The Rag Blog

This morning The Encampment to Stop the War went into the Rayburn Building to confront the Democrats as the House Appropriations Committee holds their first meeting to fund the continuation of the slaughter in Iraq. 10 Encampment members were arrested. A few of us were the first in line in the hallway outside the chamber where the meeting is now taking place. The balance of Encampment members picketed the outside of the building.

In the hallway outside the chamber they lined us up for entrance into the chamber. After waiting for about an hour, the Capital Police opened up a door on the other end of the hallway to bring a large number of staffers in. The police then told us that there would not be enough room for us to attend the public meeting. The time was 8:56, 4 minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin. About a dozen Encampment members and several members of Code Pink began to chant:

“LET US IN – IT’S THE PEOPLES’ HOUSE!”

As Encampment members became louder demanding their right to attend this public meeting. The police arrested 3 members of the Encampment in the hallway: GAEL MURPHY,
RALPH LOEFFLER, MEL STEVENS

Gael, Ralph and Mel sat down on the floor and refused to leave as everyone loudly demanded their right to attend this important meeting. The police forced them face down on the floor, handcuffed them and took them out. The protest in the hallway became louder and the House Appropriations Committee were forced to delay their meeting by about a half hour because of the growing disturbance directly outside the chamber doors.

Following these arrests, 6 more Encampment Members were arrested for blocking the front door of the Rayburn Building: SHARON BLACK, SARA FLOUNDERS, DUSTIN LANGLEY, LARRY HOLMES, LORIE BLANDING, BOB NASH.

This report is an account of one of several actions carried out by the Encampment Against the War today. LeiLani Dowell and Namwiinga Simwiinga-Khumalo led a delegation of 12 women to the Iraqi Embassy to protest the new, U.S.-backed Iraqi government’s decision to hang 3 Iraqi women, Wassan Talib, Zainab Fadhil and Liqa Muhammad for their resistance to the U.S. occupation. The women were sentenced to hang on March 3rd for carrying out successful military operations against the U.S. military and Iraqi police. One of them gave birth to a child and is now nursing the baby in prison. There has been a total corporate media blackout on these death sentences. However, the alternative internet media brought massive international pressure upon the U.S. and Iraqi governments and the women were given a temporary reprieve.

The delegation of women from the Encampment to Stop the War arrived at the Iraqi Embassy at 2:50 p.m March 15, 2007. They broke out placards and began marching in a circle in front of the embassy. Passing motorists saw their placards and honked horns of support. They caused enough of a raucous to cause people inside the embassy began looking out their windows. Two Secret Service men approached the women. The SS asked them what they were doing there. LeiLani Dowell told them they were there to protest the war in Iraq and the hanging of these women. She told them they came from the Encampment to Stop the War to present petitions to the Iraqi Ambassador, seeking the freedom of the women. She told them they chose to come at this time because their mission is a matter of live and death – and because March 8 happens to be International Working Women’s Day and March is International Women’s Month.

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — A California woman whose doctor says marijuana is the only medicine keeping her alive is not immune from federal prosecution on drug charges, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The case was brought by Angel Raich, an Oakland mother of two who suffers from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other ailments. On her doctor’s advice, she eats or smokes marijuana every couple of hours to ease her pain and bolster a nonexistent appetite as conventional drugs did not work.

The Supreme Court ruled against Raich two years ago, saying that medical marijuana users and their suppliers could be prosecuted for breaching federal drug laws even if they lived in a state such as California where medical pot is legal.

Because of that ruling, the issue before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was narrowed to the so-called right to life theory: that marijuana should be allowed if it is the only viable option to keep a patient alive.

Raich, 41, began sobbing when she was told of the decision and said she would continue using the drug.

Havana.

Anyone following the news in recent times cannot be unaware of the wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean. For many lonely years Cuba held high the torch through its exemplary programs to provide universal health care and education, both gratis, along with world class cultural, sports and scientific achievements. Although you won´t find a Cuban today who says things are perfect, far from it, probably all would agree that compared with pre-revolutionary Cuba there is a world of improvement. All this they did against every effort by the United States to isolate them as an unacceptable example of independence and self-determination, using every dirty method including infiltration, sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant lies in the cooperating media of many countries. I know these methods too well, having been a CIA officer in Latin America in the 1960´s. Altogether nearly 3500 Cubans have died from terrorist acts, and more than 2000 are permanently disabled. No country has suffered terrorism as long and consistently as Cuba.

All through the years, beginning even before taking power in 1959, the Cuban revolution has needed to have intelligence collection capabilities in the U.S. for defensive purposes. Such was the fully justified mission of the Cuban Five, jailed since 1998 with long sentences after conviction for various crimes in Miami where they had no chance for a fair trial. Convictions were for conspiracy to commit espionage to murder. Nevertheless their sights were exclusively set on criminal terrorist planning in Miami for operations against Cuba, activities ignored by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. They neither sought nor received any classified U.S. government information. Their cases are still on appeal, and will be for years to come, but their completely biased convictions rank with the legal lynching in the 1920’s of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the anarchist immigrants, as among the most shameful injustices in U.S. history. Freedom for the Cuban Five should be the cause of everyone for whom fairness, human rights and justice are important, both in the United States and around the world, joining in the activities of the 300 Free the Five solidarity committees in 90 countries.

Current U.S. policy with its means and goals can be found in the nearly 500-page 2004 report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba together with an update published in 2006 that has a secret annex. A fundamental goal, the same in 2007 as I remember it was in 1959, is isolation of Cuba to keep this bad example from spreading, and the current policy if successful, would mean no less than Cuban annexation to the U.S. and complete dependence, in fact if not in law, as Cubans rightfully claim. Other fundamental goals from 1959 are still, nearly 50 years later, to foment an internal political opposition and to cause economic hardship in Cuba leading to desperation, hunger and despair. It is no exaggeration to call these goals genocidal.

Yet, U.S. economic warfare of nearly 50 years against Cuba hasn’t worked even though the Cubans who keep book estimate its cost at more than $80 billion. After the Cuban economy’s free fall in the early 1990’s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it began to recover in 1995. By 2005 growth was 11.8% and in 2006 it was 12.5%, the highest in Latin America. Some sectors have surpassed their development levels of the late 80’s, before the collapse, and others are nearly back. Cuba’s exports of services, nickel, pharmaceutical and other products are booming, and try as it may, the U.S. has not been able to stop this.

George Bush has been touring Latin American countries this March with two goals in mind: keep the continent divided and keep it subservient to U.S. imperialist interests.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has also been visiting his neighbors. His goals are the opposite: to unite the countries of Latin America and to encourage and support the continent’s independence from U.S. imperialism.

This March 9 the two presidents were faced off on opposite sides of the river separating Argentina and Uruguay. Bush had just arrived in Uruguay, where he was driven in a well-armored limousine caravan, protected from a strong demonstration protesting the visit. Chávez, after signing a treaty with Argentine President Néstor Kirchner for the cooperation of the two countries’ energy companies, spoke to a public meeting of 40,000 people in the Cancha de Ferro soccer field in Buenos Aires.

As the work day in the Argentine capital ended, residents from Buenos Aires and its working-class suburbs began to pour into the stadium. Coming in chartered buses, by public transport and on foot, they represented the dozens of political and nationalist left parties, from the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to the unions and community organizations that make up the anti-imperialist majority of Argentines, along with visitors and immigrants from Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay—there were many Uruguayan flags—plus at least two anti-imperialists from the United States.

Even from the middle-class apartment house behind the stadium, people had hung a Brazilian and other national flags to show their solidarity with the pro-Chávez, anti-Bush demonstration.

When Chávez began to speak sometime after 8 p.m., it was obvious the people were with him, and he with them. Every upbeat phrase was cheered, from any reference to Fidel Castro, Cuba or the Argentine-born Che Guevara to the heroes of the Latin American independence struggle, from Simón Bolívar to Don Jose de San Martín of Argentina.

But nothing aroused more noise—both cheers and whistles depending on the statement—than Chávez’ ironic comments about the U.S. president. “He doesn’t even smell of sulfur anymore,” said Chávez, alluding to his own comments last fall at the United Nations, “but he has the smell of a political corpse, who will soon disappear into cosmic dust.”

The Venezuelan president and most others in the stadium were quite aware of Bush’s weakened position and waning popularity back in the U.S., where political polls put his approval rating at under 30 percent. Chávez spelled out how Bush had failed to provide for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and left tens of millions without health care.

“If he really wanted social justice in the world, he should do something, instead of just talking,” said the Venezuelan. “He should order the U.S. troops out of Iraq and use the vast sums of money from the war to end hunger and death throughout the world.

By M.R. Narayan Swamy, New Delhi, March 14: Drawing an analogy with Vietnam, a long-time Iraqi dissident says the armed resistance in his country against the US is winning, but it will take a long time to make the American troops go home.

Kamal Majid, a Professor Emeritus in the University of Wales (Cardiff), also said here that Iraqis had every right to invite foreigners to join the fighting against the US troops as Washington too had other governments on its side.

“The Iraqi people are optimistic that they will succeed (against the US),” Majid told an “International Conference on War, Imperialism and Resistance” here, drawing thunderous applause at the end of an impassioned speech.

And soon afterwards, the 77-year-old academic, who counts Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih and Irrigation Minister Latif Rashid as his students, told IANS that he expected violence in Iraq to continue for a long time.

The Democrats took the majority of both the House and Senate on January 4th, 2007 since then 192 members of the Armed Services have died as have countless Iraqi civilians. With power comes responsibility, so voters should know that this is now the Democrats War and every death and casualty is their responsibility.

When they came to power their leadership said they would not use the “power of the purse” to end the war. But pressure from voters opposed to the Iraq quagmire has changed their tune. Last week an obviously frustrated Rep. David Obey told Marine Mom, Tina Richardsin a Capitol Hill hallway encounter that his appropriations bill would de-authorize the war.

I went to Capitol Hill as part of a support delegation for Tina Richards this Monday to return to Rep. Obey’s office to seek clarification of his hallway comments. There has been a lot of deal making by Congressional leaders to line up support for the Iraq War supplemental. They are adding billions in goodies for constituents, for Midwest farmers, avocado growers, communities that have lost bases, Katrina relief, Veterans and other goodies to gather votes.

The headline that the Democratic leadership would like voters to hear is “troops out of Iraq by August 2008.” But the headline is more a wolf in sheep’s clothing than a reality. After hearing details of the bill from Obey’s appropriations staff person the loopholes may define the law more than the headline.

For most in the peace movement an August 2008 deadline for withdrawal is already way too slow. Why the delay? On November 17, 2005 Rep. Jack Murtha called for redeployment within six months. Here we are sixteen months later and the Democratic leadership is talking about redeployment in seventeen months! Six months has turned into 33 months ­ and in fact the August deadline is illusory. How many lives ­ U.S. and Iraqi ­ will have been lost in this quagmire over this time period?

WASHINGTON – Top House Democrats retreated Monday from an attempt to limit President Bush’s authority for taking military action against Iran as the leadership concentrated on a looming confrontation with the White House over the Iraq war.

Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on
Israel had argued for the change in strategy.

Robert Dreyfuss is an Alexandria, Va.-based writer specializing in politics and national security issues. He is the author of Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam , a contributing editor at The Nation and a writer for Mother Jones, The American Prospect and Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website, www.robertdreyfuss.com.

Two parliaments, half a world away from each other, struggled with calls to end the war in Iraq yesterday. In Washington, Democrats in the U.S. Congress ended weeks of squabbling to settle on the outlines of a legislative plan to end the war no later than August, 2008, and perhaps sooner. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, a new constellation of political parties is beginning to take shape in the Iraqi parliament, united around the idea of asking U.S. forces to leave Iraq as soon as possible. Tremendous obstacles stand in the way of pro-peace forces both in Congress and in Iraq’s parliament, but if I had to guess, I’d bet that the Iraqis will ask the United States to get out of Iraq long before Congress can force the issue.

Most congressional progressives and members of the Out of Iraq Caucus aren’t thrilled with the plan cobbled together by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Even so, let’s give credit where credit is due. Four months after an election in which American voters went to the polls to demand an end to the war, the Democrats responded by proposing a timetable to do just that, calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of 2007 if President Bush can’t certify that the Iraqi government is meeting a series of specific benchmarks, and by August 2008 even if those benchmarks are met.

The Democratic House leadership is: facing a nearly unified Republican caucus in both the House and Senate opposed to any weakening of the U.S. role in Iraq; threatened by a promised White House veto; and dragged down by the anchor of several dozen conservative, Blue Dog Democrats afraid to challenge President Bush over the war. Nevertheless, House leaders have probably done about the best they could. It won’t satisfy anti-war activists, who’ll have to redouble efforts to turn up the heat on the congressional Dems. And it hasn’t exactly won plaudits from congressional progressives, who are pressing their own plan to force a more definitive exit, and sooner, by making more aggressive use of the power of the purse to force a withdrawal by the end of 2007—even though most of them are likely to hold their noses and vote for Pelosi’s watered-down plan, too.