“But let’s remember what we’ve already found. Secretary Powell on February 5th talked about a mobile, biological weapons capability. That has now been found and this is a weapons laboratory trailers capable of making a lot of agent that — dry agent, dry biological agent that can kill a lot of people. So we are finding these pieces that were described.” – Condoleeza Rice, Capital Report, CNBC (6/3/2003)
Thanks to our Friends at Today in Iraq for the remembrance.
Lawyer Gets 28 Months for Aiding Terrorist
She Faced 30 Years for Helping Imprisoned Client Communicate With Followers
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, AP
NEW YORK (Oct. 16) — Civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart was sentenced Monday to 28 months in prison on a terrorism charge for helping a client who plotted to blow up New York City landmarks communicate with his followers.
Stewart, 67, could have faced up to 30 years in prison. She smiled as the judge announced his decision to send her to prison for less than 2 1/2 years.
“If you send her to prison, she’s going to die. It’s as simple as that,” defense lawyer Elizabeth Fink had told the judge before the sentence was pronounced.
Stewart, who was treated last year for breast cancer, was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists. She had released a statement by Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind Egyptian sheik sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted in plots to blow up five New York landmarks and assassinate Egypt’s president.
Prosecutors have called the case a major victory in the war on terrorism. They said Stewart and other defendants carried messages between the sheik and senior members of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization, helping spread Abdel-Rahman’s call to kill those who did not subscribe to his extremist interpretation of Islamic law.
In a letter to the judge before her hearing, Stewart proclaimed: “I am not a traitor.”
“The end of my career truly is like a sword in my side,” She said in court Monday. “Permit me to live out the rest of my life productively, lovingly, righteously.”
Read it here.
… Shoot at Them Dangerous Canajians !!! I mean, how many terrorists have tried to swim Lake Michigan? Send these guys to the Potomac where they might do some good.
U.S. Firing Plans for Great Lakes Raise Concerns
By MONICA DAVEY, The New York Times
GRAND HAVEN, Mich., Oct. 10 — Even in autumn, the cold, silent expanse of Lake Michigan defines this town, where pleasure boats glide into harbor, fishermen wait patiently for salmon and tourists peer up at the lighthouse.
But the United States Coast Guard has a new mission for the waters off of these quiet shores. For the first time, Coast Guard officials want to mount machine guns routinely on their cutters and small boats here and around all five of the Great Lakes as part of a program addressing the threats of terrorism after Sept. 11.
And, for the first time in memory, Coast Guard members plan to use a stretch of water at least five miles off this Michigan shore — and 33 other offshore spots near cities like Cleveland; Rochester; Milwaukee; Duluth, Minn.; and Gary, Ind. — as permanent, live fire shooting zones for training on their new 7.62 mm weapons, which can blast as many as 650 rounds a minute and send fire more than 4,000 yards.
The notion is so unusual that it prompted United States diplomats to negotiate with Canadian authorities in order to agree that it would not violate a 189-year-old treaty, signed after the War of 1812, limiting arms on the Great Lakes.
Read the rest of it here.
Click on the image, print it (landscape mode; then it’ll be long enough), preferably in colour, then cut it out. It’s your armband for tomorrow and can be stapled or paper-clipped to hold it.
No more war. No more torture. No more Bush Administration.
On Tuesday, October 17, at 9:35 a.m., President Bush will sign the Military Commissions Act (S. 3930) at the White House. In response, Tuesday is No Torture In Our Name! Day.
WEAR ORANGE – Wear orange armbands with “NO TORTURE” written on them.
SILENCE + TORTURE = COMPLICITY
“Can’t the United States see that when we allow someone to be tortured by our agents, it is not only the victim and the perpetrator who are corrupted, not only the ‘intelligence’ that is contaminated, but also everyone who looked away and said they did not know, everyone who consented tacitly to that outrage so they could sleep a little safer at night, all the citizens who did not march in the streets by the millions to demand the resignation of whoever suggested, even whispered, that torture is inevitable in our day and age, that we must embrace its darkness?”
Ariel Dorfman, “Are We Really So Fearful?”
YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS NOW CODIFIED TORTURE. The new law does not prohibit the government from using “alternative interrogation techniques” that include sleep deprivation, extreme cold, personal degradation, waterboarding (simulated drowning), “temporary” disablement, and psychological disorientation. The new law grants George Bush the sole authority to decide what torture is. Abu Ghraib and the secret renditions were horrible. But to take the next step and write such practices into law is even worse — qualitatively worse.
Your government has officially shredded constitutional promises of basic and fundamental rights to due process — taking a huge step towards replacing the rule of law with the arbitrary rule of men. The new law will give the president the right to hold people indefinitely without charging them, and without review from the courts, nullifying habeas corpus rights. Congress has now passed legislation that denies defendants the right to see evidence used against them, and allows the use of “evidence” gained through torture. It forbids anyone to invoke the Geneva Conventions in any civil case or habeas corpus proceedings undertaken against the U.S. government, and, according to some experts, it may also forbid this in criminal cases.
Your government – which already holds over 14,000 people overseas without charges — has dramatically expanded the scope of who it can detain to include people anywhere in the world, including within the U.S. People can now be declared an “unlawful enemy combatant” simply for providing what the president decides is “material,” including financial or indirect support for hostilities against the U.S.
Your government is rewriting the law on crimes against humanity to exclude itself, incurring the contempt and hatred of people all over the planet.
Few in Congress made anything but the most token show of opposition , as leading Democrats let Bush set the agenda, staying silent when it mattered, refusing to filibuster, then voting no only when the die was cast.
This unprecedented legalization of torture is part of a package coming from the Bush regime. That package includes an atrocious, nightmarish occupation of Iraq and now the ominous threat of war against Iran. It includes an assault on critical thinking and serious motion toward a theocracy. It includes the criminal response to Hurricane Katrina. It includes a systematic attack on women’s reproductive rights, and the demonization of gay people and denial of their basic human rights. It includes the scapegoating of immigrants and severely repressive new legislation aimed at them.
And it gets worse with every passing week. As the call for The World Can’t Wait–Drive Out the Bush Regime states: “The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come.” With this legalization of torture, who will now deny that? The stakes are clearly enormous.
If Not Now, When? If Not Us, Who?
THIS MUST HALT! This entire package must be repudiated, and the whole direction of this country must be reversed.
There is a way to act against this onslaught, effectively. There is a vitally important step to take now to begin driving out this regime and reversing this nightmare direction:
Join in raising the demand to DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME.
“The point is this: history is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US.” — From the call “The World Can’t Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!”
Debra Sweet
National Coordinator, The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime
I know it’s only Sunday, but make the popcorn and pipe down. And please butter and salt it well — we want consistency with the status quo …
Riverbend began talking of this potential problem at least two years ago, and there’s been plenty of subsequent reporting in places that aren’t MSM. This is simply continuing exposure of the corrupt farce the MSM has become, serving simply as a lacky of the state. rdj
Here is the information provided on YouTube. Although no specific date is given for the CNN report, the video was uploaded on 4 October 2006.
Death Squads Infiltrate Iraqi Police Force – CNN
CNN reporter Michael Ware says the “death squads have been a part of the Iraqi security apparatus that has been propped up by the US forces.” He explains that factions within the Iraqi government itself are operating these Shia death squads. “Ministry of Interior commanders will rent out official government vehicles at night to death squads to allow them to operate.” In conclusion, Ware agrees with Colin Powell by saying “staying the course will only further strengthen America’s enemies.”
Note: Just in case, MSM = mainstream media.
Plea to the Awake, Aware and Outraged
By Cathy Garger
Oct 11, 2006, 15:43
If you are awake, aware, and more than outraged, I’ve got to ask. Has this been a week from Hades or what? Certainly Hugo Chavez – and the rest of the world would agree. Oh, perhaps Tony in the UK would be an exception, as he’s the fellow who seems to find little fault with the US (and some say even holds the American Devil’s uh, pitchfork). Rumor even has it that since taking office, the American Devil-Monster has spread his putrid stench wherever Air Force One happens to land.
[snip]
Both parties, after all, endorse and nearly-unanimously fund bill after bill of pre-emptive, unjustified illegal American wars in defiance of international law concerning war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Both parties are fully signed up for threats against nations like Iran who express a desire to enrich uranium for power – just like the US and 30 other nations do.
Both parties are hell-bent on dismantling our Constitution, policing and watching our every move, listening in on our phone calls, and pulling our remaining rights, liberties, and freedoms out from under us.
Both parties accept rigged elections with vote counting done in secret and machines programmed to play funny games – with no way to legitimately verify results.
Both parties get off on destroying the environment and effectively nuking the planet with our military’s guns, tanks, and bombs in the Middle Eastern part of the world.
Both parties accept US military false flag operations such as 9/11 as necessary in furthering the goals and aims of US imperialism.
Both parties give the go-ahead for detentions for any length of time, for any reason, under any condition, without due legal process. On the issue of torture, a fully united Congress voted together to bring it on – in whatever manner the Torturer-In-Chief shall desire. In its infinite wisdom, Congress voted and decided that the Head Torturer has the right to exercise his particular sadistic whim and discretion in order to personalize an individual’s plan of torture.
Read the rest here.
If you have not read Wendell Berry (or even if you have read him, but perhaps not recently), this is a marvelous example of his writing at its best. This article predates the onset of Operation Iraqi Liberation Freedom by a few months. rdj
The Failure of War
by Wendell Berry
If you know even as little history as I do, it is hard not to doubt the efficacy of modern war as a solution to any problem except that of retribution — the “justice” of exchanging one damage for another.
Apologists for war will insist that war answers the problem of national self-defense. But the doubter, in reply, will ask to what extent the cost even of a successful war of national defense — in life, money, material, foods, health, and (inevitably) freedom — may amount to a national defeat. National defense through war always involves some degree of national defeat. This paradox has been with us from the very beginning of our republic. Militarization in defense of freedom reduces the freedom of the defenders. There is a fundamental inconsistency between war and freedom.
In a modern war, fought with modern weapons and on the modern scale, neither side can limit to “the enemy” the damage that it does. These wars damage the world. We know enough by now to know that you cannot damage a part of the world without damaging all of it. Modern war has not only made it impossible to kill “combatants” without killing “noncombatants,” it has made it impossible to damage your enemy without damaging yourself.
That many have considered the increasing unacceptability of modern warfare is shown by the language of the propaganda surrounding it. Modern wars have characteristically been fought to end war; they have been fought in the name of peace. Our most terrible weapons have been made, ostensibly, to preserve and assure the peace of the world. “All we want is peace,” we say as we increase relentlessly our capacity to make war.
Yet at the end of a century in which we have fought two wars to end war and several more to prevent war and preserve peace, and in which scientific and technological progress has made war ever more terrible and less controllable, we still, by policy, give no consideration to nonviolent means of national defense. We do indeed make much of diplomacy and diplomatic relations, but by diplomacy we mean invariably ultimatums for peace backed by the threat of war. It is always understood that we stand ready to kill those with whom we are “peacefully negotiating.”
Please read his entire piece here.
Much of Iraq still in ruin as U.S. builders leave
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
Associated Press
Oct. 15, 2006, 12:07AM
Close behind U.S. tanks and troops, America’s big builders invaded Iraq three years ago. Now the reconstruction funds are drying up and they’re pulling out, leaving completed projects and unfulfilled plans in the hands of an Iraqi government unprepared to manage either.
The Oct. 1 start of the U.S. government’s 2007 fiscal year signaled an end to U.S. aid for new reconstruction in Iraq.
“We’re really focusing now on helping Iraqis do this themselves in the future,” said Daniel Speckhard, reconstruction chief at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
[snip]
From one key Iraqi’s perspective, much of the reconstruction funds were misspent.
“Huge amounts of funds were wasted because of bureaucracy, corruption, incapacity and the spending of money on unimportant projects,” said Ali Baban, planning minister in Iraq’s five-month-old government.
Read the rest here.
We’re ’round to Singin’ on Sunday once again, and I picked a tune I’d almost forgotten. My sister, Deb, did a recital to wind up her BFA in music at the University of Texas. At that point, she was about at the apogee of her skill with the flute (although she’s still pretty darn accomplished), and when you hear this, you’ll probably think as I did that she should’ve been a concert flautist. Well, she went on to teach elementary school kids about music and that was a good thing for her to do, and I believe far more comfortable than a concert circuit would’ve been.
This piece was composed especially for her recital in 1985. She doesn’t identify a name for the piece, but she does say that William Grear composed it (and he plays the piano for it, too). It’s beautiful and a little different for Singin’ on Sunday. Grear is still composing music and lives in Austin (or thereabouts). You can find some of his more recent compositions here. Deb, she spends most of her time sailing the waters of Australia, so hasn’t recorded a thing for a long time. Richard Jehn
Dear Cindy Sheehan,
Hopefully Gavan Duffy, an old friend from Austin, Texas, can hand deliver the accompanying letter of appreciation. It is from a number of US Americans in Europe and originally written to be given to you upon your visit at the European Parliament recently. We were saddened that you could not make the trip, and shocked to heard about some difficulties in New York. Also unfortunately over here there was a bit of “frantic” organizing by a person in Germany which caused confusions and communications problems.
Hopefully you can get over this way at some point in the future. One anecdote from Berlin: at a peace demonstration we participated in here the police came over and thanked us for demonstrating.
Nice, yes?
And we in turn thank you for your insights, courage and visible work. Here our original letter to you.
Greetings, Cindy Sheehan!
We, Americans living abroad, want to thank you for coming here this week. We thank you for your great dedication.
We hope that all those here today, and all those who could not come personally but are here in spirit, will give you the strength to continue to deliver your message.
We also want you to know about the concerned and informed Europeans among whom we live who overwhelmingly view this war as wrong.
We stand at your side, millions of Americans, whether in the United States or living overseas, with millions of Europeans, laughing with you, crying with you, and, hopefully, working with you to end this war.
from Germany:
American Voices Abroad, Berlin
American Voices Abroad, Hamburg
American Voices Abroad, Heidelberg
American Voices Abroad, Stuttgart
American Voices Abroad, Tuebingen
from France:
Americans Against the War, France
American Voices Abroad, Southwestern France
Americans for Peace and Justice, Montpellier
from Italy:
American Voices Abroad (U.S. Citizens Against War), Florence
American Voices Abroad (U.S Citizens for Peace and Justice), Rome
as well as individual members of the American Voices Abroad Coalition
from the Czech Republic (Prague) and the United Kingdom (London).
Yours,
Ann Wertheimer, Chair AVA-Berlin
www.avaberlin.org
David MacBryde, secretary
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
