Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Charges Dismissed Against March of the Dead Activists: Laurie Arbeiter
On January 6, 2009, artist and activist Laurie Arbeiter joined seventy others from around the country for the March of the Dead. Participants assembled in Washington and began to read the names of those killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine before the Capitol Police interrupted the event and arrested seventeen people. Four of them, including Laurie, appeared in court last week on charges of unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct, where the judge nullified their case. Robbie Diesu, Michelle Grise, and Pete Perry also appeared in court with Laurie. In the event that Laurie and others would be convicted, she prepared a statement to read outside of the courthouse. Click here to read that statement.
Laurie is a member of The Critical Voice, which started the We Will Not Be Silent T-shirt campaign.
Laurie Arbeiter:
- Four of us were put on trial for an action that we did Jan 6, 2009. The first day of 111th Congress.
- People came from all over the country to circle the Capitol in death masks carrying the names of the dead from Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.
- On that day, 17 of us were arrested and some of us were brought all the way to trial.
- Last week, we went into court for disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly.
- We didn’t get to mount our case because of the gross misconduct of the government, including tampering with evidence, they destroyed evidence.
- We were followed by police both on bicycles and motorcycles, throughout the day. But then we decided to go into the Senate Hart Building, in the atrium. We continued with the March of the Dead. Another group hung billboard sized banners.
- When we did the solemn procession before we got to the Capitol, the police on bikes were waiting for us. I was in the lead, wearing a death mask and police officers started taunting me, pointing at me saying, “we know who you are.” It makes me feel more defiant.
- As Barack Obama said, “those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.”
- I am one of many that stand proud in solidarity with all the other people that came from around the country.
- During the court case, the police officer kept saying how loud we were, but we are all quiet, and read the names of the dead reverently.
- The police asked the court to see a youtube video, edited, sound enhanced, the judge allowed it. They had problems projecting the video in court.
- So, they used the judge’s laptop. My lawyer cross-examined the police officer, where are your notes, the log of the event. The cop answered they went away. At that point the case was dismissed.
- This case was about what is allowed of a free people who feel an urgency because war crimes are being committed in their time. What are we as a free people allowed to do? Where do we go to seek justice?
- I would have asked the court – if crimes are being committed why wouldn’t decent people speak up so their voices could be heard? Why is that a crime? While the people who committed the most heinous acts against human beings are set free. Why are we being prosecuted?
Guest – Laurie Arbeiter, artist, prominent activist, and designer of “We Will Not Be Silent” T-shirt series. To order T-shirts, email Laurie at – Arrestbush(at)gmail.com. Her website (currently being built) is wewillnotbesilent.net.
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Supreme Court Denies Certiorari In the Cuban Five Case
As listeners may already know, the Supreme Court recently declined to hear the case of the Cuban Five. The request for review, which included a record-setting 12 amicus briefs and received widespread international attention, was the Cuban Five’s last chance for a new trial.
The Five’s defense attorneys argued it was impossible for the men to get fair trials in Miami, where anti -Castro sentiment runs high, and that the convictions should be overturned.
Last year, the 11th U.S. District Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld the convictions of the Cuban Five who are serving long prison sentences charged with spying and conspiracy to commit murder. Joining us again to discuss the case is noted criminal defense attorney Leonard Weinglass, who represented the Cuban Five. Len, welcome back to the show. Demonstration video link
Len Weinglass:
- 98 Percent of all petitions for Cert are denied. We were optimistic because our position was so strongly stated and unprecedently joined by 11 briefs and friends of the court including 10 Nobel Prize winners.
- Then June 15, the news came down. The court rejected out of hand without a single dissenting opinion.
- We were hoping against experience that teaches otherwise, that the Obama Administration would lighten up on this case and acknowledge some of the undisputed facts.
- Timing: June 5, 2009 Kendall and Gwendolyn Meyers arrested for passing classified information to Cuban handlers.
- Batson Case – The government permitted several minorities on the jury who were elderly and less well educated as a shield against challenges of racial bias. The record shows the government removed seven younger well educated minority jurors. We brought this to the court’s attention, because this is happening throughout the country (Mumia Abu Jamal case – instruction film to purge minority jurors)
- Community prejudice issue: Trying the Cuban Five case in Miami.
- This is the first “conspiracy to commit espionage” case in which there was not a single classified document.
- The options have become narrower, three of the five are up for re-sentencing. I’m hopeful my client Antonio Guerrero will not get a life sentence but will get a set term of years.The Cuban Five have served 10 years.
- Analagous cases – Ben-Ami Kadish – recently (Dec 2008) received a suspended sentence and 50 thousand dollar fine ( which he responded, no problem judge.) for taking classified documents to his handler’s home in Riverdale, Bronx several times (including information about nuclear weapons, a modified F-15 fighter, and the Patriot missiles) and let an unnamed Israeli government worker take photographs of them.
- Posada Carriles, has a long standing association with the CIA, which his attorney acknowledged in court papers. Carriles was charged with the murder of 73 people, he escaped prison, (with help of unknown persons) He was then hired by the CIA, paid by the US tax payer to help in the war against the elected government of Nicarargua.
- Carriles was involved in bringing down the first commercial plane in mid-flight. Cubana airline, the bomb exploded (C4) that was placed in a toothpaste tube left in the mens room. The tail assembly was damaged, then pilots lost control and plane plummeted into ocean. Carriles was named by the person who he paid them to do it. That person is a cab driver in Caracas, Venezuela and is available to the media.
- Going forward with the Cuban Five cases, there are legal options, specifically 18 US C2255 – Federal Habeas. We could raise constitutional issues that haven’t previous been raised and litigated, we have one year in which to file. We’re not completely out of court, but what’s called the “direct appeals” are over. We now have collateral appeals.
- It’s up to the Obama Administration to recognize the reality here of what happened and begin the process of returning the Five home.
Guest – criminal defense attorney Leonard Weinglass, who represented the Cuban Five, as William Kunstler’s younger partner, Len Weinglass was considered the work horse of the defense team. He’s worked on a number of political cases including the Pentagon Papers trial and the Angela Davis case. He’s a Yale Law School graduate and former U.S. Air Force Captain.
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Peter Weiss : International Human Rights Law and the Royal Dutch Shell Settlement
Europe’s largest oil company Royal Dutch Shell settled a landmark lawsuit last week, agreeing to pay 15.5 million to avoid a trial over it’s alleged involvement in human rights violations in the Niger Delta. The case was brought by relatives of human rights and environmental activists killed in Nigeria who accused Shell of complicity in the 1995 executions of Nigerian writer and environmentalist Ken Saro Wiwa and eight others. Charges in the case include summary execution, crimes against humanity, torture, inhumane treatment, arbitrary arrest, wrongful death, assault and battery, and infliction of emotional distress. Attorney Peter Weiss explains how historic laws such as the Alien Tort Claim are used to hold multinational corporations accountable for human rights crimes.
Peter Weiss:
- They (Royal Dutch Shell) knew all along that they were complicit. Decades ago I was involved in the struggle against colonialism in Africa. What that settlement represented was a victory against neo-colonialism.
- I think we all hope at the Center for Constitutional Rights that this will send a signal to other companies.
- Peter Weiss and Rhonda Copeland were instrumental in beginning the first cases in which human rights violations, taking place in other countries could actually be litigated in the United States.
- Alien Tort Statute Claim: We first discovered that during the Mei Li massacre. It’s a one sentence law that goes back to the first judiciary act in the United States in 1789.
- It simply says, an alien shall have a right of action in district court for a violation of the law of nations. (as international law was called in the 18th century)
- Ten years later Amnesty International got in touch with CCR, saying we have this torturer in Paraguay. Which became known as Filartica – 1978 / 1980 was the decision. It set the stage for hundreds of cases.
- About 15 years ago, CCR applied that statute to the human rights crimes of corporations in foreign countries.
- We’ve had a few victories and one of them was the UNOCAL case, where UNOCAL was using slave labor. That case was settled. Now, the Wiwa case was settled.
- If you’re familiar with what corporations are doing around the world, you can imagine how many such cases can be brought.
- Royal Dutch Shell was actually paying these Nigerian soldiers that were committing these atrocities.
- The worst thing that they did was go to the Nigerian government and say we have to get rid of these trouble makers.
- Nigeria was under a corrupt dictatorship at the time.
- We’re not the only ones, the Center for Justice and Accountability out in California have victories against Salvadorian torturers
- Jerry Nadler had a hearing on the state’s secrets act and on the opening statement, he says people bring these suits and the government comes in and says state secrets, the suit can’t go forward. But there’s an international law says Nadler, that has to be a remedy for every right.
Guest – Peter Weiss, former Vice President, Center for Constitutional Rights and Vice President, of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.
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A Revolution Books Town Hall Meeting: TORTURE AND THE NEED FOR JUSTICE
We hear from Laura Flanders, journalist and host of GRITtv, and Chris Hedges, former New York Times Mideast bureau chief, author of many books specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and society. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He was also the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. Chris Hedges’ new book, “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle,” will be out in July and can be preordered at your local bookstore.
Speakers :
Organized by Revolution Books / Libros Revolucion
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For WBAI Listeners
Men, Mobs and Law by Rebecca Hill
Men Mobs and Law is the title of Rebecca Hill’s new book that explores the complexities of protest movements, race, class and gender. Hill draws comparisons in two types of left protest campaigns, those that defend labor organizers from prosecution and the anti-lynching groups that seek to memorialize lynching victims. Hill says, both groups have influenced each other throughout history and she specifically connects the narratives and stories of the NAACP’s anti lynching work to the IWW’s labor defense campaigns.
Rebecca Hill’s treatment of these dramatic stories has been called “fresh, lively, richly detailed, and impassioned.”
Rebecca Hill:
- When I first started the book it was about martyrdom and the American Left and heroic politics. I’ll take these particular cases, John Brown, Haymarket etc.
- In the research I found that this other problem that there is no law enforcement and the source of terror that black activists were dealing with was extra-legal. . . . and their anti-lynching activism that started in the 60s – and I then went back to Ida B Wells, Dubois – 1887-1890s
- Ida B Wells talking about how dangerous passion is. This is a problem in leftest activism in general. It goes to the big questions of political theory and rationale, the role of emotions, questions of what is the meaning of popular action,
- I didn’t want to condemn either side, the anti lynching movement strategy or and the socialist left defense organizing, because they both came out of experiences that informed their politics.
- If you’re facing terroristic mobs, you’re going to respond with a strategy. The anarchists and socialists movement response spoke to the lynching and their response was in inadequate – “rise up in self defense.”
- If you lived in the post reconstructive South, rising up in self defense was not realistic without legal protection.
- What came out of the Haymarket movement in the 1880s was the idea that the key element of solidarity in a labor movement is when somebody is arrested, or victimized as a result of organizing, its the membership that can save them. Not the law. The law is a tool, it’s not enough perhaps.
- The courts are structured by the ruling class, they’re stacked against the worker who is in court. They didn’t want the court room take away from the radicalism of the movement.
- Elizabeth Gurley Flynn – defense expert in IWW trials and Sacco Vanzetti case. Anarchists connected to Sacho and Vanzetti case didn’t want structure and organizing
- I was very active in the Mumia Abu Jamal campaign, you see the greater successes in the popular defense organizing it’s not based on the legal strategy, its when is the movement stronger. You see more victories in the thirties because the labor movement was big and the consensus was moving to the left during the New Deal
- John Brown’s defense is close to the fugitive slave rescues which were anti-court . John Brown’s notion that the courts are wrong and should answer to a higher power, not the current law of slavery. John Brown attempted to make available weapons for slaves to take up arms. See the book John Brown Mysteries
- I don’t really think of John Brown as a religious zealot, I think he really believed in popular organizing and popular activism.
Guest – Rebecca Hill, author of Men Mobs and Law.
Censorship, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Military Tribunal, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Disgraceful Coverage: New York Times Article Riddled With Inaccuracy
On May 21, the New York Times newspaper published a front page story, titled 1 in 7 Detainees Rejoined Jihad, Pentagon Finds. Journalist, Elisabeth Bumiller stated from the Pentagon report that 74 prisoners released from Guantanamo had “returned to terrorism.” Many have criticized Bumiller for parroting the Pentagon without investigation or at least being aware of the Seton Hall Law School’s work in challenging the Pentagon’s many recidivism reports. Using the phrase “rejoining jihad” assumes guilt to all former Guantanamo prisoners. The DOD counted Uighers and the Tipton 3, to have returned to the battlefields. The Myth of Return To The Battlefield from Guantanamo
Mark Denbeaux:
- Pentagon playing with numbers, first they said people (in Guantanamo) returned to the fight who were never in the fight, and then they said they returned to the fight from Guantanamo who were never in Guantanamo and never in the fight.
- None of the people that the DOD has listed in its 45 times has ever attacked American troops or its American interests or Americans anywhere in the world. With one exception, none of them have left their home country to whom they’ve returned.
- I was quoted in that article, the reporter called me for 2 days in a row, saying she’s under enormous pressure from her NYTimes editors.
- Talking with the Public Editor we both agreed comparing Elisabeth Bumiller with Judith Miller wasn’t fair but he said it was reminiscent of the lead up to the Iraq War
- A disgrace in the coverage of Guantanamo, a grotesque statement that was wrong with huge political consequences and they (NY Times) couldn’t un-ring that bell.
- There are NY Times reporters immersed in Guantanamo and National Security issues, why did they drop this in the lap of Elisabeth Bumiller? She said (Elisabeth Bumiller) that the Pentagon can’t release information because of politics. I said at least say that politics are involved. She said, I can’t say that.
- Add to that, that the editors were pushing her to get this story out. (Memorial Day Weekend)
- I think everyone agrees that the headline was grotesque and everyone noted the story came out on the morning of Cheney’s speech, and he had it at the ready in his speech.
- I was able with a group of Seton Hall Law students to go through the data the AP produced from a FOIA application.
- My students discovered that only 4 percent of those in Guantanamo were picked up by US forces, 86 percent were bounties in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
- It turned out that if you had 4 or 5 Arabs in a truck that was 20 or 25 thousand US dollars. But for one bounty, it 5 thousand dollars.
- For that 5 thousand dollar bounty you could feed your village as it said in the (CIA brochure) for a year. . .etc
- 55 percent of those in Guantanamo were not accused of commiting a hostile act.
- One of my conservative students asked, Where’s Mr. Big? We’re reading through the lists, he says what about this guy? He turns out to be under US allegation conscripted by the Taliban to be an assistant cook.
- This person surrendered but considered to be among the 45 percent of GTMO prisoners accused of hostile acts. His hostile act was surrendering to the Northern Alliance.
Guest – Seton Hall Law School Professor Mark Denbeaux gives an accurate reading on the Guantanamo prisoner recidivism rates. Professor Mark Denbeaux, one of Seton Hall’s most senior faculty members, is also the Director of the Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy and Research, which is best known for its dissemination of the internationally recognized series of reports on the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp.
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US “Preventive Detention” System In Place
President Obama has held on to the power to allow for a “preventive detention” system that would indefinitely jail terror suspects in the United States without a trial. In a number of Guantanamo habeas corpus cases, the US government’s arguments set up a framework to give the president power to hold terror suspects indefinitely without charge or trial. This is the same broad executive power wielded by the Bush Administration that essentially defines a police state. It would be a total disaster if Congress were to pass a preventive detention regime into law say concerned civil rights lawyers.
David Remes:
- One of my colleagues called CCR and asked how can we help, and CCR doled out 13 Yemenis to represent at Guantanamo.
- We represented them since July 2004, along the way we’ve picked Albanians, more Yemenis and a Pakistani.
- I have my own non-profit human rights litigation firm called Appeal For Justice. I’ve had this up and running since it became clear I could no longer continue at a corporate law firm.
- I really lost interest in the corporate work that I was doing. I would come back from Guantanamo thinking on the way back, nothing else matters.
- I am right now at the secure facility at Arlington Virginia. This is a facility that the government set up to hold our interview notes and exhibits that are deemed to be classified information. It’s not a very pleasant place to work.
- So here are now in June, a year after the Supreme Court said that the men could bring Habeas cases, and they’re still here, five months after the Obama Administration said they would determine case by case who could be released.
- President Obama has released two men.
- My client Adnan Latif with severe psychological issues and a variety of neglected medical conditions. He’s tried to commit suicide a number of times that we know about.
- He’s a very intelligent young man, he writes beautiful poetry. In the last meeting I had with him, but under the table he had chipped off a piece of the formica and started sawing into the vein in his wrist.
- Then at a certain point he said I have a gift for you. I want something for you to remember me by, and he threw a small cup of his blood at me.
- Guantanamo prisoner suicides are considered acts of war against the US.
- I think the idea of preventive detention is an idea that goes too far analytically, because if you can preventively detain people why try them at all.
- I’m afraid that the Obama Administration may pursue legislation, that would strip jurisdiction and deny the right of Habeas.
- Forty percent of Guantanamo prisoners are Yemenis. This is diplomatic problem, not a case by case review.
Guest – Attorney David Remes , who represents 16 Guantanamo detainees from Yemen. Remes played a role in a challenge focused around the captives’ detention based on an avenue of appeal that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) opened. The DTA closed the opportunity for captives who had not yet had writs of habeas corpus filed on their behalf. But the DTA allowed captives to challenge the determinations of their Combatant Status Review Tribunals, that they were properly classified as “enemy combatants”.
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Military Tribunal, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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A Look Into the Memorial Day Weekend Terror Plot
A few weeks ago we spoke with Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California about how the FBI infiltrated Southern California mosques and intrusively monitored members of the Muslim community as if they were criminals. Similar news broke the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, prosecutors called it the latest in a string of homegrown terrorism plots hatched after Sept. 11.
Onta Williams, James Cromitie, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen were ex cons and drug addicts who were probably entrapped by an all too familiar FBI informant sting that lured them into plotting to commit political violence.
Columnist for the Nation, Robert Dreyfuss writes in his article titled, Yet Another Bogus ‘Terror’ Plot since 9/11 not a single American has even been punched in the nose by an angry Muslim, as far as I can tell. Plot after plot the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge! bombing the New York Subways! taking down the Sears Tower! bombing the Prudential building in Newark! proved to be utter nonsense.
Mike German:
- Typically what I do is completely ignore the news stories and go straight to the indictment.
- There were a couple things in the indictment that were shocking. One, the indictment made clear that the informant was convicted in a fraud scheme. The FBI sent this criminal into a mosque. Sending a criminal into a house of worship seems like a misguided approach.
- These hapless unemployed guys were not going to get their hands on heavy weaponry any time soon, the fact that FBI brought in the SAM (Surface To Air) missle is a problem. It makes these people more dangerous than they ever would have been.
- Reading through the indictment, these guys weren’t able to find a gun in New York City, let alone a Stinger missile.
- It was also the informant who introduced the terrorist organization into the discussion.
- Bottomline is you don’t want the government inventing a crime than enticing innocent people into that crime.
- The argument against that is that the people were pre-disposed to commit the crime and the government presented the opportunity. In this case the informant seemed to bringing all the important facts into the game.
- Fits into pattern – you can turn to the Liberty 7 Case, The Ft. Dix Case, the California Lodi Case that involve informants.
- I worked as an undercover agent and it surprises me why these aren’t long term projects with undercover agents. (instead using ex-con informants)
- For the most part the undercover agents’ motives are pure, they’re better trained on how not to commit entrapment and document the planning of the crime instead of using enticements.
- The indictment says that the informant was offering money in an impoverished community. 10 – 15 thousand dollars to join the team. If you’re out of work, it’s kind of hard to turn that down.
- The facts will have to come out in the case as far as documented history of whether these people are involved.
- They could have wrapped this up without making it seem like they’re saving New York City from this terrible destruction.
Guest – ACLU attorney and former FBI agent, Mike German, German develops policy positions and proactive strategies on pending legislation and executive branch actions concerning domestic surveillance, data mining, freedom to travel, medical and financial privacy, national ID cards, whistleblower protection, military commissions and law enforcement conduct. German currently serves as an adjunct professor for Law Enforcement and Terrorism at the National Defense University and is a Senior Fellow with GlobalSecurity.org. German graduated from the Northwestern University Law School , and graduated cum laude from Wake Forest University with a B.A. in Philosophy. A sixteen-year veteran of federal law enforcement, German served as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he specialized in domestic terrorism and covert operations. As an undercover agent, German twice infiltrated extremist groups using constitutionally sound law enforcement techniques. These operations successfully prevented terrorist attacks by winning criminal convictions against terrorists.
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A Revolution Books Town Hall Meeting: TORTURE AND THE NEED FOR JUSTICE
We hear from Sister Dianna Ortiz, who was abducted in 1989 by right-wing forces in Guatemala and brutally tortured. She wrote about her experiences and recovery in the book The Blindfold’s Eyes. My Journey From Torture to Truth. Ortiz is the founder and director of Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC). We listen also to Jeremy Scahill, investigative reporter and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Jeremy is also a frequent contributor to the Nation. Lastly we hear an excerpt from Michael Ratner’s speech. Co-host Michael Ratner, is the president, Center for Constitutional Rights, and an international human rights lawyer who in 2006 filed a criminal complaint in the courts of Germany requesting the criminal prosecution of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Speakers :
Organized by Revolution Books / Libros Revolucion
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For WBAI Listeners:
Obama’s Animal Farm: Bigger, Bloodier Wars Equal Peace and Justice
Here on Law and Disorder we recently talked with several guests on the escalation of war in Afghanistan under the Obama Administration. Last week Obama appointed General Stanley McChrystal to head the US and NATO military command in Afghanistan, – another decision revealing how Obama has restored the most notorious Bush era policies according to James Petra, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. In his article titled Obama’s Animal Farm: Bigger, Bloodier Wars, Petra outlines how McChrystal’s past brutal leadership is marked by systematic torture, bombing of civilian communities and extrajudicial assassinations. Between September 2003 and August 2008, Petra writes – McChrystal directed the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command which operates special teams in overseas assassinations. Petra also mentions that McChrystal is one reason why Obama is fighting to prevent the release of graphic photos that document torture by US soldiers and interrogators. Related: Mysterious Chip-CIA’s Latest Weapon Against Taliban.
Jim Petras:
- It’s very clear that Obama wants a bigger and more ferocious counterinsurgency program.
- Obama is also concerned because the entire Pakistan and Afghanistan borders are supporting resistance. Indigenous, anti-colonial forces have taken over.
- He’s going all out now, he’s pressured the puppet president of Pakistan to launch this humanitarian crime against the Pakistani people, creating 2 million Pakistani refugees, destruction and civil war.
- The overall picture that we get is a tremendous boost in militarization. In the last couple of months it’s one attack after another on the Pakistan military.
- McCrystal is gung-ho, he’s a greater asset to destroy the social networks among the resistance. Similar to Vietnam, to go into villages and assassinate local leaders.
- General McCrystal is a proponent of direct action strictly involved in US terrrorist operations. Slitting throats and strangling anyone remotely connected with the armed resistance.
- There was effort to distinguish between civilians and armed resistors. McCrystals approach is to empty the pond to catch the fish. There going in to drive out millions of people in Pakistan to catch a few thousand resistance fighters.
- This is a monstrous humanitarian disaster compared to Rwanda.
- Torture Photos: You can’t publicize the worst activities of the person you appoint to be the head honcho in this phase of the war.
- Navy Seals, Delta Force, Special Operations Command. I was at Ft. Bragg, in a debate with military officers regarding death squads in Central America. These are killing operations, no surrender. The people that go into it are psycopaths.
- That Obama appointed McCrystal to this position builds bridges back to the worst part of the Bush Administration. Obama has accepted the general paradigm of the past presidents, he has a vision of military empire building, rather than realizing that much more power is achieved in economic expansion and investment.
- The US thought they could do both, economic and military empire building, but with the loss of manufacturing and rise of financial businesses there was no counterweight to the military side of empire. American power can only be realized through a massive military commitment.
- This is a war against a people, it’s going to be a long dirty war. It’s already shaping up. It’s a cost for big oil and manufacturing, rather than a benefit.
Guest – James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50_year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co_author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest books are The Power of Israel in the United States (Clarity Press, 2006); Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants (Clarity Press, 2007) and Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Clarity Press 2008)
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