People Before Profit blog

LETTERS

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:01:00 +0000

We want to hear from you!

By e-mail: pww @ pww.org Subject: Letter to Editor

Or by mail: People’s Weekly World Letter to Editor 3339 S. Halsted St. Chicago IL 60608

Letters should be limited to 200 words. We reserve the right to edit stories and letters. Only signed letters with the return address of the sender will be considered for publication, but the name of the sender will be withheld on request.

On ‘24’

You have got to be kidding! (Re: “Fox’s ‘24’ fans far-right propaganda” by John Wojcik, PWW 2/3-9 ) Or you’re kidding yourself! With the overwhelmingly liberal entertainment industry, almost all shows of any type slant to the left or even swing way to the left. I’ve noticed this for years. When a show even hints at balance or slants to the right, media establishments go bonkers! What happened to freedom of speech and artistic expression? Oh yeah, that only applies when one has a movie about the assassination of our sitting president, or makes raunchy sex, extreme violence and heavy drug use seem like normal behavior, or bashes Christians and country folk. Give me a break!

Billy Berg Via e-mail

John Wojcik responds: I appreciate your letter. I indicated in the review, however, that Communists don’t support acts of terror, including the assassination of sitting presidents, because such violence and terror cannot substitute for mass action and will be used by the ultra-right as a pretext to limit everyone’s constitutional rights. I also wonder about your assessment that the entertainment industry has always been run by “liberals” or the left. I don’t recall anywhere in the history of the U.S. entertainment industry when the names of right-wing actors and artists were put on blacklists, or that right-wing entertainers were ever hauled before Congress to explain their political affiliation or that right-wingers in Hollywood were ever jailed for their political affiliations.

Yugoslavia’s arms industry

Norman Markowitz’s article on Yugoslavia was excellent (PWW 2/10-16 ). I’m grateful to PWW for being one of the few left papers to take these issues so seriously.

I disagree with Markowitz on one point. Socialist Yugoslavia erred by choosing to develop its arms industry and arms exports at the expense of other industries and forms of development. This was financed by taking on debts which eventually fell on the six constituent republics making up Yugoslavia, but which fell disproportionately on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia. Serbs had indeed taken the brunt of casualties during the anti-fascist struggle — and this justified to some extent Serbian military leadership after the war — but this should not have been confused by Yugoslav Communists with questions of development, debt and trade.

Socialist Yugoslavia also suffered from overestimating its level of development and how firmly socialism had been established there. These mistakes contributed to the premature dissolution of the Communist parties in the republics and autonomous regions and across Yugoslavia itself.

Taken together, all of these errors proved fatal for the country. When the debts came due, the republics and regions turned on one another, and there was no communist party firmly in place to manage the crisis and lead. Supposed long-standing ethnic animosities were then used to explain and justify what were essentially problems of economics, development and leadership. Markowitz got everything else right. The role of imperialism in destroying Yugoslavia has not been adequately studied and Markowitz has made a strong contribution to that effort. I visit the Balkans often and mourn the passing of socialism there.

Bob Rossi Salem OR

Storm clouds ahead on Iran

Thanks, Teresa Albano, for the cogent news analysis on Iran (PWW 2/10-16 ). Congress had better start acting now if we want to avoid war with Iran. The Navy doesn’t like to leave its ships on station for extended periods. Likewise the time appears ripe for the peace movement to regain its own momentum by creating a strategy that acts as a countervailing force to the strategy of the war movement in this country. But as I said, we better do it now. Once an attack against Iran is launched, the whole dynamic will change.

Danny Morales San Diego CA

GM: guilty!

Tim Pelzer’s review of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” (PWW 2/17-23 ) is the best I’ve seen. I’ve read and criticized dozens since the film opened last July. Six months ago I organized the display of two electric cars at the central Florida opening of the film. The director’s name, by the way, is Chris Paine, not “Pain.”

GM unveiled its Chevrolet Volt electric-drive plug-in hybrid a month ago, claiming that it can’t find lithium batteries to power the car. Within a week, GM’s chief vehicle engineer, Nick Zelensky, was quoted in MIT’s Tech Review saying that the required lithium batteries are ready today. Not only that, but Phoenix Motors is installing ten million dollars’ worth of NanoSafe lithium batteries in its electric vehicles this year.

You’ve written what should have been public knowledge six months ago, so I’m giving you a lead to catch up with this year’s GM scandal.

Breathe free,

Hugh E. Webber Winter Park FL Hugh E. Webber heads the Florida Electric Auto Association.

Kudos from Ecuador ... I am an American living in Ecuador and wanted to let you know that I appreciate very much the article on Ecuador, which was dead on target (“Ecuador: dignity, sovereignty on the rise” by W.T. Whitney, PWW 2/17-23 ).

Phillip Batsleer Quito, Ecuador

... and Tasmania Hi, I just wanted to assist if possible. Also I’m looking for ideas on promoting the Communist Party of Australia’s newspaper — The Guardian. I live in Tasmania, Australia. I love PWW and its web site.

Jirri Smith Tasmania, Australia

Colombias Uribe mired in paramilitary scandal

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:28:00 +0000

President Alvaro Uribe’s right-wing Colombian government is dealing with a scandal stemming from revelations of ties between the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces of Colombia and ruling elements in Colombian society.

According to U.S. government sources, the paramilitaries have accounted for over 80 percent of Colombia’s political assassinations and much drug trafficking. Washington’s support for Colombian military and police operations, totaling $3.8 billion over six years, raises questions of U.S. complicity with human rights abuses there.

Under pressure from the Bush administration and facing re-election last year, Uribe made some outward motions ostensibly aimed at controlling the paramilitaries. But his 2005 “Law of Justice and Peace” authorized prosecutors to assign political, rather than criminal, status to paramilitary leaders under investigation. Those who were so classified are now lodged in comfortable jail settings, confident their sentences will be light and their wealth untouched.

Although over 20,000 people left the paramilitary ranks as a result of the pressures, thousands are now reportedly regrouping. They are doing so despite the U.S. government’s pledge of $20 million last year to support their demobilization.

Detainees have admitted to thousands of assassinations. Early in 2006, investigators opened a computer belonging to Rodrigo Tovar, known as “Jorge 40.” The public learned about 558 killings in two years, government contracts with paramilitaries, drug trading records and evidence of paramilitary ties with elected officials, policemen, big landowners and businesspersons.

Sacked high-level security service operatives last year told journalists of secret police collaboration with paramilitaries in killings and intimidation of civilians and protection of drug merchants. Allegations surfaced of links between U.S. drug enforcement agents and paramilitaries.

Last month former paramilitary chieftain Salvatore Mancuso handed the prosecutor a document he and 31 others signed in 2001 to fashion a “new social contract.” Signatories included paramilitaries, four senators, eight representatives, two governors, four mayors and cattle ranchers. Mancuso himself admitted to ordering kidnappings, massacres and the murder of 336 individuals.

On Feb. 15 the Supreme Court authorized the arrests of four senators and two representatives close to the paramilitaries. One, Sen. Alvaro Araujo, is the brother of Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Araujo. The latter resigned Feb. 19. Four other congresspersons were arrested last November.

Prior to self-exile in 2002 due to death threats, journalist Fernando Garavito, collaborating with Newsweek reporter Joseph Contreras, documented the association of President Uribe and family with the Ochoa drug lords and Pablo Escobar.

In July 2004, Uribe rejected as unsubstantiated a declassified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document stating, “Alvaro Uribe used high government offices to collaborate with the Medellin cartel.” The document adds, “Uribe was implicated with drug dealing activities in the United States.”

The president’s brother, Santiago Uribe, has repeatedly been accused of having set up a paramilitary group that murdered peasants. Two first cousins spent a year in jail for paramilitary killings in Antioquia.

Senator Gustavo Petro recently called for congressional debate on paramilitary activities in Antioquia while Uribe was governor there. He also reminded an El Tiempo interviewer about Santiago Uribe’s paramilitary past. Now he’s in trouble.

In a Feb. 3 television interview, Uribe designated Petro and other leftist legislators as “terrorists dressed in civilian clothes.” He alleged their association with the M-19 guerilla group of the 1980s. Government opponents took the remark as an invitation to murder.

They were harking back to the 1985 slaughter of more than 5,000 Patriotic Union and Communist Party militants. The Patriotic Union was a united front joining left-wing armed insurgents with a range of democratic forces to engage in electoral politics

Gustavo Petro is a leader of the Democratic Alternative Pole (PDA), another unity coalition of smaller left parties, unions and social movements. On Feb. 9, 4,000 PDA activists protested in Bogota against Uribe’s anti-terrorist hyperbole. Union head Julio Roberto Gómez told reporters that “behind the [Uribe] aggressions is fear that the PDA, the people of Colombia, might take power in 2010, and on that count they want to polarize the country, fill it with fear.”

The PDA projects demonstrations on May 1 and May 23, and later on, a nationwide general strike. Meanwhile the Colombian Defense Minister has asked the Bush administration for $44 billion over the next decade.

atwhit @ megalink.net

NATIONAL CLIPS

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:14:00 +0000

CARSON CITY, Nev.: Do the right thing for homeless

Tents and cardboard shelters sprouted up on the lot next to the state’s Legislative Building, Feb. 18, as over 200 homeless people, advocates, religious leaders and three state legislators demanded that the state provide $20 million to care for people without a roof over their heads.

“I have my tent and sleeping bag,” said Assemblyman David Parks. “I think this will definitely draw attention to the homeless issue.”

When Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) presented his $6.5 billion budget to the Legislature, not one dime was earmarked for homeless residents.

State Rep. Sheila Leslie (D) spoke to reporters as she set up her tent. She introduced legislation for increased funding. Leslie works for the mental health court in Washoe County and has seen firsthand how a safe place to sleep and call home can turn lives around.

“We have seen homeless people who in a year or a year and a half you never would have known they were homeless,” she said. “I know it can be done. It is the right thing to do.”

Former state Veteran Services Executive Director Chuck Fulkerson was another camper. Dressed in his Army uniform, he said, “I am here because there are 200,000 veterans tonight across the country who are homeless.”

FRANKFORT, Ky.: Look homeward, Sen. McConnell

As the Senate was preparing to vote Feb. 17 on a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush’s 21,000-troop surge to Iraq, the Louisville Courier-Journal released its “Bluegrass poll” indicating 61 percent of the state’s residents said no to the increase. Specifically, 54 percent said Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, should have voted yes to the resolution.

McConnell and 21 other GOP senators will have to defend their seats in 2008.

Being out of step with constituents didn’t seem to bother McConnell. “I think I can say pretty confidently that nothing that happens in February ’07 is likely to be the defining issue in November ’08,” he said.

Yet, even right-wing political observers believe that to be wishful thinking. While conditions in Iraq can change, the odds seem to be “better than even that Iraq’s a worse mess a year from now than it is today,” said Norman Ornstein, senior analyst with the American Enterprise Institute.

MESA, Ariz.: Councilman refuses pledge to protest war

City Councilman Tom Rawles voted for Bush in 2000, soured on the Iraq invasion and voted for someone else in 2004. In the wake of the president’s escalation plan, Rawles decided to boycott the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each council meeting. Beginning with the Jan. 22 meeting, Rawles kept his seat and remained silent during the pledge. He vowed to continue the protest until the troops come home.

Mesa, near Phoenix, is considered a conservative city of 400,000. Forty-eight percent of voters are registered Republican and 26 percent are registered Libertarian. Rawles has faced criticism — and even death threats — for his stance.

“Standing for the pledge and reciting the pledge is very much a public demonstration of support of what’s going on,” Rawles said. “It doesn’t mean I’m disloyal to my country or that I don’t love my country. If I don’t have the freedom to not stand for the pledge, standing for the pledge means absolutely nothing.”

BOULDER, Colo.: Old enough to serve, old enough to be elected

Eighteen-year-olds pay taxes and serve in the state’s National Guard but are denied the right to run for the state Legislature. That struck state Rep. Michael Garcia, 32, as wrong. He will introduce a law into the Legislature to lower the age from 25 to 18 for candidates seeking a seat.

“This is an issue of fairness and equity,” said Garcia, who was elected at age 26 and teaches at the University of Colorado (CU). The measure has picked up support from a group called Coloradans for Equal Representation.

“It’s essentially taxation without representation,” said CU sophomore Ryan Biehle, 20. Biehle serves as legislative affairs director for the school’s student government.

Approval by the state House would only be the first step. Ultimately, voters would have to change the state constitution to lower the age requirement for state office.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696 @ aol.com).

LETTERS

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 09:57:00 +0000

We want to hear from you!

By e-mail: pww @ pww.org Subject: Letter to Editor

Or by mail: People’s Weekly World Letter to Editor 3339 S. Halsted St. Chicago IL 60608

Letters should be limited to 200 words. We reserve the right to edit stories and letters. Only signed letters with the return address of the sender will be considered for publication, but the name of the sender will be withheld on request.

Labor and sustainability

I grabbed a bundle of People’s Weekly World newspapers to distribute at the Twin Cities’ Labor and Sustainability Conference.

Fighting against environmental destruction and saving union jobs through labor and community alliances was the major theme. The conference, which was hosted at the United Auto Workers Local 879 union hall, united some 200 union members with peace and environmental activists in a weekend discussion around environmental and labor issues of common concern.

Jack Rasmus, author of “The War at Home: The Corporate Offensive from Reagan to Bush,” was the keynote speaker. He linked the struggle against global warming to a stronger labor movement.

Workshops featured Lynn Hinckle, the health and safety representative for UAW Local 879, speaking of the need to save union jobs at the local Ford plant by converting the closing plant to a green manufacturing operation.

Michelle Sommers, president of ATU 1005, spoke of supporting the bus drivers union as part of the need to expand clean mass transit.

The issues of the People’s Weekly World which I had brought were very warmly received by the working-class conference attendees.

Michael Wood St. Paul MN

Global warning

I think that President Bush is delaying work on global warming because he is waiting for people to be in shock because of the effects of global warming.

If we do nothing about global warming, then we will soon have a “Katrina” a month, as well as drought, flood and weekly tsunamis. This is worse than 9/11 and real, while the weapons of mass destruction were mythical.

Science News and the American Academy of Science reported in November that global warming could be reduced by putting mirrors in space that would deflect sunlight away from earth. The cost would be “several trillion dollars.”

President Bush might believe that this trillion dollar rip-off would succeed even though the billion dollar rip-off of Iraq is partly failing.

Halliburton has everything to gain and nothing to lose by delaying work on global warming.

Jim Harris Sacramento CA

Re: Iran article

Thanks for Teresa Albano’s article “War with Iran? Not if Congress acts” (PWW 2/10-16). Good. This issue really is urgent and will soon overshadow all others. This is what we need to see in these pages. And coming from the mouth of Brzezinski no less.

There is still the question of what Bush will do if he can’t subdue Iran with just air power. Where will he get the large army he would need to tackle Iran on the ground? We can be sure Bush is thinking about that. We should be too.

Chris Horton Via e-mail

Torture in U.S. jails

Edgar Pitts’ letter to the editor (PWW 2/3-9) about torture in U.S. prisons is right on the mark. Except sometimes this torture isn’t done by the guards themselves, but by sadistic inmates they put up to it.

I was brutalized by an inmate who alleged the guards wanted it done after I’d agreed to be a witness for another inmate who had been badly beaten by the guards. Indeed, jail personnel witnessed this brutality and made no effort to stop it. Neither the judge at my extradition hearing nor the officers who escorted me to court would intervene despite my public protestation regarding the matter. This happened in 1980-81 in Louisiana while awaiting extradition to Texas for a matter there.

They had a lot of practice abusing inmates in U.S. institutions before bringing their act overseas. Of course there is no sort of “bad torture” and then “really bad torture” — it’s all terrible. Comparison that would disguise that fact should be dismissed out of hand. It’s illegal to torture.

David Tyler Via e-mail

On Aristotle

According to Matt Parker’s article “Aristotle and the Internet” (PWW 1/13-19), Aristotle “thought that the population of states could never grow larger than the few thousand who could be directly seen and addressed in one place.” This misleads readers into thinking that Aristotle believed in some kind of natural limit to the population of states or that he was asserting this limit as some kind of historical fact. In speaking of limits to the population of states, Aristotle was thinking of an ideal state which he indeed held should have no more than the number of citizens that could be gathered in one place. Aristotle didn’t mean that states couldn’t be larger than that; he meant they shouldn’t be larger, otherwise it would be impossible to govern them properly. Furthermore, in discussing the population of his ideal state, Aristotle was talking about the proper number of citizens, i.e., those who would have political rights and participate in government. He held that artisans, farmers, tradesmen and of course slaves could never be citizens because their way of life, characterized by manual labor and the absence of leisure, was “ignoble and inimical to excellence.” Thus Aristotle’s ideal state consisted of a ruling class of a few thousand citizens supported by much larger numbers of disenfranchised workers, peasants and slaves.

For the full discussion, see Aristotle’s “Politics,” Book VII, Chapters 4-9.

David Pena West Palm Beach FL

Take action

If you live in Illinois, here is something you can do to improve the environment:

Go to . There are petitions to sign, letters to the governor and representatives. Do something now!

Marlene Scofield Oak Park IL

DVDs available

Thank you for your article on the DEFA [“The Legendary East German Studio”] Film Collection in “Don’t miss these remarkable films” by Victor Grossman (PWW 2/10-16). I wanted to make sure you were aware that the DEFA films are now available on DVD from First Run Features. You can visit our web site at for more information.

Kelly Hargraves Via e-mail Kelly Hargraves is a publicist for First Run Features.

NATIONAL CLIPS

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:43:00 +0000

FORT LEWIS, Wash: Mistrial in Watada case

The court-martial of the first Army officer to refuse to go to Iraq because he felt the war was illegal ended in a mistrial, Feb. 7. Last June, Lt. Ehren Watada refused to board an Iraq-bound plane, saying, “An order to take part in an illegal war is unlawful in itself.”

Watada’s mother Carolyn Ho said, “I continue to remain hopeful my son will be exonerated.”

Retired Army Col. Ann Wright called the Army’s case “a mess,” adding it reflects the “mess in Iraq.” Wright resigned a diplomatic post in protest against the invasion of Iraq.

Military judge Lt. Col. John Head, who declared the mistrial, set a mid-March retrial date, but legal experts expect that date to change and some say a trial may not occur at all. Noting that a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime, University of Washington law professor John Junker said a new trial for Watada would constitute “double jeopardy.”

National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn, who was scheduled to testify in Watada’s defense, said his “orders to deploy were unlawful, and Lt. Watada had a duty to disobey them.”

FRANKFORT, Ky.: Students demand funding for colleges

Hundreds of students from the state’s public universities packed the Capitol gallery and knocked on legislator’s doors demanding restoration of higher education funding cuts.

In the last decade, students said, their college costs have increased 145 percent. Kentucky is running a $401 million surplus.

“We want more attention paid to higher education,” said University of Kentucky student body President Jonah Brown. “We want a commitment from our state legislators and the governor’s office that higher education is going to remain a top priority in the budget.”

University of Louisville students carried signs and handed out leaflets tying cuts and lack of funding to tuition increases.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.: Mayor vetoes ‘English only’ ordinance

“If this ordinance becomes law, Nashville will be a less safe, less friendly and less successful city,” said Mayor Bill Purcell as he vetoed a measure that would have made English the city’s official language. “This ordinance does not reflect who we are in Nashville.”

The city’s Metro Council passed the measure 23-14 earlier this month. Councilman Eric Crafton, who sponsored the ordinance, claimed it would encourage immigrants to learn English. But the Chamber of Commerce said it would hurt the city’s image as “Music City, USA.”

Other smaller communities have enacted such ordinances including Pahrump, Nev., Taneytown, Md., and Farmers Branch, Texas, a Dallas suburb.

Nashville, a city of 600,000, is home to the largest Kurdish community in the U.S. and is a resettlement site for refugees from Africa and Southeast Asia. The city’s foreign born population has grown 350 percent since 1990.

FARGO, N.D.: Park free or die

It is against state law for a city or municipality to install parking meters on their streets and a recent effort by the state Legislature to change the law drew fighting words from politicians and residents around the state. “I would fight it with every bone in my body,” said Sen. JoNell Bakke (D-Grand Forks). She is the granddaughter of the originator of the ban, Howard Henry.

In the state’s largest city, Fargo, city planners said since the city is experiencing a revival, some believe parking needs regulation. “There is an amply supply of parking downtown,” said city planner Bob Stein. “But the expectation among a lot of people is that if they have to drive around to find a space, there isn’t enough.” Parking is limited to 90 minutes in Fargo, and downtown workers take many spaces. Stein said that workers run out every hour or so to move their cars or erase the chalk marks from tires. A ticket in Fargo is $10.

TAMPA, Fla.: Al-Arian hunger strike protests ‘abuse of power’

Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor targeted by the Justice Department as part of the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” began a second hunger strike Jan. 22 to protest federal prosecutors’ insistence he testify against others in violation of a plea agreement.

Under the agreement, which Al-Arian said he accepted in order to spare his family further anguish, he would have been released from prison on April 13 and deported. However, Al-Arian refused to testify before a Virginia grand jury and was immediately cited for civil contempt after the judge denied his request for a delay. This judge’s hostility toward Islam and Arabs is well known.

Al-Arian’s first hunger strike began with his incarceration in 2003 and lasted 140 days. Al-Arian, who is a diabetic, lost 45 pounds and was hospitalized.

The Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace called the latest developments “an outrageous display of government … abuse of power.”

“In spite of an agreement intended to resolve his case once and for all, the government has continued to harass Dr. Al-Arian and mire him further in legal purgatory,” the group charged. The coalition called on the government to end its “vindictive campaign” against Al-Arian.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696 @ aol.com). Lawrence Albright contributed to this week’s clips.

Charges vs. Iran recall pre-Iraq-war hysteria

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:25:00 +0000

The danger of a U.S. attack on Iran appears to be mounting following a series of increasingly aggressive Bush administration actions.

On Feb. 11, U.S. military officials staged a tightly controlled news briefing in Baghdad, presenting purported evidence that Iran is providing new weaponry targeting U.S. troops in Iraq. The officials insisted on anonymity, barred cameras from the briefing room and provided no transcript of their statements. Without offering any direct evidence, an official said, “We assess that these activities are coming from senior levels of the Iranian government.”

British journalist Patrick Cockburn, writing in the UK Independent, called the allegations “bizarre.” He and many other commentators noted that the U.S. has been fighting a Sunni-based armed insurgency in Iraq that is “deeply hostile to Iran.”

According to Cockburn, about 1,190 U.S. soldiers have been killed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Most of these devices are constructed from heavy explosives taken from the arsenals of the former regime, he said. The term the Bush administration is now using, explosive formed penetrators (EFPs), “may have been chosen to imply that a menacing new weapon has been developed.”

A Feb. 10 New York Times article uncritically reported the U.S. claims about the new explosive device. Buried in the article is the acknowledgment that its “first suspected use” in Iraq “occurred in late 2003” and that it has been used ever since.

Asking “why now?” about these U.S. accusations, BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds writes, “The fear among some is that the U.S. is softening up world opinion for an attack on Iran.” The allegations about Iranian weapons killing U.S. troops “could be laying the groundwork for a ‘self-defense’ justification,” he notes. Another possible motive, he suggests, is “the old tactic of blaming someone else for your own problems” in Iraq.

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group Report recommended that the U.S. begin “extensive and substantive” talks with Iran and Syria, with no preconditions, to solve the Iraq crisis. Instead, commented Cockburn, President Bush has taken “a precisely opposite line, blaming Iran and Syria for U.S. losses in Iraq.”

Navid Shomali, international secretary of Iran’s Tudeh (Communist) Party, said the administration has chosen to try to “coerce” Iran into “accepting U.S. hegemony in the Middle East.”

Any intensification of military conflict in the region is against the interests of the people of Iran, the region and the globe, Shomali emphasized.

Iraqi Communist Party spokesperson Salam Ali warned that Bush’s aggressive policy toward Iran “could aggravate an already volatile situation in the whole region,” especially in the Persian Gulf states where fears of Iranian influence are being “fueled and exploited by the U.S. administration.”

The anonymous Feb. 11 briefing sparked wide skepticism. David Kay, who headed the Bush administration’s fruitless search for WMDs in Iraq, commented to a New York Times reporter, “If you want to avoid the perception that you’ve cooked the books, you come out and make the charges publicly.”

Coincidentally or not, a new report by the Pentagon’s own inspector general confirms that the Defense Department did “cook the books” to sell the Iraq war.

The report, made public Feb. 8, said the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, set up by Donald Rumsfeld and headed by his undersecretary of defense, Douglas Feith, had developed and disseminated “alternative intelligence assessments” on an Iraq-Al Qaeda-9/11 link, including conclusions that were “inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community.”

Last May, the Los Angeles Times reported that the administration had set up new Pentagon and State Department offices on Iran, intensifying a “more confrontational stance” toward that country.

The Pentagon’s new Iran “directorate” staff and advisers included former Office of Special Plans director Abram Shulsky and others involved with the discredited OSP.

The State Department’s Iran office was to report to Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Elizabeth Cheney, Dick Cheney’s daughter.

Last fall, some CIA and State Department officials told reporters they feared there would be a replay of the administration’s previous intelligence manipulation.

Commenting on the new accusations on Iran’s role in Iraq, journalist Cockburn concluded, “The evidence against Iran is even more insubstantial than the faked or mistaken evidence for Iraqi WMDs disseminated by the United States and Britain in 2002 and 2003.”

Other recent provocative U.S. actions are also raising warning flags.

On Jan. 11 the U.S. raided an Iranian government office in Arbil, the Iraqi Kurdish capital, and arrested five Iranian officials, despite objections by Iraq’s government. An Iranian diplomat was kidnapped in Baghdad, possibly by members of an Iraqi military unit under U.S. influence.

Last month the Reuters news agency noted a U.S. military buildup along the Black Sea, coupled with the recent move of two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups into the Persian Gulf close to Iran.

Reuters cited a Bulgarian news agency report that the Bush administration could be planning to use two new U.S. Air Force bases in Bulgaria and one in Romania to launch an attack on Iran in April.

“In conjunction with the beefing up of America’s Italian bases and the acquisition of anti-missile defense bases in the Czech Republic and Poland, the Balkan developments seem to indicate a new phase in Bush’s global war on terror,” said Reuters.

suewebb @ pww.org

LETTERS

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:42:00 +0000

Support Agustin Aguayo

At the rally for Lt. Watada, I heard both the wife and mother of war resister Agustin Aguayo speak. It was really moving. His wife asked that we ask everyone we know to go to the website “Aguayodefense.org” and send him an auto-postcard of support so he knows how many people are behind him.

He’s being held in Germany. There’s a special box for the postcard info which leads you to a German peace site, which is pretty easy to figure out. You can either send the canned message or add your own words.

Erika Hamerquist Sequim WA

For more information on Aguayo you can read Rosalio Muñoz’s story “Ready for court-martial, but not return to war” (PWW 9/30-10/6, 2006) at

Free Leonard Peltier

We are pleased to announce the new Friends of Peltier web site at

Friends of Peltier is an independent volunteer organization that supports freedom for political prisoner and Native American activist Leonard Peltier and works in solidarity with other individuals and organizations that share our goal. Visit the web site to find out how you can help win Peltier’s freedom. Everyone is welcome in The Circle.

John Gallagher Woonsocket RI

Don’t let Lieberman give Bush a pass on Katrina

Unbelievable. Ten months ago, Sen. Joe Lieberman blasted the White House for obstructing a Senate committee’s investigation into the federal response to Katrina. Now he controls that committee, but instead of forcing the White House to participate, he’s called off the investigation altogether! Lieberman is sidestepping his responsibility to hold the White House accountable and betraying the citizens of the Gulf Coast. I’ve joined ColorOfChange.org in calling him out and demanding that others in Congress conduct a full investigation if he won’t. I wanted to invite you to do the same.

Before last year’s election, Lieberman talked like someone who cared about the people of the Gulf, and about accountability. Then, Bush helped Lieberman win re-election in November — bringing Republican contributors to his campaign and pulling support from Lieberman’s Republican challenger.

Now it seems Lieberman cares more about protecting the White House. Worse, no other elected official is stepping up to do what Lieberman won’t. It’s Congress’s duty to exercise oversight over the White House when there’s a failure — especially a massive failure like the one we saw with Katrina.

Congress has a duty to investigate what went wrong.

Carrie Anne Johnson Via e-mail

Bill Clinton was no angel...

In your editorial “The corpse of habeas corpus’” (PWW 10/7-23, 2006), you assume the writ of habeas corpus has only recently been put to rest as a result of the Bush administration and “Republican senators.”

I beg you to note, however, that the writ of habeas corpus was all but annihilated in 1996 as a result of the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, drafted by the Clinton/Reno Justice Department and passed on not only by Republican Senators but right-wing Clintonesque Democrats.

That legislation applies to all U.S. prisoners, whether they are citizens or not, state and federal, and basically denies the innocent and wrongfully convicted of any chance of habeas relief unless their petition is filed within one year from date of conviction, and even then poses often insurmountable obstacles.

Tens of thousands innocents were wrongfully convicted without a forum for review of their illegal convictions as a result of this right-wing Democratic legislation.

It is notable that this legislation immediately followed the 1995 Prison Litigation Reform Act, also pushed through by the Clinton/Reno Justice Department and right-wing “tough on crime” Democrats. That act makes it impossible for all but the most skilled and educated jailhouse lawyers to complain in federal court about constitutional violations suffered by prisoners.

By no means is it my intent to justify any of the well-documented Bush regime atrocities. At the same time, even and especially during election time, we should not ignore the fact that so often right-wing Clintonesque Democrats have been there first. At some point, we have to be true and honest with ourselves and with Democrats; we have to be socialists.

Mark Jordan Florence CO

.…But Bush is worse

Fellow Americans wake up! Bush lied to you. He had Condi Rice show you the mushroom cloud, saying we could be the victims of a nuclear attack if he didn’t invade Iraq to take out their nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction.” He couldn’t wait for the UN inspectors to do their job.

He had to get Saddam Hussein because he was in cahoots with those who attacked us on 9/11, even though Hussein had nothing to do with that attack, and actually was also hated by them.

Bush has defiled our Constitution and our laws by torturing and confining people for years without trial or legal representation at Guantanamo and in other parts of the world.

The only solution: bring the troops home now; impeach and then jail Bush for his monstrous crimes against humanity and the American people in particular; apologize to the people of Iraq for his crimes. Then meet with Iran, Syria and other nations to build a “new world order” based on equality, respect and love for all — because we are all God’s children.

Walter Pietch Bay Shore NY

NATIONAL CLIPS

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 07:19:00 +0000

RICHMOND, Va.: Immigrant workers protest state crackdown

Carrying signs reading “No human being is illegal,” undocumented workers and immigrant rights activists marched on the state General Assembly, Feb. 3, to halt a spate of legislation targeting them. Modeled after measures in other Southern states, Virginia’s General Assembly is debating measures that would deny undocumented workers public services, make it illegal to be in the state or even travel through it without immigration documents, and empower local police to enforce federal immigration laws.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 200,000–250,000 undocumented workers live in Virginia. The University of Virginia reports 10 percent of the state’s 7.6 million residents are foreign born.

Construction worker Ricardo Juarez told reporters, “The borders can be moved at any time, but we are all humans.”

Perry King, a social worker, charged that an “unjust immigration policy” breaks up families. “I’ve seen a lot of depression and sadness because of it.”

The Rev. J.P. Hong, a naturalized citizen from Korea whose Culmore Methodist Church congregation includes worshippers from 20 countries, marched, saying that profiling immigrants “forces us to stop what we’re doing or ask ourselves, ‘What is the higher law we have to obey?’”

RALEIGH, N.C.: NAACP marches for people before profits

Under the banners of the NAACP and 30 social action organizations, state residents converged on Jones Street outside the Legislature, Feb. 10, saying “Jones Street belongs to the people and not to the rich.” The campaign, Historic Thousands on Jones Street, will present lawmakers with a 14-point “People’s Program” starting with “high quality, well-funded, diverse schools.” Other demands include livable wages, health care, redress of two ugly chapters in state history — the overthrow of the biracial 1898 Wilmington government and forced sterilization of poor, mainly Black women from 1947 to 1977, collective bargaining rights for public workers and bringing the troops home from Iraq now.

“We intend to fight for these agenda items to be made real in a democracy in North Carolina,” said Dr. William Barber, state NAACP president. “Our goals are very clear — we want to remind the General Assembly and many others that … Jones Street belongs to everyday folk, not to the people who pay their way to play inside our General Assembly.”

PORTLAND, Ore.: Grannies go to jail

Since Bush announced his Iraq troop escalation three weeks ago, the Portland Surge Brigade, including six “Grannies” — women ranging in age from 49 to 75 — have demonstrated outside the Armed Forces Career Center. On Feb. 2, the Grannies decided to block the entrance. They were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer. Their court date is March 7.

“It’s very simple,” said Patricia Schwiebert, 61. “We just don’t want our children coming in here and getting enlisted.”

Linda Weiner, 49, added, “It’s worth it if we kept one person from being recruited, one more person going over to Iraq, yes. Absolutely.”

The Surge Brigade plans to continue the recruitment center protests.

BALTIMORE: Homeless workers fill shelters

Just before temperatures took a nosedive, about 100 volunteers took to the streets Jan. 26 to conduct a biennial census of the homeless. In 2003, the count reported 2,600 people without a permanent roof over their head. In 2005, the number rose to 3,000. This year’s data will not be available until spring.

In some ways, the frigid cold was “fitting” for this count, said Madeleine Shea, acting director of the city’s Homeless Services, which funds nonprofits that serve homeless people. “It’s good to be reminded of the conditions in which homeless people live. The cost of housing is going up and that influences homelessness.”

Adam Schneider, who works at the Health Care for Homeless, was one census volunteer. While interviewing Marie Thomas, 33, he found out that she was a trained day care worker who had fled an abusive husband. Currently earning $8 an hour as a part-time receptionist at a medical clinic, Thomas has been spending her evenings at Christ Lutheran Place, a shelter, for the past eight months.

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty estimated in 2004 that 13 percent of Americans, 37 million people, including over 1 million children, experience homelessness at least once in any year. Soaring housing prices, fewer affordable apartments and declining wages are all factors that the center cites.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696 @ aol.com).

Judge declares mistrial on Watada case

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 14:03:00 +0000

FORT LEWIS, Wash. (AP) - The judge overseeing the court martial of an Army lieutenant who refused to deploy to Iraq declared a mistrial Wednesday, saying the soldier did not fully understand a document he signed admitting to elements of the charges. Military judge Lt. Col. John Head announced the decision after 1st Lt. Ehren Watada said he never intended to admit he had a duty to go to Iraq with his fellow soldiers - one element of the crime of missing troop movement. Head set a March 12 date for a new trial and dismissed the jurors.

Watada, 28, of Honolulu, had been expected to testify in his own defense Wednesday until Head and attorneys met in a closed meeting for much of the morning.

Watada is the first commissioned officer to be court-martialed for refusing to go to Iraq, said Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice in Washington, D.C.

In the 12-page stipulation of fact he signed last month, Watada acknowledged that he refused to deploy last June with his unit, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, and that he made public statements criticizing the Iraq war. Watada has said he refused to go to Iraq because he believes the war is illegal.

In exchange, prosecutors dropped two charges of conduct unbecoming an officer against him. He remains charged with missing movement - for his refusal to deploy - and two other allegations of conduct unbecoming an officer for comments made about the case. He could receive four years in prison and a dishonorable discharge if convicted.

LETTERS

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:12:00 +0000

Remember Cuba

I thank letter writer Bernadette Geller (PWW 1/13-19) for codifying in list form the leaders and nations in Latin and South America that have swerved left these past few years, and are moving in the direction of people-oriented governments and economies. There have even been those heads of state that have been re-elected with substantial mandates.

But there was one thing omitted in Geller’s comments. Each and every country that are throwing the yoke of U.S. imperialism off their backs, turned toward someone. As psychiatrist/scholar Carl Jung, a disbeliever in coincidence, would have said, it is entirely synchronized. What each country has in common is either a visit from or a visit to the very vibrant leader of Cuba and its revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz. Perhaps those 10 administrations that kept warning us of Fidel’s specter and maintained the illegal and immoral U.S. genocidal blockade had it right all along. They were telling us we had to stop Castro’s sword when it was his pen all along that was mightier and obviously his only weapon.

As the working people of the world wish for Fidel’s speedy recovery, this accomplishment must not be forgotten.

Don Sloan, MD New York NY

New aristocracy

You know why this country was founded? So people could get away from King George and the English Church, plus the Catholic Church of Europe. The United States was founded so people would have freedom from the aristocracy of Europe and give ourselves more happiness.

Now we have our own aristocracy called the corporate oligarchy of our rich ruling class. Billionaires and millionaires just like the old aristocracy of Europe who think they own the United States, the whole world and the whole universe.

Daniel Gawain Waters Troy MT

Danger: Fox news

The following letter was sent to Fox News.

Dear Fox News, On your web site you asked readers to tell you if Venezuela is a threat to American democracy, now that they are proceeding with the construction of socialism after the voters gave the government a mandate for socialism with Chavez’s landslide victory.

Socialist Venezuela threatens a lot of things: it threatens to end poverty in Venezuela, it threatens to bring the country’s vast natural resources under the democratic control of the Venezuelan people, it threatens to give the woman of Venezuela equality. But does Venezuela threaten American democracy? No.

Fox News, on the other hand, with its ultra-right spin on the news, its attempt to censor progressive ideas, its stumping and blanket support for the Republican Party, and its frankly racist attempts to convince the American people that the development of democracy in Venezuela is a threat to democracy in America — for all of that, Fox News is the real threat to American democracy, not Venezuela.

Matt Parker New York NY

…and CNN

The following is a protest letter sent to CNN.

Sirs: I was at the massive anti-war march in Washington on Saturday. Your “coverage” later that evening was a disservice to our country and to the truth. It did not matter to you that some 400,000 Americans from every region, representing all ages, all races, religious and secular, military and civilian, marched on Congress. These patriots took a stand for democracy and peace. How dare you give co-equal coverage to a group of 15 right-wing psychopaths hanging Jane Fonda in effigy? How dare you run stock “Hanoi Jane” footage from the early 1970s. What a sick concept of “balance” you have. How dare you give ample airtime to the hawkish American Enterprise Institute ideologue lecturing us contemptuously as if we were fools. Why didn’t you give our rally leaders equal airtime? Your correspondent on the National Mall was manifestly hostile and grudging in his reportage. This is a new low for CNN. Your performance was worse than “low standards.” This was journalistic malpractice. Fox News continues to drag you down. Shame on you.

Joe Jamison Bayside NY

Torture ‘perfected’ in U.S.

Re: Tim Wheeler’s article “Outrage over Bush’s bid to OK torture” (PWW 9/23-29/06): The outrage over the torture of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other unknown prisons around the world is selective. Because right here in America torture is being carried out on American soil. But where is the outrage?

In 1995, I was a prisoner at the federal prison at Lompoc, Calif., when the riot over the unjust and draconian crack cocaine law broke out. During this riot, I was subdued by several guards. And while I was hog-tied, I was beaten until I lost consciousness, only to be awakened by a chemical that almost choked me to death.

I, along with many others, was taken to the segregation housing unit where the torture continued. We were stripped down to just our T-shirts and boxer shorts and thrown into cells with no blankets or sheets. The windows facing the cells were then open to allow the cold air to refrigerate the entire cell block. We had to tear open the mattresses in our cells and use them as sleeping bags to attempt to keep from freezing to death.

In light of this degrading treatment, I find it almost hypocritical for people to be outraged about torture abroad while the “art” is being perfected here in the torture chambers of America for export.

Edgar Pitts Florence CO

Save lives, save jobs

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 08:46:00 +0000

Dennis Gannon, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, opposes drastic Cook County budget cuts at a rally of hundreds in Chicago, Jan. 29. “This is all about saving jobs and about the future of our communities. It’s time that the little people’s voices are heard,” he said. Cook County Board President Todd Stroger proposed slashing the county budget which would close 16 clinics and eliminate up to 6,500 jobs. Union members and community groups have led a surge of protests against the cuts.

We made some noise

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 08:40:00 +0000

Worker's Correspondence

Gov. Matt “Baby” Blunt — the jackass himself — will do anything to win the support of right-wing, anti-union forces in Missouri. This year he’s going to try to lay off state workers left and right. Currently, there are over 300,000 state workers. He wants to cut us down to 65,000.

That’s a big chunk of workers to put out of a job! He must really love what he does! But we’re still standing. The union is still standing. Especially at Bellefontaine Rehabilitation Center. Gov. Blunt has been trying to close Bellefontaine for years. And that is why we filled up that bus — dietary, maintenance, housekeeping — we all showed up, we lobbied, made some noise and gave Gov. Blunt a nice, warm welcoming at his state-of-the-state address.

This is too important. We really need to come together and fight this stupidity. We can’t let Blunt and his rich friends win!

— Darryl Howard, Bellefontaine Rehab worker, member of AFSCME 2730