Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Torture, Truth to Power
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Jon Burge, Former Chicago Police Commander Sentenced to 4 ½ Years
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve reported on the ongoing developments of the Chicago Torture case and former Chicago police commander Jon Burge. Burge has been sentenced to 4 and a half years in prison for obstruction of justice and lying about torturing prisoners to obtain coerced confessions. The People’s Law Office brought the case in 2005 and the city of Chicago refused to settle while pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the case. Attorney with the People’s Law Office Flint Taylor says the city has spent over the 10 million dollars in aiding the defense of former Commander Jon Burge. Mr. Burge, who is 63 and in ill health, was fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1993. Attorney Flint Taylor’s Statement on Burge sentencing.
Attorney Flint Taylor:
- Burge did not do this alone. Many people working under him or with him, those people are under investigation.
- The city pours millions of dollars into the defense of Burge with private lawyers.
- There needs to compensation and treatment for all the men that were tortured that number is in the hundreds.
- We have a mayoral race here, with 3 Daley clones, none of them have addressed what the judge has said.
- The judge cited the city and the police department as well as the state’s attorneys office under Richard Daley has a dismal failure of leadership with regard to these cases.
- To be in the court room and hear a judge adopt our view that we fought so hard for, that was very rewarding.
- People look at the sentence, it’s a little less than five years, of course you should do much more than that for torture. The judge had her hands tied in some degree and she went as high as she could, going double on the guidelines that were recommended.
- We’ve been raising for decades why Richard Daley didn’t prosecute for torture when he was states attorney.
- The Obama Administration’s failure or refusal to prosecute admitted torturers, I’m talking about Bush who in his book admitted that he authorized water boarding.
- Chicago is a beacon of light in the fight against torture.
- We fought for decades here to get the prosecutions, to get the convictions, to get the sentence.
Guest – Attorney Flint Taylor, a graduate of Brown University and Northwestern University School of Law and a founding partner of the Peoples Law Office. More bio
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State of Democratic Rights – Bill Goodman
We’re joined today by attorney Bill Goodman former legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights. Bill has been an extraordinary public interest lawyer for more than 30 years he’s served as counsel on issues including post-Katrina social justice, public housing, voting rights, the death penalty, living wage and human rights work in Haiti. Bill delivered a speech recently titled the State of Democratic Rights, defining democracy as we now understand it. Everyone of these defining points has been attacked or undermined and very little has been done to repair them under the Obama Administration.
Attorney Bill Goodman:
- If you want to define or crystallize what American democracy looks like in maybe 7 concepts you can break down pretty well.
- People can’t be detained without good cause and without being charged with a crime in front of an independent magistrate.
- They can’t be tortured or punished in ways that are extreme.
- They’re allowed to protest publicly. First Amendment rights.
- People can’t be discriminated against based upon religion.
- Separation of powers, so that no single branch of government becomes overly important or overreaches.
- Right to privacy. The government can’t break into our houses, unreasonable search and seizure.
- The right to free and fair elections and have our votes counted.
- From a lawyers perspective, what I see is an unwillingness of the courts.
- It’s shameful that these judges don’t step up to the plate and say that this should not happen and will not happen.
- Humanitarian Law v. Holder. There’s a very serious attempt to extend the concepts of terrorism to protesters right here in the United States.
- People who work on behalf of the environment, animal rights.
- The United States Supreme Court is happy to say that huge corporations can spend as much money as they possibly want to shift and tilt the electoral playing field right here in the United States.
- In order to strengthen the Constitution we need active aggressive organized movements.
- Within the end of a generation we can see the end of public education in the United States.
Guest – Bill Goodman, former legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights has been an extraordinary public interest lawyer for over 30 years, and has served as counsel on issues including post-Katrina social justice, public housing, voting rights, the death penalty, living wage, civil liberties, educational reform, constitutional rights, human rights work in Haiti, and civil disobedience.
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Post Coup Aftermath – Honduras: Sarah Hogarth
Today we are joined by legal worker Sarah Hogarth who has recently returned from a human rights delegation to Honduras through the Friendship Office of the Americas. We talk with her about her observations on the post coup human rights crisis in that country. As listeners may know On June 28, 2009, the Honduran military ousted the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. Former Parliamentary speaker Roberto Micheletti was sworn in as Zelaya’s replacement. Repressive tactics were used immediately after the coup–people on the front lines who oppose this regime have been beaten and illegally detained by the state. Journalists and LGBT activists were among the first to be targeted and killed. Dr James Cockcroft joins interview.
Sarah Hogarth/ James Cockcroft:
- The purpose was to meet with the movement leaders and the human rights organizations there.
- Honduras elections broadly considered to be illegitimate. The president who was overthrown, brought Honduras into ALBA.
- The outgoing president was flown out of a US military base in Honduras. The whole world knew this, but the United States said it wasn’t a coup. Now wikileaks shows that the ambassador was already telling Washington, it’s a coup.
- Zelaya was not the most radical of political leaders by any stretch.
- The resistance movement there is truly an inspiration. The new Honduran regime has instituted anti-terrorism legislation.
- The community radio movement in Honduras is the primary means, to disseminate real news about what’s happening.
- There was a time after the coup the radio equipment was not only shut down by the military but the equipment destroyed.
- Withing 48 hours, community radio stations from other Latin American countries rushed to the borders of Honduras to keep communications going into Honduras among the resistors.
- The people want the money flow to stop funding the new regime.
- Six thousand Marines were just sent to Costa Rica. Two military bases in Honduras, 6 in Columbia.
- The whole foreign policy of the United States has been and extension of the Bush policy of militarization of the world.
- This is being pitched in the context of the war on drugs. Disguise the imperial intervention with the war on drugs.
- There is an extremely small amount of arable land in Honduras.
- The level of unity among all these people is truly impressive.
- Another thing that is discouraging is the extreme privatization that has happened over the past year.
- They have given away the farm to these large corporations.
Guest – Sarah Hogarth, human rights activist in New York City. She is a freelance legal worker and writer and has recently returned from a human rights delegation to Honduras through the Friendship Office of the Americas. The delegation met with activists to learn about the human rights situation in Honduras in the one year since the elections in November 2009. In June 2009, democratically elected President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was removed in a military coup d’etat.
Guest – Dr. James Cockcroft, historian and activist, Jim has written 45 books on Latin America. He’s a professor at the State University of New York and is a member of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict.
It’s been more than 2 years since Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, a massive surprise air strike against the Gaza Strip. In its aftermath, researchers began to unearth and document evidence of war crimes, human rights violations. Among those investigations was the Goldstone Report officially titled the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza. The report is based on a course of investigations that include 188 interviews, the review of 10 thousand pages of documents and the inspection of 1200 photographs. While most war crimes reports fade into the night, The Goldstone Report is kept alive in a recent book titled The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict.
The authors Lizzy Ratner, Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss have reprinted the central findings of the report and include 11 essays chronicling the report’s ongoing impact. The introduction is written by author Naomi Klein with a forward by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The Goldstone Report:
- LR: Operation Cast Lead: I remember thinking, can this just happen? Is there some kind of law that says this can’t happen? Judge Goldstone is South African, he was a member of the Constitutional Court in South Africa. He is seen as someone who really advanced international law.
- He’s a big Zionist. He’s a committed Zionist. In Israel, they loved him before this report.
- He was fast friends with the head of the Supreme Court in Israel.
- He goes to Gaza in 2009. It’s interesting he remark that thought that he would be kidnapped by Hamas. I think what happened, he went and he saw what life was like in Gaza, and had a bit of a conversion.
- This is not somebody you would expect to come out and issue a report like this.
- Our mission was there’s this report out there, it’s controversial, thunderous, it’s convulsive. Not many people have read it. Once we read it, it became clear, it’s contents were extraordinary.
- It lays out the events of Gaza in minute and devastating detail. We wanted to abridge the report and that really forms the core of the book.
- We have a series of 11 different essays. Each take for the Goldstone Report with a different perspective.
- PW: The first and last essays are from Gazans.
- It’s explained in very vivid terms what it’s like to be under assault, to see white phosphorous raining down on this strip, which is tiny, it’s the size of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket put together. 1.5 million people.
- Rogi’s thesis just itemizing this assault on Palestinian dignity, saying this is a basic human right, to live in dignity.
- Goldstone: Lack of discrimination between civilians and combatants. A deliberate attack on the civilian infrastructure on the means of life. Israel had several recourses before it launched an all out assault on civilian infrastructure.
- The Goldstone Report contradicts what Israel tends to say. One of things the report makes clear is there had been a cease fire for 6 months before the attack.
- United States – We’re not going to stop you Israel when you inflict collective punishment on 1.5 million people.
- This book really helps give a window into the current perception of the Israel, Palestinian conflict as a whole and how that perception is changing.
- AH: The anti-Goldstone report speeches were very uninformed. They treated him like a witch and ex-communicated him from the Jewish community. Goldstonereportbook.com
- The criminality, the complete selfishness, the utter indifference to other peoples lives.
- I realize how much I was made to hate Arab people and Palestinian people and to think that they were lesser.
- Everything you’ve heard was wrong about them.
- At the heart of it, the Goldstone Report tells the story of people who had to live through a horribly traumatic event. You won’t be able to dismiss 1300 people being killed as people that should have died.
- LR: Stop it Jewish people, you’re doing the wrong thing, you’re behaving in an immoral, unethical way and its wrong. Any human should be offended from what happens in Gaza and what still happens there.
Guests – Lizzy Ratner, Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss
Lizzy Ratner a journalist here in New York City, her articles appear in many publications including The Nation and Alternet.
Adam Horowitz is an editor and journalist covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, he co-edits the blog Mondoweiss and is a founding member of Jews Against the Occupation.
Phil Weiss, founder of the blog Mondoweiss, is a longtime journalist and regular contributor to the Nation and a fellow at the Nation Institute He’s the author of two books a political novel, Cock-A-Doodle-Doo, and American Taboo, an investigative account of a 1976 murder in the Peace Corps in the Kingdom of Tonga.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Gaza, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Ohio Supermax: Hunger Strike In Long Term Solitary Confinement
In an Ohio Super Max prison, 4 prisoners facing execution are confined to permanent restrictive solitary confinement. They’re on a hunger strike, bringing attention to their requests to simply be placed on death row. What’s the difference? Death row isn’t as restrictive as permanent solitary confinement. Jules Lobel, Vice President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh explains in detail the differences of regular prison, death row and solitary confinement conditions.
Jules is working to defend the prisoners, he says that long term, essentially permanent and very harsh solitary confinement is both cruel and unusual punishment that violates due process requirement of annual review. The state of Ohio has decided to keep these four in solitary confinement permanently. It’s not only in Ohio, permanent solitary confinement is becoming a problem nationally, particularly with people convicted of terrorism related offenses, including material aid to terrorism.
Jules Lobel:
Guest – Jules Lobel, through the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights, Jules has litigated important issues regarding the application of international law in the U.S. courts. In the late 1980’s, he advised the Nicaraguan government on the development of its first democratic constitution, and has also advised the Burundi government on constitutional law issues. Professor Lobel is editor of a text on civil rights litigation and of a collection of essays on the U.S. Constitution, A Less Than Perfect Union (Monthly Review Press, 1988). He is author of numerous articles on international law, foreign affairs, and the U.S. Constitution in publications including Yale Law Journal, Harvard International Law Journal, Cornell Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. He is a member of the American Society of International Law
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Defending Grand Jury Protesters
As many listeners know, last September in a nationally coordinated raid, the FBI targeted anti-war and Palestinian solidarity activists, raided their homes and subpoenaed them to appear before a grand jury. The 13 people all of whom were critical of US foreign policy, later withdrew and asserted their right to remain silent. But in early December of 2010 subpoenas were reissued against 4 of those targeted in the raids. Three women in Minneapolis, Tracy Molm, Anh Pham, and Sara Martin were sent reactivated subpoenas by Fitzgerald’s office and new Grand Jury dates.
We’re joined by Chicago based journalist and activist Maureen Murphy who also received a new subpoena. Maureen is managing editor at the website Electronic Intifada, though the site is not being targeted in the FBI probe. In a statement, the Electronic Intifada said, quote, “Although The Electronic Intifada itself has not been a target, we consider the grand jury investigation and all of the subpoenas to be part of a broad attack on the anti-war and Palestine solidarity movements and a threat to all of our rights.”
We are also joined by regular guest, attorney Michael Deutsch from the People’s Law Office and is working with the defense committee.
Maureen Murphy:
- I don’t know why its happening, we do know that no crime has been identified. There’s nothing written on my subpoena that I need to bring any documents.
- We believe that the government is subpoenaing us so that we come before a grand jury and name names, and tell them how we organize so they can further disrupt their movement. I’m one of 23 activists now who have gotten the knock at the door. My subpoena says nothing but show up, so I think this is really a fishing expedition.
- In one home they took everything with the word Palestine on it.
- The government has expended a lot of resources on an investigation of a group that has always worked pubicly to advocate for a more just US policy. I was visited by the FBI on December 21, 2010.
- A national committee that has formed around the raids and subpoenas is calling for a day of action January 25, in front of federal buildings and FBI headquarters.
- I’ve already stated that I’m not going to testify.
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Michael Deutsch:
- In December the FBI went out with a stack of subpoenas, and wound up subpoenaing 9 additional people in the Chicago area which then makes 23.
- These people who are subpoenaed are all active in Palestinian support work. Arab American Action Network, Palestinian Support Group. This next wave of subpoenas are people who are they’re trying to gather information from.
- I’ve never in all my experience seen so many people subpoenaed to a grand jury.
- A lot of the Palestine support work has gone on in Chicago.
- Originally 14 people were subpoenaed and each one through their lawyer said they weren’t not going to voluntarily come in. Now they haven’t decided to enforce the subpoena, they said well get back to you when we decide what we’re going to do.
- There are 23 people lined up trying to figure out what the next step of the government is.
- These prosecutors don’t seem to know who they’re dealing with. They see the grand jury as a tool of oppression.
- I believe that the Israeli security apparatus is involved in supplying information to the US government.
- There’s no evidence here of any type of violence or weapons. We’re dealing with advocacy and associations.
- Despite Holder v the Humanitarian Law Project, we believe that it’s a total violation of the First Amendment.
- The underlying tenor is going after people because of their political ideology.
Guest – Maureen Murphy is a journalist and Palestine solidarity activist from Chicago. She spent a few years living and traveling throughout the Middle East, interning for the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq in the occupied West Bank in 2004-06 before she was denied entry and deported by the Israeli government. She also lived in Lebanon in 2007, learning about the human rights situation for Palestine refugees and the impact of U.S. foreign policy there.
Guest – Michael Deutsch, attorney with the People’s Law Office in Chicago.
Climate Change, Criminalizing Dissent, Extraordinary Rendition, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Torture
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Economic Recovery? Austerity in the US and Abroad
In our previous interview with Professor of Economics, Rick Wolff, we talked about austerity, that is imposing on society a severe regimen of rising taxes, or cut government spending to please and satisfy creditors. Massive protests erupt against austerity in Greece, Portugal, Ireland and soon maybe Spain, as governments raise college tuition, taxes, retirement ages plus cutting worker benefits and wages. These austerity measures are about to hit the United States. Veiled in the recent tax deal with the Republicans is a decision Americans will need to make. Higher taxes or cut services? With growing debts made worse by Obama’s tax deal, the US moves quickly toward austerity while the political establishment and the media mostly pretend all is well says Rick Wolff.
Professor Rick Wolff:
- In order to get anything through, the President had to accomodate the richest people in the United States and the biggest corporations. I’m going to allow you to pass even more wealth to your children or the people who inherit your estate. Here’s an extra gift, the estate tax.
- These are the people who did the best over the last 30 years. Wage earners and salary earners went nowhere, but people rich enough to own shares in the stock market made out like bandits.
- Estate tax, you can earn money for the state to run services we all need by taxing the super-rich so they’re not quite so far ahead. What this last bill does . . rich people in America were already allowed to leave 3.5 million dollars for each person (husband/wife) to their children or anyone else and the federal government wouldn’t touch it.
- Less than one half percent of Americans who even have this amount of money.
- This new law raises the amount from 7 million per couple to 10 million per couple. The new tax law also reduces the amount to pay from 45 to 35 percent. A gift in the millions for the super-rich.
- Translating into billions of dollars that are now going to be saved by the richest people in the United States. We’re going to be talking about the difficulties the government has in doing things because it doesn’t have money. The government just gave away the store to richest one half of one percent.
- What the rich do when they get a break like this, and when you turn to Wall Street, the hottest investments are in other parts of the world. Funding economic development in other parts of the world.
- Unemployment is as high as it was a year ago. Foreclosures are running at a multi-million dollar clip per year.
- Last month the Federal Reserve decided to print another 600 million dollars. My view is we’ve got years of unemployment ahead of us, years of a disasterous housing market, very few signs of recovery.
- The worst has yet to hit. It takes time for states to crumble.
- The municipal bond market, the debts of cities and towns are going to see significant default.
- You need organization to act in historic moments that moments where people need action.
- The flow of jobs from the United States to other parts of the world is continuing. American corporations don’t see the US as a “growth area.” They’re focused elsewhere.
- We’re becoming a society where large numbers of people are living on the margins. It’s a new experience in this country after a century of being a little different from that.
Guest – Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan.
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Two Year Evaluation of the Obama Administration
There is a long list of items progressive Americans had hoped to accomplish through the Obama Administration. In our interview with Roger Hodge, author of The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism, Hodge says Obama didn’t fight for anything worth fighting for. With corporate backers such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citi-Group, the Obama Administration has been severely compromised. These corporations expect something in return. The Obama Administration has been criticized for expanded the wars abroad from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, criticized for continuing the Guantanamo detention policies, the Wall Street bailouts and bargaining with the Healthcare bill as a bailout for insurance companies. In this aftermath of 2010 and we look back to 2008.
Nellie Hester Bailey:
- A browner hue of imperialism. The policy of the US government at home and abroad would remain the same. When we look at the platform of then presidential candidate Barack Obama, he made very clear that he was a centrist candidate. In many instances to the right of Hillary Clinton, if one can imagine that.
- We were never taken in, mesmerized, blinded . . we knew very well who he was.
- He has proven to be much worse than anticipated. Not for me but for my colleagues who were cautiously optimistic.
- On January 20th, President Obama is going to deliver his State of the Union Address. Everyone expects this is going to be the prelude for another deadly compromise for the working class.
- There was a study done in the Guardian newspaper and amazingly African Americans were more optimistic about their economic situation and felt much more secure under Barack Obama’s administration than ever before. When in fact just the opposite is true.
- African Americans have lost trillions of dollars in the housing crisis, the mortgage scam.
- We have to remember it was President Barack Obama that gave the banks a free ride.
- We have added 9 billion dollars to the deficit with this tax cut deal, that is extending the tax cuts to the 2 percent of the wealthy. We are supposed to believe that he did this for us? The poor and the working class?
- Unlike the right wing, I believe he will be a one term president.
- What we need for the working poor and African Americans is the blinders to be pulled off, so people can see what it is that we are dealing with. When you look at the report from the CDC where have a 50 percent increase in the number of people that are uninsured.
- The work force is being reduced, we are expected to work longer hours, we are expected to retire later in life, we are being worked to death. These are the undeniable realities.
- You can no longer herd the people like sheep into this nightmare of compromise.
- After 2 years, I think progressives for Obama need to step back and realize their responsibility for building a working class people, multi-racial movement.
- You have to commit to a movement, you don’t do that as an individual.
- Open Letter to encourage self-proclaimed left leaders such as Bill Fletcher, Tom Hayden and Barbara Ehrenreich to move from critical support into active opposition of the administrations agenda.
- I co-host a program with Glen Ford who is the Executive editor of Black Agenda Report.
- Black Agenda Report, we air on Mondays at 5 PM.
Guest – Nellie Hester Bailey, human rights activist who has worked in peace and justice movements for over forty years. From her early organizing with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, to tenant rights and anti-war struggles, to advocacy on behalf of women Bailey has been at the forefront of social justice and social change organizing. Bailey co-founded the Harlem Tenants Council (HTC) in 1994. She currently serves as Director of the tenant led grassroots organization based on the self-determination tradition of radical activism that provides anti-displacement organizing for poor and working class families primarily in Central Harlem
Bailey is co-founder of Blacks in Solidarity Against the War that in 2005 help stage the largest anti-war demonstration in Harlem since the invasion of Iraq. A founding member of Cuba Solidarity New York, Bailey traveled to Cuba on three separate occasions.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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A Kidnapping In Milan: The CIA On Trial
A Kidnapping In Milan: The CIA On Trial is the title of Steve Hendricks’ new book. It is a fast paced account of the realities of counter terrroism. Hendricks gives the reader a beginning to end view of international Islamist terrorist networks in Europre while examining the questions of justice and the rule of law. He writes in detail on the February 2003 disappearance of the radical imam Abu Omar and how under the leadership of prosecutor Armando Spataro, Omar was kidnapped, and sent to be tortured in Egypt. Hendricks traces Omar’s roots in the jihadist world of the Middle East and his travels to Pakistan, Albania and eventually the rundown fringes of Milan. Rivalries, mistrust and bad communication is chronicled amid the CIA, the FBI and the Italian counter terrorism agencies as operatives snatched Abu Omar from the streets of Italy.
Steve Hendricks:
- The Italian counterterror police had this imam, Abu Omar under tight surveillance, under suspicion of terrorism. He was one of the ring leaders of a terrorist cell. They were about a month away from arresting him. But one fine day in February 2003, he sets off for his mosque and disappears.
- The CIA had grabbed him off the street literally at high noon. They roughed him up, gagged him, drove him several hours across northern Italy –sent him to Cairo were for months and months he was savagely tortured.
- The Muslim Brotherhood, which really might thought of as the godfathers of radical Islam, got its start in Egypt and toehold in Alexandria. Islam is not going to be re-born simply on its goodness, we have to fight for it.
- The Egyptian authorities cracked down on the radicals and a great number of them fled all over the world, they scattered. Europe was tolerant of foreigners, Italy was one of those countries.
- Abu Omar was tortured for about a year and then they let him out and said don’t talk about it.
- Armando Spataro is this charismatic figure. He did his formative work as a magistrate prosecuting terrorists of the left.
- When the kidnapping in Milan (by the CIA) happened on his watch, he treated it like anything else. He put his foot down on the rule of law.
- SIM Card – Subscriber Identity Module. It’s not just reading the radio waves, it’s in constant contact with the cell tower back and forth. Most cell companies keep record of those interactions. What these kidnappers sloppily did is use their cellphones like teenagers.
- The Italian prosecutors were able to find these kidnappers, they were able to track their movements everywhere they went. Armando Spataro eventually brought charges against 25 CIA agents and one US Air Force Colonel that coordinated the arrival of agents at Aviano Air Base.
- 23 of the 26 of the accused were convicted of kidnapping. They recieved five to eight years depending upon their degree of involvment. What moved me to write this book, over everything was outrage over our inhumanity.
- America has been conducting renditions for about a century.
Guest – Steve Hendricks, a freelance writer living in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Helena, Montana. He is the author, most recently, of A Kidnapping in Milan: The CIA on Trial. His previous book, The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country, made several best-of-the-year lists in 2006.
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Noam Chomsky – Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve chronicled the events of Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank. Today we’re delighted to have with us Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s foremost social critics, institute professor emeritus in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy and author of many books including Failed States and Hegemony or Survival, but we talk with him today about his latest book Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians. Noam Chomsky wrote Gaza In Crisis with Ilan Pappé, professor of history at the University of Exeter in the UK. This book surveys Israel’s recent attacks on Gaza from Operation Cast Lead to the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in a very sobering analysis.
Noam Chomsky:
- Let’s start with wikileaks. One of the interesting cables from the Tel Aviv embassy and it was to Clinton.
- It was giving her talking points, about the attack on Gaza, and it tells her Israel had to attack on December 2008 in self defense because Hamas had violated the truce.
- In December 2008 Hamas called for a renewal of the truce that Israel had broken. Israel considered it and rejected it. I should say US/Israel because these are joint activities.
- The fact that this can pass without comment, tells you quite a lot.
- In the whole wikileaks episode, in my opinion is the remarkable fact is the absolute contempt of democracy that’s revealed by the embassies.
- The most critical issue is did Israel have any right to use force in the first place? Any right?
- Why have a border cutting Galilee in half?
- The only way I know how to proceed is to get the United States to join the rest of the world and stop its rejectionist opposition to the overwhelming international consensus, agree to a two state settlement.
- The strongest support for Israeli crimes is coming from the business world.
- The most rabid supporter of Israel in the media is the Wall Street Journal. They’re not part of AIPAC, that’s the business world.
- US military intelligence are tightly integrated with Israel. Israel destroyed secular Arab nationalism, that’s when US / Israeli relations took off in their current form.
- It’s about expansion of settlements. Israel already controls 42 percent of the West Bank.
- The issue is the settlements, they are all illegal.
- It designed so that there will be no Palestinian self determination.
Guest – Noam Chomsky, n American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and political activist. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as one of the fathers of modern linguistics, and a major figure of analytic philosophy. Since the 1960s, he has become known more widely as a political dissident and an anarchist, referring to himself as a libertarian socialist. Chomsky is the author of more than 150 books and has received worldwide attention for his views, despite being typically absent from the mainstream media.
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Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, War Resister
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Afghanistan Invasion/Occupation To End Beyond 2014
Thousands took to the streets of London last week to protest against the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, as Nato leaders agreed a strategy to withdraw their troops from the country. US President Barack Obama was expected to announce an exit strategy from Afghanistan at the NATO summit in Lisbon, instead he postponed troop withdrawal beyond 2014. Vice President Joe Biden told one media source “Daddy is going to start to take the training wheels off in October — I mean in next July, so you’d better practice riding.”
Jerry Gordon:
- End date 2014, there’s nothing firm about it. “2014 is a goal not a guarantee.”
- Everything is tentative, nothing is concrete. They are pursuing what has been called an “endless war.”
- what is less known is the US Government supported the Taliban, because their priority was a stable government in Kabul, that would permit the construction of a pipeline.
- They needed a pipeline to transfer these giant hydro-carbon reserves, we’re talking about 206 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 60 to 200 billion gallons of oil reserves.
- This was all before 2001, it was planned. There’s plenty of evidence. There’s a long speech in the Congressional Record in 1998 about the critical importance of building a new pipeline in Afghanistan.
- This is all geo-political and economic, it’s empire building.
- It became converted into a war on terror, after 9/11.
- At the same time there’s no money to pay unemployment compensation and all the urgent social needs at home to put people back to work
- The anti-war movement needs to reiterate the origins of the war and the rationale.
- There’s no draft, only a small percent of the population has placed Afghanistan at the top of the priority list.
- Past anti-war movements: We had a mass base among the students. We need to tie the war to the economic crisis, bring the war dollars home.
- Rethink Afghanistan: Destroys Failed Logic of War by Jeremy Scahill
- When they kill leaders, they get replaced, and it generates recruiting among the insurgents.
- US Law Labor Against the War was able to get the AFL-CIO to take a position of rapid withdrawal from Iraq.
- Our biggest problem in terms of constituencies, we do not have a mass base. It’s the students the labor movement and the religious community. Everything is imploding in this country.
- Contact Jerry Gordon – natassembly(at)aol.com
Guest – Jerry Gordon, the main organizer of the well attended anti-war conference in Albany last summer. He was the leader in the anti-Vietnam movement and recently retired from the SEIU.
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CAIR Files Suit Against Oklahoma Vote Opposing Sharia Law
In November, 70 percent of Oklahoma approved ballot initiative “Question 755? — or the “Save Our State” constitutional amendment — which bans Sharia from being considered in Oklahoma courts. The ballot states that Oklahoma courts must “rely on federal and state law when deciding cases” and forbids them from “considering or using international law” and “from considering or using Sharia Law.”
Recently, Muneer Awad, executive director of CAIR-OKC filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of State Question 755, and an Oklahoma City judge extended a temporary ban on implementation of a constitutional amendment. U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange said she will rule after weighing the issues. Muneer Awad, who is Muslim says the amendment demonizes his faith.
Muneer Awad:
- Labeling Islam as a unique threat to Oklahoma courts. It was a clear message that Islam is a threat to Oklahoma.
- I think what happened is a handful of politicians realized that Islamophobia is politically popular.
- I can count on one hand how many politicians didn’t vote to put this on the ballot.
- Those politicians were attacked during the campaign as being people that wanted to bring Sharia to Oklahoma so terrorists can use Islamic law in our courts
- If we don’t act now our state will be in peril. There are politicians that deliberately misinform people, that deliberately lie to people in order to gain political popularity in the polls.
- There are a number of non-Muslim Oklahomans that are concerned by State Question 755 and the perception and effect it has on Oklahoma.
- We’re trying to remind people that this isn’t a reasonable conclusion people made after a lot of thought and reasonable research. These were people that were misled by politicians that have lied to us.
Guest – Muneer Awad, executive director of CAIR-OKC
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The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism.
In a scathing attack from the left, former editor in chief of Harper’s magazine, Roger Hodge offers a powerful critique of President Barack Obama in his new book, The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism. Hodge articulates what many of listeners may already know. President Obama has served the corporate masters. Hodge draws a list of examples, such as cheerleading globalization, designing a health care plan where insurance companies make a killing, extrajudicial assassination of American citizens, boundless state secrecy, and unlimited corporate bailouts, to name a few.
In explaining the book, Hodge told Harper’s magazine in an interview, he used 18th century reflections to James Madison, whose philosophy aligned with republicans such as Machiavelli and James Harrington in the argument that a moderate balance of wealth must be maintained, that too great a distinction between the rich and poor would naturally lead to the decay of republican governance.
Roger Hodge:
- Obama’s most enthusiastic supporters have really been lying to themselves.
- Part of the book is an argument against this tendency for people to deny what’s going on right in front of them.
- We ran a piece in Harper’s by Ken Silverstein, a great investigative reporter who argued, this guy is a conventional machine Democrat.
- He set up shop. Come to me corporate America with your problems and I will try to solve them.
- You listen to this inspiring rhetoric, if you look at it on paper, there wasn’t a lot of content there.
- When it comes to an Obama / McCain-Palin – there’s an arguement to be made constitutionally we might be better off with the Republicans.
- Corporate backers: FIRE sector. Finance/Insurance/Real Estate.
- The number one corporate backer was Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs collectively gave Obama, almost 1 million dollars but invested only 230 thousand dollars for McCain.
- Obama’s backers also included, Morgan Stanley, Citi-Group is up there with 750 thousand, JP Morgan Chase . . they don’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts.
- They expect to get something, and as we saw in the rolling bailouts, the financial sector got tremendous return on investments.
- Democratic think tanks set the stage for the financial crisis that we’re still living through, by deregulating finance, by breaking down the New Deal protection, repealing the Glass-Steagal Act, and deregulating derivatives with the Commodities Futures Modernization Act.
- The old idea, that unfortunately is still with us, that the democrats are the liberal party, the party of the common man who are fighting the big business bad guys in the Republican party is really a myth, and it’s a pernicious myth.
- Health Care was a bailout for the insurance companies, Obama and his team always saw that as a bargaining chip, they never really planned on pushing that through. Having health insurance does not guarantee health care.
- Rahm Emanuel, this is a guy without principles, he’s all about winning and raising money.
- You can say, at least he’s tough, but he didn’t fight for anything worth fighting for.
- A president surrounds himself with people who are ill-liberal, who are completely compromised by their connections with Wall Street.
- We have to gain some leverage over our representatives. It’s a real double bind. People don’t want to reckon with the sheer awfulness of the our political culture.
Guest – Roger Hodge, former editor of Harper’s Magazine from March 2006 through January 2010. Hodge attended the University of the South, where he majored in comparative literature. He began graduate work at the New School for Social Research and completed a master’s degree in philosophy, but joined Harper’s before finishing his dissertation. Hodge first came to Harper’s as an intern in 1996 and was subsequently hired as a fact checker. Hodge edited the Harper’s Reading section from 1999 until 2003.
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