Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Iraq War, Truth to Power
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Maze of Injustice – The failure to protect Indigenous Women from sexual violence in the USA
A recent Amnesty International study on the sexual violence against indigenous women in the United States exposes a disturbing trend in human rights abuse. The reasons why indigenous women are at particular risk of sexual violence are complex. According to the report, more than one in three Native American and Alaska Native women are survivors of rape. Most of the abused women have not followed through in their cases to seek justice because of a general inaction within the tribal government authority and its chronic under-resourced law enforcement agencies which should protect indigenous women. As one support worker said, “Women don’t report because it doesn’t make a difference. Why report when you are just going to be re-victimized?” Too many times, as the Amnesty Report identifies, those responsible for the violence are able to get away with it.
Guest – Michael Heflin, the Amnesty International USA Campaign Director.
Guest – Juskwa Burnett, counselor for the Otoe-Missouria Tribe in Oklahoma. Juskwa Burnett has a long history of working on domestic abuse and sexual assault of Native women.
Listen to or download Maze of Injustice Segment
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Conscientious Objectors from Vietnam to Iraq
Here on Law and Disorder we continue to look at the issue of Iraq war resisters and conscientious objectors. We’ve interviewed war resistors – their families and discussed conscientious objection. We also look at how legislation has changed for soldiers applying for CO status.
Since the Vietnam War more than 170,000 men were officially recognized as conscientious objectors. But, in 1971 the Supreme Court refused to allow objection to a particular war, a decision affecting thousands of objectors to the Vietnam War. Some 50,000–100,000 men are estimated to have left the United States to avoid being drafted. Now, the US military is all-volunteer. We talk with Citizen Soldiers’ Tod Ensign about what’s changed for Conscientious Objectors since the Vietnam War and compare what it means to be a CO in today’s United States military.
Joining us in this discussion is Tod Ensign, lawyer and the director of Citizen Soldier, a support organization for Gis.
Check out – The Different Drummer Cafe
Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Iraq War, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Combatant Status Review Tribunals
Co-hosts Michael Ratner and Dalia Hashad discuss the legal efficacy of these tribunals for Guantanamo Bay detainees. From the Amnesty International USA site – “In the “war on terror”, detainees in US custody have been treated as potential sources of information first and criminal suspects a distant second. However, this secondary aspect is now coming into focus. Plucked from years of secret or virtually incommunicado detention, a few people held in the US Naval Base at Guant?namo Bay in Cuba are facing trial by military commission.”
Combatant Status Review Tribunals Proceedings:
- Detainees do not receive the presumption of innocence.
- Detainees do not get access to legal advice.
- Detainees are not entitled to access to the evidence against them, or in their favor.
- Hear-say evidence is allowed to be used against the detainees.
- The use of evidence acquired through coercive interrogation is allowed, there is no protection against self-incrimination.
- Evidence acquired through the torture of other suspects was allowed.
Architect of Torture
Co-host Michael Ratner adds perspective to the real reasons US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign immediately.
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Law and Disorder sit down with authors Giuliana Sgrena and Anthony Arnove.
It’s two years since U.S. forces gunned down Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari in Iraq, and recently Washington is refuses to hand over the U.S. soldier charged in the case to be tried in Italy. Calipari the number two man in the Italian military intelligence was killed while escorting Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena after securing her release from a month-long abduction in Iraq.
Giuliana Sgrena has written about her experience in, “Friendly Fire: The Remarkable Story of a Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq.” As a veteran foreign correspondent for the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto she has reported frequently from Afghanistan and Iraq. Sgrena joins Michael Ratner and Michael Smith today on Law and Disorder. We are also joined by editor and author Anthony Arnove who recently wrote the new book Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal.
Left Forum 2007 – CCR Executive Director Vince Warren
We play part of a speech by the Center for Constitutional Rights Executive Director Vince Warren. He spoke at the Left Forum earlier this month on the state of current state civil liberties in this country. The panel, moderated by our own Michael Steven Smith examined the long term implications of eroding civil liberties and the laws that have allowed a surveillance police state. We will hear more speakers from this years Left Forum in the weeks to come.
Civil Liberties, Iraq War, Supreme Court, Truth to Power
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Conscientious Objection and Habeas Corpus
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve covered war resistors such as Lt Watada and Jonathan Hutto. Today we look at the case of Augustin Aguayo. A combat medic in the US Army who had filed for conscientious objector status in February 2004 before being deployed to Iraq. Combat Medics are in high demand in Iraq. After filing for conscientious objector. status the Army told Aguayo, quote – ” You didn’t prove your case.”
We talk with attorney Peter Goldberger who filed the Habeas Corpus petition for Augustin Aguayo. He explains why it is increasingly difficult for Conscientious objectors to be honorably discharged from the military. We also hear from Augustin’s wife Helga and their twin 11 year old daughters in a recent speech. They have the support of a number of anti-war groups including anti-war organizations, including Courage to Resist, Military Families Speak Out and Military Counseling Network of Germany.
UPDATE – Agustín Aguayo, was convicted of desertion and missing movement March 6, 2007 in a U.S. military court in Germany. Although faced with a maximum of seven years in prison, Agustín was sentenced to eight months in the brig for following his conscience and refusing to participate in war.
National Lawyers Guild Task Force Citizen Soldier
Canada Rejects Indefinite Detentions
Last month, Canada’s highest court rejected a detention measure called the security certificate system, that would allow Canadian authorities to detain foreign-born terrorism suspects indefinitely without charges while their deportation is being reviewed. Canadian Chief Justice Beverly McLaclin wrote quote – “The overarching principle of fundamental justice that applies here is this: before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it must accord them a fair judicial process.” This decision strikes a powerful contrast to the Military Commissions Act passed last year in this country, basically stripping federal courts of authority to hear challenges through petitions for writs of habeas corpus.
Amnesty International Canada has long campaigned against the detention measure, and we are pleased to welcome Alex Neve – Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada.
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Left Forum 2007
Cornel West, Professor of Religion and African-American Studies at Princeton University from this weekend’s Left Forum opening plenary. Entitled Forging A Radical Political Future.
Iraq War, Supreme Court, Truth to Power
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WBAI Listeners Please Scroll Down For Program Rundown
LA 8
Days after the 20th anniversary of the arrest of the so-called Los Angeles Eight, on January 31, Immigration Judge Bruce Einhorn ordered an end to deportation proceedings against Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, members of the LA8. The government has been seeking to deport Hamide and Shehadeh since January 1987 based on their alleged support for the Popular Liberation Front for Palestine (“PFLP”), a group within the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Judge Einhorn terminated the proceedings because the government’s refused to comply with his 2005 pre-trial order to turn over exculpatory evidence
regarding Hamide and Shehadh’s alleged support for the PFLP.
Guest – San Francisco attorney Marc Van Der Hout of the law firm of Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale. Marc has been representing the LA8 on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild since the case began 20 years ago.
King Leopold’s Ghost – Adam Hochschild
Hosts Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian talk with author Adam Hochschild about the similarities between King Leopold’s disastrous invasion of Congo and the war in Iraq. In an interview George W Bush commented that he couldn’t understand why so many people think he doesn’t read books and toward the end of the interview he mentioned having just finished ‘King Leopold’s Ghost’.”
Guest – Author Adam Hochschild replies to the president in the LA Times. King Leopold’s Ghost is a riveting retelling of the Belgian genocide-for-rubber campaign in the Congo with incredible similarities to war profiteering of today. Read LA Times commentary by Adam Hochschild to the President.
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Michael Schwartz – Iraq, Sectarian Violence and Barack Obama
Anti-war activists and students crammed into a small fifth floor abandoned office to confront and discuss the recent escalation of troops and funding of Iraq War. Mostly standing, they listened to Michael Schwartz professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In his talk Schwartz says the United States is fomenting the sectarian violence in Iraq by fighting two sides. Schwartz also comments on a speech Barack Obama delivered regarding Iraq and the withdrawal of troops.
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Margaret Prescod – Friends and Family of Lt Ehren Watada Tour
A military judge in Fort Lewis, Washington, declared a mistrial in the court-martial of Lieut. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer prosecuted for refusing to go to Iraq. A new trial is believed to be unlikely before summer, if at all. The mistrial represents a significant victory for Watada, for the rights of military resisters and for the movement of civil resistance to US war crimes in Iraq. We go now to hear a powerful speech by Margaret Prescod one, of the founders of Women of Color in the Global Women’s Strike, and campaign coordinator with Friends and Families of Lt. Watada. Law and Disorder caught up with tour in early December. Since then, the tour garnered incredible support from organizations, politicians, actors and luminaries around the world.
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WBAI Broadcast February 21, 2007
“Servants of Wealth: The Right’s Assault on Economic Justice
“Freedom and democracy” are two words we’ve been hearing from the right wing in this country for 25 years. In their quest to shore up support for the politics of wealth and privilege, the Right has organized patiently and consistently by focusing on a core ideology to amass a formidable base. The Right’s commentary on world affairs, morality, the state, and the economy, though, has had an overarching focus, namely to eliminate social equality as a legitimate public policy goal. Its success has resulted in one of the most dramatic, undemocratic, and insidious transfers of wealth and power in recent American history.
Guest – political scientist John Ehrenberg, author of the book “Servants of Wealth: The Right’s Assault on Economic Justice.” A professor of political science at Long Island University, in this, his third book, critically analyzes the rise of an ideologically coherent Right. He dissects their themes of military weakness, moral decay, racial anxiety, and hostility to social welfare to reveal their central organizing objective of protecting wealth and assaulting equality.
LA 8
Days after the 20th anniversary of the arrest of the so-called Los Angeles Eight, on January 31, Immigration Judge Bruce Einhorn ordered an end to deportation proceedings against Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, members of the LA8. The government has been seeking to deport Hamide and Shehadeh since January 1987 based on their alleged support for the Popular Liberation Front for
Palestine (“PFLP”), a group within the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Judge Einhorn terminated the proceedings because the government’s refused to comply with his 2005 pre-trial order to turn over exculpatory evidence
regarding Hamide and Shehadh’s alleged support for the PFLP.
Guest – San Francisco attorney Marc Van Der Hout of the law firm of Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale. Marc has been representing the LA8 on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild since the case began 20 years ago.
King Leopold’s Ghost – Adam Hochschild
Hosts Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian talk with author Adam Hochschild about the similarities between King Leopold’s disastrous invasion of Congo and the war in Iraq. In an interview George W Bush commented that he couldn’t understand why so many people think he doesn’t read books and toward the end of the interview he mentioned having just finished ‘King Leopold’s Ghost’.”
Guest – Author Adam Hochschild replies to the president in the LA Times. King Leopold’s Ghost is a riveting retelling of the Belgian genocide-for-rubber campaign in the Congo with incredible similarities to war profiteering of today.
Read LA Times commentary by Adam Hochschild to the President.
