Law and Disorder Aug 23, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Rights Groups Release Documents From (ICE) Agency FOIA Lawsuit
  Groups Call “Secure Communities” Program a Racial Profiling Dragnet That Undermines Community Policing and Public Safety
• Descendents Appeal to UN Over Latest Mamilla Cemetery Demolitions

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In the Land of the Free, a film by Vadim Jean

Director Vadim George joins us to discuss his recent documentary film “In the Land of the Free.” As many listeners may know, the Angola 3 are Robert King, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace. Each had arrived to the Louisiana State Penitentiary in the late 1960s.  While in prison, and in contact with Black Panthers, the men helped build a prison chapter of the Black Panthers.  They organized inmates to end systematic rape and violence and worked as jailhouse lawyers.  The men have spent a combined century in solitary confinement in the Angola prison. Vadim’s powerful documentary explores the issues of accountability and examines the biases against the sentencing of African Americans compared to Whites and Latinos.  The film is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, and it’s noted toward the end, that there is a pending civil suit  ‘Wilkerson, Wallace and  Woodfox’ vs the State of Louisiana, ruled by the US Supreme Court and to go to trial based that their 30+ years in solitary confinement is “inhumane and unconstitutional”. This case could stop long-term solitary confinement in US prisons.
Vadim Jean:

• I was friends with Anita Roddick, she knew Robert King, and when she passed away in 2007, Robert King was one of the speakers at her memorial.  They wouldn’t let me film in the prison.
• The Angola 3 came together in the New Orleans parrish prison in the 1970s.
• The criminals were put in with the Black Panthers and the Black Panthers educated the criminals.
• In the 1970s Angola was the bloodiest prison in America.
• Robert King was told why he was kept in solitary confinement after 25 years in CCR (solitary confinement)
• Because he was being investigated for the murder of Brent Miller, which happened when he wasn’t even in the prison.  They’re incredible human beings. They’re strong men. They’re self educated, in prison.
• I think they have their side, the fact that they know they’re innocent, and that makes you strong, that’s made them incredibly strong.  They refused to be beaten.
• Robert is free. His conviction was overturned in 2001. People have reacted strongly to the film.
• I’ve tended to make drama comedies. I made a completely mad film called Jiminy Glick in Lalawood with Martin Short.
• I made this film for Anita. (Anita Roddick)  The Roddick Foundation.

Guest – Vadim Jean, began his career directing commercials for products such as Blockbuster Video, Woolworths, The Observer and Mercury 121 Mobile Phones. He then moved on to music videos for Elton John and Oasis before co-directing his first feature film, Leon the Pig Farmer (1992). For his work he won an Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer, a Chaplin Award for Best First Feature at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

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Law and Disorder Barack Obama Series – CCR Staff Attorney Shane Kadidal

We’re joined by Center for Constitutional Rights staff attorney Shane Kadidal to give us an overview on several critical topics we’ve been following over the years here on Law and Disorder. We look at what is happening in Guantanamo right now, the Obama policy of preventive detentions and the state of Habeas Corpus in the United States.  In January of 2009 Barack Obama issued orders to close Guantanamo Bay prison. There was talk of transferring prisoners to a supermax prison in the United States.  Military tribunals move forward for Guantanamo prisoners.

Shane Kadidal:

• What we won is the right to get into court and challenge the legality of your detention. CCR won that in 2008
• Obama gets into office and says he’s going to close Guantanamo Bay Prison in a year.
• Obama to set up expert agency to decide what to do with people in Guantanamo prison
• About 50 cases have gone forward and we (CCR) won 72 percent of the cases
• About 180 left in Guantanamo.  Obama has improved physical conditions for detainees in Guantanamo, but they’re still stuck there. Nothing much has changed, we see stasis, there isn’t much political movement.
• About a month into the administration, the Obama Department of Justice says our position is the same as the Bush administrations on Bagram AFB prison
• We’re taking the same legal position about executive power as the previous administration – state’s secrets about rendition
• Six hundred people in Bagram right now. Bagram is an active war zone, can’t have courts interferring
• About 30 of the remaining 180 in Guantanamo will be charged. Most of the people brought there were innocent. The victim of profiling policies.
• General Stone says 400 of the 600 hundred in Bagram Prison have done nothing and should be released immediately.  Task Force report on Guantanamo prisoners. 10 percent leaders of Al-Qaeda, 20 percent had a logistics role, others are low level soldiers. This is false.
• There are innocent people in Guantanamo, who have been there for 8 years.
• We still have a military commissions, an indefinite detention system. Lieberman proposing to strip citizenship from terrorism suspects so they can be interrogated without Miranda warnings.
• Moving Guantanamo Prison to Thomson Prison in Illinois.
• Obama as committed to removing checks on executive power

Guest – Shane Kadidal senior managing attorney of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. He is a graduate of the Yale Law School and a former law clerk to Judge Kermit Lipez of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Past shows with Shane Kadidal

 

 Law and Disorder May 17, 2010: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Watering Down Fundamental Rights:
• Miranda Rights Changing. Public Safety Exception
• Expanding the Exception to Defendant’s Rights.
• Presentment: Withing 24 hours of being detained, you must be brought before a judge.
• Obama Administration: Disaster on civil liberties.
• German Court Seeks Arrests of 13  CIA Agents

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Kagan “Loves” the Federalist Society

Hosts discuss Elena Kagan’s background with Francis Boyle, Professor of law at the University of Illinois. Boyle is author of “Tackling America’s Toughest Questions.” In his article titled  – - Supreme Court Pick: Kagan “Loves” the Federalist Society, – - Boyle notes Kagan explicitly endorsed the Bush administration’s bogus category of ‘enemy combatant,’ whose implementation has been a war crime in its own right. He also writes that “Kagan has actually said ‘I love the Federalist Society.’  Almost all of the Bush administration lawyers responsible for its war and torture memos are members of the Federalist Society.  Read - Dean Elena Kagan: Harvard’s Gitmo Kangaroo Law School — The School for Torturers

Law Professor, Francis Boyle:

• She has fully defended the hideous Bush atrocities, civil rights, human rights, civil liberties.
• No retreat or abandonment of the Bush positions.
• She (Kagan) did write this tome in the Harvard Law Review, equivalent to the Federalist Society, unitary executive power theory of the presidency.
• She’d be a total disaster on the cases that really count for the future of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
• She’s a neo-conservative and has no qualifications to speak of.
• (She) hired Jack Goldsmith, author of torture memos and helped set up kangaroo court system in Guantanamo. We are still fighting Kagan supporting the Bush war on terrorism.
• Kagan stated on National Public Radio on December 22, 2009, “I Love The Federalist Society”
• Obama and his people know that Kagan will be the spear carrier for presidential powers on the Supreme Court
• This is a very dangerous time for the future of our republic and Constitution.  The statement that she cares for the common people. . . she’s an elitist snob.
• There she is promoting globalization at Harvard Law School?? Hiring people to teach “globaloney” just to lick the boots of Larry Summers?  While dean at Harvard Law School, she was moonlighting at Goldman Sachs payroll.
• This is all incredibly incestuous. Unlike Bush who wasn’t a lawyer, Obama taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School, he should know better.

Guest – Professor Francis Boyle, A scholar in the areas of international law and human rights, Professor Boyle received a J.D. degree magna cum laude and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at the College of Law, he was a teaching fellow at Harvard and an associate at its Center for International Affairs. He also practiced tax and international tax with Bingham, Dana & Gould in Boston.

He has written and lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on the relationship between international law and politics. His eleventh  book, Breaking All the Rules: Palestine, Iraq, Iran and the Case for Impeachment was recently published by Clarity Press. His Protesting Power: War, Resistance and Law has been used successfully in  anti-war protest trials.

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In Memory of Attorney Rhonda Copelon

Hosts talk with Cathy Albisa, executive director of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative. about the human rights legacy of Rhonda Copelon.  Rhonda had a huge influence on changing international law for human rights.  She founded the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic.  

Lawyers You’ll Like series with Rhonda Copelon. Part 1 /  Part 2.

Attorney Cathy Albisa:

• I worked with Rhonda at CUNY,  we both co-counseled with CCR on a couple of cases.
• I met Rhonda on a car ride, a 25 hour car ride. We spent 25 hours talking about human rights in the United States.  Rhonda had a huge influence on NESRI
• Rhonda never stopped lamenting Harris v McRae, she was still furious and outraged.
• The assumption embedded in that case is the court is saying, we’re not responsible as a society, the poverty of this woman.  Copeland Fund For Gender Justice.  Rhonda thought it was critical that a progressive gender perspective be embedded into some body of work that really looked at these gender issues in a cross cutting way, that understood the relevance of poverty, the relevance of race, the relevance of sexual minorities.
• Rhonda was not a wealthy woman, she was a law professor and saved her money. She gave 1 million dollars for this fund and that was everything. The case that she says always saved my life was Filártiga v. Peña-Irala.
• She founded the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic. What she did with that clinic is challenge the traditional model of human rights law coming out of the United States.
• She made no claims of being objective, she was on the side of victims, of people with similar politics to her own.
• This changed international law. Rhonda: Don’t disregard the banal, the ordinary things that actually represent deep violations.
• The way Rhonda went about things, she merged intellectual capital with a strategic ferocity and personal good will and relationship building.
• She thought it was very important that people understand they’re part of a broad social justice and human rights movement.Cathy Albisa joins us today to talk about her work with the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and Rhonda’s work as legal adviser to the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice.

Guest- Cathy Albisa, is a constitutional and human rights lawyer with a background on the right to health. Ms. Albisa also has significant experience working in partnership with community organizers in the use of human rights standards to strengthen advocacy in the United States. She co-founded NESRI along with Sharda Sekaran and Liz Sullivan in order to build legitimacy for human rights in general, and economic and social rights in particular, in the United States.

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 Law and Disorder January 18, 2010 [57:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• Haiti Relief : Partners In Health
• Fahad Hashmi Vigil

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Historic International Support: Gaza Freedom March Debrief

Hundreds of activists with the Gaza Freedom Marchers have returned from Israel, Palestine and Egypt bringing home incredible stories from the largest international mobilization of people in solidarity.  We hear first hand accounts from our own Michael Ratner who with his family were among the 13 hundred solidarity marchers. We are also joined by Felice Gelman who has also returned from the Gaza Freedom March. As many listeners may know, the Egyptian authorities refused to allow the 1,365 participants from 43 countries to enter the Gaza Strip, but later 100 people were let in to Gaza.

Felice Gelman / Michael Ratner:

• It was a remarkable event despite not getting into Gaza. 1400 people from 43 countries, Europe India, Australia, South Africa. Within 3 days the Egyptian government went from we need more info, we’re working with you to . . . you’re not coming.
• We were unable to get a meeting place at any time for any group of people. The Egyptians said that any gathering of more than six people would be illegal.  One of the prerequisites in order to get into Gaza is you don’t engage with local opposition in Egypt. In a way it was a perfect demonstration of what the siege in Gaza is all about.
• Egypt is a police state. There are 2 million police for a population of 60 million.
• Egyptian police are very brutal with their people. They’re disappeared, they’re tortured. No room for democracy. No support for a civil society to express itself to protest.
• The thing that was incredible was the number of Egyptians that wanted to join us.  There were a couple of instances where people were hurt. The secret police would try to single people out at a demonstration and punch or hit them.
• They would identify women who were Muslims. I don’t know if was that they were Egyptian and they (secret police) thought they could get away with it. They beat up a 12 year old girl and a 75 year old woman, they were not discriminating.
• Egyptians (opposition) joined in with GFM demonstrations in Cairo.
• We had a demonstration at the US Embassy in Cairo, the police surrounded them for five hours before they could get into Embassy. The US Embassy didn’t seem to think that this was bizarre until they were reminded of their legal obligation to help their citizens.
• the US Embassy informed the Egyptian police that they had no objection of us going to Gaza.
• There were some people who went to Al-Arish, and the Egyptian police were onto that. They surrounded a hotel in Al-Arish
• (Michael Ratner) I can’t imagine the logistics and the organizing nightmare it was for you guys
• I can’t think of a time since the Spanish Civil War, that there was a contingent of such size and national breadth that traveled to assist people in their distress from a brutal attack.
• I think this was an incredible demonstration of where the world stands on Gaza.
• My kids 19 and 21, seeing people with the courage to go to these demonstrations from all over the world. Out of that I think there will be a global organizing structure.
• The other thing is the drafting of the Cairo Declaration, drafted by the South African delegation.  Calling on the ending of the occupations of Gaza and the West Bank, primarily with global BDS movements.  (Palestinian unified call)
• When Gaza was getting attacked, it was the South African trade unionists that refused to load the weapons that were being sent to Israel.
• The potential for labor to move on this is enormous and powerful.
• The Gaza Freedom March website will be handed over to the committee working on the Cairo Declaration.
• New York Report Back – Judson Memorial Church January 21 / 55 Washington Square S.

Guest: Felice Gelman, member of the Wespac Middle East Committee and a member of the Steering Committee that organized The Gaza Freedom March. She has traveled to Gaza twice since the Israeli invasion last year.

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The Response: Sig Libowitz – Combatant Status Review Tribunals

January 11, 2010 marked the 8th anniversary since the Bush administration turned the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a “enemy combatant” detention facility. Essentially re-commissioning the base as a torture chamber and legal black hole, where prisoner suicides are considered acts of war.  As we’ve reported on in the last few months, the Obama administration has held on to the power to allow for a preventive detention system that would indefinitely jail terror suspects in the United States without trial.  Meanwhile, military tribunals are now mainstream news, the tribunals are called Combatant Status Review Tribunals, where military justices discern who is an enemy combatant.  These trials are also the subject of a 30 minute film titled The Response. The film is written and produced by actor Sig Libowitz who is transitioning from being an actor playing an attorney on the TV series Law and Order, to becoming a real lawyer. While in law school, Libowitz was tranfixed by the tribunal process of no jury and no defense lawyer. The film is based on actual court transcripts and is shortlisted for The Academy Award. The Response is screening at Columbia University’s School of Law on January 20th at 6pm.

Sig Libowitz:

• Michael Ratner: First of all there was no real process for people in Guantanamo. Then we won the right to Habeas Corpus, to go into a federal court and challenge their detention. At that point the Bush Administration set up a special process in Guantanamo.
• As we depict in the film, this is a process where the detainees don’t have a lawyer, they are not provided with the evidence that’s against them. The real transcripts told the story of the detainees and the judges in these CSRTs. From that I saw an incredible movie, and incredible opportunity.
• Because, I thought I had an understanding of what Guantanamo was all about, then I read the transcripts (of a CSRT)  It gives a human dimension to the detainee and the military judges.
• Screening at Columbia Law School, Wednesday January 20th 6PM All the cast will be there and Shane Kadidal and Matthew Waxman.  We’ve screened the movie at the Pentagon.

Guest: Sig Libowitz, an American lawyer, actor, film executive and director.  Libowitz is notable for producing, directing and starring in a film, The Response, he wrote after reading some transcripts from Guantanamo captives‘ Combatant Status Review Tribunals. Libowitz is an executive for the acquisitions department of Turner Classic movies.  He had a recurring roles in The Sopranos and Law and Order.

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Free Fahad Hashmi

Fahad Hashmi a Pakistani born American student, has spent nearly 2 1/2 years in solitary confinement in a Manhattan detention facility.  He has been isolated for one of the longest periods in America as a suspect before trial.  Hosts reported on this case in March 2008, we spoke with Fahad Hashmi’s father Syed Anwar, and Fahad’s attorney Sean Mayer. Fahad is accused of storing waterproof socks, ponchos and raincoats. The US charges were based on allowing an acquaintance “Janaid Babar” to store this rain gear in the closet of his London flat. Janaid Babar was a paid government cooperator who has been used to testify against Muslims around the world.  Nicknamed ‘Supergrass’ by the British media, Babar was used by the UK government to testify against Omar Khyam and several other Muslim men in the so-called Fertilizer Case. Meanwhile Fahad’s trial is expected in January 2010, the prosecution will use Junaid as a main witness.  Hashmi has been held under the SAM’s Special Administrative Measures that include a 23 hour a day lockdown, constant video surveillance of his cell and limited visitation.

(Fahad’s Brother)Faisal Hashmi:

• I’m under SAMs as our family is. Our visits with him, we can’t talk about it, but I can say from open court, he looks frail, he looks jittery He’s been in solitary confinement for 2 and half years.
• He’s in the Metropolitan Correctional Center a few blocks from here. Within his own cell, he’s videotaped at all times. He’s not allowed to talk out loud. He has a microphone in his cell.
• This is about deconstructing a human being, depriving him of his humanity. He’s 29 years old.
• Charged with four counts of material support for terrorism. He stored ponchos and rain gear.
• In 2004, this acquaintance while working on his Master’s degree stayed with Fahad.
• This was January 2004, he went to the US in April 2004, was arrested, and became a cooperating witness for the US government.  At this time about 8 people got arrested, some in Pakistan, London and Canada, all on Junaid Barbar’s witness cooperation.
• In June 2006, my brother gets arrested. They tell Fahad, that Junaid gave the ponchos and gloves to Al-Qaeda and you gave material support to terrorists. You let Junaid use your cell phone, and Juanaid borrowed 300.00 from Fahad, saying that his ailing daughter needed the money. Fahad’s trial starts January 6, 2010
• FreeFahad.com This case has nothing to do with ponchos and socks.

Jeanne Theoharis:

• This is a case we need to be concerned about for those who value the first amendment. I had Fahad as a student in Brooklyn College in 2002
• There’s no way to understand this case without understanding the way Fahad was being watched many years ago even as a college student. We’ve sent a letter to the attorney general addressing 3 main issues, the conditions of his confinement, the way his due process is being violated and then first amendment issues.
• The letter was signed by more than 550 scholars and writers.  Organizing among the Muslim student community.
• Theaters Against War calling attention to Fahad’s case.
• Free Fahad Vigil January 18, 2010

Guests: Fahad’s brother Faisal Hashmi and Jeanne Theoharis, an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.  She was one of Fahad’s professors and she has been following this case.

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 Law and Disorder September 7, 2009 [52:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Updates:

• States increase opposition to money making traffic cameras: lawsuits.

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Alfred McCoy: CIA OIG Report PDF

Last month, marked the release of the CIA’s Office of Inspector General report investigating the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” against detainees. The nearly fifty percent redacted report focused on incidents which exceeded the torture guidelines written in the Office of Legal Counsel torture memos.    In the report, waterboarding a detainee 183 times was noted with only a concern, and highlighted abuses include faking the execution of a detainee by (quote) “contractors” without training and pointing an unloaded gun to a prisoners head.  This report was not released with John Yoo’s torture memos. A move which could’ve helped prosecute torture architects such as Yoo and other Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who violated their professional ethical duties when they wrote memos claiming the administration’s proposed torture techniques were legal.  Hear Al McCoy speak at Left Forum

Al McCoy:

• The chronology is important, the report is an investigation into excesses.
• The report also looks at the period ranging from 12 to 18 months when the alternative methods were authorized by President Bush  – “enhanced interrogation techniques”
• For the first time in the history of the CIA, they were authorized to operate their own prisons, the so-called 8 black sites that operated from Thailand to Lithuania
• (Inspector General investigators) They opened up these secret sites and started collecting these detainees before they had clear guidelines and supervision
• Torture is seductive, erotic  to the human mind, a process of which we know very little.
• Under US law section 23.40 of the Federal Code, psychological torture is legalized, there are only 4 things you can’t do under US law.  One of them is death threats and death threats against a third party
• One of those hapless field agents that went over the top will take the fall. Yet, we know former Defense secretary authorized extraordinary techniques and his directions went down through the chain of command, it got all the way down to Abu Ghraib (prison photos link), where those soldiers were actually complying with those directives.
• The directives were illegal. You should be prosecuting the person who gave those orders at the top of the chain of command.
• In this case instead of having bad apples in military parlance, we’re going to have “rogue agents.”
• The stages of a country ruling with impunity -  we’re not talking about a change of regime and then a tribunal, this is assuming continuity of government. (Clinton/Bush/Obama)
• It was necessary for our security: Dick Cheney’s latest argument – “so what, it made us safe.”
• We may have done these crimes but we now need to pull together and develop ourselves as a nation.
• The CIA had two distinguished cognitive scientists at Cornell University medical center in New York City, Doctors Henkel and Wolf. Ultimately they found the most devasting mode of torture is forced standing.
• Stand for hours motionless, sometimes days at a time, fluids flow to the legs, kidneys shut down, hallucinations begin, it’s incredibly painful.
• What they found back in the 1950s is you can make people do forced confessions, but its not very good in extracting objective information.
• Colin Powell’s former military aid, charged that Cheney in particular ordered this torture and extracted the false information – specifically with Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi a prisoner whose false confession was used to link Saddam Hussein and Al-Queda.
• The best we can hope for is a Congressional Review, perhaps a Senate inquiry into the Bush years, that would look at the origin of the policy, the full nature of the policy, and whether or not it worked, not only gains but the costs. A serious, sober politically objective honest inquiry, apart from the prosecutions that may come from the Special prosecutor.  Check out Progress Report’s – Accountability
• Within the American Psychological Association, these are not medical practicioners, they don’t take the Hippocratic Oath. It’s one branch of the medical community, the psychologists.

Guest – Professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Author of “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror” and also “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.

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Labor Law Reform: Employee Free Choice Act

The Employee Free Choice Act is a proposed legislative bill that would speed up the process for employees to form a union.  Under current labor law, workers can select union representation either through an election or something called card check, – a majority sign up.  The US National Labor Relations Board will only certify a union as the exclusive representative of employees only if it is selected by a secret ballot NLRB election or if the employer agrees to a card check process.  The catch is, that companies can refuse to bargain with a union chosen by a card check process even if 100 percent of employees want the union.  Right now, the choice to use an election process or majority sign up is controlled by the companies.

The Employee Free Choice Act would change this process and take away employers’ ability to decide whether to use only the card check process or secret ballot election.  This would make it much quicker process for employees who needed to form a union.  This labor reform law has not been proposed without a fight, nearly 200 million is funding a misinformation campaign back by groups such as the Chamber of Commerce. Read Abby’s Public Eye article here.

Abby Scher:

• In the fifties, unions represented a third of the labor force, now they represent 12 percent.
• Employers have a lot of time to beat back the union.  The Center for Responsive Politics found that the Chamber of Commerce spent 400 thousand dollars a day in opposition.
• The chamber of commerce is the largest lobby group in the country
• You can hear the rhetoric in their misinformation campaign. ..“EFCA is unAmerican, it takes away the secret ballot, unionists are thugs that will coerce workers into giving up their individual rights.”
• It’s harsh rhetoric from what you would consider a main stream group
• The national right to work committee since the fifties has flipped the script.
• Two phone calls have gotten attention, Bank of America and Citigroup . . .the center for Union Facts,  – Rick Berman and Bernie Marcus talking about how EFCA would destroy capitalism and tried to motivate people on the call to give to Republican candidates
• Chamber of Commerce front group – Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs. In the misinformation campaign, the chamber of commerce is saying that EFCA will hurt small businesses, because everyone loves small businesses.
• They retained this woman to do a study about how EFCA would destroy 600 thousand jobs. This woman’s specialty is intellectual property, this is not her background, she is a gun for hire.
• It (her research) was easily debunked but you still hear people citing that study.
• Surprisingly, unions are growing. Big businesses are the threat against small businesses, not unions.
• I encourage everyone to subscribe to the AFL-CIO blog
• Unions help workers bargain for better wages, people have money to spend, buying power, quality of life.

Guest – Abby Scher, Editorial Director of the Public Eye. Check out Abby Scher on Making Contact’s Radio Feature

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 Law and Disorder August 31, 2009 [57:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

CIA OIG Report PDF

Attorney General Eric Holder appoints special Justice Department prosecutor John Durham to conduct a preliminary investigation into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of certain detainees in U.S. custody.  In this lively first half hour discussion, hosts Michael Ratner, Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith discuss and detail why the investigation does not go after higher-ups within the US torture program, how tortured confessions are used to support war and that interrogators did not act alone.

• CIA OIG Report (PDF): Released because of requests by the ACLU / CCR / Amnesty International / Physicans For Human Rights
• Office of Legal Counsel Torture Memo Authors Should Be Prosecuted.
• Sham and Diversions: Special Prosecutor not “independent”
• 500 Year Setback: Doctors evaluating limits of torture
• Doctors, lawyers, officials, CIA, government agents involved.
• Torture report also reveal Cheney lies that intel was extracted from torture.
• CIA OIG Report Press Release
  
• Like a rat through a maze  trying to find their way around the language

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Jacob Ratner:  Bolivia Debrief (photos courtesy of Jake Ratner)

We are very pleased to have with us Jake Ratner, our own Michael Ratner’s son, that is fresh off the plane from Bolivia.  Jake is entering his final year at the University of Pennsylvania and shares with us some of his experiences from his three month stay with a Bolivian family.  Experiences include, the Aymara indigenous culture, economics and socialism among the  classes of people in Bolivia and comparisons to Cuban culture.

Jake Ratner:

• Working at a Bolivian Womens Prison
• Working with NGO helping women’s prison, teaching workshops, replacing faulty lighting etc
• San Pedro’s Mens Prison in La Paz: The prison is self functioning, the prisoners run small businesses and pay rent for their cells.
• That kind of autonomy was also in the women’s prison.
• When you go into the prison it’s like a small Bolivian village, there’s a fountain, kids running around.
• The spirit of rebellion is completely related to their culture, a culture of collective reasoning and resistance to the imposing power.
• Many women in prisons acted as drug mules. Drug laws in Bolivia, similar to Rockefeller drug laws in New York.
• El Alto, one of the poorest cities in Bolivia, extreme poverty. No plumbing. The eat a lot of freeze dried potatoes.
• Former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada Sánchez Bustamante made back room deals with Bolivia’s natural gas resources.  Bolivians took to the streets, many were killed. A lawsuit is pending.
• El Alto, Bolivia is a “city” of roughly 800 thousand people that sits on a plateau above La Paz. It has been growing at an exponential rate and will soon supersede the population of La Paz
• Bolivia Social Security system:  Bonos – payments to lower income families.

Guest – Jake Ratner, son of co-host Michael Ratner.  He is in his last year at the University of Pennsylvania. Jake has traveled to and studied in Cuba.  Check out Jake’s Flickr page here.

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 Law and Disorder July 13, 2009 [56:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Host Updates:

• U.S. To Continue Using Military Commission System
• Dangerous: Obama’s Preventive Detention System

Segments This Week:

• Cynthia McKinney and 20 Peace Activists Return From Israeli Prison
• Private Contractors in Afghanistan / Pakistan
• Honduran Coup Tries to Halt Advance of Latin American Left

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Cynthia McKinney and 20 Peace Activists Return From Israeli Prison

While hoping to deliver humanitarian supplies, a Free Gaza Delegation boat was stopped in International waters by the Israeli Navy earlier this month. Among the nearly 100 U.S. peace activists was former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Irish peace activist and Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire. McKinney and others had been in custody since Tuesday of last week, but could have been released earlier if they signed a document admitting they violated Israel’s blockade. McKinney – “It’s quite unusual for anyone to get a glimpse inside an Israeli prison.”

Cynthia McKinney:

• There were 21 of us on the Free Gaza Boat, they were also bringing boats for Palestinian fisherman in Gaza.
• We embarked on our journey on the Spirit of Humanity boat. You can tell the folks put a lot of love in re-furbishing the boat, with the paint and making it a livable place for a 30 hour journey.
• That boat was destroyed by the Israeli military. They took some kind of huge magnetic item that held the boat suspended and shook it violently.
• It was an unusually calm day, it was absolutely beautiful. But it was 37 hours on the boat including the Israeli Navy intercept. It was nighttime, we were still in International waters and the Israelis threatened us.
• Remember I was on the Dignity when the Israelis rammed it.
• This time, they disabled the GPS, they tried to provide an escort to push us into Israeli waters.
• That tactic didn’t work. They also utilized, something I haven’t seen before, a “wave making machine,” because they shook us up and down.
• The GPS was turned off, communications were disrupted ( small EMP weapon?) I think they were trying to get us into Israeli waters, to make it look like we were off course.
• That did not happen, and they regrouped, and waited for us to enter Gaza territorial waters. That’s when these four speed boats came very quickly. Eight soldiers dressed like ninjas with the ski-mask, they commandeered the boat. Ejected the captain, and took over the steering.
• They put into one room on the boat, told us to sit down and shut up. We were forced to leave the boat with our hands in the air, some were handcuffed.
• The Israeli soldiers were rough with Maguier, she saw them take down one of the women, and she protested, and the soldiers roughed her up with bad language, it was a scene, and the men came to her rescue and those men got handcuffed.
• We got a full body search, we were held by the military for several hours, they transferred us to a detention facility, then to a full prison.Romley Prison. We were mixed in with the prison population. It was amazing, where we were there were young women of African and Asian descent.
• The Israelis actively blocked our effort to meet with our attorneys. We were deported from a country we didn’t intend to enter. The Free Gaza Movement has no intention of stopping.

Guest – former United States Representative and was the 2008 Green Party nominee for President of the United States. McKinney has served as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993–2003 and 2005–2007, first representing Georgia’s 11th Congressional District and then Georgia’s 4th Congressional District. She is the first African-American woman to have represented Georgia in the House.
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Private Contractors in Afghanistan / Pakistan

Since President Obama announced the strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan in late March of this year, news of troop deployment, drone attacks, and the killing of innocent Afghani and Pakistani civilians is heard nearly every week. Private contractors, mercenaries and the war profiteers in the region rarely make headlines however. One study has concluded that private contractors and mercenaries outnumber US soldiers. Check out – Outsourcing Intelligence in Iraq by Amnesty International and Pratap Chatterjee.

Pratap Chatterjee:

• President Obama has inherited long term contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, 5-10 year contracts.
• If canceled (contracts) the system will shutdown. For every soldier in Iraq there is a contractor, for every soldier in Afghanistan, there are 2 contractors
• A lot of these people are cooks, janitors, builders, mostly from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Phillipines, Egypt, Bosnia. They do the dull and dirty work nobody else wants to do.
• There’s no draft, so in a volunteer army, the US employs Indians/Bangladeshis for 300 dollars a month, cooking, cleaning. You have contract interrogator types who are making 250 thousand a year.
• There are now 15 thousand prisoners in each country, Iraq, Afghanistan.
• When US goes to interrogate these prisoners, they need translators.
• L3 which is based in New York City, bought up Titan. Titan. under L3 subcontracts interrogators.
• Titan is gone now (by name, same people involved) , but there’s a new company set up by Spider Marx, the guy in charge of intelligence during the invasion of Iraq. Global Linguist Solutions with Dyncorp.
• Contracts are designed to maximize profits. Company such as L3 is paid for 7000 translators, but penalized for having only 6000. 1000 unqualified translators are brought in to war zones.
• Interagency Roundtable Standards

Guest - Pratap Chatterjee, he’s recently returned from Afghanistan. Pratap is a journalist and former executive director of Corpwatch, an Oakland based corporate accountability organization.

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Honduran Coup Tries to Halt Advance of Latin American Left

Two weeks after the Honduran Coup ousted President Manuel Zelaya was prevented from returning to the country. Today we look deeper into the life of Manuel Zelaya, his background among the land_owning class, and his shift as a reform minded leader increasing wages for workers and teachers. Half way through his term Zelaya was inspired by changes in Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. He soon had the support of labor unions and social organizations that put him at odds with the corrupt social elite and drug mobsters. Today we talk with author Roger Burbach, about how Zelaya enraged the Honduran elite which led to up to the military coup.

Roger Burbach:

• The news in the main stream press about the coup was to stop Zelaya from re-election.
• Zelaya was not seeking re-election but a constituent assembly on the ballot to draft a new constitution for the country. Similar to Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.
• Either way, Zelaya could not run for re-election as the media and Honduran elites are portraying.
• The existing Honduran constitution was drafted in 1982, a very repressive constitution, back when John Negroponte was working with the death squads.
• US Sec of State, Hilliary Clinton doesn’t like Zelaya, she didn’t like him when she met him in early June.
• ALBA, an alternative free trade agreement that believes in solidarity measures and economic measures, led by Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.
• The US has the strongest military presence in Honduras, than any other Central American country. I would suggest that the US military intelligence knew about the impending coup and did nothing to stop it.
• Why does the US care about Honduras? Strategic military point in Central America, amid three radical governments now rising.
• New radical left leaders such as Chavez, Morales, Correia in Ecuador, Reformist governments of Brazil, Uraguay, maybe El Salvador. The US wants to drive a wedge in there, as with the coup Zelaya was aligned with the radical countries.
• The World Bank and the IMF have all suspended economic support except for the United States.

Guest – Roger Burbach, author of the Pinochet Affair and Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas based in Berkeley, California. Read more articles from Roger Burbach.

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 Law and Disorder June 15, 2009 [57:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Host Updates:

• Dr. Alan Berkman Remembered – Michael Smith
  
• Troy Davis Update /Amnesty USA Action / NAACP Action
• Holy Land Case Update
  

Segments This Week:

• Disgraceful Coverage: New York Times Article Riddled With Inaccuracy
• US “Preventive Detention” System In Place

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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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 Law and Disorder June 8, 2009 [57:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Host Updates:

• Susan Jordan Remembered by Lynne Stewart and Heidi Boghosian
• Activist Lawyer Susan Jordan Killed In Plane Crash

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Segments This Week:

• A Look Into the Memorial Day Weekend Terror Plot – Guest Mike German
• A Revolution Books Town Hall Meeting: TORTURE AND THE NEED FOR JUSTICE
  
• WBAI: Obama’s Animal Farm: Bigger, Bloodier Wars Equal Peace and Justice

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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 :

• Michael Ratner, is the president, Center for Constitutional Rights, and an international human rights lawyer
• Laura Flanders, journalist and host of GRITtv
• Jeremy Scahill, investigative reporter and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army
• Sister Dianna Ortiz -founder and director of Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC)
• Gitanjali Gutierrez, attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights representing prisoners held at Guantanamo
• Chris Hedges, former New York Times Mideast bureau chief, author “American Fascists”
• Andy Zee, spokesperson for Revolution Books and author of “The Collapse of ‘The Movement’; the Resistance and the Revolutionary Movement We Need”

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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 Law and Disorder June 1, 2009 [57:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

WBAI Listeners Click Here For June 1, Rundown

Torture And The Need For Justice – Wednesday June 3, at the New York Society For Ethical Culture.

Updates:

• Italian CIA Case Moves Forward
• AT&T Equal Pay For Women
• Supreme Court: Right To Counsel Overturned
  

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)

—

Gringo – A Coming of Age in Latin America

In the book Gringo – A Coming of Age in Latin America, author Chesa Boudin travels through parts of Venezuela, the streets of Guatemala and to protests in Santiago. Boudin’s narrative chronicles nearly a decade of on-the-road experiences in Latin America. He’s captured the transformation in Latin American politics through the voices of the wealthy and the desperately poor.

One review called Gringo, a quote – compelling firsthand account of the unregulated greed, social neglect, and deliberate misrule that has provoked so many Latin Americans to demand a better life for themselves and their children.”

Seymour Hersch says in another review, it’s quote – cheap beer, fried plantains, long dusty bus rides, radical politics, the repeated kindness of desperately poor people sharing what they have with an outsider, and Chesa Boudin’s eagerness to share what he’s seeing and what he’s feeling, with sympathy and empathy __ as he tries to sort it all out. There’s much to learn in this book.”

Chesa Boudin:

• This is a book that weaves together two different threads. One is my own personal journey, my own effort to make sense of my identity, my place in the world as a white, priveledged North American man. But also, in the context of where I was traveling, working and studying in Latin America at a time when the region was experiencing a dramatic political shift to the left.
• I had grown up in a very political family. All 4 of my parents had been very involved in the anti-war movement. Both of my biological parents Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert were incarcerated in New York State maximum security prisons.
• I grew up in two very different worlds, one of prison and one of privelege and opportunity.
• I took public buses mainly, interacted with the poorest and most humble as well as the elite rich.
• I went to Guatemala and from there I went to Chile, which was a classic example of what Naomi Klein writes about in the Shock Doctrine of the US with Pinochet imposing the neo-liberal model on the people.
• I sat for hours and hours in line to change money into pesos, I watched entire families digging through garbage on the street.
• The irony Michael is that I found time and again, the most downtrodden, the most humble, the ones living 17 people in a 2 bed room apartment that took me in. Those were the ones that were the most generous.
• When the political and economic models come out of Washington, it became difficult to fathom what another government approach would look like.
• In Venezuela, I watched the recreation of system based not on shutting people out but rather giving them a stake in the day to day functioning of their government and empowering poor people.
• Instead of having people from another country or economic class come in and tell them what they need to do.
• Venezuela is exciting, its hard to predict what may happen. Ten years into Chavez’s presidency, an opposition opinion poll places him at 60 percent.
• One of the controversies in Venezuela is the constitutional reform of term limits.
• The people voted for this not only for the president but for other offices as well, the New York Times framed it as the downfall of democracy.
• Bolivia has been my favorite country to visit, it’s a beautiful country. Visiting the mines and talking with the miners is something I use as a lens to view the country’s current politics and the political development that led to the election of Evo Morales.
• One thing I’ve noticed in Bolivia is the left has gotten much more experience being critical from the outside then from actually learning to govern from the inside.

Guest – Chesa Boudin – a Rhodes Scholar, is a student at Yale Law School and author of Gringo: A Coming-of-Age in Latin America (Scribner)

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 Law and Disorder April 27, 2009 [57:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Host Updates:

• Obama Speech To CIA
• Obama Administration Releases Torture Memos
• Leaked: – More than 200 waterboarding applications done to 2 people.
• Rahm Emanual Misspoke: Protect CIA Line Agents and Lawyers
• US Attny General to make decision on whether to prosecute
• Coalition Suggests Impeachment of Judge Bybee
• Armenian Genocide Bill

Hear more of the Jim Lehrer Newshour interview with Michael Ratner and Jeffrey Smith

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US To Escalate War in Afghanistan

Nearly 15 thousand US troops have been recently committed to Afghanistan, and progressive think tanks are pushing the Obama Administration to send an additional 17 thousand which would bring the total to 70 thousand troops. Expansions are being built onto the Bagram prison, as mass incarceration is expected. Progressive Think Tank Tells Obama to Escalate

Tom Hayden:

• Global Phoenix Program - in testimony last week, 10 – 12 years overall to win the Afghanistan War. Two years of hard fighting, a couple extra billion dollars a month. I think they plan to send the troops into Southern Afghanistan and to take on the Taliban or who ever the local resistance forces are.
• I think people need to buckle their seat belts for a war. We’re going to have a war in Afghanistan that’s soft on torture. Where are the human rights groups, we’re sending US troops into a dirty war that incarcerates without evidence, tens of thousands of people.
• Center for American Progress – I’m disappointed in them, they’re usually good liberal democrats. Now they’ve come out for a military surge in Afghanistan.
• Obama has narrowed it down to one goal. Can we prevent Al-Quaeda from getting a base area from which they can attack Europe or the United States. The more we go into Pakistan with the predators and drones, the more Pakistan turns against us. It becomes a recruiting tool for more militants.
• The other way to go would be to address the grievances of the Muslim world that give al-queda some support base.
• 1. The US unconditional support for Israel
• 2. 150 thousand troops still in Iraq
• 3. US troops in countries where Muslims control their own oil.
• It’s all laid out in a book by Michael Scheuer -Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror
• I work very closely with Robert Greenwald at Brave New Foundation. Getting Afghanistan Right. There’s a huge sectarian problem in the anti-war movement. Nonetheless there’s always a peace and justice community in every city I go to.
• One wonders what it will take for someone in the House or Senate to stand up and say I want to lead the anti-war movement.

Guest – Political and social activist Tom Hayden joins us today to fill in the detail and time line in this escalation of war. Tom is also the author of Ending The War In Iraq.

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US War in Afghanistan and Pakistan - Follow Up

As tensions rise between Pakistan and the United States, President Obama recently mentioned that stability in Afghanistan depends on what will happen in Pakistan. The United States and Pakistan have been allies in their interest to purge Islamist extremism, however the two countries are now embroiled in miscommunication, drone wars and mistrust that is centered around a 10 billion dollar military aid fund. Analysts say the Obama administration is asking a lot from a fragile Pakistani government that has been in power for now only a year.

Michael Schwartz:

• President Obama’s speech - on Pakistan, tells the whole story. You have to unpack it.
• Not a lot of people have read the speech, Obama starts by saying a campaign against extremism will not succeed by bullets and bombs alone then he launches into the peaceful side of American policy.
• The US is planning to make Pakistan another outpost of globalization creating an opportunity for multinational corporations to invest into a local economy and basically take it over.
• What they’re saying is they’re trying to execute a policy to bring Pakistan into full economic domination of American capitalism. – a globalized version of American capitalism. The military aspect of this is only a part to secure the farthest reaches of the middle east, the part of instability.
• Obama’s speech is filled with being “adminstratively involved with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• The delivery is profound American presence. American enterprises, adminstrators, experts, trainers, a kind of colonial presence, then on the other side of this, an integration into the global system.
• Private multinational enterprises will build schools, infrastructure.
• This same neo-liberal process has ocurred in Africa, South America and what we know about this process is that there is an extraction of large profits by these multinational corporations. The Taliban would set up a social organization that is incompatible with the globalized agenda, so you can see this as a counter-insurgency maneuver.
• The military part of this is that they’re not going to be able to do this in a peaceful way, they’re going to have to conquer the area.
• In a period of two years with more than 90 drone attacks have killed 5000 innocent Pakistanis. They want to kill civilians
• The sense that people are waiting to see whether Obama and Congress move to escalate the war is a big part of the lack of energy in the anti-war movement.
• These are colonial wars, because the United States seeks to have a real administrative hold over these countries.
• The United States can’t withdraw from Afghanistan because it borders on the three Caspian Sea oil companies. Those oil companies are gravitating toward China and Russia in the grand scheme of things.
• Regarding the Poppy agriculture in Afghanistan, the Taliban had gotten rid of the poppies, since the US had invaded Afghanistan, the poppy agriculture has come backWe talk today with Michael Schwartz about the current relations amid Pakistan, the United States and the war in Afghanistan.
• $1.5 billion in direct support to the Pakistani people every year over the next five years – resources that will build schools, roads, and hospitals, and strengthen Pakistan’s democracy. I’m also calling on Congress to pass a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Maria Cantwell, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Hoekstra that creates opportunity zones in the border region to develop the economy and bring hope to places plagued by violence. And we will ask our friends and allies to do their part – including at the donors conference in Tokyo next month.

Guest – Michael Schwartz is a professor of Sociology and Faculty Director of the Undergraduate College of Global Studies at Stony Brook University, has written extensively on popular protest and insurgency as well as on American business and government dynamics. His books include the recently published War Without End.
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Cuba, South America and the Summit of the Americas

Earlier this year we spoke with film maker and Cuban scholar Saul Landau about the Cuban 50th anniversary and its significance. Now Saul describes the changes we can expect with regard to Cuban / US relations from the Obama Administration. The discussion also covers some detail of the recent talks at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.

Saul Landau:

• Obama has allowed Cuban Americans to travel freely to Cuba and allowing more loose travel regulations as well.
• What can Cuba really do except to promise to stop hitting the US in the fist with its face.
• What did Cuba do to the United States to merit 50 years of punishment?
• I don’t think Cubans are prepared to have 100 thousand Spring Breakers descend upon Havana.
• Nor are they prepared for American investors with big wads of cash, trying to buy up everybody and everything that they see.
• I think Obama is one of the cleverist, winsome, brightest people I can ever imagine, he’s a hard man to resist. But you have to get behind his optimistic rhetoric, his humility, his smile and his handshake and remember that prize fighters also shake hands before the first round.
• Cuba will have a lower profile in the future, we’ve seen the most publicity we’re going to see for quite a while now.
• I think things are little better, they’re a little quieter and less hostile. I think Cuba has its own problems that it really has to deal with

Guest – Saul Landau is an internationally known author, commentator, and film maker on foreign and domestic policy issues. Landau’s most widely praised achievements are the over forty films he has produced on social, political and historical issues, and worldwide human rights, for which he won the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award, the George Polk Award for Investigative Reporting, and the First Amendment Award, as well as an Emmy for “Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang.” In 2008, the Chilean government presented him withthe Bernardo O’Higgins Award for his human rights work. Landau has written fourteen books including a book of poems, “My Dad Was Not Hamlet.” He received an Edgar Allen Poe Award for Assassination on Embassy Row, a report on the 1976 murders of Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and his colleague, Ronni Moffitt.

He is Professor Emeritus at California State University, Pomona. He is a senior Fellow at and Vice Chair of the Institute for Policy Studies.

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