The Rag Blog

WASHINGTON (Dec. 9) — Tough sentencing laws, record numbers of drug offenders and high crime rates have contributed to the United States having the largest prison population and the highest rate of incarceration in the world, according to criminal justice experts.

A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed that a record 7 million people — or one in every 32 American adults — were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. Of the total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail.

According to the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College in London, more people are behind bars in the United States than in any other country. China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners, followed by Russia with 870,000.

The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people in the highest, followed by 611 in Russia and 547 for St. Kitts and Nevis. In contrast, the incarceration rates in many Western industrial nations range around 100 per 100,000 people.

KATY, Texas (Dec. 8) – A plan to build a mosque in this Houston suburb has triggered a neighborhood dispute, with community members warning the place will become a terrorist hotbed and one man threatening to hold pig races on Fridays just to offend the Muslims.

By Antonia Juhasz, ANTONIA JUHASZ is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of “The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.”
December 8, 2006

WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.

Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq’s importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: “It has the world’s second-largest known oil reserves.” The group then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq’s national oil industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.

The report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. It states in plain language that the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met.

It’s spelled out in Recommendation No. 63, which calls on the U.S. to “assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise” and to “encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.” This recommendation would turn Iraq’s nationalized oil industry into a commercial entity that could be partly or fully privatized by foreign firms.

And that remains the American perspective, and it very accurately captures our colonialist, condescending, and racist national attitude toward Iraq and its peoples: we were doing them a favor. If it turned into a genocidal murder spree, well, that’s only because it was managed “incompetently.” Most people still will not see the inescapable moral meaning of what we have done. And most people will never acknowledge that if we had implemented a murderous plan of conquest “competently,” that would only make the results infinitely worse, not “better.”

We have murdered an entire country, and an unconscionable and entirely unforgivably huge number of innocent Iraqis. We have murdered them, without even the merest shadow of a justifiable reason.

I’m sick and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic and fascist crap. I stood through a memorial service today for a young Marine that was killed in Iraq back in April. During this memorial a number of people spoke about the guy and about his sacrifice for the country. How do you justify ‘sacrificing’ your life for a war which is not only illegal, but is being prosecuted to the extent where the only thing keeping us there is one man’s power, and his ego. A recent Marine Corps intelligence report that was leaked said that the war in the al-Anbar province is unwinnable. It said that there was nothing we could do to win the hearts and minds, or the military operations in that area. So I wonder, why are we still there? Democracy is not forced upon people at gunpoint. It’s the result of forward thinking individuals who take the initiative and risks to give their fellow countrymen a better way of life.

When I joined I took an oath. In that oath I swore to protect the Constitution of the United States. I didn’t swear to build democracies in countries on the other side of the world under the guise of “national security.” I didn’t join the military to be part of an Orwellian (“1984”) war machine that is in an obligatory war against whoever the state deems the enemy to be so that the populace can be controlled and riled up in a pro-nationalistic frenzy to support any new and oppressive law that will be the key to destroying the enemy. Example given – the Patriot Act. So aptly named, and totally against all that the constitution stands for. President Bush used the reactionary nature of our society to bring our country together and to infuse into the national psyche a need to give up their little-used rights in the hope to make our nation a little safer. The same scare tactics he used to win elections. He drones on and on about how America and the world would be a less safe place if we weren’t killing Iraqis, and that we’d have to fight the terrorists at home if we weren’t abroad. In our modern day emotive society this strategy (or strategery?) works, or had worked, up until last month’s elections.

Syrian vice-president Farouk al-Sharaa made remarks in an interview with the Syrian electronic newspaper Champress.com that are worth noting for a number of reasons, and this is a case where the commenters at Syriacomment.com (apparently mostly themselves Syrians except for the owner of the site, Josh Landis, who posted translations of parts of this) have been able to actually make their discussions meaningful enough so that even I could understand the relevance to the bigger world.

Sharaa was foreign minister until late 2005, when he was either demoted or promoted to vice-president, but in any event he is the first senior Syrian official to comment on the post-Baker situation. So that is one point.

The mission of No More Victims, a non-profit, non-sectarian, humanist organization, is to restore health and well-being to victims of war and to advocate and educate for peace. The organization was founded in September 2002.

We work to find medical sponsorships for war-injured Iraqi children and to forge ties between the children, their families and communities in the United States. We believe one of the most effective means of combating militarism is to focus on direct relief to its victims. If you want to learn more about how your community can become involved, send an email to No More Victims.

BAGHDAD, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Ahmed waits outside his school’s gates on a chilly midweek morning, holding his textbooks by his side.

But as the majority of pupils and teachers fail to arrive, the 18-year-old, who is in his final year at high school, has to put off learning for yet another day.

“It’s cancelled again today,” he said, visibly frustrated. “Only 15 out of 200 students in my year turned up.”

Three years ago, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, teachers and students talked excitedly about excising the compulsory pages on the dictator from their textbooks and freeing academia from interference from the ruling Baath party.

Now, sectarian venom has struck deep at the heart of Iraq’s education system as militants from both Sunni and Shi’ite groups attack schools, universities and personnel.

The prevailing anarchy has also poisoned society, bringing casual violence into classrooms in a way not seen before.

BAGHDAD, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Lina is madly in love but is dreading her wedding day in two weeks — she’s afraid the bakery will be closed, the photographer won’t open his studio and the hairdresser will run out of hairspray.

Soaring inflation, bombs, kidnaps and shootings at markets and on bandit-ridden roads used by supply trucks are stifling Baghdad’s shops and businesses, wrecking the brief economic revival that the end of United Nations sanctions brought to the capital and stifling Iraqis’ once-famous joie de vivre.

Small shop-owners and businesses are struggling to keep stocks running on everything from light bulbs to toothbrushes, chocolate bars to disposable razors.

Lina, 33, is in despair.

“When my friend married in July it was bad but this is worse. I’m terrified to go shopping. I should be happy, but I don’t feel like a bride.”

BAGHDAD, Dec 7 (Reuters) – As the sun sets and residents of Baghdad’s Hurriya district hurry home, Firas Hasan and his friends grab their Kalashnikov rifles and head onto the deserted streets.

The volunteers are not insurgents but members of one of dozens of armed “neighbourhood watch” groups that have appeared across the capital as areas are increasingly carved out between rival religious communities amid mounting sectarian bloodshed.

“The terrorists target us because we’re Shi’ite Muslims,” Hasan said. “We can’t trust anyone. We’ve established our presence in the area by questioning strangers and stopping cars to deter these criminals.”

Hasan says the group began patrolling the streets three months ago when Sunni insurgents from a nearby area drove into the district and dumped a large sack on the pavement. Inside were the remains of one of their friends who was kidnapped a day earlier.

“When we opened up the sack we found Khalil’s head and chopped-up body parts inside,” he recalled as he wiped the barrel of his rifle. “From then on, we knew we needed to protect ourselves so we formed this group at his funeral.”

During a visit to Japan, Mohamed El Baradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), went counter to the line adopted by the United States and Japan with regard to North Korea and Iran and instead recommended flexibility. “We will have to stop evoking the use of force against these two countries if we want them to agree to give up their nuclear programs”, he declared on Sunday, December 3, during a conference at the university of Kyoto.

“We should stop talking about changing the governments” of these countries or “using force” against them. “The more the Iranians and North Koreans feel threatened the more they will continue to accelerate their nuclear weapons programs (…) We must accept them back into the international community”, pleaded Mr. El Baradei, winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, who considers that it is through this process of reintegration that the international community can hope “to gradually change the state of mind” of their leaders.

Following the North-Korean nuclear test on October 9, the United Nations Security Council has imposed sanctions against Pyongyang. Iran, who refuses to terminate its enrichment program, is also threatened by punitive measures.

“I always said, continued Mr. El Baradei, that sanctions alone will never solve any conflict.” “In many cases, on the contrary, they strengthen the determination of the country that is subjected to them”, he added.

General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect: He can think.

This poem by Bertold Brecht was an anthem of the widespread GI Movement against the Vietnam War, and thirty years later it still resonates.

Today there is a growing GI movement against the War in Iraq. It has the potential to tremendously impact the War in Iraq and end US foreign policies of empire. But it needs our help. On December 8-10, there will be three days of action across the US to show widespread public support for the courageous troops that resist. Educational events, rallies, marches and vigils will take place around the US.

In the 1960’s an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn’t take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in Army stockades, Navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services.

I was part of that movement during the 60’s, and have an intimate connection with it. For two years I worked as a civilian at the Oleo Strut in Killeen, Texas — one of dozens of coffeehouses that were opened near military bases to support the efforts of antiwar soldiers. I helped organize demonstrations of over 1,000 soldiers against the war and the military; I worked with guys from small towns and urban ghettos who had joined the military and gone to Vietnam out of a deep sense of duty and now risked their lives and futures to end the war; and I helped defend them when they were jailed for their antiwar activities.

I made the film Sir! No Sir!, released earlier this year, to tell this suppressed story of the GI Movement.

Today the new GI resistance movement is growing — more soldiers are going public with their opposition, thousands are going AWOL, the first GI coffeehouse opened recently (with internet!), and the antiwar movement is realizing that supporting these soldiers is the next step.

It’s time for us to escalate public pressure and action in support of the growing movement of courageous men and women soldiers who have in many different ways followed their conscience — upholding international law, taking a principled stand against unjust, illegal war and occupation and standing up for their rights. Widespread public support and pressure will help create true support for courageous troops facing isolation and repression, and help protect their civil liberties and human rights.

Like the GI Coffeehouses of the 60’s and 70’s, showing widespread public support for soldiers who resist is one of the best ways those of us outside the military can encourage the growing momentum of GI resistance, a movement that has the direct power, with the civilian movement, to end this war.

Those of us outside the military must match their bravery by escalating our support for all GI resisters. They’ve got to know we’re out here for them!

Supporting GI resistance, together with counter-recruitment and draft resistance, is key to stopping illegal war and occupation ourselves. If the government can’t recruit or draft enough new troops, and if troops refuse illegal immoral orders, it will help end the war and occupation and help prevent the next one.

The December 8 – 10 Days of Action calls for:
1) Support for War Objectors
2) Protect the Right to Conscientious Objection
3) Protect the Liberties & Human Rights of GI’s
4) Sanctuary for War Objectors.

Support the actions or events in your area or organize an event, like showing Sir! No Sir! to a house party of friends or your local community.

If not now, when? If not us, who?

Visit www.CourageToResist.org for more information or to contribute to this campaign.

To get a copy of Sir! No Sir! or see the trailer, go to www.SirNoSir.com.