Mondays

Third worked really hard Saturday night and Sunday morning. I am noting all their content:


Truest statement of the week
Truest statement of the week II
A note to our readers
Editorial: 'Universal' health care
TV: That fall season
Barack and Bush: Separated at Birth
Must see film for 2010
Iraq: The War Continues
The Best Actress of the 20th Century
Ty's Corner
Roundtable
Idiot of the Week
Highlights

I worked on some of the above. Very little. But I do sing the praises of all the above and especially recommend Ava and C.I.'s powerful TV article, Ty's article and the roundtable.

My father found a letter to the editors of the Seattle Times which he asked me to highlight. It's on the Obama BigBusinessGiveAway masquerading as health care reform:

Apart from the legitimate constitutional issues The Seattle Times raise about the payoffs to senators used to push through health legislation in the Senate [“ ‘Cornhusker Kickback’ bends federal law,” Opinion, editorial, Dec. 28], are the moral and practical issues.
If senators who vote to mandate additional spending by states receive federal funding to avoid the need for additional taxes in their states — but senators who vote against the spending do not — the result will be a lot more government spending.
Is that what we need at the moment?
This sort of thing has usually been done quietly, but this time Sen. Harry Reid praised the practice as the art of compromise, praised senators who vote for such reasons, and expressed scorn for senators who do not.
Bribery is now defended on principle.
If this is permitted and continues, nothing will be uniform but bribery and preference will be given to those who sell their votes.
— Richard E. Ralston, Newport Beach, Calif.

What was the lesson?

To hear the gas bags, it was "this is just politics." It was bribery and it says as much about our corrupt political system as it does about our jaded and too close to those they cover media that it was not called what it is.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Monday:

Monday, December 28, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, US veterans continue to wait for their GI Bill benefits check, pretty much All Things Media Big & Small stay silent on counter-insurgency (much to their lasting and historical shame) and rumbles of discontent with Nouri emerge in the Shia communities.

For the second weekend in a row, James Cameron's Avatar was the number one film at the box office. Bob Strauss (San Jose Mercury News) reports it took an estimated $75 million in ticket sales (North America) over the weekend and BBC notes it's total box office take (in North America only) so far is $212 million "and could be on its way to grossing more than $1 b[illion] (625.6 million pounds) worldwide." Cameron's last film was Titanic which grossed more than $1.8 billion at the box office. I know James and he more than deserves a plug but we open with that because it is Iraq related. David Price is with Network of Concerned Anthropologists. Last week, he observed:

Fans of Avatar are understandably being moved by the story's romantic anthropological message favoring the rights of people to not have their culture weaponized against them by would be foreign conquerors, occupiers and betrayers. It is worth noting some of the obvious the parallels between these elements in this virtual film world, and those found in our world of real bullets and anthropologists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since 2007, the occupying U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan have deployed Human Terrain Teams (HTT), complete with HTT "social scientists" using anthropological-ish methods and theories to ease the conquest and occupation of these lands. HTT has no avatared-humans; just supposed "social scientists" who embed with battalions working to reduce friction so that the military can get on with its mission without interference from local populations. For most anthropologists these HTT programs are an outrageous abuse of anthropology, and earlier this month a lengthy report by a commission of the American Anthropological Association (of which I was a member and report co-author) concluded that the Human Terrain program crossed all sorts of ethical, political and methodological lines, finding that:
"when ethnographic investigation is determined by military missions, not subject to external review, where data collection occurs in the context of war, integrated into the goals of counterinsurgency, and in a potentially coercive environment -- all characteristic factors of the HTT concept and its application -- it can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology." The American Anthropological Association's executive board found Human Terrain to be a "mistaken form of anthropology". But even with these harsh findings, the Obama administration's call for increased counterinsurgency will increase demands for such non-anthropological uses of ethnography for pacification.

Dropping back to the December 3rd snapshot:

The American Anthropological Association's annual meeting started yesterday in Philadelphia and continues through Sunday. Today the association's Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities issued their [PDF format] "Final Report on The Army's Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program." The 74-page report is a blow to War Criminals and their cheerleaders who have long thought that the social science could be abused or that the social sciences were pseudo sciences.

Only a small number of outlets have covered the AAA's findings. First up were Patricia Cohen (New York Times), Dan Vergano (USA Today), Yudhijit Bhattacharjee (Science Magazine) and Steve Kolowich (Inside HigherEd). Another wave followed which included Tom A. Peter (Christian Science Monitor) reporting, "Today the program enjoys a core of supporters, but it's done little to address the concerns of anthropologists and, now, rising military complaints that the program has slowed the growth of the military's ability to train culturally sensitive warriors." Christopher Shay (Time magazine) added:

Two years ago, the AAA condemned the HTS program, but this month's 72-page report goes into much greater detail about the potential for the military to misuse information that social scientists gather; some anthropologists involved in the report say it's already happening. David Price, a professor of anthropology at St. Martins University in Washington and one of the co-authors of the AAA report, says the army appears to be using the anthropological information to better target the enemy, which, if true, would be a gross violation of the anthropological code. One Human Terrain anthropologist told the Dallas Morning News that she wasn't worried if the information she provided was used to kill or capture an insurgent. "The reality is there are people out there who are looking for bad guys to kill," she said. "I'd rather they did not operate in a vacuum." Price and other critics see this as proof that the anthropologists don't have full control over the information they gather and that commanders can use it to kill. "The real fault with Human Terrain is that it doesn't even try to protect the people being studied," says Price. "I don't think it's accidental that [the Pentagon] didn't come up with ethical guidelines."

Back to Price:

Anthropologically informed counterinsurgency efforts like the Human Terrain program are fundamentally flawed for several reasons. One measure of the extent that these programs come to understand and empathize with the culture and motivations of the people they study might be the occurrence of militarized ethnographers "going native" in ways parallel to the plot of Avatar. If Human Terrain Teams employed anthropologists who came to live with and freely interact with and empathize with occupied populations, I suppose you would eventually find some rogue anthropologists standing up to their masters in the field. But so far mostly what we find with the Human Terrain "social scientists" is a revolving cadre of well paid misfits with marginal training in the social sciences who do not understand or reject normative anthropological notions of research ethics, who rotate out and come home with misgivings about the program and what they accomplished.

Now you might think National Public Radio, so fond of being seeing erudite (they wish), would be all over the study from a leading organization of social scientists. You would be wrong. It's not that counter-insurgency isn't discussed NPR, it is, it's just that they only do so to promote it. (Ava and I wrote about that earlier this month.) Similarly, the foundation grant heavy (bloated?) Democracy Now! has never taken on counter-insurgency. It's refused to do so. We've been covering it repeatedly in this community while Goody's been all over psychologists and blah blah. But never alarmed by this. You need to grasp that.

There's a lot of money being made in and off counter-insurgency. And there are a lot of people who will not speak the truth. You need to grasp that it's a bastardization of a science and you need to grasp that when such a thing happens, when science is used to attack a native people and a society is silent, you have the next Nazi Germany. That's not hyperbole. This has been going on throughout the decade and who will call it out. Tom Hayden will do so as an aside approximately every 15 months or so. That's still more than any of his peers. Davy D of KPFA can't cover it because his hero Samantha Power is a counter-insurgency pusher. She blurbed the manual with praise. And what you're seeing is a left incapable of standing up to the war pushers, a left incapable of calling out the disgusting Sarah Sewall -- who may very well be the modern day Josef Mengele -- and a foundation backed attack on native people. You've got the idiot Thomas E. Ricks -- an expert on nothing -- who can't stop going ga-ga over counter-insurgency (make he's sure he's called out the War Crimes trials, in fact make sure he's tried). So much so that 'reporter' Thomas E. Ricks attacks the Vice President of the United States today. Dumb ass Thomas E. Ricks wants to take on Joe Biden and wants to start false rumors (no, Joe Biden has not fallen asleep in meetings -- Thomas E. Ricks is LYING) because Joe Biden won't sign on 100% to Tommy Ricks' beloved war crimes.

These aren't just 'fact-finding' missions (for the military), these are experiments carried out in the field. And these expermients can result in death. No social scientist should be in bed with the military. Anyone who thinks otherwise is completely stupid (Thomas E. Ricks) or completely unethical (Monty McFate). And we started covering it, honestly, because I know the liar Monty McFate and she was shooting off her mouth (with lies as always) to the idiot George Packer (who never learned to fact check). That's why it landed on our radar December 20, 2006. We have now been covering it for over three years. And where's our 'brave' 'independent' media?

Two years ago, David Price was part of a panel (with pro-counter-insurgency advocates Monty McFate, Col John Agoglia and Lt. Col. Edward Villacres -- a three-to-one imbalance) on The Diane Rehm Show (see the October 11, 2007 snapshot for a transcript of some of the exchanges). Search in vain for serious explorations of this issue. Now everyone can bore you to death demonizing Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann -- and no one's ever supposed to notice that the same sexism Barack unleashed among 'progressives' in 2008 continues to run wild and trample on equality -- but you can't deal with the things that really matter. If it were you or your child being 'studied' by the occupiers so that they could enslave you, it damn well would matter to you. But it happens 'over there' and as long as 'over there' doesn't show up on your TV screens, it appears everyone's not wanting to rock the boat or risk offending Harvard or, yes, the "the Kennedy School of Government". And while America's salivates over another round of "Bash the Bitch" (it's amazing how often that game is played), don't for one damn minute think anyone's being informed.

Amy Goodman won't call it out, she's too wrapped up in War Hawk Sammy Power. Remember? Remember her interview with Sammy? Best if you caught it on WBAI because WBAI was in fundraising mode and there was Amy raving over her while trying to get people to call in and 'support independent media.' Amy was raving that Samantha Power "'might be the next Secretary of State" and, growing more excited in her pitch, qualifiers fell away and you were left thinking not only would Power be Secretary of State, if Barack won the general election, but Samantha Power was right up there with Mother Teresa, maybe even ahead of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, to hear Amy rave on air. You can't take those moments back and those moments -- and Goodman's silence on counter-insurgency -- are very telling.

This refusal to question the counter-insurgency movement is a undemocratic refusal and it's completely against the norms of an open society. But that's what's taking place in the United State right now. Few will question it. Few will even bother to report on it. The findings of the American Anthropological Association are perfectly in keeping with the tenets of social science. There's nothing controversial about the study the organization issued. There's something very controversial about the group-think that refuses to question counter-insurgency. And when you grasp that Amy Goodman couldn't stop caterwauling about "we never see where the bombs drop" and yet refuses to devote even one damn segment in all these years to counter-insurgency, you realize how pathetic she and 'independent' media are. Now, in fairness, she will talk counter-insurgency . . . in past decades. But as she herself whined, if we can't talk about the war before it starts or while it's going on, when can we talk about it? After it's over!!!!! When it's too late!!! Amy Goodman needs her words tossed back in her face.

We've noted the number of Iraqi Christians as 800,000 often quoting one media outlet on that or another. An e-mail to the public account ask that we note Help Iraqi Christians (which we just did) and they note there were an estimated one million Iraqi Christians (in Iraq) at the start of the Iraq War. Their source is the US State Dept. If you go to the 2006 State Dept report, it reads, "According to official estimates, the number of Christians decreased from 1.4 million in 1987 to fewer than 1 million with Catholics (Chaldeans) compromising the majority. Christian leaders eastimated that approximately 700,000 Iraqi Christians lived abroad." Though the report uses "fewer than 1 million" (and 800,000 is fewer), if you look at the numbers it's not so simple. In fact, there numbers add up to over one million -- the State Dept numbers in that report (which may be not checking their figures or switching to pre-war numbers without including that notification). But we will now say "an estimated 1 million" when referring to the number of Iraqi Christians in Iraq at the start of the Iraq War.

Friday, Bushra Juhi (AP) reported that Bartela was placed under curfew after a conflict between Iraqi Christians and Shi'ite Muslims over decorations. UPI states 5 Chrisitans and 5 Shi'ites required hospitalization. A number of outlets take the position that Shias were wrong or Iraqi Christians were in the wrong. I have no idea. (I don't think the outlets do either.) But what is known is that Bartela (also spelled "Bartella") is a village with a majority Christian population. Many have long reported on that including Alice Fordham (Times of London) back on December 18th. That does not mean that reports of Shia entering Bartela and ripping down Christian decorations (as reported in Christian media) are true. But it is worth noting that only the Christian media (here for the Christian Post article by Ethan Cole) bother to note that the village is mainly Christian. That's a key detail to the story and it is telling that a number of outlets (including those trying to play it down the middle -- CNN among them) refused to identify the village as what it was.

Violence continued over the holiday weekend. As Third noted, " Friday 9 were reported dead and 25 injured; and Saturday 11 were reported dead and 36 reported wounded" while Sunday saw 7 reported dead and thirty-six wounded. Today Reuters notes the US military and Iraqi forces shot dead 1 person and arrested a second.

And on the 'freedom' front, in 'liberation' news, Alsumaria reports, "Strict traditions and social conventions are back in the spotlight in Iraq with the decision of Iraq's Education Ministry to separate boys and girls in Sadr City schools. The Ministry's surprising decision spurred mounting debates. Decision advocators confirm that social and religious status in Sadr City does not permit to mix boys and girls in schools." KUNA meanwhile reports, "Some 9,000 Iraqis registered as refugees in Jordan are now resident in third countries, out of 17,000 the UN Refugee Agency recommended be repatriated and out of an overall 53,000 refugees."

In Iraqi political news, Meanwhile Qais Mizher (Washington Post) reports Shi'ites demonstred against Nouri al-Maliki in Karbala on Sunday. And distaste for Nouri may be spreading throughout the Shia communities. Saad Fakhrildeen and Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) report the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has repeatedly delivered sermons on "the government's failing" and Friday, Sayed Ahmad Safi "delivered a scathing critique of the political establishments to the tens of thousands gathered for the religious rites" declaring, "More than 50% of our people live in poverty in a rich country, but when we see all the circumstances this poses a question mark. Why is there not a quorum in the Parliament? Why is there no legislation [passed]? Why don't the executives come spontaneously without an invitiation.":

Turning to the US, in the December 24th snapshot, we were noting the veterans were still not receiving their GI Bill benefits for the fall semester of 2009 -- the semester that has ended. And we were noting how the VA went before Congress in October and declared they needed no more funding, no more workers, they were on top of it, it was a glitch (one they attempted to blame on universities initially before they learned colleges weren't going to be played by a bunch of lazy VA workers) and they were on it. They said only a few "thousands" didn't have their checks yet. And a few "thousands" still don't have their checks. Where is the outrage? Over the long holiday weekend, stories emerged that may help put a human face on those who are suffering because the VA can't do the damn job they're supposed to. Joe Seelig (Highlands Today/ Tampa Tribune) reported:

Howard Jenkins is the local veterans employment representative for the Heartland Workforce in charge of the Veterans Work Study Program. He said he didn't know the number of students other programs have, but it is a big problem. He's spoken with his counterparts in similar programs in Florida and they are having problems, too, he said. "I have one that's affected also," said Jenkins. "He hasn't gotten paid for the hours he's been working here. He started working in October. He's never been paid. The Veterans Work Study Program augments their standard of living while they go to school." Many of these veterans have families with children, he said. "The young man I have is working for college for next semester," he said. "There are about 90 veterans signed up for classes at SFCC (South Florida Community College)." About 277,000 veterans have signed up for school under the GI Bill across the country and only about 50,000 had been processed, he said.

Mike noted Marisa Schultz (Detroit News) reporting on this topic:

Tom Tiefry, an Eastern Michigan University student and U.S. Marine, is among the thousands waiting for his money. Without any income, the Afghanistan war vet has been draining his savings, can't move out of his mom's home in Gibraltar and hopes his beat-up 1994 Chevrolet Camaro can survive the commute during the Michigan winter.
"It's very frustrating," said Tiefry, 23.
He made a commitment to his country for four years of service and views the delay in his GI Bill funds as the government not honoring its commitment to him.
"My word was good," Tiefry said. "But it wasn't a given that their's was. It never crossed my mind that this sort of thing could happen."

Patricia Alex (New Jersey Record) reports:The delays had thousands of vets who served in Iraq and Afghanistan scrambling to pay rents and mortgages, and fearful they would not be able to continue school next semester. "It's been three months of going into debt," said Chris Mazzoccchi of Saddle Brook, who served with the Marines in Iraq. Mazzocchi, 24, quit his job in ground service at Teterboro Airport to take advantage of the bill and began studying criminal justice at Bergen Community College this semester. He is entitled to tuition reimbursement and a housing allowance of $2,033 a month, he said.

Idiot of the month is Mark K. Matthews (Orlando Sentinel) who 'reports' this morning on the delay, "A major problem has been the sheer number of applicants. Under the new GI Bill, recent veterans are allowed to transfer their benefits to children and spouses -- increasing an already inflated pool of new students." No, Marky, you stupid idiot, that's not true. And why do I know that's not true? Because the VA was specifically asked that in a Congressional hearing in October. I was there, Marky, where the hell were you?

Back in October, AP owned this story and the reason may be because they are one of the few outlets that still covers Congressional hearings. No surprise, they are the ones (specifically Kimberly Hefling) who broke the story last week. No surprise, a lot of idiots like Mark K. Matthews, who couldn't get off their fat asses (he's in DC) and sit through a hearing, are yet again offering defenses for the VA. Repeating, that had nothing to do with it. This was addressed in a Congressional hearing that you should have been present for Mark K. Matthews.
So where does is stand right now? Here's what the VA management hopes (three sources), they hope they can get the checks out (or all but 100 out) no later than January 5th (out in the mail, not received) and then, when Congress is back in session, the VA's attitude will be: "Oh, we already took care of it." If that happens and Congress lets them get away with it with no objections, not one member of Congress deserves to be re-elected. The VA swore in October, to Congress, that they were on it, that this was all being handled and no more problems and they were so on top of it, they didn't need additional money and they didn't need additional employees. The VA lied to Congress. And the VA shut out Congress. Three different members of Congress, in an open hearing, told the VA that if there were any other problems with this program, Congress needed to be notified immediately and the VA swore it would happen. Last week, Congress was notified . . . when Kimberly Hefling started filing AP reports on this subject.

Lastly, KPFA's Flashpoints Radio is facing serious cuts while other programs don't appear to be. For example, I can think of one mid-day program airing three times a week with two hosts. Strange because when one of the hosts was in management just a blink ago, the show got by just fine -- for months and months -- with just one host. Local Station Board member Henry Norr (at The Daily Censored) writes about what is seen as a targeted attack on Flashpoints and we'll note the last paragraph of the article: "To express support for Flashpoints, write to general manager Lemlem Rijio at gm@kpfa.org and turn out for the first meeting of the new LSB, now set for 7 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 11, 2010 (disregard dates announced earlier) at the Humanist Hall, 390 27th St. (near Telegraph), Oakland." For those who've never listened to KPFA's Flashpoints Radio, it remains the only program on KPFA that addresses the Iraq War. The Iraq War doesn't exist on KPFA without Flashpoints. That's reality. And remember just a second ago we were talking about a co-host of another program who could be let go? When that co-host was in management she was all for "The War Comes Home." It was going to be this, it was going to be that. It was going to be all over Pacifica and cover the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. A lot of money was put into that project. Where did the money go? The show barely aired and that 'hard hitting' website that was supposed to back it up? If you care about "Santos Grill und die Gartenparty wird gelingen" (which is German and announces that the grill and the garden party will be successful) you should check out the website for War Comes Home. How the hell did KPFA not only lose their website but lose it to a German grill cook? And it's real cute how, at the bottom, it reads: "Copyright 2009, Warcomeshome.org. All rights reserved." Grill cooking. I really would love to hear where the money for The War Comes Home project went. And if Pacifica can't pay for websites, they need to return to Blogspot. That is where Wake Up Call (WBAI), for example, used to be. But someone needs to find out where the money for War Comes Home went because it was supposed to be funded.

iraq
david h. price
joe seeligmikey likes it
the associated pressbushra juhi
alice fordham
the times of london
the christian science monitor
tom a. peter
the new york timespatricia cohen
alsumariakuna
the washington postqais mizher
the los angeles timessaad fakhrildeenned parker
nprthe diane rehm show

My Christmas wish

Hold the champagne.

And don’t get rolled over by the hyperbole.

The Senate health care bill, which just passed 60-39, is nothing to cheer about.

It will do “more harm than good,” say the leaders of Physicians for a National Health Program.

They acknowledge “the salutary provisions included in the legislation, notably an expansion of Medicaid coverage, increased funds for community clinics, and regulations to curtail some of private insurers’ most egregious practices,” write Dr. Oliver Fein, Dr. David Himmelstein, and Dr. Steffie Woolhandler.

But these are outweighed, they say, by the bill’s killer flaws.

The individual mandate “would reinforce private insurers’ stranglehold on care” by forcing millions of people to buy insurance on the private market. “Those who dislike their current employer-sponsored coverage would be forced to keep it,” they write. “Those without insurance would be forced to pay private insurers’ inflated premiums, often for coverage so skimpy that serious illness would bankrupt them.”

That's from Matthew Rothschild's latest on Obama's BigGiveAwayToBigBusiness at The Progressive. As C.I. noted yesterday in the snapshot, Rothschild has at least taken some accountability. More needs to be taken and anyone trying to follow in his footsteps better take a lot more. But, like C.I., I don't want blood, I just want accountability.

So I am willing to highlight Rothschild. I hope at some point he will write about how he was driven by his view of Barack to act in the manner in which acted because until that is addressed, it will happen again.

And I don't mean with him. C.I.'s always seen him as one of the more level-headed (and had said as far back as 2008 that he would be the first to take accountability). I don't think he will ever do what he did in 2008. I think he actually can learn from his mistakes.

But I don't believe everyone possesses his ability to learn. And I think we will have serious media problems until what happened is explored, not ignored.

That's my Christmas wish. It's the only way to ever again prevent Big Business from selecting the candidate and controlling the (Big/Real) press. And the small press never, ever need go along with the corporate wishes again.

I hope everyone who's celebrating something has a wonderful holiday. If C.I. does a Friday snapshot, I will be posting, otherwise that's it from me until Monday. (Though I do plan to help some with Third this weekend.)

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Thursday:

Thursday, December 24, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Gen Ray Odierno shows leadership many below him lack, there's no 'safe' religion in Iraq, Congress is going to hold the VA accountable when?, and more. The Ashura pilgrimage is ongoing in Iraq and so is the violence. Shi'ite Muslims head to Krbala for rememberance and mourning. As with all pilgrimages in Iraq -- and despite Nouri al-Maliki's claims of having brought 'security' to Iraq -- the pilgrims are targeted. AP reported 11 dead and seventy wounded in bombing attacks on the Pilgrims today in Babil Province -- AP has now updated the 11 to 13 dead and the number may continue to rise throughout the day. Li Xianzhi (Xinhua) explains, "An explosive charge went off at a parking lot in the center of Hilla, some 100 km south of Baghdad, detonated at about 1:30 p.m. (1030 GMT), the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Minutes later, a car bomb parked at the site went off after Iraqi security forces and onlookers gathered at the scene, the source said." Al Jazeera notes yesterday's attacks which led to the deaths of 4 pilgrims in Baghdad and twenty-eight more injured. CNN adds, "Ashura commemorates the martyrdom of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Hussein was killed in battle in Karbala in 680, one of the events that helped create the schism between Sunnis and Shiites, the two main Muslim religious movements." Michael Hastings (Washington Post) provides this context, "The Shiite festival, commemorating the death of Imam Hussein in 680 AD, has been marred over the past six years by sectarian violence." Along with Shi'ite pilgrims, Iraqi Christians are also being targeted. Catholic News Service provides some of the recent history of targeting: In July, a series of church bombings in Mosul left at least four dead and more than 30 injured. A flare-up in violence in October 2008 claimed the lives of 13 Christians and forced thousands to flee the city. In February 2008 Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul was kidnapped, and his driver and two bodyguards were killed. Two weeks later his body was recovered after kidnappers revealed where it was buried. His replacement, Archbishop-elect Emil Shimoun Nona of Mosul, is scheduled to be ordained in January. Pope Benedict XVI confirmed his election in November. Alsumaria reports, "Iraqis are celebrating Christmas discretely due to deteriorated security and because of mounting attacks against Christians. Christmas ornament is decorating timidly Iraqi streets and Christian families are staying home after Mass." AFP explains, "Since the US-led invasion of 2003, hundreds of Iraqi Christians have been killed and several churches attacked. Around 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq at the time of the invasion, but their number has since shrunk by a third or more as members of the community have fled abroad, according to Christian leaders." Muhanad Mohammed and Suadad al-Salhy, Mustafa Mahmoud, Aref Mohammed, Missy Ryan, Alison Williams and David Stamp (Reuters) report 1 Iraqi Christian was shot dead in Mosul today along with another man (who may or may not have been an Iraqi Christian). Tuesday AFP reported that the Iraqi military was on high "alert" according to the Minister of Defense, Mohammed al-Askari, who stated, "We have put our forces on alert in Baghdad, the provinces of Kirkuk and Nineveh, including its capital Mosul, where our Christian brothers will be celebrating their holidays, because we have intelligence indicating they could be attacked during this period." Shi'ite Pilgrims and Iraqi Christians haven't seen any evidence of "high" alert. Saturday, noting the various high-level bombings in Baghdad, an Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy asked a question about the government's 'security strategy' that applies here as well, "After four bloody and brutal explosions, I wonder who has a strategy. Does our government have a security strategy or the enemy has a killing and destroying strategy????" Reuters notes 1 man shot outside his Mosul home. AP notes a Sadr City which claimed 9 lives and left 33 people injured -- they were participating in a funeral process, while a Baghdad bombing resulted in the deaths of 4 pilgrims and ten being injured. Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports today on Wednesday violence: 3 police officers shot dead in Baghdad, a Baghdad roadside bombing injured two Shi'ite pilgrims, a Baghdad mortorcyle bombing claimed 1 life and left seven people wounded, a Falluja roadside bombing targeting Sawha leader Efan Sadoun and leaving two of his bodyguards injured (Sadoun is not reported harmed), and a Baghdad car bombing which claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier and wounded "a candidate to the coming national election" as well as relative accompanying the candidate. (I believe the other incidents Al Dulaimy reports on were noted in yesterday's snapshot.) Now let's switch topics to the US military. First off, the top US commander in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno, continues to demonstrate common sense (if you doubt that, you were not paying attention when David Petraeus was top US commander in Iraq). Mohammed Abbas, Missy Ryan and Jon Hemming (Reuters) report he stated that, starting January 1st, there will be no criminal punishments for soldiers in Iraq over the non-crime of pregnancy. If you're lost, consider yourself fortunate. Tuesday ABC World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer covered the issue of Gen Tony Cucolo playing God an issuing an order that pregnancy was now a crime for any soldiers serving in northern Iraq. Thankfully, Diane Sawyer has a great deal more on the ball than Kate Snow who presented a one-sided 'report' that found time to quote Cucolo at length, to quote anonmyous internet chatters (misquote actually) who agreed with Cucolo's policy, to quote a military 'expert' (forever wrong) who agreed with Cucolo's policy and the only noted objection in her report was 47 words from NOW president Terry O'Neill -- or as Snow wrongly called them "National Organization of Women" (it's the National Organization for Women). Snow did note, "A group of female senators today also sent a protest letter to the Secretary of the Army." She failed to identify the senators or to quote from their letter. The letter was in the Tuesday's snapshot and we'll note it again: December 22, 2009 The Honorable John McHugh Secretary of the Army 101 Army Pentagon Washington, DC 20310-0101 Dear Secretary McHugh: It has come to our attention that Major General Anthony Cucolo III -- the Commander of Multi-National Division-North, Iraq -- has implemented a stricter policy that criminalizes pregnancy for members of the United States Armed Forces under his command and for others "serving with, employed by, or accompanying" the military. While we fully understand and appreciate the demands facing both commanders and service members in Iraq, we believe this policy is deeply misguided and must be immediately rescinded. Under the policy, it is possible to face punishment, including imprisonment, for "becoming pregnant, or impregnating a Soldier, while assigned to the Task Force Marne" Area of Operations. The policy even extends to married couples jointly serving in the warzone. Although Major General Cucolo stated today that a pregnant soldier would not necessarily be punished by court-martialunder this policy, we believe the threat of criminal sanctions in the case of pregnancy goes far beyond what is needed to maintain good order and discipline. This policy could encourage female soldiers to delay seeking critical medical care with potentially serious consequences for mother and child. This policy also undermines efforts to enhance benefits and services so that dual military couples can continue to serve. We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished simply for conceiving a child. This defies comprehension. As such, we urge you to immediately rescind this policy. Thank you for your prompt consideration of this most important request, and for your continued commitment to our men and women in uniform. Sincerely, Barbara Boxer United States Senator Jeanne Shaheen United States Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand United States Senator Barbara A. Mikulski United States Senator If you need more background on this story, Feminist Wire Daily has a comprehensive item that they posted yesterday (so they don't note that Odierno has now killed the policy). We've covered this since Saturday and I'm assuming most reading are fully aware of this issue -- and I know the many service women e-mailing to complain about the policy know it very well -- including the issue that women who were sexually assaulted wouldn't be punished . . . after they'd proven their sexual assault. As if sexual assualt has ever been easy to prove in the military. Back to ABC where Snow quoted women from chat pages and Facebook who stated they were for the policy. She cherry-picked in order to just present women supporting the policy. But in terms of some women feeling that this policy punishing pregnancy was a good thing, why would women say that? Because there's a stereotype that women get pregnant to get out of service. That's a false stereotype and, in reality, it's no more common than straight males announcing they are gay in the hopes of being discharged. Instead of exploring that stereotype, Kate Snow just endorses it. (It's a sexist stereotype like the sexist and racist stereotype of the so-called "Welfare Queen" that Ronald Reagan always 'saw' -- remember he suffered from dementia.) Now there are women who say yes to the policy and women who say no and you can go through this American Women Veterans Facebook thread and find both. (Or you can be like Kate Snow and just pick the ones you agree with.) But what the policy plays into is a lot of hostility towards women and what you're hearing in what Kate Snow quoted is frustration women have with the system and their mistaken belief that it's "all" these women getting pregnant to get out of the military who are hurting their own chances to advance. No, girls, you're being lied to yet again. You're accepting a false stereotype that exists to turn you against other women and to blame other women instead of blaming a command culture that refuses -- despite multiple Senate investigations -- to move into the 20th Century even now as we are in the 21st one. Let's note the end of Snow's 'report' (and you can stream video here at Sarah Netter and Luis Martinez's ABC news story which was much more balanced than anything Snow offered): Diane Sawyer: But you're not saying that there was no criticism from inside -- Kate Snow: I'm certainly not saying that. Diane Sawyer: -- the military? Kate Snow: No, no. We scanned online, there is both. There are men and women in the military thinking this is a bad policy. Diane Sawyer: But if he is the only general in Iraq with this policy is he going to be forced to back down? Kate Snow: Not so far. Kate Snow, with a straight face, insisted that she wasn't saying there was no objection -- when her entire report was built around that premise. (For full transcript, click here.) She then lied and said "Not so far," when Diane asked her if Cucolo was backing down. Uh, yeah, he was backing down. He'd declared Saturday he'd court-matial and imprison and on Tuesday he was rushing to say he'd decided not to do that. That's backing down, Kate Snow. Repeating, Gen Ray Odierno has common sense. The order dies January 1st. Good for Ray Odierno. Thank you for having common sense, Ray Odierno, and showing leadership on the issue. No one else stepped up to the plate. Okay so Odierno steps up to the plate, what about the US Congress? We have to ask that question because yesterday Kimberly Hefling (AP) broke the story that the GI Bill payments due at the start of the fall semester? Some still haven't received them. "Thousands" still wait. For the checks that should have been cut no later than the first day of the fall semester last August or September (depending on when the semester started which differed for some campuses). It is now the end of December. It is now Christmas in fact. And veterans are still waiting. The year will end with them still waiting. Now let's be really clear, the rent doesn't wait, the food doesn't wait, the bills don't wait. Veterans have to take care of all of those things. While waiting for the VA to get off it's happy and bloated ass and do what it should have done months ago. October 14th, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki appeared before the US House Committee on Veterans Affairs. At that point, veterans across the country were struggling as they waited for the VA to make good on the payments they were led to believe would start with the fall semester. And the Committee should have focused on that but they didn't. They fretted that Shinseki kept his "light under a bushel" (that's a direct quote from a member of Congress) and that he needed to hire a PR person so that everyone would know what a wonderful job he was doing. What wonderful job? The scandal had broken, the press was all over it and the committee was kissing Shinseki's ass instead of holding him accountable. They all played dumb when he volunteered that the VA always, ALWAYS, knew this would happen, that a huge number of veterans would wait and wait and wait for checks. The Committee should have exploded with righteous indignation over the fact that (a) this was done to veterans and (b) the VA failed to inform Congress of what they knew. Of course, they didn't. They weren't holding him accountable. It was embarrassing in real time and it's only more embarrassing today as we now know the problem that Shinseki said was fixed has not, HAS NOT, been fixed. Here's the money quote from Shinseki, here's what he told Congress: I'm looking at the certificates of eligibility uh being processed on 1 May and enrollments 6 July, checks having to flow through August. A very compressed timeframe. And in order to do that, we essentially began as I arrived in January, uh, putting together the plan -- reviewing the plan that was there and trying to validate it. I'll be frank, when I arrived, uh, there were a number of people telling me this was simply not executable. It wasn't going to happen. Three August was going to be here before we could have everything in place. Uh, to the credit of the folks in uh VA, I, uh, I consulted an outside consultant, brought in an independent view, same kind of assessment. 'Unless you do some big things here, this is not possible.' To the credit of the folks, the good folks in VBA, they took it on and they went at it hard. We hired 530 people to do this and had to train them. We had a manual system that was computer assisted. Not very helpful but that's what they inherited. And we realized in about May that the 530 were probably a little short so we went and hired 230 more people. So in excess of 700 people were trained to use the tools that were coming together even as certificates were being executed. Uhm, we were short on the assumption of how many people it would take. He knew. He knew when he came into office. He was told it and he confirmed it with an outside consultant. But he never told Congress. No one ever told Congress and no one told the veterans waiting for the checks. "Thousands" of whom are still waiting all this time later. The October 16th snapshot covers the October 15th appearance of the VA's Keith Wilson appearing before the Subcommittee that US House Rep Stephanie Herseth Sandlin chairs. We'll note one exchange from that hearing: US House Rep Harry Mitchell: Mr. Wilson, this is not your first appearance before this subcommittee. You have appeared before it several times since the GI Bill was signed into law to keep the committee members apprised of the VA's efforts to implement the GI Bill. And you offered assurances that the VA would be ready by August 1st. You even brought in a detailed timeline to show us how the VA would be ready by August 1st. In February, [John] Adler of this Committee asked if the VA needed more tools to accomplish the goal of program implementation and you responded by stating, "This legislation itself came with funding. This funding at this point has adequately provided us with what we need for implementing payments on August 1, 2009." If this legislation provided you with what you needed then why did you go to the VA -- or then where did you and the VA go wrong in meeting the implementation goal? So I'd like to ask two questions. How are we supposed to believe the assurances you're offering today? And, two, knowing how interested Congress is in implementing the GI Bill, once you knew you were running into problems, why didn't you let us know? Why did we have to first hear about it from veterans and read about it in the Army Times? Keith Wilson: You rightly call us out in terms of not providing timely service to all veterans. We acknowledge that and uh are working as hard as humanly possible uh to make sure that we are meeting those goals. Uh the timeline that we provided to the subcommittee uh I believe was largely met uh in terms of our ability to generate payments on the date that we were required to deliver the first checks -- first payments did go out August 3rd. Uh there were a couple of significant challenges uh that we had not anticipated. One was uh the volume of work created by the increase in applications for eligibility determinations that did not translate into student population dropping off other programs. But we had significantly more work in our existing programs than we would have expected to have to maintain going into the fall enrollment. One of the other primary challenges that we have responded to is uh when we began our ability to use the tools that were developed uh to implement the program in the short term. Uh May 1st is when we began using those tools and it was very clear to us from the get-go that even accounting for our understanding that they weren't perfect, we underestimated the complexity and the labor-intensive nature of what needed to be done. We responded by hiring 230 additional people to account for that. US House Rep Harry Mitchell: And I read all of that in your testimony. My point is, once you knew you were running into problems, why didn't you come back to us? We heard it first by veterans and through the Army Times that you were having problems. Keith Wilson: [Heavy, audible sigh] It has been our desire from the get-go to make sure that the subcommittee has been informed all along. If we did not meet those expectations, then we need to be held accountable for that. We provided information that we had at each of the hearings and we have had a long standing mechanism by which we have provided updates to staff on a regular basis. Uh we did notify the Subcommittee at the time of the hiring of the 230 additional people. In that hearing, Stephanie Herseth repeatedly asked if he needed additional staff at the call center for educational benefits. She also underscored that "we need to be made aware of the problems immediately if there's any complications that arise" and "if you start anticipating problems or start experiencing problems" then let the Committee know. She wasn't alone in stating that. US House Rep John Adler also touched on this repeatedly such as asking Wilson "are there any other tools you need from Congress" and reminding him that "we would like to hear from you as needs arise, before the crisis arise" and "tell us what you need from us." Congress hasn't been informed of these problems and if the checks still aren't out, then obviously the VA needed additional staff. Obviously. Another VA witness lies to Congress (or doesn't know the status) and veterans are again waiting. And when does Congress intend to take the VA to task? This is nonsense. No veteran who enrolled for the fall 09 semester should still be waiting for the monies owed to them from the new GI Bill. That is ridiculous, that is insulting and until Congress gets ready to hold the VA accountable, there won't be any improvement. The next hearing on this issue should get to when a problem was known and why Congress was not immediately notified. The next hearing should probe whether a decision was made to keep Congress out of the loop. Congress is supposed to offer supervision and thus far the VA has thwarted that by repeatedly providing the Congress with false information -- and a good portion of the false information was provided intentionally. It is outrageous that as so many use tomorrow to celebrate with families or reflect, veterans continue waiting for fall '09 checks. It is outrageous that the New Year will begin with these veterans still waiting. If the Congress doesn't pursue this and do so strongly, then their behavior will be outragoues. Right now, it's just sad. In other news, Black Agenda Report is not on 'holiday' this week (many sites are). Among their new offerings is a commentary by Glen Ford (link is text and audio) which includes): It is now beyond question that civilian military contractors -- mercenaries -- are permanently embedded in the structure and longterm planning of the United States Armed Forces. In recent years, about half the U.S. personnel in the combined South Asia theaters of war -- Afghanistan and Pakistan -- have been civilians, according to Pentagon figures. The one-to-one ratio of military to civilians -- a percentage that would have been unthinkable prior to the invasion of Iraq -- may become even more lopsidedly mercenary with President Obama's troop escalation in Afghanistan. The Congressional Research Service estimates that as many as 56,000 civilian contractors may accompany the 30,000 uniformed troops scheduled for deployment to Afghanistan. That's a ratio of almost two-to-one civilian to military. The Afghanistan/Pakistan theater has become the modern world's first large scale corporate/civilian war. In an update to that, Walter Pincus (Washington Post) reports on a new proposal by the Dept of Defense to replace contractors with "full-time federal personnel" as a cost-cutting measure. The only thing to add to his article is that such a shift would carry with it the belief (right or wrong) that accountability would be easier since these would be government employees with codes of conduct. Turning to England, the Iraq Inquiry concluded public hearings for the year December 17th. They resume public hearings January 5th. In the new year, they will hear from former prime minister Tony Blair and current prime minister Gordon Brown. Helene Mulholland (Guardian) reports that the latter "has been called to give evidence to the Iraqi Inquiry" as have David Miliband (disclosure, I know Miliband) and Douglas Alexander, but all will testify after England's upcoming elections. Mulholland also notes: "Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former chief spin doctor, is included on the list alongside the former prime minister hemself, who recently caused controversy by telling the BBC he would still have thought it right to remove Saddam Hussein if he had known he had no weapons of mass destruction." In addition, Miranda Richardson (Sky News) adds, "Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney General whose advice on the legality of the 2003 invasion has been at the centre of controversy, will give evidence in January or February." Yesterday the Liberal Democrats released the following statement: "Gordon Brown signed the cheques for the Iraq war, and he should explain that decision before polling day," said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary. Commenting on today's statement from Sir John Chilcott which reveals that Gordon Brown, David Miliband and Douglas Alexander will not appear before the Iraq inquiry until after the election, Edward Davey said: "Giving special treatment to Labour ministers not only undermines the perception of independence of the inquiry but will damage the public's trust in politics further still. "This looks like a deal cooked up in Whitehall corridors to save Gordon Brown and his ministers from facing the music. "Gordon Brown signed the cheques for the Iraq war, and he should explain that decision before polling day. "British soldiers will not be impressed by a Prime Minister unwilling to step into the firing line." The UK Conservative Party issued the following statement: William Hague has accused Gordon Brown of "the very opposite of open and accountable government" after it emerged that he will not give evidence to the Iraq Inquiry until after the General Election. The Shadow Foreign Secretary said that the public will rightly ask why it is that numerous officials have given evidence to the Inquiry about their role in carrying out the Government's policy on Iraq, but not a single Minister has had to face questioning. William said that it was becoming "clearer and clearer" why Gordon Brown delayed setting up the Inquiry for so long after it should have begun its work, and he added: "His intention throughout has been to ensure that the Inquiry won't report until after the coming General Election -- and now we have the added effect of Ministers not having to give evidence at all before the election." The Socialist Party's statement on the inquiry includes the following: That the political establishment in Britain and the US have no interest in conducting an honest inquiry into the war is not surprising, given its legacy. Iraq is a fractured country with a wrecked economy and simmering sectarian and ethnic tensions that threaten to engulf society in violence. George Bush and Tony Blair's war, supported by the Tories and the rest of the political establishment in Britain, is the cause of this. When the allied occupation - "Operation Iraqi Freedom" - began, Iraq was thrown into chaos. Widespread looting broke out and millions of Iraqis were cut off from electricity and water supplies. But the main priority for the occupying forces was not to prevent Iraq's social collapse but to secure oil fields and ministries. US and UK multinationals immediately began a lucrative contract carve-up of the Iraqi oil industry, and the supplies of arms and military equipment - the least priority being rebuilding the shattered infrastructure and supplying the Iraqi people with essential services. For the US capitalist class "regime change" in Iraq meant unchallenged control and profits from an abundant oil supply. Oil wasn't the only reason for going to war. The war was part of a wider agenda of strengthening US imperialism's prestige - a message to third world leaders and imperialist rivals that any opposition to US hegemony would not be tolerated. This inquiry will be used as a PR tool by the political establishment to attempt to appear to be listening to the public, particularly those directly affected, such as military families. But in the eyes of millions who opposed the Iraq war and continue oppose the war in Afghanistan, they are guilty and should be tried as war criminals. We need 'regime change' of the rotten political establishment in Britain, who conducted the war on behalf of big business and imperialism, by building a mass socialist opposition. Francis Elliott (Times of London) reports, "But the evidence of Mr Brown, Mr Miliband and Mr Alexander will be saved until the inquiry resumes its public sessions next summer, after the election." Michael Savage (Independent of London) continues, "However, Jack Straw, who was the Foreign Secretary at the time of the Iraq invasion and remains in the Cabinet, will be questioned before the election. Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, Alastair Campbell, his former spokesman, and Jonathan Powell, Mr's Blair's former chief of staff, will also give evidence before the start of any election campaign." Olivia Midgley (Spenborough Guardian) reports Pauline Hickey wants Blair to answer questions: "Her son, Christian, a sergeant with the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, was killed by a roadside bomb during a foot patrol in Basra - just three days before he was due to return home, in 2005." Meanwhile Joe Murphy (London Standard) reveals, "A letter by Jack Straw asking Tony Blair to consider alternatives to invading Iraq is set to be revealed at the official war inquiry." Dmitry Babich (Russia's RIA Novosti via the Telegraph of London) reports that M16 head John Sawers is insisting that Russia -- by refusing to go along with sanctions as a member of the UN Security Council -- forced England into the Iraq War but that Andrew Billigan's response is, "I would say to John Sawers: 'Nice try.' but I don't think there is any truth in what he said at all." Today, Chrismas Eve, Free Speech Radio News examines the costs to Iraqis of the Iraq War in a special half-hour broadcast: Iraqis make up the world's largest population of refugees. The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq released a wave of violence and economic instability and brought with it the destruction of key infrastructure and the near-collapse of basic services. More than 2.7 million Iraqis have been displaced within their borders and another two million have fled their country, largely to Syria and Jordan. Today we bring you a special FSRN documentary called, "Guests in the Waiting Room: Iraqi refugees in Jordan," produced by Hanan Tabbara and Salam Talib. Next snapshot, which will probably be Monday, will note this article by David Price. Closing with this from Sherwood Ross' "Federal War Spending Exceeds State Government Outlaws" (Veterans Today): The U.S. spends more for war annually than all state governments combined spend for the health, education, welfare, and safety of 308 million Americans. Joseph Henchman, director of state projects for the Tax Foundation of Washington, D.C., says the states collected a total of $781 billion in taxes in 2008. For a rough comparison, according to Wikipedia data, the total budget for defense in fiscal year 2010 will be at least $880 billion and could possibly top $1 trillion. That's more than all the state governments collect. Henchman says all American local governments combined (cities, counties, etc.) collect about $500 billion in taxes. Add that to total state tax take and you get over $1.3 trillion. This means Uncle Sam's Pentagon is sopping up nearly as much money as all state, county, city, and other governmental units spend to run the country. If the Pentagon figure of $1 trillion is somewhat less than all other taxing authorities, keep in mind the FBI, the various intelligence agencies, the VA, the National Institutes of Health (biological warfare) are also spending on war-related activities. A question that describes the above and answers itself is: In what area can the Federal government operate where states and cities cannot tread? The answer is: foreign affairs---raising armies, fighting wars, conducting diplomacy, etc. And so Uncle Sam keeps enlarging this area. His emphasis is not on diplomacy, either. iraq the washington post michael hastings xinhua li xianzhi mcclatchy newspapers mohammed al-dulaimy inside iraq abc news diane sawyer abc world news tonight with diane sawyer kate snow sarah netter luis martinez the washington post walter pincus the guardian helene mulholland sky news miranda richardson francis elliott the times of london michael savage the telegraph of london dmitry babich sherwood ross

I don't link to women who promote sexism

People ask, "Trina, do you ever consider linking to blogs outside the community?"

Why bother?

Look at The Confluence. Riverdaughter really fooled a lot of people into believing she was a feminist, didn't she?

But a feminist calls out sexism. She doesn't cover it up. She doesn't promote a sexist.

Riverdaughter's a joke.

Read Marcia's "Men are sexist coz women like Riverdaughter enable..." and grasp that Riverdaughter was never a feminist.

On top of everything else, the women who objected to Joe Cannon at her site on Monday? Riverdaughter's allowed all their comments to be deleted. I'm looking at all those comments now (Marcia's boss had sent me a copy Monday afternoon, she'd copied and pasted it into an e-mail).

That's how Riverdaughter 'addresses' sexism. She hides it.

Here's reality, I've never had any respect for women who can't call out sexism. Especially when it's pointed out to them and they ignore it. And they try to attack the person calling out sexism.

The world will never get better as long as women like Riverdaughter encourage and justify sexism. She should be ashamed of herself but she'll learn. The thing about women like her? Life has a way of ensuring that they get how awful they are.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Wednesday:

Wednesday, December 23, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Iraqi Christians are again targeted, an examination of US labor's role in the movement to end the Iraq War, and more.

Michael Prysner and Iraq War veteran James Circello were on Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton and Charles Goyette discussing their group March Forward! "an affiliate of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition" composed of veterans and active-duty service members. (For those who can't stream or who are not able to listen to streams, there's an excerpt of the interview in yesterday's snapshot.) Information Clearing House has a video of Michael Prysner speaking:

And I tried hard to be proud of my service, but all I could feel was shame. Racism could no longer mask the reality of the occupation. These were people. These were human beings. I've since been plagued by guilt. Any time I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn't walk that we rolled onto a stretcher and told the Iraqi police to go take him away. I feel guilt any time I see a mother with her children like the one who cried hysterically and screamed that we were worse than Saddam as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt any time I see a young girl, like the one I grabbed by the arm and dragged into the street. We were told we were fighting terrorists. The real terrorist was me and the real terrorism is this occupation. Racism in the military has long been a tool to justify the occupation and destruction of another country. It's long been used to justify the killing, subjugation and torture of another people.
Racism is a vital weapon employed by this government. It is a more important weapon than a rifle, a tank, a bomber or a battleship. It is more destructive than an artillery shell or a bunker buster or a Tomahawk Missile. While those weapons are created and owned by this government, they're harmless without people willing to use them. Those who send us to war do not have to pull a trigger or lob a mortar round. They do not have to fight the war, they merely have to sell the war. They need a public who's willing to send their soldiers into harm's way. They need soldiers who are willing to kill and be killed without question. They can spend millions on a single bomb but that bomb only becomes a weapon when the ranks in the military are willing to follow orders to use it.
They can send every last soldier anywhere on earth but there will only be a war if soldiers are willing to fight and the ruling class, the billionaires -- who profit from suffering, care only about expanding their wealth, controlling the world's economy -- understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince that war, oppression and exploitation is in our interest. They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability to convince the working class to die to control the market of another country. And convincing us to kill and die is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior. Soldiers, sailors, marines, airman have nothing to gain from this occupation. The vast majority of the people in the US have nothing to gain from this occupation. In fact, not only do we have nothing to gain but we suffer more from it. We lose limbs, endure trauma and lose our lives. Our families have to watch flag draped coffins lowered into the earth.
Millions in this country without health care, jobs or access to education have watched this government squander over $450 million dollars a day on this occupation.
Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in another country to make the rich richer. And without racism, soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people than they do with the billionaires who send us to war.
I threw families onto the street in Iraq only to come home and find families thrown onto the street in this country in this tragic and unnecessary foreclosure crisis.
We need to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land, they're not people whose names we don't know and cultures we don't understand. The enemy is people we know very well and can identify. The enemy is the system that wages war when it is profitable. The enemy is the CEOs who lay us off from our jobs when it is profitable. It's the insurance companies who deny us health care when it's profitable. It's the banks who take away our homes when it's profitable.
Our enemy is not 5,000 miles away. They are right here at home. If we organize and fight with our sisters and brothers, we can stop this war, we can stop this government and we can create a better world.

Labor has been a significant force in the push to end the Iraq War and they don't often get the credit for their contributions. On KPFA's The Morning Show today, independent journalist David Bacon brought on US Labor Against the War's co-coordinators Kathy Black and Gene Bruskin and the USLAW's national organizer Michael Eisenscher.

David Bacon: So we wanted to take a look at what's going to happen with the war in Afghanistan and the [US President Barack] Obama administration. But in order to understand that, I thought it might be useful if, Eugene or you, Kathy, wanted to talk about what the change was in relation to the -- in terms of union's relation to the war in Iraq, the change from the way in which US labor has essentially supported, or sometimes with a great deal of conflict but nevertheless supported, most of the other military interventions by the US from WWII on through Vietnam and Central America. So why don't you start us off, Gene, by ta,king about what the historical position of US unions has been in relation to US intervention and what the change was with Iraq here?

Gene Bruskin: Well we have a, I think, the labor movement has, in some ways, not a proud history in how we've judged foreign policy cause we've pretty much accepted whatever the existing government and power structure wanted going back to the Philippines and I mean both the World Wars, of course, and Korea and Vietnam and El Salvador. There was some actually splits in the labor movement but in general what foreign policy was for many years including, you know, in all the post-WW period, is whatever policy we had to oppose the Soviet Union, for example, even if it meant supporting dictatorship supported unions in places like the Philippines and helping with the coups in places like Chile, the labor movement followed suit. So it was a huge break when US Labor Against the War was formed and the scope and the influence of that break is unprecedented.

David Bacon: What, uhm, Kathy, what do you attribute the change to? Aside from -- we're going to talk quite a bit her about US Labor Against the War itself as an organization, but are their changes that have taken place in unions and in our labor movement in terms of, for instance, the rejection of the policies of the Cold War or changes in terms of demographics which provided an opportunity I guess you would say for developing opposition to the war in Iraq which didn't exist earlier in terms of Vietnam, Central America, going all the way back to Korea?

Kathy Black: Yeah, of course all those things are factors. I think there are so many Vietnam war veterans in the labor movement and, in retrospect, people look back on that war -- even those that may have been strong supporters -- and see it in a different light. historically. You know, problems with veterans' illness and just a reflection on the policy has evolved. But I think, frankly, the single biggest factor if you can pick one that helped USLAW organize and galvanize support, it was George W. Bush. You know, I think that certainly there have been historical changes but people in the labor movement were so predisposed to be skeptical of anything he did and suspicious and automatically oppositional that that was probably the single biggest factor that helped us organize and convince people to look at the war from a different perspective.

Philip Maldari: And again, "USLAW" is US Labor Against the War, the acronym. Kathy, uh, one thing that certainly has changed is that there's no longer a Soviet Union. During the Cold War, was the labor -- official labor movement so scared of being red-baited that they uh-uh were backing every anti-communist intervention around the world for fear of being --
David Bacon: Well some actually expelled people, actually expelled whole unions.

Philip Maldari: Oh, expelled unions that had alleged Communists in their ranks, uh-uh, so was it, when the Cold War ended, did that give the labor movement a chance to get out under this fear of being red-baited?

Kathy Black: Uh, they pretty much purged the labor movement of the, you know, of Communist influences well before that so I don't know if I see it as fear but there was enormous complicity in the labor movement as Gene already spoke about.

Gene Bruskin: The most important part of it was that the labor movement had really bought into the fear of Communism and anti-communism because the criticism within the labor movement had been crushed earlier on and so they just bought the policy whole hook, line and sinker.

Kathy Black: They advocated the policy. Not everybody, but there were certainly prominent leaders in the labor movement who-who trumpeted those positions. Loudly.

Gene Bruskin: And so it did, I think, go out, after the end of the Cold War, there was clearly more openness to see what was actually workers' interest as opposed to what we usually called "national interest" which is generally business interest. But now we have not the issue of anti-communism so much as the whole issue of the fight against terrorism which is essentially the same set of logic has replaced -- you know, the Domino Theory is now the spread of terrorism.

David Bacon: And then, perhaps, I think one other factor -- maybe you could comment on this, Mike -- that played into this was the cost of the war on working people. I remember hearing this argument made at the first assembly of US Labor Against the War. And the fact that our labor movement now has a very, very large sector of public workers in it who are much more directly effected by the cost of the war and that there was a basis for saying to the people that if this war goes on people are going to lose jobs.

Mike Eisenscher: That certainly is true --

Philip Maldari: Wait a second, we've got to get your mike on. Go ahead, Mike.

Mike Eisenscher: Uh, that's certainly true. Another factor related to that is that the composition of the labor movement has changed quite a bit and there are now many, many immigrant workers in the labor movement who bring with them experiences in their own country that give them a different view of the international situation and a much more rounded and critical perspective.

David Bacon: So, Gene, the -- sort of compressing the history here a bit -- from the beginning of the war and the occupation of Iraq in 2003 and the convention at the AFL-CIO where the AFL-CIO officially adopted a position calling for the withdrawal of US troops which I believe took place in the summer of 2005?

Gene Bruskin: Right.

David Bacon: Right. There was obviously a great deal of activity that went on in terms of getting union by union opposition to that war organized. Can you kind of like go through that history pretty quickly for us here?

Gene Bruskin: Well what was, in a way, breath taking to many of us was that after US Labor Against the War was launched in January 2003 and then the war happened. We weren't, unfortunately, able to prevent it. But then rather than have the reaction that happened after the Gulf War when the yellow ribbons went up everywhere, people got even angrier and there was just a-a huge wave that summer and all into the next year through every union virtually of any significance in the labor movement -- on the shop floor, at monthly union meetings, at regional meetings and a meetings of international Unions, resolutions went onto the floor and there were really intense debates where people were just saying, "This is not the role of the labor movement to take these kind of positions. We're supposed to just deal with people's job-related issues." And in many cases what happened is vets or military families stood up and said, "Look, you know, I got a son that is about to go over there and I want the troops home tomorrow cause I don't want my kid to die." That kind of stuff --

Philip Maldari: Well let's talk about exactly who's in the army, who is in the marine corps, who's fighting this war. It seems like more often than not, it's the children of the working class. It's not the children of the upper middle class that are uh-uh troops, you know, boots on the ground in Afghanistan right now.

Gene Bruskin: Right. I mean it was clearly a thing where people said, "It's us that's fighting the war, it's -- we're paying for the war and we don't want it." And it came at the time when our rights were clearly under attack from every corner, from the Bush administration. So it was very clear to see that. And we made the link even to the extent of going to Iraq. David Bacon was a part of that on a couple of occasions. And bringing Iraqi trade unionists here to make the link to workers in both countries that we had more in common with each other than we did with the Bush administration, we should oppose the war.

David Bacon: So Kathy, here we are. First of all, the Iraq War is not over yet. But we have a whole new emphasis on increasing US military intervention in Afghanistan. A very different war, one that essentially was described by Obama during his election campaign as the war we should be fighting as opposed to the Iraq War which was the war that we should not be fighting. And there are a lot of important differences between Afghanistan as a country and Iraq as a country and the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. How do you think US unions are going to relate to the war in Afghanistan and what kind of tactics and strategies were developed at the recent national assembly of US Labor Against the War in relation to developing labor opposition to this war

Kathy Black: Well it's a much more difficult task for us now. Bush is no longer president. The solidarity work that Gene referred to, that you were such an important part of, is a harder thing to establish. Afghanistan doesn't have unions although Pakistan does and we do have connections there. But we're not going to be bringing a tour of Afghani union leaders to this country to put that human face and make those direct connections for union people. And uh, and then of course there's the concern that the labor movement feels that they elected Obama, that he's our president and they're loathe at this point to criticize him for almost anything -- and certainly to come out in opposition to a major policy initiative like this. So it's a tougher lift but, unfortunately, we think that events and the trajectory of this war is on our side to build that opposition. And some of the tools -- probably the most important tool that we came out with was this terrific DVD that Michael Zweig, one of our major activists in New York has developed called Why Are We In Afghanistan? And actually it's already having a very positive effect. It was shown here in Pennsylvania there was a big SEIU state worker council and they immediately passed a resolution opposing the war and there have been some other reports like that around the country.

For more information, visit US Labor Against the War. David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which just won the CLR James Award. And there's already a link for Zweig's film; however, to correct something, the most important tool is always the same and no one spoke of it.

One small voice Speaking out in honesty Silenced, but not for long One small voice Speaking with the values we were taught as children So you walk away and say, Isn't he divine? Don't those clothes look fine on the Emperor? And as you take your leave, you wonder why you're feeling So ill-at-ease--don't you know? Lies take your soul You can't hide from yourself Lies take their toll on you And everyone else One small voice speaking out in honesty Silenced, but not for long One small voice speaking with the values we were taught as children Tell the truth You can change the world But you'd better be strong
-- "One Small Voice," written by Carole King, first appears on her Speeding Time. [Carole begins a world tour with James Taylor in the new year, click here for information.]
Too much time has been wasted pathetically propping up Barack. We spoke the truth on Bush (those of us who did when it mattered, when it was hard) and we changed the perception. Those of us who do the hard lifting, "the tough lift," we're already doing that, we've been doing that. We don't cut slack for War Hawks. Those of us who've been doing the heavy lifting will continue to do so. Like the Little Red Hen, apparently all by ourselves. And those who are useless will continue to be so. Paul Street (ZNet) observes and names some of the useless:

Another example is Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of the liberal weekly public affairs magazine The Nation. "Whatever one thinks of Obama's policy on any specific issue," Vanden Heuvel proclaimed last month, "he is clearly a reform president committed to improvement of peoples' lives and the renewal and reconstruction of America ... Progressives should focus less on the limits of the Obama agenda," Vanden Huevel intoned, "and more on the possibilities that his presidency opens up."[15]

How Vanden Heuvel could have come to include the word "clearly" in light of the President's numerous rightward and center-leaning policy decisions was something of a mystery, assuming that The Nation's top authority meant what she wrote. As one totals up the president's cumulatively reactionary record of policies (and non-policies) on numerous specific issues - energy, health, war, labor rights, war, militarism - it becomes rather difficult to sustain the image of Obama as anything but a business and war president, certainly not a people's reformer. It was difficult to see a leader of America 's so-called radical left so easily hooked by the deceptive marketing that left author Chris Hedges has written about in connection with the president:

"Barack Obama is a brand. And the brand designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East . Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest."

"... President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising." [16]
In some cases even people who call themselves Marxists have run to Obama's whistle. Last November, Carl Davidson, a former Sixties Maoist turned "Marxist" Web-master of "Progressives for Obama," wrote a widely circulated essay claiming that Obama's victory in the presidential election was "a major victory" for left progressives. Badly misusing the terminology of the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci, Davidson claimed that the Obama administration represented the rise of "an emerging historic counter-hegemonic bloc" containing elements of Marxian/proletarian "class struggle." He strained the bounds of credulity by claiming that the new Obama presidency represented a decisive break with both neoliberalism and corporate liberalism and that the new White House was torn by a major tension between forces representing the capitalist class's "old hydrocarbon sector" and forces representing a progressive new left-leaning "green sector."[17] As the left journalist Arun Gupta quipped, "Obama must have missed Davidson's memo," for the Obama White House had committed to spending $1 trillion a year on the Pentagon but just a "few billion on green jobs, mainly as subsidies to big corporations like the big three [automakers]."[18]

Last January, United for Peace and Justice leader and top U.S. Communist Party official Judith LeBlanc actually called President Obama's appointment of Richard Holbrooke as a special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan last January "an exciting moment for the peace movement, because its possible diplomacy will be the first step...It's incredibly important that the antiwar movement reach out to this envoy," LeBlanc said, "and speak directly to the White House about our concerns." [19] This was remarkable commentary given Holbrooke's rather unsavory history as a leading U.S. foreign policy operative and commentator over the years - a record that included critical support (in his role as Under-Secretary of State for Asian Affairs in the Carter administration) for Indonesia's U.S.-supported atrocities (bordering on genocide) against East Timor in 1975, promising (in his role as Bill Clinton's special envoy to the Balkans) immunity to Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic (according to Karadzic himself and to former Bosnian foreign minister Mohammad Sacirbey), helping lead (in his role as special envoy to Kosovo) the "diplomatic" charge to the U.S. bombing of Serbia in 1999, providing Democratic support for George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, and serving as a pro-war foreign policy advisor to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. As Holbrooke took up his appointment with a ringing endorsement from the Communist Party's LeBlanc, a left U.S. newspaper reported that "Angry protesters gathered in Me htarlam, capital of Afghanistan 's eastern Laghman Province , to protest deaths of at least 16 civilians in a U.S. raid on a village Jan. 23. The same day, across the border in western Pakistan , a senior Pakistani official said two U.S. missile attacks may have killed up to 100 civilians. In Washington , administration officials refused to answer whether President Obama had okayed the missile strikes." [20]

Names some. Remember that. He wastes a footnote raving over Howard Zinn and Francy Fox Piven, both members of the Cult of St. Barack and shamefully so in both cases. Apparently Street is happy trashing any and everyone in a 'southern' state but it's too difficult for him to call out those who pushed to put a War Hawk in the White House. I don't want blood, I do want accountability. Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive) abandoned everything he ever knew about journalism (or decency) to pimp Barack. In what may be the closest to a mea culpa any of that group will ever offer, Rothschild declares today, "Seems to me that Obama played us all for fools." We'll take that as accountability -- no others offered anything remotely close and Progressive Radio will be added back to the links this week.

It's past time for the left to stop playing so wilfully stupid. As Ava and I pointed out Sunday:

If you're unhappy with the US policy on global warming, you better blame the person in charge. And despite the lunatic ravings of Naomi Klein on Goody's show, Hillary Clinton is not the president of the United States. Though Naomi could screech ("screech" is the only word for it) that Hillary was attempting to "blackmail" developing countries -- "naked blackmail" at that, the offer was the one that the administration wanted proposed. But there was never time to call out the person responsible. Goody offered lots of 'love' segments for Barack. She just didn't hold him accountable. It's not an accident, it's intentional. It happened with his 'surge' speech (as we documented before) and it'll continue to happen. And don't expect any movement in this country when 'left' 'leaders' are too cowed to call out a sitting president. Expect people to continue being Naomi Klein Zombies, wandering around in a daze, having "made a really conscious choice that I was going to enjoy the night."

Learn to stand or continue begging on your knees. We'll return to Michael Prysner to note his explaining an upcoming action:

So I encourage everyone to pay attention to a national march on Washington, DC that's going to happen on March 20th. There's also going to be coinciding marches in Los Angeles and San Francisco. But a large organization of antiwar groups have come together. It was initiated by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition -- you can go to A.N.S.W.E.R.org for information about the march. But we're calling on everyone to be a part of this action. We want soldiers, we want veterans, we want military families and we want all people in the United States who are suffering because of these wars. We're in the middle of a Depression where every month, more and more jobs are being lost. There's this health care debate going on, we're seeing that there's people that are not going to have access to quality health care. Education -- tuition is skyrocketing. We need money so badly, most people, yet we're spending over $500 million dollars a day to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. So if you're angry about this war which everyone should be, there is something you can do and that's become active in the movement. And the first thing you can do is become involved in the organizing for March 20th and of course participate in that demonstration as well. We need as many people as possible to send a message that the people are not in support of this war and we're going to fight until it's over.

Yesterday's snapshot included:Meanwhile AFP reports that the Iraqi military is on high "alert" according to the Minister of Defense, Mohammed al-Askari, who states, "We have put our forces on alert in Baghdad, the provinces of Kirkuk and Nineveh, including its capital Mosul, where our Christian brothers will be celebrating their holidays, because we have intelligence indicating they could be attacked during this period." Brothers? How typical of Nouri's flunkies to forget the women. Timothy Williams (New York Times) reports, "At churches in Baghdad this week, Christians are being asked for identification to determine if they have names that security force members recognize as Christian. Some churches around the northern city of Mosul are digging in, surrounding their buildings with giant earthen berms to prevent car bombers from getting too close." Extra security hasn't helped. Today AFP reports, "With Christmas just around the corner, a bomb attack on a church in the Iraqi city of Mosul killed two passersby and wounded five others, the sixth attack on Christians there in less than a month." Mohammed Tawfeeq and CNN add, "This was the second bombing near a church in Mosul in a week. On December 15, four people were killed and 40 others were injured in a car bombing near a church in western Mosul." Actually, it's the third. There were two bombings on December 15th. From that day's snapshot:Today in Mosul, Iraqi Christians were again targeted with violence. Al Jazeera notes one bombing was at the Syrian Catholic Church of the Annunciation and another exploded at "the Syrian Orthodox Church of Purity and a nearby Christian school". Iran's Press TV counts four dead in one of the church bombings and forty injured which they identify the church as Virign Mary Church which AFP says is the Syrian Orthodox Church of Purity. Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports the Catholic Church (which is billed as "Mariamana Church") was targeted with two bombings -- the first apparently to draw a crowd of which the 4 were then killed and the forty injured. The other church, Issa states, only suffered "material damages to the church" with no one reported dead or wounded. Mohammed Abbas and Missy Ryan (Reuters) reports among Teba Saad Jassim was among the dead ("a seven-day-old baby girl") and quotes a Mosul priest who did not want to be named stating, "We are peaceful people, but we come under attack sometimes. We are the victim of instability in this province."Deng Shasha (Xinhua) offers this context, "Iraq's Christian community has been estimated at 3 percent of Iraq's roughly 30 million people, and has a significant presence in the Nineveh province, which has been the scene of major security crackdowns by U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces to uproot the insurgency that erupted shortly after the U.S.-led invasion." And don't e-mail me the garbage from the New York Times on this topic. I've already griped at a friend with the paper who wanted that s**t included. Don't note ICCC's bad 'civilian' count. (Which isn't even a civilian count -- it includes police and military -- learn to read idiot press, learn to read.) We already called that count out and revealed how wrong it was (whole days they forgot to include violence and they single-sourced to Reuters). Since we called it out, ICCC's discovered a whole world beyond Reuters and hopefully their December count will be better but their past counts are embarrassments and it takes a real idiot to cite them. Enter John Leland.
In other violence . . .
Bombings?

Reuters notes a Baghdad plastic bag bombing which claimed the life of 1 Shi'ite and left four others injured, a Mahmudiya roadside bombing injured five Shi'ite pilgrims, a Baghdad roadside bombing injured five Sh'ite pilgrims, another Baghdad roadside bombing claimed 2 lives and left twenty-eight people injured, a Baghdad minibus bombing which claimed 1 life and left three people injured and, dropping back to Tuesday for all the rest, a Baghdad roadside bombing which injured one person, and a Tarmiya roadside bombing injured three people.

Shootings?

Reuters notes 1 "retired Iraqi army officer" was shot dead in Mosul and, dropping back to Tuesday, Brig Gen Riyada Abdulmajeed was shot dead in Baghdad.

Labor doesn't get enough credit for their work on opposing the Iraq War and David Bacon is a wonderful journalist so we have the lengthy excerpt above. But that means we're postponing something's in order to include it. Tomorrow we'll note that the VA still can't get the checks out -- people never should have believed the lies and the excuses -- and by "people," we mean Congress. Kimberly Hefling (AP) reports that, no surprise, the GI Bill payments due at the start of the fall semester? Some still haven't received them.

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