Re: Building a Movement That Outlasts the Occupation
At the risk of a round of raspberries I'll tell my Cambodia story. I was a thoroughly cynical campus radical when Nixon did his television number on why he had to invade Cambodia, to protect American lives. I was in my dorm with none-too-radical dorm-mates. After it was over I said ho-hum and went back to my room. Can't remember what I was doing. An hour later I get a phone call from a friend at the Campus Center. The place was in an uproar. Hundreds of people had converged there to discuss what to do. Max, get over here! Oh, okay. Moral: you can get too far ahead of the masses. mbs - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 7:02 PM Subject: Re: Building a Movement That Outlasts the Occupation Joanna writes: What's new is that somebody seems to care. Somehow, this seems to be turning out to be the final straw. It was about time. So, I understand that it is not really new as does most of the left, but this is an inadequate response. If the media is actually willing to report this story, what good does it do for the left to say Ah, that's nothing, think about the prisons in the U.S., and the School of the Americas, etc.? that's right. We have to be clear not only about what we think and know, but about what people outside of the left are thinking and knowing. That helps us bring them over to our side. Jim Devine
Mea culpa from George Packer
George Packer was one of the most visible Cruise Missile leftists backing the war in Iraq. As as sign of the times, this is a snippet from a piece he has in the current issue of the New Yorker, which also has part 2 of Seymour Hersh's series on torture of Iraqi prisoners. Yet perhaps the greatest mistake made by the architects of the war was to assume that their vision of a liberal state would be eagerly embraced by an ethnically divided, overwhelmingly Islamic country with a long history of dictatorship. The Coalition Provisional Authority managed the occupation as if benevolent American intentions guaranteed success. Giving Iraqis a chance to experience and participate in democracy became less important than achieving a desired outcome. As a result, Paul Bremer and his colleagues failed to anticipate the level of resistance that would emanate from Iraqs various factionsin particular, the Shia. full: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040517fa_fact -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
remember Falluja
Ha'aretz [Jerusalem]/April 28, 2004 Remember Falluja By Orit Shohat During the first two weeks of this month, the American army committed war crimes in Falluja on a scale unprecedented for this war. According to the relatively few media reports of what took place there, some 600 Iraqis were killed during these two weeks, among them some 450 elderly people, women and children. The sight of decapitated children, the rows of dead women and the shocking pictures of the soccer stadium that was turned into a temporary grave for hundreds of the slain - all were broadcast to the world only by the Al Jazeera network. During the operation in Falluja, according to the organization Doctors Without Borders, U.S. Marines even occupied the hospitals and prevented hundreds of the wounded from receiving medical treatment. Snipers fired from the rooftops at anyone who tried to approach. This was a retaliatory operation, carried out by the Marines, accompanied by F-16 fighter planes and assault helicopters, under the code name Vigilant Resolve. It was revenge for the killing of four American security guards on March 31. But while the killing of the guards, whose bodies were dragged through the streets of the city and then hung from a bridge, received wide media coverage, and thus prepared hearts and minds for the military revenge, the hundreds of victims of the American retaliation were practically a military secret. The only conclusion that has been drawn thus far from the indiscriminate killing in Falluja is the expulsion of Al Jazeera from the city. Since the start of the war, the Americans have persecuted the network's journalists - not because they report lies, but because they are virtually the only ones who manage to report the truth. The Bush administration, in cooperation with the American media, is trying to hide the sights of war from the world, and particularly from American voters. This week, for the first time, the Americans permitted pictures to be published of the coffins of dead American soldiers being sent back home. Until this week, such pictures were forbidden. Therefore, it is no wonder Bush's poll results are better than ever, even though the number of Americans killed in Iraq in April has reached 115. Is the occupation of Iraq hindering terrorism, or inflaming it? Will the number of dead soldiers - in contrast to the number of Iraqi victims - prompt a reassessment? It is clear that the American war crimes will not reach the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Today, America sets the world's moral standards. It alone decides who will be judged, who is a terrorist, what is legitimate resistance to occupation, who is a religious fanatic, and who is a legitimate target for assassination. That is how four Iraqi children, who laughed at the sight of a dead American soldier, merited being killed on the spot. Ariel Sharon's government can thus cite a great authority for its own actions, and there are no visible limits to its plan to create a new security order in the Gaza Strip and in the territories in general. To the Israeli government, not crossing the red lines that America sets for its friends is more important than resolving the conflict with the Palestinians. The ethical dilemmas in Israel over the targeted killings must make the American government laugh. After Falluja, Israel Defense Forces commanders can feel easier with their consciences - and especially with the consciences of those who refuse to carry out such operations. The one-ton bomb that was dropped on an apartment building in Gaza in order to assassinate Salah Shehadeh, which also killed 14 civilians, is almost like throwing candy compared to the number of bombs the Americans dropped on the houses of the residents of crowded Falluja. And there, too, incidentally, the Marines' commander said they did their best in order to avoid hurting civilians. We brought to this action our experience from World War II, Korea, Vietnam ... The operation in Falluja will be remembered and studied for many years to come, he said. What can the perplexed Israeli learn from this cynical comparison? Ariel Sharon can feel that he was simply persecuted in the Sabra and Chatila affair. Those who like to say that the whole world is against us will choose to talk about the double standards applied to America and Israel with regard to, for instance, Israel's destruction of the Jenin refugee camp. But anyone who has absolute, rather than relative, moral standards can conclude that we should not be learning from the Americans - not with regard to the consumption of junk food, not in the area of human rights, and not even in the area of democracy and freedom of expression. The practical difference ought to be obvious. America is a superpower, which can evidently do what it pleases, and it can withdraw from the war in Iraq whenever it wants. Israel has no place to which to withdraw. It must remain here, in proximity to its neighbors - its
Racial Economics of Renaming Streets for Martin Luther King, Jr.
The City Council of Zephyrhills, Florida renamed a street to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. on October 26, 2003, but it reversed the decision and removed his name on April 26, 2004, caving in to white protests. The Council earned a white supremacist website's praise. White protestors argued that they did not want the bother of changing their addresses, and [a] business owner told local newspapers that property values would fall, saying streets named after Dr. King were a guarantee of economic blight (emphasis added, Abby Goodnough, Honor for Dr. King Splits Florida City, and Faces Reversal, New York Times, May 10, 2004). This is a small episode that can illustrate a larger issue of how oppressions based upon race and class mutually reinforce each other. . . . The rest of the posting is at http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/05/racial-economics-of-renaming-streets.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Sacrificial lambs in the war on terrorism
NY Times Path Out of Poverty Is Cut Short by Antiterror Snare By SALMAN MASOOD Published: May 10, 2004 IRKA BALA, Pakistan, May 5 - Sitting in the compound of her mud house in this dusty farming village in eastern Pakistan, Bibi Bakhtan, 61, wiped dust from a framed photograph of her dead son and posed a universal question. Can mothers forget their sons? she sighed. Surrounded by grandchildren and a few ambling goats, her voice quivered with grief as she talked about her son, Muhammad Riaz. Advertisement Just over two years ago, Mr. Riaz, then 30, and five other Pakistani men and an Indian, were shot dead in Macedonia by the local police. At the time, the police said the men were Al Qaeda-linked terrorists plotting to attack Western embassies in the capital, Skopje. This month, the Macedonian government disclosed that a police inquiry had found the slain men innocent of those charges. They were not terrorists, but rather illegal immigrants seeking a better life in Europe. And their deaths, the inquiry found, was an effort to advance Macedonia's status in the campaign against terrorism. It was staged, a monstrous killing of seven economic migrants, said Mirjana Kontevska, a spokeswoman for Macedonia's Interior Ministry. The March 2002 killings, she said, were part of an attempt by the interior minister at that time, Ljube Boskovski, and four police officers to present themselves as participants in the war against terrorism and demonstrate Macedonia's commitment to the war on terrorism. Interviews with the families of the slain men reveal one common wish: to earn a better living by going abroad. All had found illegal passage to Europe before falling prey to what Macedonian authorities called a meticulous plan to promote Macedonia as a player in the fight against global terrorism. Life moves slowly here in Rirka Bala. Trucks and tractors move ploddingly on patchy roads that pierce fields of wheat and sugar cane and link small mud and brown brick houses scattered among the fields. The inhabitants are small farmers who toil under the scorching sun. Villagers say few here can afford an education. But among the mud houses every now and then stands a grand multistoried house with huge front pillars and marble finishing. Local residents say these towering houses have been built with money sent back by Pakistanis working in the United States or in Europe as laborers, cab drivers or technicians. The affluence of some, it seems, has aroused envy in the hearts of many. Muhammad Riaz belonged to a caste known as Mussalis, Hindu converts to Islam who do menial jobs in the villages of Punjab. He, too, dreamed of having a big house, like the ones he saw in his village and neighboring towns, relatives said. He thought going to Europe was the only way he could fulfill this dream. And so his family borrowed $1,550 from a local landlord, paid $850 to a travel agent to arrange a fake visa and passport, and gave the rest to Mr. Riaz for travel expenses. Trying to get into Europe illegally is common here. There are so many people who have gone abroad on fake documents and are earning now, said Mr. Riaz's mother, Bibi Bakhtan. We didn't think it was wrong. Everybody was doing it. During the late 1970's and early 1980's, it was relatively easy to get a visa for the United States and parts of Europe, village residents said. But as Western countries toughened their immigration policies, the human trafficking business flourished in this district, Mandi Bahauddin, and in neighboring Gujrat. Gujrat, in particular, is notorious as a human trafficking hub. Over the past decade, Pakistani news media reports suggest, Gujrat's traffickers have sent at least 200,000 Pakistanis to Greece, Italy, Spain and other countries. One popular route has been through Iran, Turkey and Greece into other European countries, according to local news media reports. In November 2001, Mr. Riaz went to Turkey via Iran, according to his family. Riaz called us from Turkey in early 2002 and told us that he was fine, said Mehr Din, his father. That was the last word his family received from him. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/10/international/asia/10MACE.html -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: graduation speakers
So at graduation yesterday, Loyola Marymount University had the well-known scholar, philantropist, and Catholic, Goldie Hawn. I guess she gave what people expect, a funny speech with some commencement-speech profundities (which differ from real profundities). She got an honorary degree, though she never graduated from college. She was very nice, taking time to shake hands with a lot of the profs. However, I didn't get a chance to ask whether or not she was going to make a movie about Jesus (as last year's graduation speaker did). I understand that Grand Canyon University gave an honorary degree to Alice Cooper this year. I'm hoping that next year, we'll give one to Ozzie Ozbourne or Jessica Simpson. JD Wow. Goldie and I have the same Alma Mater! Cool. But I do have mixed feelings about a star who made her mark on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in, the television program that rescued Richard Sock it to Me Nixon by poking fun at him, which made him palatable to certain American voters, i.e., those who think Bush W.'s verbal gaffes, Gerald Ford's klutziness, Bubba Clinton's failure to inhale and Ronald Reagan's mixing up of film events and real ones qualify them for national political leadership. I feel like a redwood today -- a little pithy. Dan Scanlan
Building a Movement That Outlasts the Occupation
Max Sawicky, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute who keeps a very popular blog MaxSpeak, argues that right-wingers are forming a lynch mob to scapegoat the US soldiers in the Abu Ghraib torture photographs, trying to pass off what happened at Abu Ghraib as an isolated incident and to exonerate the power elite of the White House, the US military, and private security firms: So the correct line is straight-forward: investigate the brass, the CIA, the civilian DoD leadership, and the contractors. Any problems in those areas are much more important than the perverse behavior of some individuals on the front lines. Support the troops, or support the command. The right choice is clear. (Support the Troops, May 8, 2004) Indeed, activists ought to seize this moment of division in the right-wing ranks and exacerbate a legitimation crisis for the George W. Bush administration, rather than letting the right sacrifice individual soldiers -- victims turned victimizers on a small scale -- who are expendable in their eyes to protect the biggest war criminals of all: Inside the White House, several of Mr. Bush's aides have argued that he has little choice but to make them public. Sooner or later, they say, the images will leak out, prolonging the pain, fueling Iraqi and Arab suspicions of a Pentagon-orchestrated cover-up, and giving new life to calls for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's removal. Many in the Pentagon, though, are resisting. Pentagon officials warned that a public release could jeopardize its criminal inquiry. They theorized that defense lawyers could cite a governmental release in motions to dismiss charges, arguing that their clients could not get a fair hearing. So far, seven soldiers are facing charges related to abuse of Iraqi detainees. . . . That argument [about whether, when, and how to disclose hitherto unreleased images to the public] broke out in public on Sunday when the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, seemed to back keeping the images from public view, describing them as of a classified nature on the NBC News program Meet the Press. He was immediately challenged by a fellow Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who shot back: If there's a videotape out there, for God's sake let's talk about it, because men and women's lives are at stake, given how we handle this. So I want to get it all out on the table. (Thom Shanker, Officials Grapple With How and When to Release Images, New York Times, May 10, 2004) Activists also have a chance of making an anti-occupation movement become more than a movement of predominantly white activists who think that the best way to expand the movement is to focus on Iraq alone. . . . The rest of the posting is at http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/05/building-movement-that-outlasts.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Building a Movement That Outlasts the Occupation
I'd like to note that in my post, I acknowledged the obvious guilt of those in the pictures and those who took the pictures. I don't mean to patronize them as ignorant pawns. Pawns maybe, but not ignorant or free of responsibility for what their roles. mbs -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 4:59 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Building a Movement That Outlasts the Occupation Max Sawicky, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute who keeps a very popular blog MaxSpeak, argues that right-wingers are forming a lynch mob to scapegoat the US soldiers in the Abu Ghraib torture photographs, trying to pass off what happened at Abu Ghraib as an isolated incident and to exonerate the power elite of the White House, the US military, and private security firms: So the correct line is straight-forward: investigate the brass, the CIA, the civilian DoD leadership, and the contractors. Any problems in those areas are much more important than the perverse behavior of some individuals on the front lines. Support the troops, or support the command. The right choice is clear. (Support the Troops, May 8, 2004) Indeed, activists ought to seize this moment of division in the right-wing ranks and exacerbate a legitimation crisis for the George W. Bush administration, rather than letting the right sacrifice individual soldiers -- victims turned victimizers on a small scale -- who are expendable in their eyes to protect the biggest war criminals of all: Inside the White House, several of Mr. Bush's aides have argued that he has little choice but to make them public. Sooner or later, they say, the images will leak out, prolonging the pain, fueling Iraqi and Arab suspicions of a Pentagon-orchestrated cover-up, and giving new life to calls for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's removal. Many in the Pentagon, though, are resisting. Pentagon officials warned that a public release could jeopardize its criminal inquiry. They theorized that defense lawyers could cite a governmental release in motions to dismiss charges, arguing that their clients could not get a fair hearing. So far, seven soldiers are facing charges related to abuse of Iraqi detainees. . . . That argument [about whether, when, and how to disclose hitherto unreleased images to the public] broke out in public on Sunday when the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, seemed to back keeping the images from public view, describing them as of a classified nature on the NBC News program Meet the Press. He was immediately challenged by a fellow Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who shot back: If there's a videotape out there, for God's sake let's talk about it, because men and women's lives are at stake, given how we handle this. So I want to get it all out on the table. (Thom Shanker, Officials Grapple With How and When to Release Images, New York Times, May 10, 2004) Activists also have a chance of making an anti-occupation movement become more than a movement of predominantly white activists who think that the best way to expand the movement is to focus on Iraq alone. . . . The rest of the posting is at http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/05/building-movement-that-outlasts.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
[Fwd: [SIXTIES-L] Flawed Classic Displays Mumias PantherPassion]
Original Message Subject: [SIXTIES-L] Flawed Classic Displays Mumia's PantherPassion Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 13:52:00 -0700 From: the moderator [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Recipient list suppressed Flawed Classic Displays Mumia's Panther Passion http://www.tbwt.org/home/content/view/214/40/ 10 May 2004 Written by Todd Burroughs and Ollie Johnson Book Review: We Want Freedom: A Life In The Black Panther Party. By Mumia Abu-Jamal, South End Press, 267 pages. $18.00 paperback; $40 cloth ISBN: 0-89608-718-2 (paperback); 0-89608-719-0 (cloth) Mumia Abu-Jamal invites conflict. So does the Black Panther Party. Both inspire virulent, even violent, debate about race and resistance in America. It's no wonder that Abu-Jamal's We Want Freedom is a powerful literary and political event. As a teenager, Abu-Jamal was a member of the Black Panther's Philadelphia branch from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. His new book, released on April 24, his 50th birthday, provides an artful synthesis of scholarship and personal observations. Abu-Jamal is an internationally known radio commentator, newspaper columnist, and author of four books. Convicted of the first-degree murder of a white Philadelphia police officer more than 20 years ago, he wrote We Want Freedom from death row. He began his journalistic career at The Black Panther, the Party's national newspaper. He explains in dramatic, precise and often poetic prose how Blacks have confronted white supremacy directly throughout American history. He writes that the Party was founded during a time when many American Blacks saw themselves in the villages of resistance and saw their ghettoes as little more than internal colonies similar to those discussed in Frantz Fanon's analysis [in his classic book, The Wretched Of The Earth]. Abu-Jamal is clear on the Party's lure during a time of great youth-led social change: It meant being part of a worldwide movement against U.S. imperialism, white supremacy, colonialism, and corrupting capitalism. We felt as if we were part of the peasant armies of Vietnam, the degraded Black miners of South Africa, the fedayeen in Palestine, the students storming in the streets of Paris, and the dispossessed of Latin America. Abu-Jamal gives a valuable social history of Philadelphia to show why the Party could, and would, take hold there. He takes nearly one-third of the book to make clear the idea that African Americans had fought-and not always nonviolently-for their freedom. Abu-Jamal points out that such battles spanned from the beginning of the African slave trade to the self-defense organizing of the Louisiana-based Deacons For Defense and the Watts rebellion of 1965. The Black Panther Party formed shortly after that event. Abu-Jamal argues the Party was popular in Philadelphia because Black residents there came of age with the deeply felt knowledge that they could be beaten, wounded, or killed by cops with virtual impunity. Abu-Jamal describes the rally where the Philadelphia Panthers first appeared publicly: [B]etween fifteen and twenty of us are in the full uniform of black berets, black jackets of smooth leather, and black trousers We thought, in the amorphous realm of hope, youth and boundless optimism, that revolution was virtually a heartbeat away. It was four years since Malcolm's assassination and just over a year since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The Vietnam War was flaring up under Nixon's Vietnamization program, and the rising columns of smoke from Black rebellions in Watts, Detroit, Newark, and North Philly could still be sensed, their ashen smoldering still tasted in the air. Abu-Jamal tells familiar stories with great skill-the naiveté of Panther leaders, the state-sanctioned murders of Chicago Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in 1969, the FBI's role in the Party's split between supporters of co-founder Huey P. Newton and Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver. He is unapologetically critical of the FBI's snitches (Earl Anthony, George Sams, Louis Tackwood, William O'Neal, et. al.) sent into the Party to disrupt and destroy it. His history of the FBI clearly shows how decades of practice infiltrating progressive movements served the Bureau well when Black leftists donned black berets and black jackets and began to act in ways they thought would make the late Malcolm X, their new Black nationalist martyr, proud. In addition to extended personal recollections, another of the book's highlights is Abu-Jamal's commendable voicing of Panther women's experiences. One of the women recording her Party experiences to Abu-Jamal is Naima Major, who recalled how, at 17-years-old, she sought out the Party to escape what she called petit bourgeois mediocrity: I went to a 'Free Huey' rally at the federal building in SF [San Francisco], and met many brave Panthers. Went on a mission with Kathleen Cleaver in Hunter's Point because my
Re: Building a Movement That Outlasts the Occupation
I'd like to note that in my post, I acknowledged the obvious guilt of those in the pictures and those who took the pictures. I don't mean to patronize them as ignorant pawns. Pawns maybe, but not ignorant or free of responsibility for what their roles. mbs Eventually, I hope that at least some of the soldiers who are at the center of the scandal will come to think that taking their own responsibility, regardless of what happens at courts-martial and beyond, will be good for themselves. I think that's part of the spirit in which veterans organized the Winter Soldiers investigation. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Forget Al Jazeera. Don't read Fox News says Pentagon
Saturday, May. 08, 2004 -Original Message- From: Dunn, Daniel, CTR, OSD-POLICY Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 10:11 PM To: MLA POL ALL POLICY Subject: FW: URGENT IT BULLETIN: Tugabe Report (FOUO) Importance: High This applies to all Policy users as well. If you have accessed this document on the Internet, CALL POLICY IT SECURITY IMMEDIATELY! 703-696-0668 -- Daniel R. (Dan) Dunn, EE, CISSP, CCSA/CCSE USD(P) IA Officer Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Policy Policy Automation Services Security Team p: 703-696-0668, x153 f: 703-696-0588 -Original Message- From: Easterling, Ron, CTR, OSD-POLICY Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 2:00 PM To: Mauer, Bill, CTR, OSD-POLICY; Dunn, Daniel, CTR, OSD-POLICY Subject: FW: URGENT IT BULLETIN: Tugabe Report (FOUO) Importance: High -Original Message- From: Information Services Customer Liaison, ISD Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 12:45 PM To: MLA dd - USD(I) - ALL; MLA dd - NII ALL Subject: URGENT IT BULLETIN: Tugabe Report (FOUO) Importance: High FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY AUDIENCE All ISD Customers SUMMARY Fox News and other media outlets are distributing the Tugabe report (spelling is approximate for reasons which will become obvious momentarily). Someone has given the news media classified information and they are distributing it. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED. ALL ISD CUSTOMERS SHOULD: 1) NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY 2) NOT comment on this to anyone, friends, family etc. 3) NOT delete the file if you receive it via e-mail, but 4) CALL THE ISD HELPDESK AT 602-2627 IMMEDIATELY This leakage will be investigated for criminal prosecution. If you don't have the document and have never had legitimate access, please do not complicate the investigative processes by seeking information. Again, THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY. ASSISTANCE If you have any questions, please contact the ISD Helpdesk at 703-602-2627 or via email at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank you for your cooperation. INFORMATION SERVICES DIRECTORATE This may contain information exempt from mandatory disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA
Re: Forget Al Jazeera. Don't read Fox News says Pentagon
Yeah, right, I thought the Tugabe report made the rounds a week ago. Joanna k hanly wrote: Saturday, May. 08, 2004 -Original Message- From: Dunn, Daniel, CTR, OSD-POLICY Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 10:11 PM To: MLA POL ALL POLICY Subject: FW: URGENT IT BULLETIN: Tugabe Report (FOUO) Importance: High This applies to all Policy users as well. If you have accessed this document on the Internet, CALL POLICY IT SECURITY IMMEDIATELY! 703-696-0668 -- Daniel R. (Dan) Dunn, EE, CISSP, CCSA/CCSE USD(P) IA Officer Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Policy Policy Automation Services Security Team p: 703-696-0668, x153 f: 703-696-0588 -Original Message- From: Easterling, Ron, CTR, OSD-POLICY Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 2:00 PM To: Mauer, Bill, CTR, OSD-POLICY; Dunn, Daniel, CTR, OSD-POLICY Subject: FW: URGENT IT BULLETIN: Tugabe Report (FOUO) Importance: High -Original Message- From: Information Services Customer Liaison, ISD Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 12:45 PM To: MLA dd - USD(I) - ALL; MLA dd - NII ALL Subject: URGENT IT BULLETIN: Tugabe Report (FOUO) Importance: High FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY AUDIENCE All ISD Customers SUMMARY Fox News and other media outlets are distributing the Tugabe report (spelling is approximate for reasons which will become obvious momentarily). Someone has given the news media classified information and they are distributing it. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED. ALL ISD CUSTOMERS SHOULD: 1) NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY 2) NOT comment on this to anyone, friends, family etc. 3) NOT delete the file if you receive it via e-mail, but 4) CALL THE ISD HELPDESK AT 602-2627 IMMEDIATELY This leakage will be investigated for criminal prosecution. If you don't have the document and have never had legitimate access, please do not complicate the investigative processes by seeking information. Again, THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY. ASSISTANCE If you have any questions, please contact the ISD Helpdesk at 703-602-2627 or via email at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank you for your cooperation. INFORMATION SERVICES DIRECTORATE This may contain information exempt from mandatory disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA .
Re: Building a Movement That Outlasts the Occupation
Yoshie posted... So the correct line is straight-forward: investigate the brass, the CIA, the civilian DoD leadership, and the contractors. Any problems in those areas are much more important than the perverse behavior of some individuals on the front lines. Indeed, activists ought to seize this moment of division in the right-wing ranks and exacerbate a legitimation crisis for the George W. Bush administration, rather than letting the right sacrifice individual soldiers -- victims turned victimizers on a small scale -- who are expendable in their eyes to protect the biggest war criminals of all: Inside the White House, several of Mr. Bush's aides have argued that he has little choice but to make them public. Sooner or later, they say, the images will leak out, prolonging the pain, fueling Iraqi and Arab suspicions of a Pentagon-orchestrated cover-up, and giving new life to calls for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's removal. Comment What's new? Shrub killed 152 folks on death row while governor of Texas, including the mentally retarded and those whose attorneys slept in court. His daddy bulldozed innocent bystanders into mass graves in Panama. His idea of heros -- NYPD -- jammed a toilet plunger up the ass of an arrestee. The Pentagon-orchestrated School of the Americas has taught torture techniques to third world salivators most of my adult life. The American Indian surely doesn't see anything new in the torture of home folks by Christian invaders. Personally, I'm looking for the connection between the exposure of American torture and the final installment of Friends. Dan Scanlan
Re: Building a Movement That Outlasts the Occupation
What's new is that somebody seems to care. Somehow, this seems to be turning out to be the final straw. It was about time. So, I understand that it is not really new as does most of the left, but this is an inadequate response. If the media is actually willing to report this story, what good does it do for the left to say Ah, that's nothing, think about the prisons in the U.S., and the School of the Americas, etc.? What we must be vocal about is that this is not the responsibility of the grunts who implemented the policy but of the superior cadre that created it. Obviously, the grunts just thought they were doing a bang-up job. The frat type pictures are clear indications that this was nothing to be ashamed of or to hide. Joanna Dan Scanlan wrote: Yoshie posted... So the correct line is straight-forward: investigate the brass, the CIA, the civilian DoD leadership, and the contractors. Any problems in those areas are much more important than the perverse behavior of some individuals on the front lines. Indeed, activists ought to seize this moment of division in the right-wing ranks and exacerbate a legitimation crisis for the George W. Bush administration, rather than letting the right sacrifice individual soldiers -- victims turned victimizers on a small scale -- who are expendable in their eyes to protect the biggest war criminals of all: Inside the White House, several of Mr. Bush's aides have argued that he has little choice but to make them public. Sooner or later, they say, the images will leak out, prolonging the pain, fueling Iraqi and Arab suspicions of a Pentagon-orchestrated cover-up, and giving new life to calls for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's removal. Comment What's new? Shrub killed 152 folks on death row while governor of Texas, including the mentally retarded and those whose attorneys slept in court. His daddy bulldozed innocent bystanders into mass graves in Panama. His idea of heros -- NYPD -- jammed a toilet plunger up the ass of an arrestee. The Pentagon-orchestrated School of the Americas has taught torture techniques to third world salivators most of my adult life. The American Indian surely doesn't see anything new in the torture of home folks by Christian invaders. Personally, I'm looking for the connection between the exposure of American torture and the final installment of Friends. Dan Scanlan .
Re: Building a Movement That Outlasts the Occupation
Joanna writes: What's new is that somebody seems to care. Somehow, this seems to be turning out to be the final straw. It was about time. So, I understand that it is not really new as does most of the left, but this is an inadequate response. If the media is actually willing to report this story, what good does it do for the left to say Ah, that's nothing, think about the prisons in the U.S., and the School of the Americas, etc.? that's right. We have to be clear not only about what we think and know, but about what people outside of the left are thinking and knowing. That helps us bring them over to our side. Jim Devine
Imperialist booty
I have no idea why but a lot of the messages from the Saturday 7 May 2004, are not showing up. So this comment is in response to various items proffered on the thread of Imperialist booty. I was able to read them yesterday - but was too tired to comment. If I recall right - Charles brown called for some empirical calculations regarding the extent numeric value of super-profit' bribes. This was done by Bland in relation to Maoist claims regarding the labour aristocracy embracing virtually all workers how were not either lumpen or black/immigrants. This can be found at: http://www.allianceML.com/BLAND/ALLIANCE_SIZEOFCLASS_WBB.html The analysis only goes up to the late 1960's, I am trying to do something similar for more modern figures. Neither was Bill an economist, I sure am not one. However... Naturally this list may well correct this simplistic methodology, and such corrections will be undertaken to employ in future analyses. I was glad to see that this thread got a lot more discussion, than when I had first joined this list and tried to raise it. I recall being somewhat patronized. I was peremptorily told to go read Mike Davis - which I did - and no else really replied. It was not certainly not adequately dealt with on PEN then, nor by Mike Davis. [I cite Davis a lot by the way in various bits pieces thus respect his work]. So I am not at all surprised that some people basically still say, to paraphrase cannot understand what all the furore on this question is all about. If questions as to Who is the working class in a political sense - that one can anticipate in being part of mass movement - are relevant; Then who has been bribed - and how has not been bribed?, surely are questions that are self-evidently of importance. I would submit, that one feature of Maoism was to confuse developing radical movements in the West, as to who their first and immediate allies were. The substitution of the Angolan peasant as your immediate ally (for e.g.) rather than the white worker down the block or two or three etc - is pretty devastating. Cheers, Hari Kumar
New pictures and further allegations deepen the mire for Bush and Rumsfeld
The Independent www.indenepndent.co.uk New pictures and further allegations deepen the mire for Bush and Rumsfeld By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 10 May 2004 Shocking new pictures of US soldiers using dogs against naked Iraqi prisoners emerged yesterday - along with compelling fresh evidence that the mistreatment and abuse were a widespread practice, extending beyond the jail of Abu Ghraib. On the day the Pentagon announced the first court martial of one of the seven US military police personnel so far charged in the scandal, The New Yorker magazine published a photograph of a naked prisoner cowering in terror in front of a pair of German shepherd dogs held on leashes by their handlers, who are in full combat gear. The author of the article, Seymour Hersh, says they are part of a series that shows the dogs snarling at the Iraqi and straining at their leashes, and then the same prisoner with at least one wound and his leg covered in blood, apparently the result of a bite. But even these chilling pictures may not be the end. The Pentagon now has other photos and videos in its possession, showing acts of rape and the desecration of a dead body, which it plans to show to various Congressmen shortly. That alone makes it likely they will become public knowledge. Officials fear that other damning material could be circulating privately, and that could go public at any time. The US command in Baghdad said yesterday that Specialist Jeremy Sivits, of the 372nd Military Police company, would face a court martial on 19 May. He will be the first soldier to be tried for his part in the abuse of detainees that has created global uproar and disgust at the US, and prompted demands for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, and other senior officials. Those calls have temporarily abated, though fresh revelations could yet make Mr Rumsfeld's position untenable. In a sign of how the White House is circling the wagons around him, Vice President Dick Cheney praised his old mentor as the best Secretary of Defence in history, telling critics to get off the case. But Spec. Sivits and his colleagues are unlikely to be the sole scapegoats for an episode that increasingly appears part of a wider problem. The New Yorker article, and a detailed reconstruction of the debacle at Abu Ghraib in at least two leading US newspapers yesterday, blame senior commanders for putting military intelligence in charge of the prison guards and ordering these latter to soften up detainees for interrogation. The accounts suggest that the behaviour was fostered by the well-publicised tough line of the Bush team, which paid little heed to international norms governing the treatment of prisoners, in its determination to do everything it takes to prevail in the war on terror. The scandal was deeper and wider than I think most in this administration understand, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said, claiming that some 30 Pentagon investigations were under way into prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Washington Post revealed yesterday that, in spring 2003, the Pentagon approved new techniques for interrogations at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, including making detainees stand for long periods, depriving them of sleep and having female interrogators question male prisoners. That approach may well have been taken to Iraq. The military insists that the methods did not involve torture - and the paper quoted Mark Jacobson, a former Pentagon specialist on detainee treatment as saying the US was not aggressive enough in interrogation of suspects: I think we are too timid. The New Yorker cites an internal Pentagon memo urging Mr Rumsfeld to break the belt-and-suspenders mindset within the military, and allow operators in the field freer rein. Unnamed Pentagon officials accuse Mr Rumsfeld's top civilian aides, as well General John Abizaid, in charge of US central command, and General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US commander in Iraq, of keeping the prisoner abuse under wraps after learning of it in January, because they foresaw major diplomatic problems. As they kept up the heat on the Defence Secretary, some Democrats took aim directly at the President. Carl Levin, the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services which grilled Mr Rumsfeld last Friday, said the problem reached into the White House. Mr Bush's aides had argued that whether to observe the Geneva Conventions [on the treatment of prisoners of war] was a bunch of legalese. The President helped create the climate in which this happened, Mr Levin told NBC's Meet the Press programme. Mr Rumsfeld in 2002 described complaints about US treatment of prisoners as isolated pockets of international hyperventilation. Publicly, the administration is sticking to its guns, that the decision to invade Iraq was correct, and that current policies are right. But retired General Wesley Clark, supreme commander of Nato before running unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic
tipping point?
Most political efforts try to maintain the status quo, to re-balance, and continue. Even a change of personnel is not the same thing as a change of policy, still less a change of social system of exploitation. However the BBC reports this morning that the Army Times, widely available on the bases, is complaining that US soldiers are saying why should they take the blame if people at the top do not resign? The Guardian reports that senior US military are expressing lack of confidence in Rumsfeld. And the BBC reports that George Bush has said he will personally view the sadistic pornographic images. I doubt if he has the strength of personality and psychological insight to sit through all this without being profoundly disturbed. This may just be the moment when if Rumsfeld loyally places his resignation on the table Bush runs out of reasons to persuade him not to. So why should Rumsfeld lay his resignation loyally on the table? Particularly perhaps if this crisis has set up reverberations among the neo-cons, and someone like Wolfowitz decides it is in their interests to go rather than to hang on for worse catastrophes eg that ironically Colin Powell is the best guarantee against the *total* collapse of the neo-con project in the near and middle east. Chris Burford
Re: Why did the USSR fall
It's a little stale now, but Michael Perelman asked about whether the poor in Russia were able to attend elite colleges. I gave a bad answer. The Russian elite often sends its children to study abroad (not always--Gorby's granddaughter recently graduated from Moscow State University), England being the destination of choice. Tatar pop star Alsu is studying in the UK, or at least was. I haven't been keeping up with my tabloids. :) Russian higher education is is nominally free. HOWEVER, for fields of study that are in demand--business, journalism, acounting, economics, advertising, law, politology in the peculiar Russian sense of the word, engineering, computers--there are very long waiting lists, which can often be gotten around through paying a, ahem, informal fee (cough cough). In those fields, education is often de facto for pay. Higher education in medicine, the sciences, teaching, and the humanities--i.e., fields that are dead-enders from an income point-of-view--is both de jure and de facto completely free.
Re: Why did the USSR fall
I wrote: Higher education in medicine, the sciences, teaching, and the humanities--i.e., fields that are dead-enders from an income point-of-view--is both de jure and de facto completely free. See, I just trotted on over to Moscow State University's English-language web site for foreign students and got this. This is tuition _for foreigners_. Russian students pay nada. They also receive a (very small) stipend: Expenses are estimated as follows: 1. Preparatory course in Russian language and major subjects at CIE from September, 1st to June, 30th (please see the table attached). 2. Tuition fees at the core faculties (please see the table attached). 3. Accommodation in student dormitories from $40 per month depending on living conditions. Single room in block of two rooms in the Main Building costs $98/month. 4. Medical Insurance policy at the University Polyclinics (mandatory if you don't have your own policy valid in Russia) - $150 per year. 5. Text-books from the University libraries are available for free. http://www.ied.msu.ru/ (See why so many students from the Third World stuy in Russia? For a foreigner to get a Ph.D. in chemistry costs a whopping $4000 a year.)
Re: Why did the USSR fall
Mea culpa -- I realize it is extremely bad form to send out a string of very short posts containing addenda to previous ones, so I'll stop (I think that because I am doing this while preoccupied with various and sundry pressing issues contributes to this). But I thought I should add on teh subject of higher education in Russia that the percentage of Russian young people in institutions of higher learning has greatly increased since 1991, largely as a way of getting out of or at least postponing military service (which might mean Chechnya and has a lot of brutal hazing). (Education correlates with income a lot more than it used to as well, at least in certain fields.)
