Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Military Tribunal, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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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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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Some Prisoners at Bagram AFB, Afghanistan May Challenge Detention
Last week a federal judge ruled that some prisoners held by the US military at Bagram Air Base prison in Afghanistan have the right to challenge their imprisonment. There are more than 600 people being held at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan without charges.
The federal ruling does not apply to prisoners captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, citizenship and location of the capture will determine if prisoners could challenge their detention in court.
Tina Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network said that the Bagram ruling meant that changes to the Bush detention policies would go beyond merely closing Guantánamo and extend “to any place where the United States seeks to hold individuals in a legal black hole.”
Attorney Tina Foster:
- Filed writ of Habeas Corpus for the 4 detainees to challenge their detentions.
- Judge Bates: The US cannot manipulate the jurisdiction of the courts by holding people deliberately in places where the courts have not traditionally exercised jurisdiction.
- Bagram is the main military base in Afghanistan, it was an old Soviet air hangar, that’s where they’ve established a prison.
- 600 in Bagram prison.
- There are other coalition forces at Bagram AFB with military presence, but as “guests” of the US.
- US Government: Unlike Guantanamo, Bagram is in the middle of a war zone.
- Bagram was the original Guantanamo, a lot of the people at Guantanamo first spent time at Bagram.
- A few years ago, working with you Michael (Ratner) one of the happy tasks I had, was to travel all over the world, contacting the families of the detainees at Guantanamo. It also became clear that there were people locked up in other places besides Guantanamo.
- Shockingly,the Obama Administration has adopted the Bush Administration policy on Bagram. All of their legal arguments, all of their secrecy, still deciding not to disclose any information.
- What has been different than the Bush Administration, is that when Obama signed orders to close Guantanamo, he set up a task force to look at detainee policy more broadly. That report is due in July.
Guest – Tina Monshipour Foster is the founder and Executive Director of the International Justice Network (“IJN”), and serves as lead counsel in several of IJN’s legal cases on behalf detainees imprisoned without charge at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. Ms. Foster’s work on behalf of prisoners and other victims of human rights violations has been featured in major media outlets in the US and abroad, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Harper’s Magazine, Smithsonian, Al Jazeera channel, and others.
From November 2004 to May 2006, Ms. Foster was an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (“CCR”) and Counsel for CCR’s Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative. Prior to joining CCR, she was a litigation associate at Clifford Chance US LLP and previously served as a law clerk for Hon. Delissa A. Ridgway at the United States Court of International Trade. Ms. Foster is a graduate of Cornell Law School, where she was an editor of the Cornell International Law Journal.
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Guantanamo Bay Prison, Update
Today we talk with Emi MacLean, staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights to get an update, an impression of where things stand with Guantanamo Bay prisoners, their status of Habeas Corpus, and the Obama administration’s position. There are also 17 innocent Chinese muslims called Uighurs asking, again for their release. Our guest Emi MacLean has worked with the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative and other forms of executive detention, including secret prisons and transfers to torture.
Attorney Emi MacLean:
- More Guantanamo prisoners have left in the last weeks of the Bush Administration then the first 100 days of the Obama Administration.
- 240 people at Guantanamo right now. Approximately, 20 Guantanamo prisoners will face any prosecution.
- We’ve held more than 775 people at Guantanamo
- The people at Guantanamo right now are not there because of some greater threat assessment, they are there because of their country of nationality.
- Almost all the Europeans were released early on, almost all the Yemenis remain behind.
- A federal district judge ordered the release of the Uighers last October, the Bush Administration challenged the release.
- When we asked the Obama Administration to drop the challenge, they have yet to do so.
- I remember seeing civil liberties groups celebrating the executive order calling for the closure of Guantanamo in one year. But nothing has really changed for the reality of those men in Guantanamo. This is a consistent devaluation of the life of the men imprisoned there.
- We’ve seen the Obama Administration lawyers refuse to back away from the Bush Administration’s position on states secrets.
- It’s very hard for people to give up power.
- What makes our work difficult, is that it usually takes a couple of weeks for our communications to clear. The communication between counsels on what the Guantanamo conditions are.
- The Obama Review Team determined that the conditions at Guantanamo complied with Geneva Convention, which was certainly not what we were hearing and certainly not what we were seeing.
- The overwhelming majority of the men at Guantanamo were still in brutal conditions of solitary confinement and still reporting severe psychological and religious abuses at Guantanamo.
- No middle ground, these men should be tried or released.
Guest – Attorney Emi MacLean has worked at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) with the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative (GGJI) since June 2006. She works on issues related to Guantánamo and other forms of executive detention, including secret prisons and transfers-to-torture. She helps coordinate the pro bono attorneys representing the hundreds of men still detained at Guantánamo and supports CCR’s direct representation of a number of current detainees.
In addition, Emi is involved in civil actions brought on behalf of former prisoners released from Guantánamo (Rasul v. Rumsfeld and Celikgogus v. Rumsfeld) and actions under the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) challenging the government’s refusal to disclose information about the NSA’s warrantless surveillance of Guantánamo attorneys (Wilner v. NSA) and the CIA’s secret detention program (Amnesty International, CCR, et al. v. CIA). In addition to direct litigation, Emi’s work with CCR includes legislative and international advocacy.
Emi has previously worked or volunteered with the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), Human Rights First, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Prior to law school, Emi worked with South Africa’s National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADEL), and Médecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders). Emi graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and Georgetown University Law Center.
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Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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CCR Releases Independent Report on Current Conditions at Guantánamo, Calls for Closure of Camps 5, 6, and Echo
The conditions at Guantanamo Bay Prison still violate the law according to an independent report released by the Center for Constitutional Rights. The report partially compiled from attorney eyewitness accounts and detainees, has found that the conditions of confinement violate Geneva Conventions and International human rights law. Among the violations are the severe isolation of solitary confinement, psychological abuse, abusive force_feeding of hunger strikers, religious abuse, and physical abuse or threats of violence from guards and from the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) team.
Pardiss Kebriaei:
- The executive order that President Obama issued on Jan 22 tasked the Sec. Of Defense with conducting a review of Guantanamo.
- Basically, asking the person who was in charge of Guantanamo for years to investigate operations there.
- It’s more on of an internal review than an outside independent one and its not surprising that they think all is fine and well in GTMO
- We have the impression that they’ve only spoken with about a dozen detainees out of the 240 plus.
- Detainees in Camp 6 are held in cells that are 6 X 8 feet. there are no windows. They are in them for 20-22 hours a day.
- There are no openings except a metal food slot, and a window into the interior of the prison that allows guards to look in.
- Their compliant behavior within Camp 6 determines whether they can go to an open air cell for two hours and pace.
- In Camp 5, it is similar, no natural air or light, the lights are on 24 hours a day,
- One detainee who is 17 is smearing feces around the cell and banging his head on concrete.
- As a consequence he is subject to physical abuse by the Immediate Reaction Force IRF team, (riot squad style guards) who beat him up, and spray tear gas in the cell.
- This is the response to someone who needs, competent caring psychological help.
- In January, there were about 70 detainees on hunger strikes. They use force feeding chairs. The chairs are made by a company in Iowa who calls them “padded cells on wheels”
- The person is fully strapped to this chair while a 12 inch tube is forcibly inserted up their nose and down into their stomachs to allow about a 1.5 liter of formula to be pumped into their stomachs.
- Often during this force feeding process, there are guards around them humiliating them, making jokes.
Guest – Pardiss Kebriaei, Staff Attorney with the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, at the Center For Constitutional Rights.
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Amnesty International-Fuelling conflict: Foreign arms supplies to Israel/Gaza
Last month Amnesty International released an in depth report detailing fresh evidence that the weapons used during the Israel Gaza conflict earlier this year were supplied abroad. The report tracked countries supplied arms to both Israel and Hamas. Weapons such as white phosphorus, anti-tank mines, air delivered munitions and flechettes which are 4 centimeter darts packed by the thousands into artillery shells.
The report also unearthed multiple violations of humanitarian law and in some cases, war crimes. Flechettes, for example are not specifically banned under international humanitarian law. but they contributed to unlawful killings of and injuries to civilians.
Colby Goodman:
- There were fragments from the US made Hellfire missile where 3 paramedics were killed.
- International military law is clear about attacks on medical personnel.
- White phosphorus burns at a temperture of 1500 degrees.
- Using white phosphorus indiscriminately as a smoke screen creates a situation where it injures and kills civilians.
- Israel had not used white phosphorus in Gaza before. Watch video
- White phosphorus burns right through the skin to the bone, very difficult to stop.
- Palestinians doctors did not know how to treat white phosphorus burns, so civilians were dying from minor burns. Some WP munitions are US made and some are not.
- Potential violations of the Arms Control Act
Guest – Colby Goodman, Policy Director for Military, Security, and Police Transfers at Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). Colby he leads AIUSA’s research and analysis on issues related to conventional arms control and child soldiers in support of AIUSA’s major campaigns and issue or country advocacy.
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EPIC RECESSION AND GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS
There are other economic solutions and proposals that are critical of the 787 billion dollar Economic Stimulus Plan. Dr. Jack Rasmus’s recent article in Z magazine titled Obama’s Economic Plan vs. An Alternative lays out a different recovery program in 20 measures that could stimulate job growth, run an alternative tax plan and a push through single payer health plan. His Z magazine article is a snapshot from his newly published book titled Epic Recession and Global Financial Crisis.
Dr. Jack Rasmus: – “We are in an Epic Recession phase now, not a normal recession.”
- Banks come first, trickle down. Maybe they’ll give something to the rest of us which they don’t.
- We’ve see a virtual bankers strike for the last six months, we’ve thrown somewhere between 2 and 3 trillion dollars at the banks with the hope they’ll loan a bit out with a lower interest rate. Of course, we know they’re not doing that, they’re paying each other big bonuses, dividends and acquiring each other.
- The commercial money center banks are broke. Zombie banks, banks by name only.
- It’s a solvency crisis, the banks are in default and are not going to loan.
I) Stimulus Bill – 789 Billion of Tax Cuts and Spending
- Designed to slow the accelerating collapse of consumption.
- Not designed to reverse massive unemployment which is gaining momentum. Since 2007 – 13 million unemployed. 20 million unemployed by 2009.
- We’re losing 400 billion dollars just from the now 10 million unemployed. Add in 401k collapse, stocks collapsing, credit cards cut off, long term rates rising, reduction in hours worked occuring, state and local tax and fee increases, state and local funds decreasing.
- Obama is changing rhetoric from creating 3 million new jobs to saving and creating 3 million jobs.
II) Big Bank Bailout
- What to do about the bad assets of commercial banks.
- Securitize Markets – Auto / Credit Cards/ Student Loans
- Insurance Scheme Proposal – Instead of giving banks money they’ll insure them. Taking the Citigroup Bailout Plan Model – 300 Billion back up.
III) Housing Industry – Mortgage modification
- Give the mortgage lenders money – 600 Billion – and hopefully they’ll stop going on strike and they’ll lower the interest rates.
Solutions:
- No way out of housing crisis without nationalizing housing market.
- Create a new government agency and properly fund it, – 900 billion dollars – it would create a small residential and business loan agency.
- Go in there and reduce long term principle and interest to long term averages that existed before 2002’s run up of huge speculation.
- That would be for all loans, not just the ones in foreclosure. Which would stimulate consumption not just shore up housing industry.
- Similar to the Homeowners Loan Corporation of the 1930s
- Auto Companies – You can’t just have 3 US Auto Companies surviving. They have to be nationalized if they’re going to put that much government money into them.
- We don’t give them a penny unless they stop their investment and expansions overseas.
- Ford is building big plants in Petersburg Russia. GM is building big plants in Shang Hai, China. Immediately they should be required to build cars with proper mileage.
- Bring back 2 trillion of the 6 trillion that’s been stuff away in offshore tax havens in the last 20 years.
Guest – Author and Professor, Jack Rasmus teaches in the Department of Economics and Politics at St. Mary’s College, Moraga, California.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq Veterans, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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The First 100 Days: Dismantling the Police State in a New Presidency – Part 1
This is the first of a three part special. Law and Disorder hosts bring a series of interviews with key attorneys, authors and activists from the front lines such as the Center For Constitutional Rights, Universities of Law and the National Lawyers Guild. Some of the police state policies are beginning to be reversed such as closing down secret CIA sites, a timeline to shut down Guantanamo, and mandating everyone CIA included follow US Army Field Manual Interrogation tactics.
We define the current laws in place that now constitute a police state. Then we look at the steps the Obama Administration must take to turn back the major breaches in civil liberties such as the Patriot Act One and Two, the Military Commissions Act, FBI Guidelines and legal provisions that allow for torture. As you’ll hear, some attorneys believe much of the dismantling can be done by executive order.
We begin with a description of what we have seen since September 11, 2001 and precursors such as the Effective Death Penalty Act, the earlier renditions under Clinton’s administration. Then, right after 9/11 came the overreaching of executive power in the form of signing statements that misuse the war powers resolution to detain, torture and try so_called enemy combatants. This includes racial profiling against Muslims here and abroad, massive surveillance capacities and warrant_less wiretapping.
The dismantling of police state blocks in the new presidency will take attention to detail to ensure a full restoration of democracy that will ultimately allow for social progress. In the next hour we look at some remedies and solutions to reverse laws that have created domestic enemy combatants, Guantanamo Bay prison, Renditions, Secret CIA sites, Torture, Kangaroo Courts: Special Trials, FISA, domestic surveillance, private military contractors.
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Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Vince Warren discusses the abuse of preventive detention, torture, rendition and states secrets. Hosts cite recent examples of deep surveillance on peaceful protesters and the unprecedented collusion between federal, state and local law enforcement. Warren points out the importance of rolling back the police state measures put in place by the Bush administration, in that No president has ever given back the power a previous president has given him.
Vincent Warren:
- Torture/rendition/states secrets / right to dissent / the abuse of preventive detention.
- Torture top of list, the export of torture and CIA black sites.
- torture crimes at this time are unprosecutable adn its up to the president to
- Close Guantanamo prison – send prisoners back to countries they came from, repatriate.
- CCR and civil proceedings – hold accountable, the Bush administration to declare what they’ve done unconstitutional, damages to clients CCR represents and injunctive relief, future deterrents
- Universal jurisdiction stems from the Nuremberg principles that say a crime that is committed against a person anywhere is prosecutable anywhere.
- Countries such as Germany Spain and France have statutes for human rights abuse survivors to bring cases for prosecution.
- States secrets privilege, the privilige that the government has routinely invoked in a range of CCR cases, whenever the government says states secrets, the courts, including the supreme courts usually kick the case. The remedy?
- Congress can create a statute that limits the use of a states secrets power in order to make it consistent for truth telling and accountability.
- No president has ever given back the power a previous president has given him.
- The abuse of preventive detention, fusion centers – intelligence gathering and data mining – the concern is that no one can monitor and again its done in secrecy. no oversight, more preemptive law enforcement
- The irony here is that government usually acts as if one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing, unless they’re coming down on our constitutional rights, then they’re all on the same page.
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Naomi Wolf : 10 Steps
We’re joined by author and activist Naomi Wolf. She is the author of seven books, and the groundbreaking book The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot. In the book, Naomi addresses ten steps that societies, dictators, and sometimes democracies use to close an open society to move it toward facsism. We want to re-visit those ten steps.
Naomi Wolf:
- A small group of people used the law to subvert the law. Reichstag Fire, then disembowel their own Constitution.
- Initial thinking inspired from my friend who is the daughter of holocaust survivors, she said the Bush strategies echo early 1930s Germany.
- Enabling Acts in Germany gave the power to the state to read a person’s mail, listen to their phone calls and read their telegrams. This, in the alleged interest of national security and the fight against terrorism.
- Nazis used to unload the coffins of the war dead at night.
- A would-be dictator sought to close an open society or crush a democracy movement. Mussolini in 1920, the great evil pioneer. Hitler studied Mussolini, Stalin studied Hitler.
- I looked at Russia, studied Czechoslovakia in the 60’s, Pinochet’s coup in 1973, the Chinese crackdown on democracy in the 80s.
- What I saw was there was a blueprint. The blueprint has 10 steps. The 10 steps have been codified, they teach them at the School of the Americas.
- To help would be Latin-American dictators to overthrow their own governments. What terrified me is that those ten steps are being put in place by the Bush Administration.
- Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
- Create a gulag
- Develop a thug caste
- Set up an internal surveillance system
- Harass citizens’ groups
- Engage in arbitrary detention and release
- Target key individuals
- Control the press
- Dissent equals treason
- Suspend the rule of law
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Military Tribunal, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Stop The Israeli Massacre in Gaza – Speech by Chris Hedges
On Tuesday, Jan 13th, 550 people attended a Revolution Books Emergency Town Hall Meeting held at the Center for Ethical Culture in Manhattan. The meeting demanded a stop to the Israeli massacre in Gaza, and condemned the U.S. role in this war crime. The emergency meeting was an important challenge to people to understand the horrific situation in Gaza, the causes and implications, and to act.
Chris Hedges:
- Those who orchestrate these sieges, do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse.
- 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza last year, said they wanted to be a martyr.
- The refusal of our political leaders from Barack Obama to all but five members of Congress and the major media to speak out in defense of the rule of law and fundamental human rights exposes our cowardice and hypocrisy.
- We have become monsters, militarized bullies, heartless and savage. We are a party to human slaughter.
- We forget that the innocent who suffer and die in Gaza are a reflection of ourselves. Of how we might have been if fate, time and geography had made the circumstances of our birth different.
- The lesson of the holocaust is not that Jews are eternal victims. The lesson of the holocaust is when you have the capacity to halt genocide and you do not, no matter who carries out that genocide or who it carried out against, you are culpable.
- We are very culpable, the F-16 fighter jets, the Apache attack helicopters, the 250lb GBU39 Smart Bombs are all part of the 3 Billion dollar a year aid we give to Israel.
- But our indifference to senseless killing is expected, we kill women and children on a vaster scale in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Governments distort and manipulate facts, knowing that propaganda is a vital instrument in war.
- Lies permeate absurd reports like the front page NY Times story titled A Gaza War Full of Traps and Trickery.
- In this story unnamed Israeli officials justify bombing school because Hamas was firing mortars near the building. They offered a photo as proof. The photo was taken a year ago.
- Reporters are asked to abandoned their trade and become stenographers.
- Using unnamed Israeli officials to report the news is the poison of American journalism.
- Gaza will be ruled in the future by warlords, clans and antagonistic mafias. Out of that power vacuum will rise a new generation of angry Jihadists.
Speaker – Chris Hedges, 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 and right now, he’s a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and a lecturer in the Council of the Humanities.
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The World Turns Away From Gaza: Abdeen Jabara
In the last few weeks, the focus has been on the humanitarian crisis and military devastation Gaza. We’re joined by Abdeen Jabara, board member of the Center for Constitutional Rights, an attorney and the former head of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee. Abdeen Jabara gives us his perspective and reaction to the killings of thousands and damage in Gaza.
Abdeen Jabara:
- 4100 Houses Destroyed, 17 Thousand Houses Damaged, 25 Mosques Destroyed
- 31 Security Headquarters, 16 Ministry Buildings, 1500 Commercial Facilities
- “The Palestinians must made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” – Israeli militant
- Attack Lebanon in 1982, the destruction rained down on that country drove the PLO out of Lebanon in to Tunisia.
- What led to the Oslo Accord, then they split the Palestinian people, classic colonial strategy.
- Its shocking to me how the world looked away as Israel slaughtered Palestinians.
- . . that there has not been more of an outcry from the Europeans.
- The Czech president of the European Union was very supportive of the Israeli bombardment on Gaza.
- Now the Europeans that say they want to build in Gaza, are adhering to Israel’s demand that none of this aid will go to Gaza that may aid Hamas.
- The Israelis moved to attack because they knew that Bush was a known quantity.
- Europeans are keeping a low profile on this, as economic pressure continues.
- Very few people understand that Gaza is a very large open air concentration camp.
- This was essentially a jail break on the part of Gaza, because they were being suffocated.
- More than 50 percent unemployment in Gaza, the conditions of life there are untenable.
- Aside from Chavez and Boliva, the world looked away.
- I believe it’s difficult for secular people to grasp, they believe in individual rights, while the fundamentalism (in Gaza) is building.
- Hamas’ popularity is going to grow. I see a much more pronounced religiously motivated movement.
- There is a strategy to pit one group against the other to create chaos, as in what’s happening in Iraq.
- Perhaps if the chief architect of the Oslo Accords had not been assassinated, there could’ve been real progress.
- They want to divide the Palestinians and have Hamas stand in Gaza, impoverished.
- The attack on Gaza, the ferocity and to grind the Palestinians into the ground, will lead to a lot of repercussions in places all over.
- A lot of people do not want to talk about Zionism in the United States. It is alive and well.
- A lot of people talk about Israel as being post-Zionist, it’s not. It’s still in the process of inculcating the idea of the in-gathering of the exiles.
- Brett Stevens from Wall St Journal, will speak at 92nd Street Y titled, Why Zionism Has Become A Dirty Word.
- We have to talk about what Zionism is for people to understand the roots of this problem.
- Israel is no longer giving out the names of the Brigade Commanders in Gaza for fear they will be tried in an International Court
Guest – Abdeen Jabara. Jabara has campaigned for more than two decades against harassment and the infringement of Arab-American’s First Amendment rights. Amid this, he scored a signal victory in his own suit against the FBI for its years of surveillance and harassment of him. He has led and helped organize fact-finding missions to Lebanon and the Israeli Occupied Territories, most recently leading a delegation of American mothers and grandmothers to Qana last May after the Israeli massacre of civilians there.
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Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq Veterans, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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Updates:
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Iraq Veterans Against The War: Jose Vasquez
The group Iraq Veterans Against The War or IVAW has emerged as the leading antiwar group in the United States. Recently, thousands of IVAW members held rallies and marches at the RNC and nearly 10 thousand marched at the DNC in Denver. The demonstrations urged presidential candidates to endorse ending the Iraq war and paying reparations to the people of Iraq.
The IVAW also calls for the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq, stopping the corporate pillaging of Iraq, and full benefits, adequate healthcare for returning servicemen and women. IVAW chapters are in 48 states, Canada and DC, members include recent veterans and active duty servicemen and women from all branches of military service, National Guard members, and reservists who have served in the United States military since September 11, 2001.
Guest – Jose Vasquez, a 14 year US Army veteran and conscientious objector. He is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) serving as the New York City chapter president. Jose was also a key organizer of Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Iraq War – Status of Forces Agreement: Anthony Arnove
Nearly 4,200 US soldiers and 1 million Iraqi civilians have been killed in the US occupation of Iraq since 2003. .Right now there are 75 major US bases in Iraq, 140 thousand US troops and 180 thousand private contractors operating in Iraq. The cost of the Iraq War so far is 3 trillion and this year the monthly average expense is 12 billion dollars.
A pact recently negotiated in secret by the US government intends to extend the US occupation 3 more years in Iraq despite public and Congressional opposition. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have demonstrated against the pact that calls for full US withdrawal by 2012, but the agreement also leaves open the possible later date of withdrawal.
Anthony Arnove:
- Status of Forces Agreement; Orwellian slieght of hand – Combat troop withdrawal only.
- US is currently responsible for the detention of thousands of Iraqis who are being held without trial.
- 14 permanent US bases in Iraq: Areas to project power from in the future.
- Iraq: World’s second largest oil reserves, and world’s most strategic shipping routes.
- In the SOFA agreements, the US is making a condition to pass a national oil law.
- Iraq’s oil is distributed unevenly, leading to regional tensions between Kurdish and Shia regions.
- Obama rhetoric: Blaming the Iraqi people – the Iraqis haven’t spent money or achieved political reconciliation, or passed a national oil law
Guest – Editor and writer, Anthony Arnove, author of Iraq: The Logic Of Withdrawal.
Anthony Arnove Wikipedia Entry:
Arnove is best known for his books on Iraq and the Iraq War. Arnove is the author of the book Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, published in hardcover by the New Press and in paperback by Haymarket Books. Arnove toured the country promoting the book in spring 2006 as part of the New Press’ “End the War Tour”.
Arnove is also the editor of Iraq Under Siege, published by South End Press, the co-editor with Howard Zinn of Voices of a People’s History of the United States, published by Seven Stories Press, and the editor of The Essential Noam Chomsky, published by the New Press. He writes frequently for left-wing publications; he is a featured author at ZNet, a columnist for Socialist Worker, and on the editorial board of the International Socialist Review. He has also written for The Nation, In These Times, Le Nouvel Observateur, L’Humanité, and The Financial Times.
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