Biting the hand that feeds ya — and other

May 30th, 2008

Lord, doncha love it when the pit bulls turn on one another! We appear to be in a potent confirmation period. Yes, Wavers — it was all exactly what we thought it was … propaganda, bullshit, bullying and pander.

Bush was lost in a self-induced haze of glory, in pursuit of historical egomania, when he attacked Iraq — the press wimped out due to top-down pressures [mensch points to Katy Couric for owning that, and a round of boo's for others, here and here] — and it seems clear that Valerie Plame was outed by the Dubster, hiz own self. Now that the dam has burst, there will be more; the crap is finally floating to the top.

I’d hope that will wake up some of the die-hard dopes, but … you never know. Truthiness has its devotee’s. Consider the howls of the Righty’s who want little Scotty’s head on a pole [for betraying the betrayers] — here’s commentary by the original limp noodle to give you a taste of their disgruntlement. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wins the prize for great ledeline: Monster’s Ball. Oh — and Scotty will be on John Stewart tonight; don’t miss.

In other news, the great meet-up for the FL and MI votes happens this weekend, and it may turn into a brawl. The Clintonista’s have long planned their protest outside the meeting; the Obamaite’s are being discouraged from attendance to avoid what the campaign has called a “circus.” Amen on that one. The passions unleashed need a place to go, but not directed at one another. Only half of the votes can be seated, legally — so any other push is nonsense.

If I were advising Obama, I’d tell him that he needs to pour some healing oil on the fem’s; sexism is as pernicious as racism, and we’ve seen plenty of both. Here is an article, and another that spell out the legitimacy of the problem and urge a reconciliation. Meanwhile, Hillary is still positioning to take advantage of an Obama-fall-from-grace [which no doubt her people are still working on.]

The first two reads concern that topic — the first is the best untangling of the vote issue I’ve read lately; the next is a Morford on Obama and the nature of his rise — it’s part and parcel, I think, of our current energy mix, which I wrote about this week: Improv in the 21st Century.

Below that, the weekend reads are disgusting — oh, don’t flinch; if our current energy tells us anything, it’s that the darkness rising to the top is being exposed to the glaring heat of sunlight. That’s progress … and it’s best to stay on top of all that’s bubbling up, gross and disturbing as it is. I’ve sorted through them to put the most egregious toward the end if you decide to wimp out; I’d advise that you don’t. We can’t fix it until we know what it is. The last will take your breath away.

Plenty of interesting reads here — some for now, some to save for later.

Good weekend to you dearhearts.

Jude

More People Have Voted Against Hillary Clinton Than Have Voted Against Any Primary Candidate In History
RJ Eskow, Smirking Chimp
May 29, 2008

It’s time to move on to the general election battle — but we can’t. It’s not wrong for Hillary Clinton to keep running, but it is wrong to keep using reckless, irrational, and irresponsible arguments that delegitimize the future nominee and hurt the party’s chances in November.

The “popular vote” argument is the most extreme example of Clinton campaign recklessness. The notion that Clinton has won the most “popular votes” is a meaningless metric from the start. Clinton people say Florida and Michigan Democrats shouldn’t be “penalized” for the errors of others, yet their argument punishes voters who stayed home in those states believing their votes wouldn’t count. And it “penalizes” Democrats in every single caucus state!

Yet Clinton defenders insist on claiming they’re fighting for the “principle” of “counting every vote.” Gen. Wesley Clark, who I respect (and would like to see nominated for VP), made this claim last night on Dan Abrams. But this so-called “principle” disenfranchises Democrats in Iowa, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Hawaii, Wyoming … and parts of Texas. Is that really a “value every Democrat should support,” as Gen. Clark claimed?

And if we’re really interested in that “popular vote” metric, here’s a fact that should interest Democrats: More people have voted against Sen. Clinton than have voted against any primary candidate in American history. Take Michigan: Even though it was an “election” worthy of Joseph Stalin or Saddam Hussein, with no major opponent on the ballot (because the others honored an agreement she retroactively broke), 41% of voters chose nobody when given the opportunity to vote only for Sen. Clinton.

Here’s what would have happened in Michigan if Hillary Clinton had not been the only leading candidate on the ballot : Based on exit polls taken at the time, she would have received 46% of the vote to 35% for Obama and 12% for John Edwards. That means that, with Edwards’ endorsement, Obama would now be getting more Michigan delegates — and more of its “popular votes” — than Clinton. But because he honored the agreement and she didn’t, she now wants a one-sided agreement that rewards her behavior.

Or take the Florida election: Clinton and her supporters want those votes counted because it will add numbers to this “popular vote” argument. But John Edwards got 251,562 votes in that invalidated primary. Shouldn’t those votes be added to Obama’s total now? That would bring Hillary’s meaningless “popular vote” margin there down from 294,772 to 43,000. Throw in the votes from Dodd et al. and Hillary actually lost Florida’s “popular vote” (she received 49% of the vote total).

See how meaningless this metric really is? Please, Clinton supporters: Stop using this damaged and destructive logic. I know that “counting every vote” sounds like a high-minded principle, but it’s not. When the Clinton campaign dreamed it up, they knew it would mean defending a Stalin-like vote in Michigan and using M.C. Escher logic in Florida, but they guessed that these nuances would be lost on many supporters - and they have been. They knew it meant reversing a pledge that Sen. Clinton acknowledged on video (in defending the fact her name stayed on the ballot), but so what? Apparently “counting every vote” is a more compelling “principle” than “keeping your word.”

Now Clinton supporters are planning to demonstrate en masse at the party meeting that will discuss the Florida and Michigan delegations on Saturday. As I discussed elsewhere, that’s a “schismogenic” response to the perceived unwillingness of the Obama camp to yield - a perception that’s being fueled by the “count every vote” pitch. That demonstration will look and feel like a civil rights march to Clinton supporters — but to Obama supporters it will seem like thuggish refusal to accept a fair outcome. That will further split the party.

And we haven’t even talked about sexism yet. Even a reasonable, thoughtful pro-Hillary piece like Hilary Rosen’s can contain a sentence like this one: “(W)hen Hillary’s supporters suggest that (gender bias is real), Obama supporters guffaw …” I have never heard an Obama supporter “guffaw” at the notion of anti-Clinton sexism. Most of the Obama supporters I know have condemned it. But Clinton supporters who rightfully criticize the media for its sexism should also remember that the media spent a year anointing Clinton as the inevitable nominee, too. That means that press coverage was a mixed blessing for Hillary - and it also means those votes for other candidates really were a rejection of her as the nominee.

The Clintons are not likely to back down soon, and they have some rabidly partisan supporters who will carry their illogic as far (and as destructively) as imagination can take them. For an example, consider the historian who argues race hasn’t been a factor in these primaries, even after 20% of Kentucky voters said it was in exit polls.

Irresponsible people like that aren’t likely to change, so it’s incumbent upon honorable Clinton supporters like Gen. Clark to do the right thing and step back from the Clintons’ brinksmanship. Otherwise, some Clinton supporters will have been so manipulated and enraged by these false arguments that their support will be lost in November, no matter what agreement the two campaigns may reach in the next few weeks.

Many of us would love to stop having these negative intramural fights and start building a positive case for the general election. We’d like to step out of this darkness and into the light by congratulating Sen. Clinton for the 17 million votes she has earned, and by joining with her supporters in building toward a November victory. It’s time to make peace and start healing, but that can’t happen while good people keep using bad logic to make destructive arguments.

The great Barack Obama Insurrection
Hillary was ready. Hillary was unstoppable. Hillary was, by all accounts, a lock. What the hell happened?
Mark Morford, SF Gate
Friday, May 30, 2008

Are you paying any sort of attention to this moment in time? Are you reading bits and hints about the transformation, the shift, the unusual and slightly surreal energy coursing through the nation? Are you tattooing this seminal period on the sacrum of your sociopolitical consciousness? Are you under 50? Then there’s been nothing else like this in your lifetime. And there probably never will be again.

You gotta take it all in, you know? Because it was no time at all ago, less than a year, and Hillary Clinton’s presidential nomination was pretty much a given, and even I was relatively thrilled and gung-ho for her candidacy, especially given how she was so ahead in the polls and so ahead in fund raising and so ahead in public opinion her imminent nomination felt much like a slam dunk, a forgone conclusion, a sure thing.

And therefore it was all something rather otherworldly for progressives, a bit unprecedented, a Democratic race to watch only for the sheer historic value and for the surprising quality of the other candidates involved, and not because there was any doubt as to the eventual outcome.

Just a bit beyond incredible, then, what has happened since, in such a short time, in this, one of the more fascinating turning points in American history.

It almost cannot be understated: Barack Obama’s steady, astounding, almost inexplicable rise to the top to not only become the presumptive Democratic nominee but also to overtake one of the strongest, smartest, most well-funded, tenacious rival candidates in American history — and also to out-poll his deeply connected Republican opponent — is both remarkable and historic on a number of fronts.

But the thing is, no matter how you crunch the data and try to logically analyze all the components that made Obamapalooza happen, there appears to be something just beyond the logic, just outside the normal machinery, that makes you shake your head in amazement, and perhaps remember this forever.

On one level, I suppose it’s not all that unusual. There have been plenty of scrappy, outta-nowhere, come-from-behind victories in political races before. There are plenty of tales of one candidate holding an overwhelming lead early on, only to have his lunch eaten by some brilliant, whippersnapper upstart. JFK charmed the hell out of the planet and revealed the deep sourness of once-omnipotent Richard Nixon. Bill Clinton, the handsome, populist Arkansas governor with minimal big-stage experience but loads of effortless charisma, came from seemingly nowhere to build a phenomenal following and stomp all over the doddering, baffled, how-much-is-a-gallon-of-milk Bush 41.

But with Obama, as with just about everything about his campaign, something feels different, more historic, deeper and more profound and even a bit more, how do you say, intimate. It is not politics as usual. It is not just another smart, deeply intelligent upstart senator making a surprising play for The Show.

You have to take note. Because Obama has accomplished his astonishing rise without the normal weaponry of American politics. As of yet, there have been almost no dirty tricks. He has not really attacked Hillary, has not “gone negative” or run a nasty smear campaign or swiftboated her; he has not employed, in short, any of the disgusting tactics Karl Rove’s Republican party notoriously used against Al Gore and John Kerry so as to lie themselves into a brutal and failed chokehold of power.

Verily, plethoric are the pundits who’ve been trying to parse just why, exactly, Obama has been so much more effective, so much more far-reaching and cross-cultural than the once-unstoppable Clinton, not to mention McCain or anyone else. What is it about him, exactly? What is it that draws such a broad circle of endorsements, from Ted Kennedy to Andrew Sullivan, John Edwards to former Labor Secretary Robert Reich?

It’s the networking, they say. Obama is the first “Facebook candidate.” He’s the first to successfully leverage all the modern tech, the viral marketing, YouTube, Web 2.0, lovely videos by celebrity rappers who are nearly moved to tears by the man’s speeches. Yes, that must be it.

Or maybe it’s his remarkable, idealistic team of aides, his hotshot fresh-faced speechwriters, his wondrous oratory skill. Is it the cool campaign posters? Is it the game-altering speeches on race in America? Or is it what the terrified right-wing hatemongers are calling “liberal guilt,” the feeling that we on the whiny tree-hugging ultra-PC left feel so gosh-darn guilty about how blacks, Hawaiians and Harvard-trained lawyers have been treated, lo, these many millennia — even more so than the oppressive treatment of women — that Obama gets our vote out of sheer nervous remorse?

Problem is, those explanations feel insufficient and inadequate and, in the case of that last one, exceedingly stupid. Is there not something else going on? Is there more to it than just a battle between old school/new school styles of campaigning?

Maybe the answer lies elsewhere. Maybe you need to look to the dark side for a hint, for a bit of proof that there’s more to this moment in history than mere shifting times. It comes in the form of that very ugly and violent rumor that gets whispered among skeptics and conspiracy theorists and joked about by cretins on Fox News, and even sighed by many otherwise happy, progressive idealists, those who’ve had their dreams shattered and hopes pummeled enough times that a form of sinister cynicism creeps in.

It is this: Some feel Obama will not survive. There are those who think something violent and lethal is bound to happen to him and not merely because he’s black, but because he’s too revolutionary, too much a force for harmony and peace, and the forces of darkness and oppression in America, be they troglodytic Southern racists or anarchist radicals or insular BushCo die-hards, simply cannot have that.

There is no need to invite that repulsive idea in for long. It is too dark, disquieting, pointless, not to mention how it feels like it could create some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy by mentioning it too damn much in the media. But it is worth noting for one curious aspect: It is a fear borne of a truly rare historic circumstance, the amazing idea that someone like Obama is, to put it bluntly, too good for this particular role, a bit too conscious and enlightened for what is a brutal and soul-numbing and potentially deadly political machine.

Then again, maybe, in a morose way, this is how we know transformative change is arriving, perhaps quicker than expected, but arriving nonetheless. We’re already deeply scared of losing it. Really, how long’s it been since we’ve felt anything like that?

Using The Holocaust To Smear Obama
Menachem Rosensaft, HuffPo
May 28, 2008

I never thought I’d see the day when the Holocaust would be used as a tool for “gotcha” politics. But over the last two days, we have seen John McCain’s supporters at the Republican National Committee and at Fox News launch tasteless attacks on Barack Obama. In their attempt to score a few political points, they have diminished the experience of those who suffered and died at Buchenwald, and disrespected the service of the heroic American troops who liberated them.

It started yesterday when the RNC put out a statement slamming Obama for referring to Auschwitz as he related a family story on Memorial Day. Instead of merely asking for clarification, the RNC smeared Obama’s “dubious claim,” and suggested — tongue in cheek — that perhaps Obama’s uncle “was serving in the Red Army.” They went on to say that the story raised questions “about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief.”

It turns out that Obama’s great uncle — the brother of the grandmother who largely raised him — served in the 89th Infantry Division of the United States Army, which liberated Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald. But astonishingly, that only served to fan the flames for those on the right who saw an attempt to use the heroic service of Obama’s uncle against him. In their breathless attempt to damage Obama, Fox News has stooped to a level that is truly depressing.

This morning on the program Fox and Friends, one of the hosts said: “It wasn’t Auschwitz. It was a labor camp called Buchenwald.” Just in case the point was missed, she repeated. “It wasn’t Auschwitz, it was a labor camp. You would think you would want to be as specific as possible if you are telling one of these anecdotes.” Meanwhile, a news “crawl” at the bottom of the screen reinforced, in bold letters, that this was “a work camp, rather than an extermination camp.”

Here are some facts about Buchenwald, which is one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. At this “work camp,” prisoners were often worked, starved, tortured, or beaten to death. Sometimes they were simply murdered. Roughly 250,000 people were imprisoned there between 1937 and 1945, many of them Jews. Over 50,000 people lost their lives.

At Nuremberg, the world was shocked to learn that some of Buchenwald’s victims were skinned, and the human skin was then used to make lampshades, book covers, and other keepsakes. Buchenwald was also a site for the infamous Nazi “medical experiments” on prisoners, which were often nothing more than crude and horrific forms of torture.

To take just one anecdote about the “work” done at Buchenwald, prisoners had to build the camp road, and camp guards used to shoot those who were not carrying stones that were heavy enough. In the final days before liberation, some 10,000 prisoners from Auschwitz and Gross-Rossen were marched to Buchenwald, adding to the horrific scene that awaited American troops.

On April 4, 1945, Ohrdruf became the first Nazi concentration camp to be liberated by American forces. U.S. troops — including the 89th Infantry Division — found a scene that was vividly described by the Eisenhower Memorial Commission: “The scene was an indescribable horror even to the combat-hardened troops who captured the camp. Bodies were piled throughout the camp. There was evidence everywhere of systematic butchery. Many of the mounds of dead bodies were still smoldering from failed attempts by the departing SS guards to burn them.”

Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley would tour the camp in the days ahead. Eisenhower was so moved by the atrocities at this “work camp,” that he wrote to his wife Mamie that it was “beyond the American mind of comprehend.” He made both his own men and all of the citizens of the German town of Gotha tour the camp. He wanted the Americans to know the evil that they were fighting. He wanted German citizens to see what had been done in their name. After this tour, the Mayor of Gotha and his wife hanged themselves.

Many of the terrible photographs and videos that we have seen of the Holocaust come from these days. Eisenhower said that he wanted, “to give first-hand evidence if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’” The carefully documents atrocities at Buchenwald are thus part of the record that we use to confront anyone who would deny the horror of the Holocaust.

The men who liberated Buchenwald were heroes, plain and simple. That includes Barack Obama’s great uncle. In their march across Europe, the 89th Infantry Division suffered over 1,000 casualties, with over 300 men killed. In their liberation of Buchenwald, they put an end to one of the most horrible concentration camps of the 20th century. We must honor them, just as we must remember each and every victim of the criminal Nazi regime.

To those who continue to use this story to damage Barack Obama, I have a simple question: have you no shame? You attempts to diminish his uncle’s service for your own political gain says a lot more about you than it does about Barack Obama.

Marines pass out Gospel verse to Iraqi Muslims, Iraqis say
Jamal Naji and Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspapers

FALLUJAH, Iraq — At the western entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah Tuesday, Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure that he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand.

Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. “Where will you spend eternity?” it asked.

He flipped it over, and on the other side it read, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16.”

“They are trying to convert us to Christianity,” said Anad, a Sunni Muslim like most residents of this city in Anbar province. At home, he told his story, and his relatives echoed their disapproval: They’d been given the coins, too, he said.

Fallujah, the scene of a bloody U.S. offensive against Sunni insurgents in 2004, has calmed and grown less hostile to American troops since residents turned against al Qaida in Iraq, which had tried to force its brand of Islamist extremism on the population.

Now residents of the city are abuzz that some Americans whom they consider occupiers are also acting as Christian missionaries. Residents said some Marines at the western entrance to their city have been passing out the coins for two days in what they call a “humiliating” attempt to convert them to Christianity.

In the markets, people crowded around men with the coins, passing them to each other and asking in surprise, “Have you seen this?”

The head of the Sunni endowment in Fallujah, the organization that oversees Sunni places of worship and other religious establishments, demanded that the Marines stop.

“We say to the occupiers to stop this,” said Sheikh Mohammed Amin Abdel Hadi. “This can cause strife between the Iraqis and especially between Muslim and Christians . … Please stop these things and leave our homes because we are Muslims and we live in our homes in peace with other religions.”

“Iraq is investigating a report that U.S. military personnel in Fallujah handed-out material that is religious and evangelical in nature,” said Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a U.S. military spokesman, in a statement e-mailed to McClatchy. “Local commanders are investigating since the military prohibits proselytizing any religion, faith or practices.”

In interviews, residents of Fallujah repeated two words — “humiliation” and “weakness”.

“Because we are weak this is happening,” said a shop owner who gave his name as Abu Abdullah. “Passing Christianity this way is disrespectful.”

“The occupier is repeatedly trespassing on God and his religion,” said Omar Delli, 23. “Now the occupier is planting seeds of strife between the Muslims and Christians. We demand the government in Fallujah have a new demonstration to let the occupier know that these things are humiliating Islam and the Quran.”

The controversy over the coins that Iraqis said some Marines are passing out comes on the heels of a tempest triggered by a U.S. sniper who used the Quran, Islam’s holy book, for target practice. The sniper was pulled out of Iraq after tribal leaders on May 9 found a Quran with 14 bullet holes and graffiti on the pages.

In Islam, the holy book is never to touch the floor, let alone be defaced. Iraqi leaders condemned the actions, U.S. generals apologized and President Bush offered a personal apology to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.

In Fallujah, Mohammed Jaber saw one of the coins and said he thought of the bullets lodged in the Quran, the torture of Iraqi men at the Abu Ghraib prison in 2004 and the rape of a 14-year-old girl and her murder and that of her family in Mahmoudiya.

“Now we have this missionary way by these coins,” he said. “We feel the Muslims are weak and we hope that we will reach a point when we are strong to let them know what is wrong and what is right. ”

Naji is a McClatchy special correspondent in Fallujah.

UPDATE:

War in Iraq: US marine reassigned for distributing coins bearing Bible verses
McClatchy newspapers
guardian.co.uk,
Friday May 30 2008

Warren Jeffs Kissing And Cuddling Underage Brides Pictures Introduced As Evidence
(PHOTOS)
AP, Smoking Gun
May 27, 2008

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Shocking new photographs show polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs holding and kissing two different young girls in wedding-like photos. [scroll for more]

The images, dated July 2006 and January 2005, were entered into evidence last Friday by the defense in the custody battle over a 1-week-old baby, the Deseret News reported. The case was sparked by an April 3 raid of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound in Eldorado, Texas.

In one set of photos Jeffs appears with a girl named girl named Loretta under the label of “First Anniversary” with a date of Jan. 26, 2005. The second set show him and a girl named Merrianne and are dated July 27, 2006.

The Texas Child Protective Services lawyers would not reveal how they obtained the photos, but are using them to allege the culture at the compound is abusive, and forces young girls to become child brides, the Deseret News reported.

FOX News’ Policy is Not to Identify Possible Underage Victims of Sexual Crimes.
Dan Jessop, the father of the baby at the center of this particular case, told reporters on Friday the photos are “shocking.”

“You see far worse, immoral, disgusting, gross things than a girl kissing a man in the streets of your own community,” said Jessop, according to the newspaper. “And you and I don’t know if the state of Texas fabricated that.”

******
The Deseret News and Dallas Morning News, both of which have more on the story, report that one of the girls in the photos was 12.

******
The Smoking Gun first had the Warren Jeffs kissing photos.

Fry ‘Em!
Raytheon’s Pain Ray
MICHAEL DICKINSON, CounterPunch
May 28, 2008

Coming soon, from the folks who brought you the microwave - Raytheon! After more than ten years in the making and at a cost of over 40 million dollars, ‘Silent Guardian’, or Active Denial System, (ADS, in it’s formal mood), is almost ready for public release!

Yes, Raytheon - manufacturer of the 100 bunker buster bombs kindly flown by America to Israel at the height of their bombardment of Lebanon, and supplier of electronic equipment for the apartheid wall built on Palestinian land; - Raytheon - with its73,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues of 20 billion dollars has gone and done it again!

For, Raytheon - the world’s largest producer of guided missiles, and fifth largest defense contractor in the world, provider of aircraft radar systems, weapons sights and targeting systems, communication and battle-management systems, and satellite components – has come up with a system which could scatter a crowd in a trice without a drop of blood being spilled.

Yes, folks, originally designed to protect military personnel against small-arms fire without the use of lethal force, Silent Guardian, ADS, the Pain Ray, call it what you will, (Raytheon would prefer you not to use the latter however), will finally soon be here!

Transmitted at the speed of light over a 700 yard distance, the Pain Ray is a millimeter-wave beam that penetrates 1/64th of an inch beneath the skin, causing the water molecules there to bubble, producing an intense burning sensation, said to feel like being burnt by molten lava or a hot iron. Its delivery system attached to a Humvee and aimed right, the Pain Ray makes people run away – fast.

Tests conducted at Kirtland Air Force Base south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, employ realistic combat scenarios to determine its potential effectiveness in a deployed environment, the first to expose an entire test subject to the ray.

The Defense Department want to use it for protecting Defense resources, peacekeeping, humanitarian missions and other situations in which the use of lethal force is undesirable, but already there have been inquiries from other institutes and wealthy individuals about using it to protect private property.

Testing, conducted on human volunteers and animals by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Human Effectiveness Directorate continues, and although it has not been proved that exposure to the ray can cause cancer, it has been ascertained that the corneas of Rhesus monkeys can be damaged.

Deployment of the system is slated to begin in Iraq in 2010, but there are rumors that it has already been tested there.

Raytheon congratulates itself on having developed a non-lethal weapon which has been described as “Holy Grail of crowd control,” but their Silent Guardian also has its critics. One, author Richard Hunter asks:

“But what happens if the people faced with such a weapon can’t just run away? What happens if they’re trapped in a crowd, and the crowd can’t move? How much pain must that crowd endure? How long can any member of the crowd be exposed to that weapon before his or her skin — or their eyes — simply cook off?

What happens if the devices are used deliberately in a manner designed to cause maximum harm — say, by training the device on prisoners trapped in prison cells until they literally go mad with pain?

What happens if the system operator turns up the power? A little bit works well, why not try a lot?

What happens if the scientists didn’t test the devices thoroughly, and they turn out to render anyone touched by them blind, or impotent, or sterile?”

And the National Lawyers Guild of the US has accused Raytheon of being “implicated in the commission of war crime.”

One critical group, the Derry Anti-War Coalition, occupied the Raytheon weapons factory in Ireland in 2006 to protest at the production of guided missile components there.

Said a spokesman:

“We are calling for arms components manufacturers to be shut down all over Ireland - North and South. It is disgraceful that so many companies in Ireland are profiteering from the maiming and murder of peaceful and innocent civilians in the Middle East. We are calling for and supporting non-violent occupation of all weapons manufacturers that supply arms to the Israeli Military.”

The protestors were arrested and charged with damaging Raytheon property. They await conviction. The cheeky blighters have got up a petition to sign to support them!

As if you would!

They wouldn’t have been able to get into the building if a Silent Guardian had been in action. A tiny squirt of the Pain Ray would have quickly sent them yelping away.

Roll on the ADS! Coming soon! To a street near you!

Misogyny Rampant in the Armed Forces: 1 in 3 Military Women Experience Sexual Abuse
Speaking out against the war, female veterans describe regular abuse at the hands of their peers — and the military’s failure to address it.
Nancy Van Ness, The Wip via Alternet
May 12, 2008

I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know just how bad. Colonel Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army, grabbed the audience’s attention at a panel called Women in the Military, hosted last month by Women Center Stage in New York City, when she said that one in three women in the military is sexually abused by her male colleagues. Ann wants to see huge signs displaying this statistic in every recruiting office, to let young women know what to expect if they sign up.

After 26 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves, Ann went on to serve in the U.S. Diplomatic Corps for fifteen years, receiving the State Department’s Award for Heroism in 1997. She helped open the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in January 2002 and then was Deputy Chief of Mission in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. But in 2003 she resigned from the Diplomatic Corps, saying, “I have served my country for almost thirty years in the some of the most isolated and dangerous parts of the world. However, I do not believe in the policies of this Administration,” referring to the invasion of Iraq. Since then, she has advocated tirelessly for peace.

She described first hand accounts from witnesses and seeing photographs that document an atrocious rape that ended in the murder of a female US soldier in Iraq, which the military had reported as a suicide. She pointed out that even in the handful of cases resulting in court martial and conviction, few perpetrators have served any prison time.

Two other young veterans, Kelly Dougherty and Jen Hogg, described life in the military for women today.

Sgt. Kelly Dougherty, now Executive Director of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and former chair of its Board of Directors, told of a veteran who calmly described killing an Iraqi while she breast-fed her baby. To Kelly, this was just one example of the incredible disconnect veterans live with and of the brutalization that everyone in the armed forces is subjected to. She noted, however, that this is new for women, since for the first time in US history so many women are participating in combat situations.

Sgt. Jennifer Hogg of IVAW and Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) explained that women are automatically excluded from the infantry because they are considered unfit to do on-the-ground fighting. Jennifer granted that while some but not all women aren’t suitable for infantry service, some men aren’t capable either. She declared that categorically excluding women from the infantry is not only arbitrary but another of the many visible ways
that women in the military are regarded as second-class citizens, ripe for abuse.

It’s not just a matter of promotions. Women are given only the basic training that everyone receives; they do not get advanced infantry training. However in the everyday reality of the Iraq occupation, women are routinely thrust into situations that require infantry skills. They then find themselves in combat situations for which they are not prepared.

However, the greatest danger that military women in Iraq and Afghanistan face is from their male peers and officers. More women there are the victims of sexual assault than of injuries from hazardous military duties. Reuters reported as far back as 1995, “Ninety percent of women under 50 who have served in the US military and who responded to a survey report being victims of sexual harassment, and nearly one-third of the respondents of all ages say they have been raped.”

Blatant sexism and misogyny are at the root of this high rate of violence against these women who just want to defend their country.

Some military training actually encourages violence thus adding greatly to the inherent violence of war. Jennifer described training while “jodies” were ringing in her ears — the cadences that sing about a soldier’s trashy girlfriend having sex with a civilian who is not as good a man as he. She first heard these chants while serving as a mechanic in the New York Army National Guard from 2000-2005. The “jodies” were crafted to engender men’s rage: at women, at non-military men and at “the other.”

According to Jennifer, some men join the army for honor but also to belong to a group that permits them to express their aggression. She questions whether such motivations are any different than those of the young men who join gangs. So, she asked, why would we be surprised when these super-aggressive men behave brutally toward Iraqi civilians or towards women?

She says most of their male counterparts view women in the military as either “dykes,” “whores,” or “bitches.” These women must cope with these grotesque distortions on a daily basis.

Kelly, who served as a medic and in a military police unit, says that misogyny is rampant and seldom countered from above. She described how bitter that is when a woman knows that the first duty of an officer is to care for those in her or his command. She is convinced that officers’ failure to protect the women serving under them has contributed fundamentally to the serious breakdown of good military operations in Iraq. Betrayal by one’s own chain of command is devastating to women, and ultimately, everyone suffers.

Kelly and Jennifer both also noted the lack of female solidarity, declaring that women simply cannot bond in that culture. (I had to remind myself that the men in this culture cannot bond with their peers to resist certain kinds of abuses either.) In August of 2006 at Camp Casey I heard such first hand accounts from returning male veterans. One watched a peer shooting Iraqi children from their vehicle, much as some boys will shoot animals. Though horrified, he says that in this environment, he was neither able to stop that marine nor could he come to the defense of a comrade who tried to stop him.

So it is not surprising that in this environment, women seldom come to one another’s defense. Women who report abuse are often punished instead of helped, creating even greater fear among their peers.

Neither Jennifer nor Kelly thinks that having more women officers at higher ranks would change anything. They say the “divide to conquer” system, which begins by conquering U.S. recruits’ moral values, permeates the military.

Jennifer brought up another issue; as a lesbian, she knew discrimination had started when the “don’t ask, don’t tell” provisions were read to her before she signed up.

Already in the Army National Guard, she was activated for duty on September 11th. Surrounded by soldiers hugging and kissing loved ones before being deployed, Jennifer’s partner was unable to support her in the same way. By then, having already been exposed to the “jodies,” Jennifer became increasingly aware of the system’s brutality and the many injustices it perpetrates.

In every area women are not treated as equals, not respected. “The shoes for women are of poorer quality and women’s uniforms fit tightly to emphasize her body,” Jennifer told us.

Since mechanics and welders are deployed as infantry, from which women are excluded, Jennifer was not deployed as a mechanic even though she was qualified. She ultimately left the service, unable to reconcile her conscience with the treatment of minorities, the injustices, and the invasion. She now works in the GI peace movement.

Like many young people from blue-collar communities, Jennifer turned to the military for opportunities. She trained as a mechanic, a field that few women enter or consider a likely occupation for such a small, beautiful young woman.

Ann pointed out that many recruits join for the education they can get. “Almost no one joins the military because they want to kill people,” she commented. Both Kelly, who went to college, and Jennifer, who learned a trade, received their educations as a result of military service.

Traditionally, the U.S. military has been good to its veterans, providing not only education but health care and good retirement. However my friends at Camp Casey decried the “economic draft” that exists today: working class young people with little future sign up disproportionately.

Ann suggests that if there were another kind of national service, many of these young people would never enlist. If the United States offered free post secondary education to qualified persons like other developed nations do, the number of young people who enlist would be greatly reduced.

All three women are proud of their military service. Though appalled at the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, they still feel very connected to the military. Kelly expressed sadness and disappointment that people who see her wearing her military jacket remark that is must belong to her boyfriend or husband. She served at great risk to her own life in Hungary, Croatia and Iraq and is now using her skills to stop the abuse of her service by the very people who should respect its integrity.

I would not have understood the pride these women feel about their service before I went to Camp Casey.

As my friend, Patrice Schexnayder of Texas Impact, an interfaith group working for justice, said: “The military at its best is not about weapons that destroy buildings and the life within, photographed by satellite or spy plane, and totally bloodless, all in the name of aggression. It is about staying awake and on guard, while others sleep.”

Kelly and Jennifer were key organizers of the Winter Soldier event in March. Their skillful negotiation made the session on gender in the military possible in spite of initial resistance by some of their male colleagues. They spoke of it as a beginning, an opening of the door. I think it is a major victory.

The three women veterans of this panel are true Warriors, horrified at the way the U.S. uses their service in Iraq and Afghanistan, but nonetheless willing to serve to protect us.

It was a privilege to hear these women tell their stories.

Iraq Soldier Discusses His “Kills”
(VIDEO)
ANP via HuffPo
May 27, 2008

In the spring of 2007, a conference was held on the outskirts of Washington, DC. Entitled Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, it hearkened back to the Winter Soldier testimonies held three decades ago during the Vietnam War. Of the testimonies we filmed, this one, by Iraq War vet Jon Michael Turner, was the most compelling and intense.

[Open link to] Watch the video below.

Assault and Batteries
High-tech horror: Widespread cell-phone violence against women in Iraq and the Congo.
Harkavy, Village Voice
May 7, 2008

The downside of the 21st century’s high-tech age is lower than you can imagine: Cell phones and cell-phone technology are prime culprits in a growing epidemic of rape, beatings, and murder of women in the Congo and Iraq.

A war over “coltan,” a crucial ingredient in the manufacture of cell phones and other electronic devices, has helped cause the ongoing tragedy of rape and murder by the millions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The DRC horrors far outstrip even Darfur as a tragedy, as I noted in June 2005.

Go to Seeing is Believing: Handicams, Human Rights and the News, the website of Czech-Canadian Katerina Cizek’s documentary film series of that name, to read “Cell Phones Fuel Congo Conflict.” . The series explains how the fight over coltan, only one of the treasures in the resources-rich Congo, is directly responsible for much of the savage war in which millions have died and hundreds of thousands, at the very least, have been raped and otherwise brutalized.

Eve Ensler, famous for the Vagina Monologues, is one of the few Westerners to latch onto the rampage against women in the Congo and try to publicize it. Incongruously, her monologue on the violence, gleaned from a trip there, can be found in Glamour. Here’s the second paragraph of Ensler’s in-your-face August 2007 article:

How do I tell you of girls as young as nine raped by gangs of soldiers, of women whose insides were blown apart by rifle blasts and whose bodies now leak uncontrollable streams of urine and feces?

Meanwhile, in Iraq, cell phones as finished products are prime weapons — in a high-tech fashion — for brutalizing women.

Amanj Khalil, a young journalist for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, described on May 2 one recent incident in Iraq’s northern Kurdish area:

Salma trusted her boyfriend enough to speak freely with him about romance, love and even sex.

But she has paid a high price for her candour. Salma, who asked that her real name be concealed because of the sensitivity of her story, is hiding in a women’s shelter in the northeastern city of Sulaimaniyah, her body battered and bruised.

Her boyfriend recorded their intimate conversations on his phone and passed them onto her family through a friend when she refused to marry him. Salma’s body still bears the scars of her family’s response. The 28-year-old’s hand was fractured during one of the beatings from her brothers, father and uncles.

“They started to beat me without even letting me speak,” she said. “They beat me so severely that I fainted several times.”

Salma’s just one of many Iraqi women being brutalized in a high-tech way by lower-than-low scumbags.

It’s worse in the Congo. Natural disasters, like the cyclone that ravaged Burma, are one thing. Manmade disasters are another. And no manmade disaster is as unnatural as what’s going on in the DRC, surely the rape capital of the world.

Here’s a grim fact: In the Congo, “vaginal destruction” has become an official term of medical art used by beleaguered doctors and nurses to describe war-related injuries.

Western governments and the mainstream press usually, but not always, ignore the DRC. (Certainly, Western corporations don’t ignore it the country’s rich natural resources.) So you have to go elsewhere to find out about the situation. Thanks to the Web, the upside of high-tech, you can.

One of the best pieces, and I’ve referred to it previously, is Sarah J. Coleman’s June 2005 article on Beliefnet, “Congo’s Conflict: Heart of Darkness.” Her lede is worth repeating:

How do you measure the horror in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Add up all of the American deaths in every single war we’ve fought in since 1776, including World War II and the Civil War (1,540,665). Now add to that the estimated deaths from the recent tsunami (169,752 confirmed dead, 127,294 missing). Next, add to that the estimated death toll in the conflict in Darfur (400,000). Then, add to that the victims of genocide in Rwanda, one of the most horrific slaughters of the 20th century (937,000).

Add all of the deaths together — and you still have a smaller number than the 3.5 million people who have died in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 1998.

The toll’s up to an estimated 5 million now — that’s the scope of the Holocaust. Read Stephen Lewis’s April 12 speech at Ensler’s V-Day Celebration in New Orleans.

Lewis really got down to it in September 2007, quoting from “The Shame of War: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Conflict,” a March 2007 major report from IRIN, the U.N.’s excellent and free global news service:

“As a result of the systematic and exceptionally violent gang rape of thousands of Congolese women and girls, doctors in the DRC are now classifying vaginal destruction as a crime of combat. Many of the victims suffer from traumatic fistula — tissue tears in the vagina, bladder, and rectum.

Additional long-term medical complications for survivors may include uterine prolapse (the descent of the uterus into the vagina or beyond) and other serious injuries to the reproductive system, such as infertility, or complications associated with miscarriages and self-induced abortions. Rape victims are also at high-risk for sexually transmitted infections.”

I won’t apologize for the graphic nature of this, because we need to face the unexpurgated facts.

The Congo violence is the biggest war tragedy, but of course it’s far from the only manmade disaster. Among the many battlegrounds of violence against women is Kurdish Iraq. That northern region of Iraq has long been thought to be the most civilized area of the war-torn country (aside from the increasing number of skirmishes between Turkey and the Kurd separatists). But Salma’s story is far from unique.

Here’s the intrepid reporter Khalil again to give the broader view of cell-phone-induced violence in Iraq:

Mobile phones have become a new threat to young women’s safety in Iraq’s northern region, members of parliament and women’s rights campaigners warn.

Men are using them to take photos and record audio and video clips of women and girls who are breaking social codes by having sexually explicit conversations or intimate relations with their boyfriends. In many cases, the conversations and videos have been widely distributed, damaging women’s reputations and, in doing so, putting their lives at risk.

In 2007, nearly 350 women were the victims of violence in mobile-phone related cases, according to statistics compiled by women’s organisations and the Sulaimaniyah police directorate. In 2006, 170 cases were recorded.

However, experts believe that the actual number of incidents is much higher.

Can you hear me now?

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

loans capital for sources brokers business

An interactive menu accessible through loans capital for sources brokers business Internet browser notifies the company if the user is safe or in distress.

tables amoritazion loan car

An interactive menu accessible through tables amoritazion loan car Internet browser notifies the company if the user is safe or in distress.

richmond loan car

In Estonia richmond loan car found criminals collecting cash parking fees, so richmond loan car declared that only mobile payments via SMS were valid for parking and today all parking fees in Estonia are handled via mobile and the crime involved in the activity has vanished.

me car loans near

Numerous studies have reported no significant relationship between me car loans near use and health.

loan military career

[40] Thus, they would not attempt connection to loan military career base stations as during take off and landing.

cash idaho quick loan

In cash idaho quick loan cash idaho quick loan s had been used to detonate the bombs.

celtic loanwords

Soon other media content appeared such as news, videogames, jokes, horoscopes, TV content and advertising.

loans bank chase

The eyes are loans bank chase part of the body known to be poor at dissipating heat.

calculator cheap loans

The total value of mobile data services exceeds calculator cheap loans of paid services on the Internet, and was worth 31 billion dollars in 2006 (source Informa).

title chicagoland loans

Further example of criminal investigations using title chicagoland loans s is title chicagoland loans location and ultimate identification of the terrorists of the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

Entry Filed under: Political Waves