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Law and Disorder October 14, 2013
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Updates:
- Lynne Stewart Turns 74
- Phone Campaign For Lynne Stewart To Be Let Out Of Prison Under Compassionate Release
- Director of Federal Bureau of Prisons – 202-307-3250
- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder – 202-353-1555
- U.S. President Barack Obama – 202-456-1111
- Che Guevara Anniversary
- Shocking Statistics On Americans Under 30
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The United States Military Kidnapping In Libya And Failed Kill or?Capture In Somalia
The United States military had gone into 2 parts of Africa. In one case they went into Libya and brazenly seized a man who they claim to be a leader of Al-Qaeda, his name is Abu Anas al-Libi. He was seized out of Tripoli, Libya. The U.S. also went into Somalia and attacked a house or a compound in apparently an effort to grab or kill an alleged senior leader of the Somali group al-Shabab. Michael Ratner reports in this update.
- It was shocking news to see that the United States think it can go into sovereign countries and kidnap, kill whoever they want. Did the US have the right to go into Libya at all?
- Article 24 of the UN Charter says that the territorial integrity of the a country is complete, except of the case of self-defense or authorized by the UN.
- There was no authority by the UN or international law to go into Libya.
- Then the question came up – Did Libya consent to it?
- He’s on some U.S. ship. It’s called the San Antonio.
- They’re keeping him floating on this ship while they’re going to interrogate him.
- Its true, Obama when he took office 5 years ago, he banned torture and he said all interrogations had to be done according to the Army Field Manual.
- Annex M allows 3 kinds of techniques that I think constitute cruel and inhuman, degrading treatment and taken together would constitute torture.
Law and Disorder Co-host Attorney Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin. Ratner and CCR are currently the attorneys in the United States for publishers Julian Assange and Wikileaks. He was co-counsel in representing the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States Supreme Court, where, in June 2004, the court decided his clients have the right to test the legality of their detentions in court. Ratner is also a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and the author of numerous books and articles, including the books The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book, Against War with Iraq and Guantanamo: What the World Should Know, as well as a textbook on international human rights.
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The United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Israel Part 2
October 7th of 2013 marked the 12th anniversary since the United States invaded Afghanistan as the war drags into its 13th year. The Afghanistan war and the Iraq war have been estimated to cost tax payers up to 6 trillion dollars. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War – an illegal war launched despite the global protest in the streets.
- On the one hand it was a huge victory for the U.S. and the anti-war mobilization effort, that we managed to prevent what was a very imminent US strike. The British also had their missiles ready to go. They were very close.
- In combination with the British Parliament decision to say no, led to a huge shift in what the Obama Administration was prepared to do.
- It turns out they were prepared to go to war without UN permission. They were ready to do without the UN, without NATO, without the Arab League, but not without the Brits.
- This was a political decision, this wasn’t rooted in concerns about international law or any kind of strategic or military necessity.
- When it was turned over to Congress, a lot of organizations mobilized and said you know what, we’re not going to let this happen.
- Members of Congress were reporting that their emails were running 500 to 1, 800 to 1, 1000 to 1 against US military intervention.
- What we found is that people were not willing to sign on to another war after so many failed wars in the region.
- You can call it war fatigue but it’s really about learning a lesson, that war is not an answer to these problems.
- Given that there have been 100 thousand victims in this war (Syria) about a third of them civilians, about 43 percent regime soldiers and militia, about 18 percent rebel soldiers. The rest were civilians.
- To claim this was all about the humanitarian consequences, simply, that’s not the case.
- The voices that have been marginalized the most are the original political opposition in Syria, who were incredibly brave and courageous, still out there fighting.
- The regime in Syria was forced to sign on to the chemical weapons treaty. That’s huge, there are only 7 countries in the world that had not signed that treaty.
- Israel of course being another one.
- The number of people killed with chemical weapons in Syria is tiny compared to the number of people killed with conventional weapons.
- The five wars in Syria, the regional power struggle, the sectarian war, the US-Russian war, the US-Israel vs. Iran war, those are still underway in Syria.
- President Rouhani, the new president of Iran, was on a major charm offensive.
- Rouhani has said ” I have the backing of the Supreme Leader in a new approach to our nuclear negotiations.”
- There are enormous pressures in the U.S from the arms industry, from AIPAC, from hawks in Congress of all sorts.
- The Palestinians are the ones that will pay the price if there is an agreement between the US and Iran because the US will be determined to give Israel something.
- Iraq has become as violent as it was in the height of the sectarian wars of 2006 and 2007.
- Hundreds of people are being killed on a daily basis. It’s a disaster. Much of that is the result of the exploding war in Syria. Syria and Iraq share a long border. It’s a very porous border.
- The division of Libya into 2 or 3 regions is a very likely possibility.
- Saul Landau was a giant in our movement, he made one of the first films about Fidel. It was called Fidel it was made in 1960 a year after the revolution.
- He died about a month ago after a 2 year battle with a very virulent cancer.
- Saul had been at IPS almost at the beginning. He wrote the book Assassination on Embassy Row that documented with such precision on how Operation Condor had gone forward.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis, directs the New Internationalism Project at IPS. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She has been a writer, analyst, and activist on Middle East and UN issues for many years. In 2001 she helped found and remains on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She works closely with the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, co-chairs the UN-based International Coordinating Network on Palestine, and since 2002 has played an active role in the growing global peace movement. She continues to serve as an adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues.
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Law and Disorder October 7, 2013
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Updates:
- Attorney and host Jim Lafferty Delivers Commentary on Government Shutdown
- Send A Letter Of Support For Jeremy Hammond To Reduce His Sentence – Deadline Oct 15, 2013
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The United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Israel
President Barack Obama addressed the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly last week, near the end of September. His speech reflected some of the shift in global politics in the Middle East, especially in Syria. He also spoke about Iran, and mentioned the usual, “we are determined to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.” Obama said “we are not seeking regime change we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy.” However Iran has signed on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty which recognizes the right to develop, research, produce and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.
- One must accept the basic premise that the United States wants to dominate the world.
- In that context it becomes clear that the main problem we have with other countries is one of disobedience.
- Our closest ally in the Arab world is Saudi Arabia, if that’s not the most oppressive government in the world then damn close to it.
- We’ve overthrown the 3 leading secular governments of the Middle East. First Iraq, and then Libya, and now we’re in the process to attempt to overthrow the Syrian government.
- In ’79, the Shah of Iran was overthrown by various forces, but the ones that came to power were the Islamics.
- It’s a myth that the U.S. was totally opposed to Islam coming to power in Iran then.
- What Washington feared is the Left coming to power in Iran.
- The Left, all over the world, are the least likely to be obedient to Washington, to become a client state.
- So the Left is the first target of U.S foreign policy.
- Israel fears Iran, in the same way it fears Iraq and Libya. Any country in the Middle East that had some military power and not falling in line as an obedient friend or follower of Israel, that was a target of Israel, which means target of the U.S.
- The 3 main targets have all been attacked by Washington and that’s where we are today.
- Cuba then and now has represented what Washington fears greatly, a good alternative to capitalist system.
- They have inspired people and countries all over the world, especially in Latin America.
- It’s not very well known that throughout the 70s and into the 80s, Afghanistan had a fairly progressive government. Women had full rights. I’ve seen photos of that time, of women walking around in mini-skirts.
- What happened to that society and government? Our dear government overthrew it.
- It’s amazing when we hear people say we have to stay in Afghanistan to help the women there.
- Saddam Hussein, as much of a dictator as he was, he still ran a welfare state.
- The people in their daily life were much better off than they are today and there was peace and order
- Syria is not going to make a good client state to the United States and Israel. Syria is a bit too friendly with Russia.
- It’s amazing how sensitive we are to those who will not embrace the American empire.
- Almost all the leading people in Israel except for Netanyahu, they know Iran is not a threat. It’s all hype.
- Netanyahu needs this hype and the U.S. needs it.
- There’s a very growing trend now to be turned off by all of this war. The vote in Congress which if it were held would have been against invading Syria.
- The American public is very tired of these wars.
- Sign up for the monthly Anti-Empire Report.
Guest – William Blum, has been a freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America. His stay in Chile in 1972-3, writing about the Allende government’s “socialist experiment” and its tragic overthrow in a CIA-designed coup, instilled in him a personal involvement and an even more heightened interest in what his government was doing in various parts of the world. In the mid-1970’s, he worked in London with former CIA officer Philip Agee and his associates on their project of exposing CIA personnel and their misdeeds. His book on U.S. foreign policy, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, first published in 1995 and updated since, has received international acclaim.
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EFF Fights Back Against NSA Spying
A few shows ago we asked Attorney Carl Messineo with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund what legal steps are they taking to stem the pervasive breach of civil liberties from the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program. Our own Heidi Boghosian, author of the book Spying On Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance has discussed in detail the public fight back from a legal standpoint. David Greene, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation brings us up to date about ongoing litigation, lawsuits and FOIA requests to continue the fight back against government and corporate spying.
- There’s a lot we still don’t know about how much they know about us.
- We do know that they have several programs to collect communications, data. They have a program called UPSTREAM that collects all internet communications.
- This actually happens at the fiber level. – where the switching facilities are at the splitter, split the transmissions to where the communications company wants it to go and one that actually goes toward the government.
- We at EFF have known about that and had a lawsuit pending for 7 years now.
- Our lawsuit was originally against AT&T and then Congress granted telecoms immunity, so.
- One of the other things we’ve learned about is a program that also collects internet records called PRISM. PRISM seems to be focused on collecting email correspondence between foreign targets and the United States.
- They’re basically collecting the call data of every telephone call made in the United States. Right now they’re saying they’re not collecting the content of the calls but only the metadata.
- They’re also collecting social media data as well and doing things such as social mapping.
- There are several provisions of the Fourth Amendment and some of the issues here is the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.
- Basically people’s information is being searched, being seized without a probable cause. A probable cause to believe these people actually did anything wrong.
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an organization that fights for civil liberties in the digital world.
- Whenever you go up against the government, you’re going to be out resourced.
- There are many parts about being a free person that requires a person to operate with some degree of privacy from there government.
Guest – Attorney David Greene, Senior Staff Attorney, has significant experience litigating First Amendment issues in state and federal trial and appellate courts and is one of the country’s leading advocates for and commentators on freedom of expression in the arts. David was a founding member, with David Sobel and Shari Steele, of the Internet Free Expression Alliance, and currently serves on the Northern California Society for Professional Journalists Freedom of Information Committee, the steering committee of the Free Expression Network, the governing committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law, and on advisory boards for several arts and free speech organizations across the country.
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Left Forum 2013: Dr. Harriet Fraad Part 2
We hear part 2 of a presentation from Harriet Fraad, a hypnotherapist & psychotherapist in Manhattan. She writes regularly for Truthout, Tikkun and The Journal of Psychohistory. Her blog with Richard D. Wolff, Economy and Psychology appears at HarrietFraad.com and RDWolff.com. Her latest book is Bringing It All Back Home ed. Graham Cussano. Her article on Emotional and Sexual Life in a Socialist America written with Tess Fraad Wolff will appear in the book Imagine A Socialist America- (Harper Collins 2013). This panel explores what Socialism could look like in the United States.
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Law and Disorder September 30, 2013
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Updates:
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Economic Update: Professor Rick Wolff
We welcome back returning guest Professor Rick Wolff to get an economic update. Recent news of Janet Yellen emerging as a frontrunner to succeed Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman garnered the support of many Democrats in the House and Senate, yet she urged to lower payments for senior citizens on Social Security and voted to repeal the Glass-Steagal Act. Meanwhile, President Obama with the support of the Republican Party has targeted Social Security and medicare for cut backs. We talk about these topics and more with Professor Rick Wolff who hosts Economic Update on WBAI Saturdays at Noon.
- The Federal Reserve is an enormously important institution all of the time.
- It has nothing less than the mandate in this economy to control and manage and manipulate the monetary system.
- It is a wonderful reality to throw at anyone who thinks we live in a free market economy where the government plays a marginal role.
- When the government controls the quantity of money and the cost of borrowing it, its not a marginal role, its most central role a government can play.
- We have a dysfunctional Congress and President who can’t figure out what to do, unwilling to take serious steps to deal with this crisis, leaving it to the Federal Reserve.
- We are now in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
- Clearly, now that we’re entering the 6th year of this calamity, and we have huge unemployment, huge foreclosures, the Federal Reserve also failed to make it short and shallow it is in fact long and deep.
- Ms. Yellen’s nomination would go through quickly and more smoothly than Summers would have. Obama and his folks don’t want a big review of how they manage the economic system since its an unmitigated disaster.
- Enough extreme right Republicans exist now in the House of Representatives to make serious the threat of denying the Federal Government the right to raise the debt ceiling.
- The President has already signaled his willingness to compromise with Republicans around Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
- There’s a long standing debate about measurements on the cost of living. That’s a very difficult thing to do and perfectly reasonable economists disagree.
- All they’ve done is picked the one that looks the smallest (cost of living for Social Security) to use as a benchmark to therefore give the smallest increase.
- The first thing you should understand, which is an outrageous injustice, is that the money for Social Security is only withheld from a wage or a salary.
- It’s not withheld if you earn interest income, if you earn dividend income or if you earn capital gain income.
- That’s why the tax for Social Security is called a payroll tax.
- Currently, its a payroll tax but its only on the first 113 thousand dollars a year that you earn.
- For every dollar above 113 thousand, you don’t pay anything.
- Saez and Piketty
- The inequality of wealth in the United States has gotten much worse in the last 30 years and more interesting has gotten worse across this crisis.
- That’s interesting because in the Great Depression, the crisis collapsed the gap between the rich and the poor.
- The top ten percent of American income earners this last year 2012, took home more than half the total income.
- Ten percent have half the income and the other 90 percent share the other half.
- The 400 richest people in America have more total net worth than half the population.
- There’s been movement of sheer outrage of what it means when you read about this extraordinary wealth that some people are earning 7.25.
- There are signs of upset within the United States beginning to build around this. (inequality of wealth)
- We have a minimum wage at the federal level, 7.25. We also have state minimum wages that vary all over the place.
- We have now a situation where wealth is so concentrated at the top that the folks who have that wealth understand perfectly the situation. They love the way the economy is going. They’re gathering the wealth into their own hands, but they’re not stupid.
- They understand that when you concentrate wealth that much you’re creating an impossible tension between an ostensibly democratic political system where universal sufferage means the mass of people vote on the one hand, and their concentrated wealth.
- “We have to worry that the political system will be used by the masses to undo politically the benefits we get economically.”
- A billionaire from California buys the Washington Post and a billionaire from Boston, buys the Boston Globe.
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. Democracy At Work.
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Lawyers You’ll Like – Attorney Jan Susler
Attorney Jan Susler joined the People’s Law Office of Chicago in 1982. Before that she worked as a Clinical Law Professor at the legal clinic at Southern University’s School of Law, Prison Legal Aid. Susler continues to her litigation and advocacy work on prisoner’s rights issues and also represents people wrongfully imprisoned, falsely arrested, strip searched or subjected to excessive force by police officers.
- The National Lawyers Guild was an amazing refuge. When I went to law school women were 10 percent of the class and really resented.
- It was a hostile environment, lots of rich white boys who thought they were all that.
- The GI Bill actually even things out class-wise which was a delight.
- I worked at Legal Aid, while I went through law school it kept me sane. My first job was at Law School Clinic.
- We provided civil legal services to state prisoners.
- Through the process of doing abortion rights work, anti death penalty work and prisoner’s rights work through the Guild, and then I met the folks at the People’s Law Office.
- Even to today, there’s only a handful of people who do that work and we tend to know each other.
- Michael Deutsch whose been my law partner for the last 3 decades called me up and said we have a couple of Puerto Rican radicals who have been sent to the state prison near where you’re doing your work and you need to go see them. They’re quite at risk the state considers them to be enemies.
- I knew nothing about Puerto Rico being a US colony, having been invaded, them resisting colonialism. I learned about international law making it a crime against humanity.
- They really opened my world, what gift its been for me.
- The National Lawyers Guild created a Puerto Rican project to work with Puerto Rican lawyers and activists in the Independence Movement and people who were trying to get the Navy out of the small Puerto Rican island of Vieques.
- It’s culminating in this wonderful convention we’re going to have in the middle of October in San Juan.
- There’s going to be a panel and workshop on the death penalty in Puerto Rico which the US imposes on its colony.
- There will be workshops about labor, and political prisoners.
- I think people in this country understand who Nelson Mandela is and what he stood for and sacrificed and what he meant for his country. These men and women are the same for the people of Puerto Rico.
- They were artists and working in universities. Most had college degrees, but really understood that colonialism is a crime against humanity.
- They organized clandestinely into an organization called the Armed Forces for National Liberation. They were arrested in the early 1980s and accused of seditious conspiracy.
- My job was to advocate for their human rights and educate about their situation. They refused to accept the jurisdiction of a US court.
- For the National Lawyers Guild, I’ve gone to the United Nations Decolonization Committee to present.
Guest – Attorney Jan Susler, In her 36 years as a lawyer, Jan Susler has worked with the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and with progressive movements challenging U.S. foreign and domestic policies. She was an adjunct professor of criminal justice at Northeastern Illinois University, and taught constitutional law at the University of Puerto Rico. Attorney Jan Susler joins us today as a guest on our Lawyers You’ll Like series.
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