it wasn't. And as a matter of political reality, it's hard to see how the administration could pass a second stimulus big enough to make up for the original shortfall.
So our best hope now is for a somewhat cheaper program that generates more jobs for the buck. Such a program should shy away from measures, like general tax cuts, that at best lead only indirectly to job creation, with many possible disconnects along the way. Instead, it should consist of measures that more or less directly save or add jobs.
One such measure would be another round of aid to beleaguered state and local governments, which have seen their tax receipts plunge and which, unlike the federal government, can't borrow to cover a temporary shortfall. More aid would help avoid both a drastic worsening of public services (especially education) and the elimination of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Meanwhile, the federal government could provide jobs by ... providing jobs. It's time for at least a small-scale version of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration, one that would offer relatively low-paying (but much better than nothing) public-service employment. There would be accusations that the government was creating make-work jobs, but the W.P.A. left many solid achievements in its wake. And the key point is that direct public employment can create a lot of jobs at relatively low cost. In a proposal to be released today, the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, argues that spending $40 billion a year for three years on public-service employment would create a million jobs, which sounds about right.
Finally, we can offer businesses direct incentives for employment. It's probably too late for a job-conserving program, like the highly successful subsidy Germany offered to employers who maintained their work forces. But employers could be encouraged to add workers as the economy expands. The Economic Policy Institute proposes a tax credit for employers who increase their payrolls, which is certainly worth trying.
All of this would cost money, probably several hundred billion dollars, and raise the budget deficit in the short run. But this has to be weighed against the high cost of inaction in the face of a social and economic emergency.
Later this week, President Obama will hold a "jobs summit." Most of the people I talk to are cynical about the event, and expect the administration to offer no more than symbolic gestures. But it doesn't have to be that way. Yes, we can create more jobs - and yes, we should.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) City's Schools Share Their Space, and Bitterness
By JENNIFER MEDINA
November 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/education/30space.html?hp
Suzanne Tecza had spent a year redesigning the library at Middle School 126 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, including colorful new furniture and elaborate murals of leafy trees. So when her principal decided this year to give the space to the charter high schools that share the building, Ms. Tecza was furious.
"It's not fair to our students," she said of the decision, which gives the charter students access to the room for most of the day. "It's depriving them of a fully functioning library, something they deserve."
In Red Hook, Brooklyn, teachers at Public School 15 said they avoid walking their students past rooms being used by the PAVE Academy Charter School, fearing that they will envy those students for their sparkling-clean classrooms and computers. On the Lower East Side, the Girls Preparatory Charter School was forced to turn away 50 students it had hoped to accept because it was unable to find more room in the Public School 188 building.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has made charter schools one of his third-term priorities, and that means that in New York, battles and resentment over space - already a way of life - will become even more common. He and his schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, have allowed nearly two-thirds of the city's 99 charter schools to move into public school buildings, officials expect two dozen charter schools to open next fall, and the mayor has said he will push the Legislature to allow him to add 100 more in the next four years.
In Harlem, parents have chafed and picketed against an expanding charter school network, the Harlem Success Academy, which is housed in several public schools. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, a plan to close a failing elementary school and let a charter take over the building was shelved after a lawsuit. At P.S. 15, teachers and parents were furious about plans for PAVE to expand next year, after having been told the school would be gone by the end of this academic year. Several hundred parents filled a middle school auditorium in Marine Park, Brooklyn, in the spring to rail against a proposal to house the new Hebrew Language Academy there. The school eventually found a home in a yeshiva.
Charter schools, privately run but publicly financed, are generally nonunion, freeing them from labor restrictions. They have gained traction with their promise of innovative teaching methods and more flexible work rules for teachers. Arne Duncan, President Obama's education secretary, has told states that they must remove impediments to charter schools as a condition of winning so-called Race to the Top grants.
In New York, as in most states, charter schools receive no money for construction, forcing them to raise millions on their own - or find a willing host. In other cities, where charters are only begrudgingly accepted by public school officials, tensions between public and charter schools sharing a building would be unheard of, because the charters are forced to find their own homes.
But Mr. Bloomberg has embraced them. In his speech last week on his third-term education goals, Mr. Bloomberg called on the Legislature to lift the state's limit on charter schools. He also called on Albany to provide money for charter school facilities, even threatening to sue the state if it did not.
In the meantime, Mr. Klein has aggressively eased the way for charter schools, citing their popularity - most have far more applicants than seats. "There are so many talented people out there, and I want them to come to New York," Mr. Klein said in an interview. "Why would we want to put up barriers to that?"
Todd Ziebarth, the vice president of policy for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, called support like Mr. Klein's "extremely rare."
"In starting a new school, you are also launching a small business," Mr. Ziebarth said. "Space is the most difficult and challenging thing to think about and figure out."
Despite its constraints, Girls Prep is eager to expand, so city officials are proposing to move it or a small special education program into another building, possibly P.S. 20 or P.S. 184, the dual-language Shuang Wen School.
This month, more than 500 people packed into the P.S. 20 auditorium on the Lower East Side to complain about the proposals. Hundreds of parents rallied outside, shouting "Save our school!" over the buzz of traffic on Essex Street.
None of the schools, it seemed, had the more than 20 classrooms that Girls Prep needed. "Nobody wants to give up the space we have fought so hard for," said Ann Lupardi, a Shuang Wen parent. "These are science labs and art rooms that we helped find the money to get because we think they are essential."
Miriam Lewis Raccah, who oversees Girls Prep, said charter operators are not looking for fights but are enthusiastically trying to create successful schools in areas that have lagged for years.
"Nobody wants to give up a school that's part of a neighborhood's identity," she said. "The reality is that there is still a need for better schools, and the question is: Where are we going to go? It's not as if we're creating new kids."
Officials estimate that over all, the city's schools are 80 percent full. But figures vary widely school to school, with some bursting while others have as many as a dozen classrooms not being used for teaching. Even determining how many rooms are free is contentious - most schools use open space for activities like dance, tutoring and computers - but Education Department officials often treat those rooms as "underutilized space" to allow another school to come in.
Schools that share space often have other tensions just below the surface. In some cases, as in Brownsville and Harlem, the regular public school has not performed well and has seen enrollments shrink while parents flock to the charter on the other side of the building. Charter schools that have had success raising private donations have new desks and computers to show for it. And most charter school teaching staffs are not unionized, giving them vastly different work rules and pay scales.
Sometimes life inside the schools simply resembles life in New York City, with mismatched neighbors learning to tolerate each other. In the P.S. 16 building in Williamsburg, the public elementary school uses the gym most of the day while Williamsburg Collegiate, a charter middle school in the building, waits until the late afternoon. And when the charter school expanded to ninth grade this year, there was little fuss, just a move into four more classrooms.
At M.S. 126, despite the librarian's dismay, the principal, Rosemary Ochoa, has worked out what she considers a viable plan with the Williamsburg Charter High School and its two small spinoffs, which also occupy the building. The charters get the library for most of the day, and Ms. Tecza is expected to travel to individual classrooms to teach the public students library skills.
In Red Hook, Spencer Robertson, PAVE's founder, said he expected to stay in P.S. 15 for two more years because his plans for a new building fell through. He said that while community meetings about the school have often erupted in shouts, "they've been a very good neighbor in general, and we don't even know there's a conflict most days."
"But the issue of space really plays on that emotional level," he said. "Everything is about 'they are taking your space' even if it's not clear who 'they' are."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) For Forest Kindergartners, Class Is Back to Nature, Rain or Shine
By LIZ LEYDEN
November 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/nyregion/30forest.html?ref=education
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Fat, cold droplets splashed from the sky as the students struggled into their uniforms: rain pants, boots, mittens and hats. Once buttoned and bundled, they scattered toward favorite spaces: a crab apple tree made for climbing, a cluster of bushes forming a secret nook under a willow tree, a sandbox growing muddier by the minute.
They planted garlic bulbs, discovered a worm. The rain continued to fall. It was 8:30 a.m. on a recent Wednesday, and the Waldorf School's "forest kindergarten" was officially in session.
Schools around the country have been planting gardens and planning ever more elaborate field trips in hopes of reconnecting children with nature. The forest kindergarten at the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs is one of a handful in the United States that are taking that concept to another level: its 23 pupils, ages 3 1/2 to 6, spend three hours each day outside regardless of the weather. This in a place where winter is marked by snowdrifts and temperatures that regularly dip below freezing.
The new forest kindergarten, which opened here in September, is an extreme version of the outdoor learning taught at more than 100 Waldorf schools, all but a handful of them private, scattered throughout the United States. They are based on the teachings of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner and emphasize the arts and the natural world, with no formal academic curriculum until first grade.
"I loved the idea of her being outside every day," said Kim Lytle, whose 3-year-old, aptly named Forest, is the youngest in the class. "If you have the proper gear, I think it's a really healthy thing to experience the elements and brave the world - and not just on a sunny day."
The children's "classroom" is 325 acres of state parkland known as the Hemlock Trail, and a long-empty farmhouse, which the state has licensed Waldorf to use for the year. The school also has regular indoor classes at its main building.
On this day in the fledgling program, whose tuition is about $7,000, the rain did not taper off, yet the kindergartners remained outside until lunch. Circle time - songs and dancing - took place in the center of a field, behind a farmhouse, followed by a snack of apples and pineapple chunks at picnic tables. The children cut bittersweet vine to make wreaths, splashed in puddles, and, in the sandbox, did some imaginary cooking.
"We're making something that's cheesy," said one girl.
"It's cookies," said a boy.
Max Perez, nearly 5, carried a bucket to the swampy edges of the field and scooped up some water. He and the others mixed the sand into gobs of glorious mud. After an hour, Max paused, peering out from his wet hat, and asked, "Is it raining today?"
In some ways, the program is not unlike other kindergartens. Signs declaring a peanut-free zone are taped throughout the farmhouse. There are bruised feelings and scuffles and potty jokes. But the biggest challenge is one not found in traditional classrooms: ticks, lots of them.
Though virtually unknown in the United States, forest kindergartens are increasingly common in Scandinavia and other European countries like Germany and Austria.
Sigrid D'Aleo and Carly Lynn, two Waldorf teachers, proposed adding one in Saratoga Springs because, over the years, they had seen students at their best when outdoors.
"Their large motor skills developed, they worked out their social issues in a better way, they had more imaginative play," Ms. D'Aleo said. "Children's senses are so overtaxed in these modern times, so here, it is very healthy for them."
Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods," a book arguing that children have suffered from diminished time outside, said he had heard similar things from educators around the country.
"It helps us use all our senses at the same time," he said. "It seems to be the optimum state of learning, when everything is coming at us in lots of different ways."
Alane Chinian, regional director of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said of the Waldorf school's use of the Hemlock Trail: "We are delighted to have them there. It expands our mission and furthers the park's goals of providing nature education to children."
Here in Saratoga Springs, the children crossed into the forest at midmorning, greeted by the rich smell of earth and leaves. A fallen branch had created an arch to climb through as if they were entering a hidden place straight out of a storybook.
Trails had been worn through the thickets. An old stone wall ran through the center of the trees toward huge tepees the children had built from sticks and vines.
Everywhere, there were things to discover. A branch balanced on a split tree trunk became a seesaw. A teacher sawed thick stumps into logs the children used to bridge bogs. A pit became a monster house, complete with boys standing in the rain shouting warnings: "You don't want to come over here! You'll get smushed!"
Piper Whalen, 5, turned toward her own treasure: an enormous fallen tree. She climbed on and lifted her arms. "I'm riding a roller coaster," she said. "Come on and ride with me."
The raindrops continued to fall until, finally, it poured, hard enough to splash though the canopy of trees. The children were delighted.
"It's wet!" exclaimed one.
"My hair is getting a drink of water!" another said.
Piper began to laugh. She stuck out her tongue and turned her face toward the sky.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Blogger Accused of Threatening U.S. Judges Was Reportedly Paid by F.B.I.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/nyregion/30blogger.html?ref=business
TRENTON (AP) - A New Jersey blogger about to stand trial on charges that he made death threats against federal judges was apparently paid by the F.B.I. in its battle against domestic terrorism, according to a published report.
The blogger, Hal Turner, received thousands of dollars from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to report on neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups and was sent undercover to Brazil, according to a report on Sunday by The Record of Bergen County.
Mr. Turner also claims the F.B.I. coached him to make racist, anti-Semitic and other threatening statements on his Internet radio show, but the newspaper also found that many federal officials were concerned that his audience might follow up on his violent speech.
The newspaper reviewed numerous government documents, e-mail messages, court records and almost 20 hours of jailhouse interviews with Turner.
Mr. Turner goes on trial Tuesday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, accused of making death threats against three federal appeals judges based in Chicago after saying in Internet postings in June that the judges "deserve to be killed" because they had refused to overturn handgun bans in Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park.
The postings included the photos and work addresses of the judges - Richard A. Posner, Frank H. Easterbrook and William J. Bauer - along with a picture of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago and notations indicating the placement of "bomb barriers."
Mr. Turner's F.B.I. connections began in 2003 with the Joint Terrorism Task Force based in Newark, and continued on and off until this year, according to the newspaper. He claims his postings and other inflammatory statements were part of an undercover operation to ferret out violent left-wing radicals.
His lawyer, Michael Orozco, has subpoenaed Christopher J. Christie, the former United States attorney for New Jersey and the state's governor-elect, to testify on Mr. Turner's behalf.
In an affidavit filed with the subpoena, Mr. Orozco says Mr. Christie knew of Mr. Turner's activities between 2002 and 2008 while Mr. Christie held his federal post. Mr. Orozco says Mr. Christie issued a letter saying he would not prosecute Mr. Turner for his statements.
It was not known whether Mr. Christie would be called to testify.
Mr. Christie said last week that he had not yet seen the subpoena, but also said "any advice I gave as U.S. attorney regarding prosecutions is something I am not going to talk about publicly."
Federal prosecutors and F.B.I. officials declined to comment on Mr. Turner's claims.
"We do not comment on matters before the courts, and will not address Mr. Turner's allegations in the press," said Weysan Dun, who runs the F.B.I.'s Newark field office.
Mr. Turner said he felt double-crossed by the bureau after his June arrest.
But other documents show federal agents growing more anxious about his extremist views while valuing his ties to right-wing hate groups, the newspaper said. It noted one memo that stated Mr. Turner "has proven highly reliable and is in a unique position to provide vital information on multiple subversive domestic organizations."
In a separate case, Mr. Turner was charged with "inciting injury to persons" for urging blog readers to "take up arms" against Connecticut lawmakers who proposed legislation to give Roman Catholic lay members more control over parish finances.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) In Support of Abortion, It's Personal vs. Political
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: November 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/weekinreview/29stolberg.html?ref=health
WASHINGTON - In the early 1950s, a coal miner's daughter from rural Kentucky named Louise McIntosh encountered the shadowy world of illegal abortion. A friend was pregnant, with no prospects for marriage, and Ms. McIntosh was keeper of a secret that, if spilled, could have led to family disgrace. The turmoil ended quietly in a doctor's office, and the friend went on to marry and have four children.
Today, Louise McIntosh is Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York. At 80, she is co-chairwoman of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus - a member of what Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, calls "the menopausal militia."
The militia was working overtime in Washington last week, plotting strategy for the coming debate over President Obama's proposed health care overhaul. With the Senate set to take up its measure on Monday, a fight over federal funding for abortion is threatening to thwart the bill - a development that has both galvanized the abortion rights movement and forced its leaders to turn inward, raising questions about how to carry their agenda forward in a complex, 21st-century world.
It has been nearly 37 years since Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that established a right to abortion, and in that time, an entire generation - including Mr. Obama, who was 11 when Roe was decided - has grown up without memories like those Ms. Slaughter says are "seared into my mind." The result is a generational divide - not because younger women are any less supportive of abortion rights than their elders, but because their frame of reference is different.
"Here is a generation that has never known a time when abortion has been illegal," said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who studies attitudes toward abortion. "For many of them, the daily experience is: It's legal and if you really need one you can probably figure out how to get one. So when we send out e-mail alerts saying, 'Oh my God, write to your senator,' it's hard for young people to have that same sense of urgency."
Polls over the last two decades have shown that a clear majority of Americans support the right to abortion, and there's little evidence of a difference between those over 30 and under 30, but the vocabulary of the debate has shifted with the political culture. Ms. Keenan, who is 57, says women like her, who came of age when abortion was illegal, tend to view it in stark political terms - as a right to be defended, like freedom of speech or freedom of religion. But younger people tend to view abortion as a personal issue, and their interests are different.
The 30- to 40-somethings - "middle-school moms and dads," Ms. Keenan calls them - are more concerned with educating their children about sex, and generally too busy to be bothered with political causes. The 25-and-under crowd, animated by activism, sees a deeper threat in climate change or banning gay marriage or the Darfur genocide than in any rollback of reproductive rights. Naral is running focus groups with these "millennials" to better learn how they think.
"The language and values, if you are older, is around the right to control your own body, reproductive freedom, sexual liberation as empowerment," said Ms. Greenberg, the pollster. "That is a baby-boom generation way of thinking. If you look at people under 30, that is not their touchstone, it is not wrapped up around feminism and women's rights."
Abortion opponents are reveling in the shift and hope to capitalize. "Not only is this the post-Roe generation, I'd also call it the post-sonogram generation," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, who notes that baby's first video now occurs in the womb, often accompanied by music. "They can take the video and do the music and send it to the grandmother. We don't even talk anymore about the hypothesis that having an abortion is like having an appendectomy. All of this informs the political pressures on Capitol Hill."
The pressures relating to abortion had seemed, for a time, to go dormant. Mr. Obama, who campaigned on a vow to transcend "the culture wars," even managed to win confirmation of a new Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, without the usual Washington abortion uproar. Most of his political energy around abortion has been spent trying to forge consensus on ways to reduce unintended pregnancies.
The quiet was shattered this month, when the House - with surprising support from 64 Democrats - amended its health care bill to include language by Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, barring the use of federal subsidies for insurance plans that cover abortion. Lawmakers like Ms. Slaughter, who advocate for abortion rights, found themselves in the uncomfortable position of voting for the larger health bill even though the Stupak language was in it.
Proponents of the Stupak language say they are simply following existing federal law, which already bars taxpayer financing for abortions. Democratic leaders want a less restrictive provision that would require insurance companies to segregate federal money from private premiums, which could be used to purchase plans that cover abortion.
Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida and chief deputy whip of the House, blames what she calls the complacency of her own generation for the political climate that allowed Mr. Stupak to prevail. At 43, the mother of three children, she has taken up the abortion rights cause in Congress, as she did as a state legislator.
But if she had to round up her own friends "to go down to the courthouse steps and rally for choice," she said, she is not certain she could. When older women have warned that reproductive rights are being eroded, she said, "basically my generation and younger have looked at them as crying wolf."
That is not to say all younger women are indifferent. Serena Freewomyn (a name she adopted to reflect the idea that "I don't belong to any man") is a 27-year-old administrative assistant at an H.I.V. service provider in Tucson who was inspired, she said, by reading "The War on Choice" by Gloria Feldt. When George Tiller, a doctor in Kansas who performed abortions, was killed in May, she started a blog, Feminists for Choice.
"I think that a lot of younger women do take for granted the fact that they've come of age in a time of post-Roe v. Wade, where they have access to lots of different birth control options," Ms. Freewomyn said. "But I don't think it's fair to say younger women are not engaged; I think younger women are mobilizing in different ways than what people in current leadership positions are used to."
On Wednesday, a coalition calling itself "Stop Stupak" will hold a "National Day of Action" to lobby lawmakers. It will include abortion rights advocacy groups that have sprung up in recent years to reach out to younger voters. Law Students for Reproductive Justice, founded in 2003, will host an Internet seminar to educate law students on the fine points of the House and Senate bills. There's also Choice USA, which targets people under 30. Kierra Johnson, the group's executive director, is pairing up with counterparts in the immigrant rights and gay rights movements - tactics she says are necessary if young people are to be drawn in to the reproductive rights cause. "The same young people who are fighting to keep anti-abortion language out of the health care bills are also fighting to insure that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people fit in to broader health care reform, making sure that immigrant women don't fall through the cracks," she said. "They're coming at these issues in a much more complex way."
The question now is whether the Stop Stupak coalition can succeed. Ms. Wasserman Schultz sees the debate as a chance to rouse women of all generations, and Ms. Slaughter warns that if Mr. Obama signs a bill including the amendment, it will be challenged in court. She says she has worried for years about what would happen "when my generation was gone."
At the moment, her concern has diminished. "Right now, I've never seen women so angry," Ms. Slaughter said. "And the people that were angriest with me were my three daughters."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Tiger Woods Deserves Your Scrutiny
By Dave Zirin
November 30, 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/tiger-woods-deserves-your_b_374029.html
During the Bill Clinton impeachment idiocy of 1998, many on the left said if Clinton were removed from office, let it be for gutting welfare or for imposing sanctions on Iraq, and not l'affair Lewinsky.
Today, Tiger Woods, the most famous, wealthy and most PR conscious athlete on earth, finally finds himself subject to scrutiny. But, similar to Clinton's scandal, it has more to do with his personal life than issues of substance. The media has staked-out his Isleworth home for round-the-clock coverage of a bizarre "car accident" involving his wife, a fire hydrant and a golf club that occurred this past week. The questions being posed are as breathless as they are weightless: "Were Tiger's facial lacerations the result of the car crash or an attack from his wife Elin?" "Is this about the rumored 'other woman' in New York City?" "Did Elin Woods smash the rear of his car with a golf club to rescue Tiger or was she smashing up the car as he pulled away?" One last question: who the hell cares? Granted, there is a "man bites dog" aspect to this story. In Woods's roughly fourteen years in the public eye, he has never even been caught littering. His image has been cemented as a man of ungodly intensity.
This squeaky-clean reputation has helped Woods become the richest athlete in history, the first billion-dollar man. His career course earnings are $92 million. Only when you factor in advertisements, corporate appearances and other off-course aspects of "Tiger Inc" does Woods reach billionaire status.
As the saying goes, behind every great fortune is a great crime. Following his car "accident" Woods's agent said that it is unclear whether he will attend his foundation's Chevron World Challenge Golf Tournament. In 2008, Chevron entered a five-year relationship with Tiger Woods' foundation under the guise of philanthropy. But if Woods had a shred of social conscience, this partnership would never have existed. Lawsuits have been issued against Chevron for dumping toxic waste all over the planet. Alaska, Canada, Brazil, Angola and California have all accused Chevron of dumping. Even worse, Chevron has a partnership with Burma's ruling military junta on the country's Yadana gas pipeline project, the single greatest source of revenue for the military, estimated at nearly $5 billion since the year 2000.
Ka Hsaw Wa, co-founder and executive director of EarthRights International, wrote in an open letter to Woods, "I myself have spoken to victims of forced labor, rape, and torture on Chevron's pipeline--if you heard what they said to me, you too would understand how their tragic stories stand in stark contrast to Chevron's rhetoric about helping communities." Chevron is underwriting a dictatorship but Tiger Woods apparently sees them as upstanding corporate partners.
Then there is Dubai, the site of the first Tiger Woods-designed golf course. Located at the southern coast of the Persian Gulf, Dubai has been a symbol of both economic excess, and most recently, economic collapse. It has been called an "adult Disneyland"--complete with indoor ski resorts and unspeakable human rights violations. As Johann Hari wrote in The Independent, it is a city that has been built over the last thirty years by slave labor. Paid foreign laborers work in more than 100-degree heat for less than three dollars a day. Dubai also has a reputation as ground zero of the global sex trade. The Tiger Woods Golf Course cost $100 million and Woods said nary a word about his benefactor's business practices. This is business as usual for Tiger who would sooner swallow a five-iron than take anything resembling a political stand.
Now that Woods appears to have been involved in a domestic dispute, the media is wondering if there is "another Tiger". They are desperate to pillory the man for his personal problems. It would be more appropriate if they took this opportunity to scrutinize him for the right reasons. Woods has every right to keep his personal problems personal. But when he makes deals that benefit dictatorships and unaccountable corporations, all in the name of his billion-dollar brand, he deserves no privacy.
[Dave Zirin is the author of "A People's History of Sports in the United States" (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .]
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) New Push on Mortgage Relief
Treasury Seeks to Increase Permanent Modifications; Borrowers Fault Companies
By RUTH SIMON
November 30, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125952206832568569.html#printMode
In the latest move to bolster its $75 billion foreclosure-prevention plan, the Obama administration on Monday will outline new efforts designed to increase the number of borrowers who receive mortgage relief.
The Treasury Department on Monday will announce plans to appoint officials to monitor the actions of the largest mortgage servicing companies on a daily basis. It also will announce it is requiring mortgage companies to develop and report to the administration their plans to increase the number of completed modifications, a Treasury spokeswoman said.
While more than 650,000 borrowers have been given trial mortgage modifications under the plan, few borrowers have received permanent modifications. Many borrowers complain that it is difficult to get a permanent fix even once they have made trial payments; some have been required to send in duplicate paperwork or even ended up further behind on their mortgage payments.
The Treasury won't release the number of completed modifications until December, but the spokeswoman said it is in the "tens of thousands." It is too early to know what portion of trial modifications will become permanent, she added.
Based on their initial experience, some mortgage executives expect 25% to 35% of borrowers enrolled in the trial program to qualify for final modifications.
The stakes for the economy of a successful modification program are high. To stop further home price declines, some economists argue that the share of home sales that are foreclosures and other distressed properties must remain stable. Foreclosure sales fell this year because of moratoriums and stepped-up modification efforts, helping stabilize home prices.
The Obama administration program provides financial incentives for mortgage companies and investors to reduce loan payments to affordable levels for troubled borrowers. Borrowers first make reduced payments under a trial program. To receive a permanent modification, borrowers must make three payments during the trial period and provide a hardship affidavit and other documents.
For borrowers who do receive a trial modification, few are becoming permanent. Some borrowers can't make the required payments during the trial period, mortgage companies say, often because the reduced payment still isn't low enough or they have suffered another financial setback.
In other cases, borrowers in the trial program aren't providing a hardship affidavit and other necessary documents or the paperwork doesn't match the information provided verbally. In still other cases, the loan may not pass a "net present value test" used to determine whether a modification is less costly to the lender or investor than a foreclosure.
Meanwhile, the number of borrowers falling behind on their loan payments continues to outpace the administration's efforts to help them. Roughly 1.56 million loans that were current in March were at least 60 days past due in October, according to LPS Applied Analytics. That's more than double the number of trial modifications.
Mortgage companies have stepped up efforts to collect documents, but many borrowers say firms are frequently disorganized and ask repeatedly for the same paperwork or offer confusing information.
John Fitzpatrick, a home builder in Ohio, made his first $1,464 trial payment in June. Three months later, Bank of America Corp. sent him a statement indicating he should pay $2,038, his monthly payment before the trial modification. Mr. Fitzpatrick said he has continued to make the lower payment on the advice of his attorney. Mr. Fitzpatrick said he believes he has provided all the required documents; in mid-November, he sent in another set of papers at the mortgage company's request. A Bank of America spokesman said the statement with the higher payments "was sent out in error."
Some borrowers are ending up in worse shape after seeking help under the government program. Jennifer and James Pugliese, of Scranton, Pa., were struggling, but still current on their mortgage when Litton Loan Servicing offered them a trial modification that reduced their loan payments by nearly 50% to $758. But after making successful trial payments, the couple was turned down for a final modification. Because the trial payments are considered partial payments if the modification fails, the Puglieses are now more than $5,000 behind on their mortgage; their credit score dropped after Litton reported to the credit bureau that the couple had entered the Obama program.
"There is no way we can recover at this point," said Ms. Pugliese, who received a foreclosure notice last week. "We are pretty much resolved to losing the house or filing for bankruptcy." When their loan payments were cut, the couple used the extra cash to pay other debts, she says.
A spokeswoman for Litton, a unit of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said: "Litton is following the program's guidelines for eligibility qualifications, modification trial periods and credit reporting. Loans that do not pass the net present value test are not eligible" for a modification under the Obama program.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) A Tragic Mistake
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/opinion/01herbert.html
"I hate war," said Dwight Eisenhower, "as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
He also said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed."
I suppose we'll never learn. President Obama will go on TV Tuesday night to announce that he plans to send tens of thousands of additional American troops to Afghanistan to fight in a war that has lasted most of the decade and has long since failed.
After going through an extended period of highly ritualized consultations and deliberations, the president has arrived at a decision that never was much in doubt, and that will prove to be a tragic mistake. It was also, for the president, the easier option.
It would have been much more difficult for Mr. Obama to look this troubled nation in the eye and explain why it is in our best interest to begin winding down the permanent state of warfare left to us by the Bush and Cheney regime. It would have taken real courage for the commander in chief to stop feeding our young troops into the relentless meat grinder of Afghanistan, to face up to the terrible toll the war is taking - on the troops themselves and in very insidious ways on the nation as a whole.
More soldiers committed suicide this year than in any year for which we have complete records. But the military is now able to meet its recruitment goals because the young men and women who are signing up can't find jobs in civilian life. The United States is broken - school systems are deteriorating, the economy is in shambles, homelessness and poverty rates are expanding - yet we're nation-building in Afghanistan, sending economically distressed young people over there by the tens of thousands at an annual cost of a million dollars each.
I keep hearing that Americans are concerned about gargantuan budget deficits. Well, the idea that you can control mounting deficits while engaged in two wars that you refuse to raise taxes to pay for is a patent absurdity. Small children might believe something along those lines. Rational adults should not.
Politicians are seldom honest when they talk publicly about warfare. Lyndon Johnson knew in the spring of 1965, as he made plans for the first big expansion of U.S. forces in Vietnam, that there was no upside to the war.
A recent Bill Moyers program on PBS played audio tapes of Johnson on which he could be heard telling Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, "Not a damn human thinks that 50,000 or 100,000 or 150,000 [American troops] are going to end that war."
McNamara replies, "That's right."
Nothing like those sentiments were conveyed to the public as Johnson and McNamara jacked up the draft and started feeding young American boys and men into the Vietnam meat grinder.
Afghanistan is not Vietnam. There was every reason for American forces to invade Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. But that war was botched and lost by the Bush crowd, and Barack Obama does not have a magic wand now to make it all better.
The word is that Mr. Obama will tell the public Tuesday that he is sending another 30,000 or so troops to Afghanistan. And while it is reported that he has some strategy in mind for eventually turning the fight over to the ragtag and less-than-energetic Afghan military, it's clear that U.S. forces will be engaged for years to come, perhaps many years.
The tougher choice for the president would have been to tell the public that the U.S. is a nation faced with terrible troubles here at home and that it is time to begin winding down a war that veered wildly off track years ago. But that would have taken great political courage. It would have left Mr. Obama vulnerable to the charge of being weak, of cutting and running, of betraying the troops who have already served. The Republicans would have a field day with that scenario.
Lyndon Johnson is heard on the tapes telling Senator Richard Russell, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, about a comment made by a Texas rancher in the days leading up to the buildup in Vietnam. The rancher had told Johnson that the public would forgive the president "for everything except being weak."
Russell said: "Well, there's a lot in that. There's a whole lot in that."
We still haven't learned to recognize real strength, which is why it so often seems that the easier choice for a president is to keep the troops marching off to war.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Obama Sets Faster Troop Deployment to Afghanistan
By DAVID E. SANGER and PETER BAKER
December 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/world/asia/02policy.html?hp
WASHINGTON - President Obama has decided to expedite the deployment of 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan over the next six months, in an effort to reverse the momentum of Taliban gains and create urgency for the government in Kabul to match the American surge with one using its own forces, according to senior administration officials.
In bringing the total American force to nearly 100,000 troops by the end of May, the administration will move far faster than it had originally planned. Until recently, discussions focused on a deployment that would take a year, but Mr. Obama concluded that the situation required "more, sooner," as one official said, explaining the some of the central conclusions Mr. Obama reached at the end of a nearly three-month review of American war strategy.
The officials insisted on anonymity to discuss the strategy to Afghanistan and Pakistan that Mr. Obama will formally announce in a nationally televised address from the United States Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday night.
The strategy aims to prevent Al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan, whose territory it used to prepare for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and to keep Taliban insurgents from toppling the government there. The 30,000 new American troops will focus on securing a number of population centers in Afghanistan where the Taliban are strongest, including Kandahar in the south and Khost in the east, the officials said. The American forces, they said, will pair up with specific Afghan units in an effort to end eight years of frustrating attempts to build them into an independent fighting force.
Mr. Obama has concluded that the strategy for dealing with the Taliban should be to "degrade its ability," in the words of one of the officials deeply involved in the discussions, so that the Afghan forces are capable of taking them on. At the same time the president's strategy calls for "carving away at the bottom" of the Taliban's force structure by reintegrating less committed members into tribes and offering them paid jobs in local and national military forces.
"We want to knock the Taliban back, giving us time and space to build the Afghans up mainly in the security front but also in governance and development as well," said one senior administration official. By weakening the Taliban through a quick infusion of troops, the official said, the administration hopes to make it a more manageable enemy for the Afghans to take on themselves.
For Mr. Obama, the strategy is a huge gamble in a war that has already gone on for eight years. Polls show that Americans are increasingly tired of the conflict and doubtful of American goals.
Success, the administration officials said in their fullest discussion yet of the thinking behind Mr. Obama's approach, depends in large part on the cooperation of an Afghan government whose legitimacy is more in question than ever in the wake of elections marred by extensive fraud.
It also hinges on the success of a renewed relationship with a Pakistani government whose civilian leadership is exceptionally weak, whose military and intelligence services are distrustful of the United States and its commitment, and whose willingness to take on elements of the Taliban directing attacks against American troops from Pakistani territory is still unproven.
While the number of troops Mr. Obama is deploying falls short of the figure sought by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, his commander in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama is also counting on reinforcements from American allies. Those allies currently have nearly 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, but European and Canadian officials have said they doubt Mr. Obama will get more than a few thousand more.
The new strategy draws heavily on lessons learned from President George W. Bush's "surge" and strategy shift in Iraq in 2007, which Mr. Obama opposed as a senator and presidential candidate. Mr. Obama's advisers are even referring to his troop buildup as an "extended surge."
However officials said that Mr. Obama in his speech will give a time frame - something Mr. Bush did not do -for when the United States will start pulling the reinforcements out and begin turning over security responsibilities to Afghan forces one province at a time.
Mr. Obama's aides would not say how specific he would be on Tuesday night about the time frame of the American presence. But clearly it would be well more than a year. That would take him to 2011 or 2012 - when Mr. Obama is up for re-election - before the troop levels would begin to fall again to fulfill the president's oft-repeated assertion that he would offer no "open-ended commitment" to the Afghan government.
It is that date that is bound to be the focus of attention for his own party, at a time many Democrats are openly opposed to sending more troops. Some have questioned how Mr. Obama can simultaneously argue for a troop increase and a relatively quick pull-back. But in interviews, administration officials said that without the accelerated deployment, there was little hope of being able to stabilize the situation in the region sufficiently to start withdrawals.
"This is to speed the process," one said.
The plan envisions that some troops would remain as a "light footprint" - a force that would probably stay behind in a reserve or supporting role for years to come - in a way similar to what the United States has done in Germany, Japan, South Korea and Bosnia.
The key to Mr. Obama's strategy is succeeding in an area where Mr. Bush failed: Training a reliable Afghan force, not only the national army but a series of local forces as well. Mr. Obama is trying a new approach, pairing newly-deployed American troops with specific Afghan units. Currently, the Afghan army is in the lead in only one of 34 provinces in the country, around the capital of Kabul.
In addition to the influx of troops, administration officials said they are taking other lessons from the Iraq surge, such as empowering local security forces to stand up to Taliban militants in their communities and enhancing the training of national forces by embedding American troops with Afghan counterparts and later pairing similarly sized American and Afghan units to fight side by side.
"We learned a lot of lessons, painful lessons, out of Iraq on how to do training," said one official involved in the discussions.
The lengthy process that led to Mr. Obama's decision started out with sharp disagreements among his top advisers, but administration officials said that the intensive reviews and discussions ultimately led the participants to coalesce around the new strategy.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. initially opposed any substantial increase in troops in Afghanistan, arguing that Pakistan was the far more important priority since that is where Al Qaeda is now largely based. He was joined in that view by Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the retired commander now serving as American ambassador to Afghanistan, who described the growing resentment of the American military among the Afghan people.
On the other side of the deliberations were Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who warned that the American mission would fail without more troops and sought another 40,000, and military leaders who supported him, like Gen. David H. Petraeus, the regional commander, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Among those who helped steer the review toward the eventual result was Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Mr. Obama spent more than 20 hours in 10 meetings in the Situation Room with his top national security advisers from Sept. 13 until last Sunday. He also conducted other meetings with smaller groups or consulted one on one with select advisers. The early meetings focused intently on what the American goals should be, not even addressing the question of troop levels until later in the process, officials said.
Along the way, they said, the intelligence community produced nearly three dozen fresh assessments of various related issues, like who the enemy was, where they were concentrated, what their capabilities were, what would happen under certain circumstances - including political collapse in Pakistan - and what a "game changer" would be in the war.
The central mission of the new strategy is the same as described by the White House after its last review in March - to focus on destroying Al Qaeda, the group that mounted the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that still appears to have the reach to attack the United States. But regarding the Taliban, the administration's latest review concluded that it need only degrade the capability of its various groups, some of which have close ties with Al Qaeda, on the assumption that they are indigenous and cannot be wiped out entirely.
Mr. Obama has sought to narrow America's mission. There will be no talk of turning Afghanistan into a democracy - one of Mr. Bush's central goals - and no discussion of "nation-building," the officials said. But as they described it, some rudimentary nation-building is part of the plan, including helping the central government improve governance and curb corruption. Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, has made such promises in the past and never delivered; since he took office last month following an election marked by widespread fraud, he has made a series of new commitments to the United States, officials insist.
But clearly Mr. Obama does not trust the central government with much of the new American aid. Money will go to individual ministries depending on their performance, American officials have said in recent weeks. The United States, officials said, will also funnel more money and other assistance through local leaders to foster change from the bottom up, avoiding the country's corrupt central coffers.
That is bound to foster some resentment inside Mr. Karzai's government because it creates a direct link between the United States and local governments and leaders, a process that could further weaken Mr. Karzai's authority over parts of the nation.
The meetings that determined Mr. Obama's policy began with a heavy focus not on Afghanistan but on its neighbor, Pakistan. Mr. Obama will say far less about that country on Tuesday night, partly because so much of the activity there involves classified C.I.A. missions, including drone strikes on suspected Qaeda and Taliban leadership, and Special Forces raids over the border.
The number of drone strikes has increased drastically since Mr. Obama took office, although they have been scaled back in recent months because of fears of civilian casualties, which has led to a great anti-American backlash in Pakistan.
But the Pakistani government is also especially sensitive to any suggestion that it is acting on Washington's behalf, so Mr. Obama is not expected to be specific about his efforts to get the country to go after Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader operating from the western city of Quetta, or the Haqqani network, which directs attacks in eastern Afghanistan and Kabul.
In recent weeks, senior American officials have flown to Islamabad with offers of deeper military cooperation, intelligence sharing and aid to encourage it to do more to take on Qaeda and Taliban elements in the forbidding tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Mr. Obama's advisers said that they believe that despite the country's political chaos, they have been impressed by Pakistan's efforts in recent months to move aggressively against insurgents.
"Pakistan has done a lot," said one senior official. "Pakistan needs to do a lot more."
Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Landler from Washington; Steven Erlanger from Paris; and John F. Burns from London.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) Cole Attack Trial Will Test Tribunal System
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01cole.html?hp
WASHINGTON - In April 2001, seven months after the Navy destroyer Cole was bombed in Yemen, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was staying at a Qaeda guesthouse in Afghanistan when he is alleged to have laid out how he had planned the whole thing.
One of those houseguests was later captured, and he told F.B.I. agents the story of those boasts and implied that he could be a star witness if Mr. Nashiri were tried for the murder of the 17 American sailors killed in the attack.
That trial is going to happen, but that witness is no longer available. Still, prosecutors may not need him. Mr. Nashiri will be tried by a military commission, and under the rules there, F.B.I. agents can simply repeat the accounts of witnesses - indirect testimony that would generally be inadmissible in a civilian court.
Mr. Nashiri's case will be the marquee test of a new tribunal system designed to handle terrorism suspects. But the decision by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to prosecute him before a commission, while putting the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, before a civilian court, has set off a fierce debate.
Some conservatives have argued that all accused terrorists should be tried before commissions, like the one that will decide Mr. Nashiri's fate. It is too risky, they contend, to try any terror defendant in the civilian legal system, where the rules of evidence are far more restrictive.
Civil libertarians, on the other hand, contend that the administration's approach amounts to a two-tier system in which cases with weaker evidence receive second-class justice by being shunted into the looser commission system.
A close look at the evidence against Mr. Nashiri provides a case study of the significant differences that remain between civilian trials and military commissions, even after a recent overhaul by Congress. It shows that it would indeed be simpler to introduce certain evidence against terror defendants in commissions, but that nagging questions about the legality of the military court system present significant hurdles.
A review of public documents and interviews with current and former officials familiar with the case also illuminates the difficult trade-offs the administration faces as it pores through the prison population at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and decides the fates of detainees like Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Nashiri.
In explaining why Mr. Nashiri would not receive a civilian trial, Mr. Holder cited "a variety of factors" while emphasizing one in particular: It "was an attack on a United States warship, and that, I think, is appropriately placed into the military commissions setting."
But several current and former officials familiar with the case say that concerns about the evidence against Mr. Nashiri were an overriding factor. Prosecuting him under the more stringent rules of civilian court would have been perilous. Most of that evidence consists of hearsay - statements made outside court, like the former detainee's account of what he said he heard Mr. Nashiri say in April 2001.
In a civilian trial, hearsay statements generally cannot be introduced because there is no opportunity for defense lawyers to cross-examine the witness. But under commission rules, F.B.I. agents could tell a military jury what Mr. Nashiri told the detainee, according to the detainee.
"In a federal court where the Constitution applies, a defendant is allowed to confront his accusers face to face," said Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes of the Navy, the military lawyer assigned to represent Mr. Nashiri. "In this case, Nashiri could be convicted and put to death without ever seeing any one of his accusers take the stand."
But Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the government's case that Mr. Nashiri was Al Qaeda's key organizer of the Cole attack was "solid," and characterized the legal protections available to the defendant as "unprecedented in the history of modern warfare."
"The fact that many of the potential witnesses are citizens of other nations who cannot be compelled to attend trial in the United States is one of several evidentiary concerns that make trial by military commissions the proper legal venue," Mr. Whitman said.
The case against Mr. Nashiri also includes some evidence the defense is likely to portray as circumstantial: business records with his name or aliases related to the renting of safe houses and the registration of cars used in the operation, as well as the purchase of the small boat on which two suicide-bombers carried the explosives to the side of the Cole as it was refueling in the harbor next to Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000.
But unlike Mr. Mohammed, who has repeatedly admitted planning the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Nashiri, who was apparently in Afghanistan at the time of the Cole attack, is expected to strongly deny plotting to bomb the warship. While he admitted taking money from Osama bin Laden to buy the boat in a March 2007 military hearing at Guantánamo, he claimed he intended only to start a fishing business.
According to a hearing transcript, Mr. Nashiri claimed that when he later learned that Mr. Bin Laden was interested in using that boat for an attack, he wanted no part of it and left Yemen without knowledge of any specific plan. He also claimed that one of the attackers had used his name and identification card for the business paperwork without his knowledge or permission.
"I had nothing to do with this bombing," Mr. Nashiri said, adding: "We were planning to be involved in a fishing project. I left the thing; I left the project and left. They are the ones who were involved in those things. I'm not responsible for them or what they have in their heads."
In a civilian trial, that circumstantial evidence and Mr. Nashiri's denials could be virtually all that jurors would have to consider when deciding his guilt or innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.
But jurors in a commission trial - handpicked by a senior Pentagon official - would learn much more about the government's contention that Mr. Nashiri was the architect of a bombing that gripped the nation.
Court and military documents show that the F.B.I. has turned up other information that would significantly strengthen its case against Mr. Nashiri, evidence that could be used in a commission trial but not in civilian court.
First, there is the account of Mr. Nashiri's boasts at the Qaeda guesthouse in April 2001. That story came from Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Mr. Bin Laden who was the plaintiff in the 2006 Supreme Court case striking down the first form of President George W. Bush's military commissions.
Mr. Hamdan, who spent seven years in Guantánamo, is now free in Yemen and cannot be forced by the United States to appear.
Other evidence accumulated by the F.B.I. agent who led the Cole investigation, Ali H. Soufan, includes interviews with several other witnesses in Yemen, among them two men suspected of being co-conspirators who are alleged to have identified Mr. Nashiri as the organizer of the plot. Both men have been indicted by the United States, but Yemen has refused to extradite them. Mr. Soufan, who has since left the F.B.I., could testify in their absence about the substance of their interviews.
In addition, according to a footnote in the 9/11 commission report, in December 2001, a detainee told an interrogator that "9/11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar told him about the maritime operation sometime in late 1999 and credited Nashiri as its originator."
F.B.I. agents also gathered other hearsay material that they say connects Mr. Nashiri to Al Qaeda more generally, evidence that could also be presented more easily in a commission trial.
Still, some evidence in the Nashiri file could not be admitted no matter where he is prosecuted.
Under the recently revised military commission rules, information obtained by torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment may not be used as evidence.
That means that accounts of Mr. Nashiri's role given by some detainees under interrogation by the Central Intelligence Agency - including Mr. Mohammed and another man facing a civilian trial for the Sept. 11 attacks, Walid Bin Attash - would likely not be admissible.
Similarly, Mr. Nashiri himself initially confessed to the C.I.A. that he had orchestrated the Cole attack. But that would probably not be deemed admissible because he later recanted and said that he had made it up under torture.
C.I.A. interrogators subjected Mr. Nashiri to waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning approved by Bush officials. Moreover, the C.I.A. inspector general determined that Mr. Nashiri's was the "most significant" case of a detainee's being brutalized in unauthorized ways, including being threatened with a power drill and a handgun.
But the relative flexibility of the commission system could also prove to be its undoing.
Defense lawyers are expected to argue that terror defendants are entitled to the same protections as everyone else, particularly when it comes to challenging all witnesses face to face. The Sixth Amendment of the Constitution entitles a defendant "to be confronted with the witnesses against him." As recently as 2004, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed a conviction because a judge had allowed hearsay evidence to be introduced by a police officer who had investigated the crime.
Several other unresolved legal clouds also hang over the commissions, and it could take years for the Supreme Court to resolve them, potentially delaying commission trials or calling into question any guilty verdict that results from them - another reason the administration has decided that when prosecution of a detainee is feasible, it will usually do so in the civilian courts.
Mr. Nashiri's military lawyer has already filed a lawsuit in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging the system and asking the courts to stop any effort to prosecute his client before the commission.
David Johnston contributed reporting.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) Oil Companies Look to the Future in Iraq
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/middleeast/01iraqoil.html?ref=world
BAGHDAD - More than six and a half years after the United States-led invasion here that many believed was about oil, the major oil companies are finally gaining access to Iraq's petroleum reserves. But they are doing so at far less advantageous terms than they once envisioned.
The companies seem to have calculated that it is worth their while to accept deals with limited profit opportunities now, in order to cash in on more lucrative development deals in the future, oil industry analysts say.
"The attraction of these fields to oil companies is not the per-barrel profit, which is very low, but their value as an entrance ticket to the oil sector of southern Iraq," said Reidar Visser, a research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs who operates an Iraq Web site, Historiae. "In terms of size and potential, the Basra region remains one of the most attractive areas of future growth for the international oil industry."
Iraq's first stab at opening its oil industry to foreign investment ended in disappointment at an auction in June in which most companies declined to bid. But last month many of those same companies - including Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum, the first American companies to reach production agreements with Baghdad since the 2003 invasion - signed deals at much the same terms they rejected over the summer.
Analysts say the deals on three of the country's top fields show that Iraq, after an embarrassing start, may be on a path to joining the world's major oil-producing nations, which could in turn upset the equilibrium in OPEC and increase tensions with the neighboring oil giants Iran and Saudi Arabia. Adding to those strains, development rights to 10 other Iraqi oil fields will be offered to foreign companies at a public auction in Baghdad on Dec. 11.
However, the auction and the contracts come at an awkward time: just months before national elections that could provoke renewed violence or sweep in a new government that could disown the deals.
In the recent deals, the major oil companies have agreed to accept service contracts, in which they earn a fee for each barrel of oil produced. Yet they vastly prefer production-sharing agreements, in which they gain an equity stake in the oil itself. Such deals are far more lucrative to oil companies, but for Iraqis they are reminiscent of the colonial era, when foreign companies controlled the country's oil wealth. "We have shown that we can attract international companies to invest in Iraq and boost production through service contracts," Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq's oil minister, said recently. "They will not have a share of Iraqi oil, and our country will have total control over production."
But Iraq has also been forced to acknowledge that it cannot hope to revive its decrepit oil industry without the money and the technical expertise of the major companies. Despite strong anti-American sentiments among the Iraqi public, few officials want to refuse American cash.
"We do not have any preferences," said Abdul Hadi al-Hassani, deputy chairman of Parliament's Oil and Gas Committee. "We are interested only in the financial health of the company and in their technical know-how. American companies are well known in the oil sector."
After months of secret negotiations between the Oil Ministry and the companies, two new deals and the completion of a third were announced in recent weeks. A consortium of Eni, an Italian oil company, Occidental and Korea Gas signed a preliminary agreement to develop the Zubayr field, which has an estimated 4.1 billion barrels of oil.
Shortly thereafter came the formal ratification of the only deal reached during the June auction, a partnership between British Petroleum and the China National Petroleum Company for Iraq's Rumaila oil field, one of the largest in the world, with an estimated 17.8 billion barrels of oil.
Within days of that deal's ratification, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell signed an initial contract to develop West Qurna, Iraq's most sought-after field in part because it is believed to have at least 8.6 billion barrels of oil.
The government said it expected production from the three fields alone to vault Iraq's output to 7 million barrels a day from 2.5 million barrels a day within six years, which would move it from the world's 13th largest producer to the fourth, according to Department of Energy statistics.
"Iraq is now on its way," Mr. Shahristani said after the announcements.
Oil industry analysts said that there appeared to have been little change from the contracts offered in June. But the major oil companies appeared to have rethought their positions and decided that despite what they considered paltry returns, they could not afford to be left out of Iraq's riches. A foot in the door now, they reasoned, might lead to better contracts.
"The recent award of Zubayr and West Qurna serves to illustrate a wider acceptance that, in order to secure these strategically important developments, compromise is required," Colin Lothian, a research analyst for Wood Mackenzie, an energy industry adviser, said via e-mail.
In the West Qurna field, for example, the Exxon Mobil-Shell partnership agreed to accept $1.90 for each barrel of oil it produced above the field's current production level, precisely what the government demanded in June and less than half the $4 a barrel the oil giants wanted.
"It's fair to say that there are many people negotiating now who would not have taken $2 before," said Shell's chief financial officer, Simon Henry, during a conference call with reporters on Oct. 29, days before the preliminary agreement was announced.
However, while the companies have pledged to invest billions in Iraq, few here believe much of that will actually be spent until the country successfully concludes national elections and attains a period of relative peace.
Iraq has the third largest proven reserves of oil in the world, with about 115 billion barrels, but it does not rank in the top 10 producers. If and when its oil production rises toward seven million barrels a day or more, Iraq might find itself in conflict with OPEC, which maintains production quotas for its members. Iraq has been exempt from the quotas since sanctions were imposed in 1990, Iraqi officials said.
Iraqi officials say there is no justification for imposing a quota on their production, saying they have been underproducing for years, allowing others to enjoy higher quotas.
"The production from these three fields will surely threaten other oil-producing countries and will show the world that Iraq can match Saudi Arabia's production," said Mr. Hassani. "Our share has been taken by other countries, and we will gain our share again from the countries that took it."
Mohammed Hussein, Sa'ad Izzi and Omar al-Jawoshy contributed reporting.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) Fate of Ousted Leader Clouds Election Result in Honduras
By ELISABETH MALKIN
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/americas/01honduras.html?ref=world
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Flush from his victory in the Honduran presidential election, Porfirio Lobo sat down for a congratulatory television interview on Monday morning. When asked if he planned to talk to Manuel Zelaya, the president ousted in a coup in June, Mr. Lobo made a gesture as though washing his hands.
"Let Congress decide," he said, referring to a vote scheduled for Wednesday over whether to reinstate Mr. Zelaya to serve the last weeks of his term.
But Mr. Lobo, a veteran conservative politician, will not be able to wave away the coup and the political standoff that followed so breezily.
For a start, although preliminary results show that Mr. Lobo won the election on Sunday with a margin of 16 percentage points, many countries have said they would not recognize an election held by a de facto government that was installed by a coup.
On Monday, there was very limited recognition. Panama and Colombia were the first to congratulate Mr. Lobo, and President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica said his government would recognize the outcome if there was no evidence of fraud, Reuters reported.
The United States issued a qualified response.
"The issue is not who is going to be the next president," Arturo Valenzuela, the new assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told reporters in Washington. "The Honduran people decided that. The issue is whether the legitimate president of Honduras, who was overthrown in a coup d'état, will be returned to office."
Brazil and most other South American countries had already rejected the vote, while European countries, which are important aid donors, acknowledged the vote but said that Hondurans had to find some form of reconciliation.
The United States continued to place its hopes for a resolution to the Honduran political crisis in an accord that it brokered a month ago and that both Mr. Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti, who leads the de facto government, signed.
The deal called for Congress to vote on whether to reinstate Mr. Zelaya, as well as the formation of a national unity government and a truth commission to investigate the events that led up to the coup and its aftermath.
But none of the accord's elements has yet been achieved. Congress delayed its vote, and then Mr. Zelaya renounced the agreement and remains a virtual prisoner in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital.
On Monday, he said in a telephone interview that he would not return to office if Congress voted to restore him merely to serve as a figurehead. "The elections only changed the president, but it did not change any of the structure that carried out the coup," he said.
Mr. Lobo has said that because he did not sign the accord, it is not up to him to fulfill it. But if he is to win recognition from other countries - and bring back the aid money that has been suspended - then he will probably have no choice but to go along with some version of the agreement.
Even before the political crisis halted investment and paralyzed an economy that was already buffeted by the global economic crisis, Honduras faced a dire situation.
Remittances from Hondurans working in the United States account for almost a quarter of gross domestic product, and they have dropped 12 percent this year. The Honduran economy could shrink as much as 4.5 percent this year, said Mauricio DÃaz Burdett, an economist at the Fosdeh research institution here.
Mr. Lobo had been vague as a candidate about what he would do first if elected, calling for a grand national dialogue before he would take office on Jan. 27. His family raises corn, soy and sorghum on one of the country's largest farms. In a long political career, he introduced the idea of a mobile Congress, taking congressional leaders out to the countryside to hear complaints.
He has promised to work hard to win back the international recognition that was withheld after the coup. But the coup has revealed a number of fault lines in Honduras that were papered over in a country where a small elite controls the economy and politics.
"The new president will have a very significant challenge in dealing with demands from the population for a more inclusive system," said Jennifer McCoy, the director of the Americas Program at the Carter Center in Atlanta. "I think these demands were larger than Zelaya."
A sense of that frustration was clear when Mr. Zelaya's supporters gathered at a union meeting hall on Monday. "We're motivated," said Juan Barahona, a leader of the resistance, as Mr. Zelaya's supporters now call themselves. "We won't abandon the fight because in four years or sooner, there will be a new dawn."
The opposition has been the target of human rights violations since the coup, with a kind of low-intensity repression of constant harrassment, arrests and beatings, particularly in the countryside, human rights experts say.
José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch said that the de facto government had committed "widespread arbitrary detentions, killings and censorship" against Mr. Zelaya's supporters and that the election would not wipe the slate clean.
On Friday night, for example, police and soldiers raided the offices of a farming organization in Siguatepeque, in the central region of Comayagua, saying they were looking for guns. After a three-hour search, they left with the organization's computers, cameras and documents.
"Impunity has been the hallmark of the regime," said Javier Zúñiga of Amnesty International, who is a longtime human rights expert in Central America.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) Britain to Send 500 More Troops to Afghanistan
By JOHN F. BURNS
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/europe/01britain.html?ref=world
LONDON - Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Monday that Britain will send 500 additional troops to Afghanistan in early December, raising the number of British troops there to 10,000.
Mr. Brown made his statement on the eve of President Obama's long-awaited announcement on strategy for the Afghan conflict on Tuesday. Mr. Obama is expected to announce an increase of about 30,000 American troops, bringing total American troop strength in Afghanistan to about 100,000.
The announcements have been closely coordinated between the governments in London and Washington, the two largest troop providers in the 43-nation coalition fighting in Afghanistan. British officials said Mr. Brown planned to speak to Mr. Obama by video link after his statement on the British troop increase in the House of Commons.
The British decision had been signaled long in advance, with a statement by Mr. Brown to the Commons early in October in which he sketched out a plan for the increase but made it conditional on other elements falling into place. Left unstated at that time was the most important condition, that Mr. Obama, then with weeks still to run on his own review of Afghan strategy, made his own commitment to troop increases.
Both leaders face growing public doubts about the prospects for success in the war. In Britain, the restiveness has become a major political problem for Mr. Brown, with opinion polls showing a majority of those surveyed favoring Britain's early withdrawal from the conflict. Mr. Brown, reaching the end of the Labour government's five-year term, has to call a general election within six months, and the war is sure to be a major issue.
But in his speech on Monday, he firmly recommitted Britain to its role in the war.
Saying that the British military commitment in Afghanistan was "vital to the defense of our national security," Mr. Brown noted that Britain's intelligence and police agencies have calculated that three-quarters of all terrorist plots uncovered in Britain in recent years have links to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have their principal strongholds. "We would be failing on our duty if we did not work with our allies to deal with the problem where it starts," he said.
"For a safe Britain, we need a safe Afghanistan," he said.
He also gave a higher figure for the total British troop presence after the new deployments, 10,000, than the previously announced 9,500. The larger number includes approximately 500 British special forces troops who operate largely clandestinely. American commanders have said privately that the British special forces in Afghanistan and Iraq have made a major contribution to allied combat effectiveness.
The prime minister was strongly supported by David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservatives, who hold a strong lead in opinion polls. " We must never do or say anything that gives the impression to the Taliban that we will not see this through," Mr. Cameron said.
Mr. Brown said he was confident that eight other countries were ready to make new troop commitments. He offered few details but said he believed that "thousands" of additional troops would be pledged at a meeting in Brussels over the next week.
The commitments were likely to fall far short of the 10,000 additional soldiers Obama administration officials have set as their target for America's partners - a number that would provide the margin between the 30,000 additional American troops expected to be announced Tuesday and the additional 40,000 troops requested by the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.
Mr. Brown said that a further condition he had set for British reinforcements had also been met - the availability of additional equipment to support the extra British troops, particularly enough helicopter troop transports and armored cars to shield the troops against the roadside bombs that have been responsible for many of the 98 British soldiers killed in Afghanistan so far this year.
Mr. Brown has endured harsh criticism in recent months from critics who have said that the Labour government seriously "under-resourced" British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, paring military budgets to the point where they went to war as poor cousins of the Americans.
Although the prime minister has strongly refuted the criticism, his political vulnerability on the issue was reflected by a carefully-choreographed statement made on Monday by Britain's top military officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup. Visiting a mock Afghan village in Norfolk where British troops train before deployment, he said that equipment shortcomings had now been overcome, in particular by the deployment of Merlin troop-carrying helicopters and heavily armored, bomb resistant Mastiff and Ridgeback armored cars.
"The level of equipment has gone up far more than the level of forces will be going up," he said.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) In Job Hunt, College Degree Can't Close Racial Gap
By MICHAEL LUO
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01race.html?ref=us
Johnny R. Williams, 30, would appear to be an unlikely person to have to fret about the impact of race on his job search, with companies like JPMorgan Chase and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago on his résumé.
But after graduating from business school last year and not having much success garnering interviews, he decided to retool his résumé, scrubbing it of any details that might tip off his skin color. His membership, for instance, in the African-American business students association? Deleted.
"If they're going to X me," Mr. Williams said, "I'd like to at least get in the door first."
Similarly, Barry Jabbar Sykes, 37, who has a degree in mathematics from Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, now uses Barry J. Sykes in his continuing search for an information technology position, even though he has gone by Jabbar his whole life.
"Barry sounds like I could be from Ireland," he said.
That race remains a serious obstacle in the job market for African-Americans, even those with degrees from respected colleges, may seem to some people a jarring contrast to decades of progress by blacks, culminating in President Obama's election.
But there is ample evidence that racial inequities remain when it comes to employment. Black joblessness has long far outstripped that of whites. And strikingly, the disparity for the first 10 months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has been even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared with those without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing field - in fact, it appears to have made it more uneven.
College-educated black men, especially, have struggled relative to their white counterparts in this downturn, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate for black male college graduates 25 and older in 2009 has been nearly twice that of white male college graduates - 8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent.
Various academic studies have confirmed that black job seekers have a harder time than whites. A study published several years ago in The American Economic Review titled "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?" found that applicants with black-sounding names received 50 percent fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names.
A more recent study, published this year in The Journal of Labor Economics found white, Asian and Hispanic managers tended to hire more whites and fewer blacks than black managers did.
The discrimination is rarely overt, according to interviews with more than two dozen college-educated black job seekers around the country, many of them out of work for months. Instead, those interviewed told subtler stories, referring to surprised looks and offhand comments, interviews that fell apart almost as soon as they began, and the sudden loss of interest from companies after meetings.
Whether or not each case actually involved bias, the possibility has furnished an additional agonizing layer of second-guessing for many as their job searches have dragged on.
"It does weigh on you in the search because you're wondering, how much is race playing a factor in whether I'm even getting a first call, or whether I'm even getting an in-person interview once they hear my voice and they know I'm probably African-American?" said Terelle Hairston, 25, a graduate of Yale University who has been looking for work since the summer while also trying to get a marketing consulting start-up off the ground. "You even worry that the hiring manager may not be as interested in diversity as the H.R. manager or upper management."
Mr. Williams recently applied to a Dallas money management firm that had posted a position with top business schools. The hiring manager had seemed ecstatic to hear from him, telling him they had trouble getting people from prestigious business schools to move to the area. Mr. Williams had left New York and moved back in with his parents in Dallas to save money.
But when Mr. Williams later met two men from the firm for lunch, he said they appeared stunned when he strolled up to introduce himself.
"Their eyes kind of hit the ceiling a bit," he said. "It was kind of quiet for about 45 seconds."
The company's interest in him quickly cooled, setting off the inevitable questions in his mind.
Discrimination in many cases may not even be intentional, some job seekers pointed out, but simply a matter of people gravitating toward similar people, casting about for the right "cultural fit," a buzzword often heard in corporate circles.
There is also the matter of how many jobs, especially higher-level ones, are never even posted and depend on word-of-mouth and informal networks, in many cases leaving blacks at a disadvantage. A recent study published in the academic journal Social Problems found that white males receive substantially more job leads for high-level supervisory positions than women and members of minorities.
Many interviewed, however, wrestled with "pulling the race card," groping between their cynicism and desire to avoid the stigma that blacks are too quick to claim victimhood. After all, many had gone to good schools and had accomplished résumés. Some had grown up in well-to-do settings, with parents who had raised them never to doubt how high they could climb. Moreover, there is President Obama, perhaps the ultimate embodiment of that belief.
Certainly, they conceded, there are times when their race can be beneficial, particularly with companies that have diversity programs. But many said they sensed that such opportunities had been cut back over the years and even more during the downturn. Others speculated there was now more of a tendency to deem diversity unnecessary after Mr. Obama's triumph.
In fact, whether Mr. Obama's election has been good or bad for their job prospects is hotly debated. Several interviewed went so far as to say that they believed there was only so much progress that many in the country could take, and that there was now a backlash against blacks.
"There is resentment toward his presidency among some because of his race," said Edward Verner, a Morehouse alumnus from New Jersey who was laid off as a regional sales manager and has been able to find only part-time work. "This has affected well-educated, African-American job seekers."
It is difficult to overstate the degree that they say race permeates nearly every aspect of their job searches, from how early they show up to interviews to the kinds of anecdotes they try to come up with.
"You want to be a nonthreatening, professional black guy," said Winston Bell, 40, of Cleveland, who has been looking for a job in business development.
He drew an analogy to several prominent black sports broadcasters. "You don't want to be Stephen A. Smith. You want to be Bryant Gumbel. You don't even want to be Stuart Scott. You don't want to be, 'Booyah.' "
Nearly all said they agonized over job applications that asked them whether they would like to identify their race. Most said they usually did not.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
15) Supreme Court Overturns Decision on Detainee Photos
By ADAM LIPTAK
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/politics/01scotus.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday vacated a lower court ruling that would have required the government to release photographs showing the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The decision was three sentences long and unsigned, and it followed the enactment of a law in October allowing the secretary of defense to block the pictures' release. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, for further consideration in light of the new law.
The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act, which makes disclosure of information in the hands of the executive branch mandatory unless an exemption applies. The Second Circuit ordered the photos released last year, and the Justice Department initially recommended against an appeal to the Supreme Court.
But President Obama overruled his lawyers, saying his national security advisers had persuaded him that releasing the photos would inflame anti-American sentiment abroad and endanger American troops. Some of the pictures, according to a government brief, showed "soldiers pointing pistols or rifles at the heads of hooded and handcuffed detainees," a soldier who appears to be striking a detainee with the butt of a rifle, and a soldier holding a broom "as if sticking its end" into a prisoner's rectum.
In the Second Circuit, the government relied on an exemption to the freedom of information law that applies to "information compiled for law enforcement purposes" that "could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual."
Judge John Gleeson, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel of the Second Circuit last year, said the exemption required a specific anticipated danger. The exemption "may be flexible, but it is not vacuous," Judge Gleeson wrote. Referring to "a population the size of two nations and two international expeditionary forces combined," he said, is insufficient.
The government's reading, the judge added, would create "an alternative secrecy mechanism far broader than the government's classification system."
The Supreme Court's summary order in the case, Department of Defense v. A.C.L.U., No. 09-160, did not address whether that ruling was correct. It merely said the new law required reconsideration of the case.
The law applies to photographs taken from Sept. 11, 2001, to Jan. 22, 2009, showing "the treatment of individuals engaged, captured or detained after Sept. 11, 2001, by the armed forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States," so long as the secretary of defense certifies that disclosure "would endanger citizens of the United States, members of the United States armed forces or employees of the United States government deployed outside of the United States."
Robert M. Gates, the secretary of defense, signed the required certification on Nov. 13.
Human rights groups and news organizations, including The New York Times, urged the Supreme Court to refuse to hear the case.
The court's brief order indicated that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who until recently was a judge on the Second Circuit, did not participate in Monday's decision. Judge Sotomayor was not a member of the appeals court panel that ordered the photos released.
The A.C.L.U. issued a statement saying it would continue to fight for disclosure of the pictures.
"We continue to believe that the photos should be released, and we intend to press that case in the lower court," said Steven R. Shapiro, the group's legal director. "No democracy has ever been made stronger by suppressing evidence of its own misconduct."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
16) California: Inmate's Appeal Is Rejected
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
National Briefing | West
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01brfs-INMATESAPPEA_BRF.html?ref=us
The United States Supreme Court rejected the appeal of Kevin Cooper, a California death row inmate convicted of killing four people in 1983. Mr. Cooper and his supporters argue that others committed the murders and that evidence against him was planted by the police. Mr. Cooper was hours away from execution in 2004 when the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ordered new DNA tests. A federal judge ruled that the new tests did not exonerate him, and appeals courts have upheld the decision. Mr. Cooper's supporters insisted that the conditions for the testing rendered them useless, and a 103-page dissent in the Ninth Circuit's decision to deny Mr. Cooper a rehearing earlier this year stated that "the State of California may be about to execute an innocent man."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
17) Kentucky: Conviction Is Challenged
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01brfs-CONVICTIONIS_BRF.html?ref=us
A former Army soldier who raped a girl and killed her and three family members in Iraq challenged his convictions, saying he was wrongly tried in a civilian court and should have faced a military trial. In a 71-page appeal filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, lawyers for the former soldier, Steven D. Green, are seeking to have the law used to prosecute him - the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act - overturned. The law, enacted in 2000, allows the federal government to try former soldiers, their spouses and contractors in civilian courts for crimes that happened overseas. A message left for the United States Attorney's Office in Louisville, which prosecuted Mr. Green, brought no immediate reply. Prosecutors have until Jan. 5 to file a response. A jury in Paducah convicted Mr. Green, 24, a former 101st Airborne soldier, in June of raping and killing Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, 14. He also was convicted of killing three of her family members in the March 2006 attack. He is serving a life prison sentence without parole. The other four soldiers charged in the plot faced military trials.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
18) A Conversation With Laurence Steinberg
Developmental Psychologist Says Teenagers Are Different
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS
December 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01conv.html?ref=education
Laurence Steinberg, a developmental psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, is one of the leading experts in the United States on adolescent behavior and adolescent brain biology. Dr. Steinberg, 57, has won the $1 million Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize, which will be awarded to him at a ceremony in early December in Switzerland. Here is an edited version of two conversations with Dr. Steinberg last month:
Q. YOU HEAR PARENTS SOMETIMES SAY, "I'M LIVING WITH AN INSANE PERSON. MY CHILD IS A TEENAGER." ARE THEY BEING HYPERBOLIC?
A. I'm not one of those people who labels adolescence as some sort of mental illness. Teenagers are not crazy. They're different.
When it comes to crime, they are less responsible for their behavior than adults. And typically, in the law, we don't punish people as much who are less responsible. We know from our lab that adolescents are more impulsive, thrill-seeking, drawn to the rewards of a risky decision than adults. They tend to not focus very much on costs. They are more easily coerced to do things they know are wrong. These factors, under the law, make people less responsible for criminal acts. The issue is: as a class, should we treat adolescents differently?
Q. IS THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM BEGINNING TO TAKE THESE DIFFERENCES INTO ACCOUNT DURING SENTENCING?
A. It's been coming up in cases. I went to Washington in November to watch the oral arguments in two related cases before the Supreme Court that ask: should someone who committed a crime as a teen be subjected to life imprisonment without a chance for parole, ever?
With these cases, and another in 2005 where the high court threw out the death penalty for adolescents, I was scientific consultant to the American Psychological Association on its amicus brief. What we said in the death penalty case - and now - was that we have considerable evidence showing that adolescents are different from adults in ways that mitigate their criminal responsibility. But since 2005, there's been a lot of new scientific evidence supporting this position.
Q. WHAT IS THE NEW EVIDENCE?
A. In the last five years, as neuroscience has moved forward with functional magnetic resonance imaging and with research on animals, there have been dozens of new studies of adolescent brain development. These show that the brain systems providing for impulse control are still maturing during adolescence. Neuroscientists have shown that the part of the brain that improves most during adolescence is the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in complicated decision-making, thinking ahead, planning, comparing risks and rewards. And the neuroscientific research is showing that over the course of adolescence and into the 20s, there is this continued maturation of this part of the brain. So now, we have brain evidence that supports behavioral studies.
Moreover, we're seeing that behavior can change once the brain more fully matures. Take thrill-seeking, for instance. What happens is that when people move out of adolescence, they become less interested in it. For example, I can't stand riding on a roller-coaster now. I liked it as a teenager. I can't stand driving fast now. I liked driving fast when I was a teenager. What has changed? I'm not as driven today by this thrill-seeking sensation. And in our studies, we've shown that there is a kind of normative decline in sensation-seeking after middle adolescence. A lot of adolescent crime is driven by thrill-seeking.
Q. HOW DOES THIS NEW INFORMATION
lead to concluding that the courts shouldn't sentence some adolescents to life in prison without parole?
A. Given the fact that we know that there will be a developmental change in most people, the science says that we should give them a chance to mature out of it. No one is saying that kids who commit horrific crimes shouldn't be punished. But most in the scientific community think that we know that since this person is likely to change, why not revisit this when he's an adult and see what he's like?
Q. DO YOU HAVE TEENAGERS AT HOME?
A. We have a son, Ben, who is now 25 and who works at Random House. He did something as a teenager that led me to a whole program of research. He and some friends went to the window of a girl they knew and inadvertently set off a burglar alarm. When a police squad car came, they panicked and fled. When I found out, I said: "Do you realize that you were running from armed police officers who thought they were interrupting a break-in. What were you thinking?" He said: "Well, that's the problem. I wasn't." I wondered: "What goes on when kids are in a peer group that pushes them to make bad decisions?"
Since then, we've had people of different ages come to the lab and bring two friends with them. We give them computerized risk-taking tests while we image their brains. We compare brain activity when individuals are watched by their friends and when they are alone. For the adults, the presence of friends has no effect. But for adolescents, just having friends nearby doubles the number of risks they take. We've found that a certain part of the brain is activated by the presence of peers in adolescents, but not in adults.
Q. YOU ADVISED THE DEFENSE TEAM OF OMAR KHADR, THE YOUNGEST DETAINEE AT GUANTáNAMO BAY. WHY GET INVOLVED IN THAT CASE?
A. Because he was 15 when he was captured in a safe house in Afghanistan, where he'd been sent by his father, who was active in Al Qaeda. There was a battle in 2002 to take this house where American troops died.
He was interrogated for many hours and admitted to having thrown a grenade that killed an American soldier. He later recanted. I was asked by his Defense Department counsel to advise on whether what he said during interrogation was reliable and his degree of culpability, if he did do it.
In my deposition, I said I don't know whether he did it or not, but there are studies that say that adolescents are more likely than adults to give false confessions. There's the Central Park jogger case, where it turned out a group of teenagers gave false confessions. Five were convicted. Several years later, an adult murderer and rapist confessed to the crime.
Q. IT HAS JUST BEEN ANNOUNCED THAT YOU'VE WON THIS $1 MILLION KLAUS JACOBS PRIZE. WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO DO WITH THE MONEY?
A. I want to extend our work on adolescent development to teenagers in other cultures so that we can determine whether the patterns are universal. There's a longstanding debate over how much of adolescent behavior is biological or cultural. Perhaps this award will lead to more answers.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
19) A Familiar Fall
The Dubai Disaster
By AFSHIN RATTANSI
December 1, 2009
http://www.counterpunch.com/rattansi12012009.html
The real story about Dubai
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/740.html
Shelley's Ozymandias is being dredged up because of the economic disaster in the desert emirate of Dubai. International business media are ringing alarm bells over the Middle Eastern city famed for its lifeless skyscrapers and celebration of artifice. The Wall Street Journal reports "Dubai's debt debacle is stoking a new fear for investors across the globe...The Dubai government roiled markets this week with its move to delay debt payments owed by its flagship holding company, Dubai World. The company is stressed by tens of billions in debt that funded spending on glitzy real-estate projects from the Middle East to Las Vegas." It continues, "investors feared Dubai's move would plunge global financial markets into the kind of chaos seen earlier this year."
I worked for the Dubai government for a couple of years in the late 1990s, helping to start a business TV channel that was aimed at addressing the concerns of those protesting at the seminal WTO riots in Seattle. By the time that a relative of the ruler realised that the channel's perspective was not what he had intended, I was on my way. It was a fascinating experience.
Dubai is emblematic not of arrogant developing world leaders but of the relations between business schools in the West and the economic challenges faced by developing nations. If we leave to one side the fact that 80% of the place is indentured labour living in "work camps", the Bugsy Siegel-style rush to transform it into a "world class" city was actually not without its successes. But casting a shadow over the towers of glass and concrete that were going up in 1998 were a few multinational consulting firms - PR, Marketing and most determining of all, McKinsey & Company management consultants. Dubai's strength was its massive Jebel Ali Free Port and Aluminium smelter. The port is the most frequently visited by ships of the U.S. Navy outside the United States. Its ability to handle Nimitz Class aircraft carriers also means that it can process vast cargos from the East, bound for Western consumers. But, management consultants don't like manufacturing. For them, it is white-collar jobs and the nebulous term, "Financial Services" which signifies sophistication and development. Dubai, with its plentiful solar power resources could have made things, even made them for its own people to insulate it from the massive slump in world trade.
It's no wonder the ruler, who I met on numerous occasions, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, seemed so insouciant. McKinsey was obviously handling business behind the scenes. The Prince spent time on horses and on deciding which favoured Emirati national to bestow his patronage. It was unfortunate that so many of them had been educated in Western business schools. Those schools, it seems were really only good on services such as passenger airlines and Sheikh Mohammed's brother, Sheikh Ahmed certainly used the knowledge to create a good brand for well-heeled long-haulers.
The ruler also sponsored a cultural revolution unique in the region, making Dubai feel cosmopolitan because of its lack of hang-ups when it came to alcohol and fashion - a lot of fun if you've got money and couldn't care less who built your house. Cultural liberalisation didn't stretch to film and music - I was politely told that we could never play The Clash's Rock the Casbah on TV and Hollywood feature films were peculiarly foreshortened by the morality police.
Sheikh Mohammed listened to the MBA-mob on most economic ideas but stood his ground when told to take a stand on the made-up crisis over ownership of three islands in the Persian Gulf. The U.S., under President Clinton, constantly tried to stir up trouble between Dubai and Iran and Sheikh Mohammed was having none of it. Rhetorically, Dubai stands with the Palestinians and I remember a bizarre photo in the main newspaper of piles of rocks being exported to the besieged West Bank from Dubai to help child stone-throwers protesting Israeli atrocities. Sheikh Mohammed acutely understood geopolitical alliances - the importance of regional superpowers like Iran and Saudi Arabia. However, his ties to U.S. financial wonks made the neighbouring emirate of Sharjah, the investment opportunity of choice when it came to the communist party of China. That, with hindsight, may have been a big mistake.
But just as hired British urban planners rejected radial, organic development opting instead for the construction of one long road in the desert with skyscrapers on either side (it just leads to traffic jams because people get farther and farther from each other on the Sheikh Zayed Road), McKinsey told Dubai to invest in property, tourism and a stock market. I could tell when I interviewed Kito de Boer, McKinsey's Middle East Director, that he saw my questions about the viability of friction-less capitalism as symptomatic of my lack of an MBA. I obviously just didn't have the makings of a McKinsey Man.
The Asian Economic Crisis of 1997 may have been just a few months back, but there was a crazy optimism amongst incoming expats, partly based on the internet bubble. Massive tax breaks were implemented by the consultants for encouraging old and new media organisations to relocate to Dubai. I witnessed the flooding of an artificial reservoir beside what is now a massive apartment complex near Jumeirah and inquired where Dubai would get water from since ground water supplies were dwindling. I was laughed at. There was more than enough money - they could afford to bring desalinated water on ships for the tenants, I was told. And with legal codes slow to evolve, the celebrities and so-called white trash really were tenants because the actual freeholds of the land, rather like in central London, are owned by the few.
The tourism economy, meanwhile, was run with an iron fist. Human Rights Watch reported that conditions for hotel construction workers were such that they were being treated as "less than human." The weather forecasters told lies to keep skyscraper-builders toiling in ILO-illegal heat. Mendacious agents were sent to the subcontinent to sell the virtues of leaving home and family for high income. Those workers found they couldn't go back.
Human trafficking was notorious. Mass imprisonment followed attempts by workers to go on strike.
I went to Abu Dhabi a couple of times and saw a much more conservative, modest place. It was before Abu Dhabi opened its $3 billion Emirates Palace hotel. It wasn't as conservative when it came to advanced weaponry, though. BAe Systems is now Britain's biggest manufacturer and the UAE bought loads of expensive, impracticable planes. I had the pleasure of attending the largest arms fair of the twentieth century there in 1999. If you looked far enough in the big hall, past the son of Kalashnikov, you could even buy landmines. The now-dead Joe Modise, hero of the violent struggle against apartheid and then defence minister of South Africa was proudly telling me why he wasn't disconcerted by selling the brand Armscor. Mandela, who I also met in Dubai, had ordered him to sell as many weapons as he could. Death machines are big business and it was notable that the fair was in Abu Dhabi.
Back then, the tensions between poorer Dubai and Abu Dhabi were palpable - they were at war as late as the end of the 1970s. The violent Dubai succession of rulers mean that one of Sheikh Mohammed's mothers (polygamy is the norm) was actually the daughter of a man killed by the grandfather of the president of the UAE. That was when Dubai was known for its natural pearls and the British left because of the new Japanese cultured ones - only to learn that the UAE had struck oil. British foreign policy in the Arab world, despite David Lean's mythology, has never been good for Britain. A succession of Tony Blair's pathetic secretaries of state trooped to Dubai when I was there to suck up to what they saw as neoliberal progress. They should have spent more time in the UAE's capital.
Abu Dhabi has the bulk of the foreign currency earning geology - around 10% of global oil reserves and 4% of gas lie in the UAE and Abu Dhabi is the lender of last resort for Sheikh Mohammed's empire. It has the oil and gas money to refresh Dubai's coffers and easily pay the $60 billion debt that has been announced to the markets. All the myriad subsidiaries of Dubai - from Travelodge hotels to the London Stock Exchange - will be anxiously awaiting the news from the Eid al-Adha meeting between the UAE's most powerful families, the Maktoums and the Al-Nahyans.
At the moment, international corporate media is as quick to damn Dubai as it was to laud it. Except that the Dubai story isn't the story of Ozymandian arrogance in the desert. It is the same story that has been played out in country after country, around the world. Developing nations were advised by the same investment companies that are driving capitalism into the abyss in New York that there can only ever be one mode of development. Those same companies ignored the histories of places, ignored reality when silly plans for stock exchanges foundered, when legal codes of property ownership failed to be drawn up.
Instead of doubting neoliberalism's charms, the brightest Emiratis were more concerned that Dubai's cultural freedoms might attract the wrath of Al Qaeda-style reaction. I certainly heard of young Pakistani construction workers, attracted to fundamentalism as a panacea for poverty, pointing to the twin Emirates Towers after 911. Representatives from the guardians of Mecca and Medina themselves turned up to curtail George Clooney filming the movie, Syriana, in Dubai.
But, in the end, it turned out that environmental degradation, geography, culture, religion, bedu history, tribal allegiances, the spread of little bin Ladens all had little to do with the ticking time bomb that was muffled by the sound of cranes. It was actually just American business schools and the Chicago charlatans that were the problem. What happens to all those in the labour camps of Dubai is open to question. As for Dubai's ruler, it is perhaps no wonder that he recently told media critics to "shut up."
Afshin Rattansi has helped launch and develop television networks and has worked in journalism for more than two decades, at the BBC Today programme, CNN International, Bloomberg News, Al Jazeera Arabic, the Dubai Business Channel, Press TV and The Guardian. His quartet of novels, "The Dream of the Decade" is available on Amazon.com. He is executive producer of a new TV show, "Rattansi & Ridley" which broadcasts internationally, every Saturday at 2032 GMT on Press TV. He can be reached at afshinrattansi@hotmail.com
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
No comments:
Post a Comment