Left I on the News

I don't feel like making this a long post; anyone who's been watching TV in the last few days, and listening not to Rev. Wright himself, but instead or in addition to essentially every single talking head, be they a newscaster, a "pundit," or a politician, would think that Wright was practically the equivalent of a terrorist, or perhaps had said that whites were an inferior race, or some outlandish remark (other than the understandable and widely shared, though mistaken, comments about AIDS). And, sadly, along comes Barack Obama to help out, calling Wright's comments "outrageous" and "destructive."

And if Obama doesn't think that "equat[ing] the United States' wartime efforts with terrorism" is a valid exercise, I suggest he walk past Ground Zero in Manhattan, and then take a walk through downtown Baghdad, or perhaps visit a mass grave in Fallujah. He could try taking in the sites of Sadr City, where just yesterday the U.S. military, claiming (and probably truthfully) to be firing at "militants" on rooftops who were firing at them, simply fired rockets at the buildings, not knowing or caring who was inside, and killing some unknown number of civilians, including 2-year-old Ali Hussein, who were inside.

Update: Statement from Eugene Puryear, Vice-Presidential candidate of the PSL. One section I'd like particularly to quote here:

In wall-to-wall media coverage, we hear that the message of Rev. Wright has jeopardized the future of Obama’s campaign because it is unpalatable to white working-class voters. The same corporate media that never countenances the language of “working class”—before there was only one big happy America—have now become experts in class politics. The carefully primped talking heads on Fox News and CNN have suddenly become the spokespeople for the blue-collar white worker.

But the corporate media has left out the most important fact: it is they who decide what is palatable. Wright has not come under attack because his message is unacceptable to white workers. Wright’s crime was that he put out a message unacceptable to the white racist bourgeoisie. There are no white workers scripting the text for Anderson Cooper or Sean Hannity. The multinational working class—Black, Latino, Arab, Asian and white—has nothing to do with it. The working class, regardless of nationality, is a subject class, subjected to the media that molds public opinion. It is this ruling class that formulated Obama’s “electability” crisis.

Mr. Bush has spent much of his presidency riding high on claims of solid job growth.

Mr. Bush has spent much of his presidency riding high on claims of unparalleled job growth.

Here's a graph I found at the U.S. Dept. of Labor:

What it shows, as we all know (check that: all of us except, apparently, the New York Times), is that during the first four years of the Bush Administration, from January 2001 to January 2005, the increase in jobs was...zero. None. And of course it's really a lot worse than that, because, as I was writing at the time, that doesn't take into account population increase, which in turn translates into something I've named "job inflation." In fact, as I wrote, in the first term of the Bush Administration, there were more than 7.5 million "job-inflation-adjusted jobs" lost.

The second term has clearly been better, although looking at the slope vs. the slope of the graph for the years that preceded Bush, I very much doubt the word "unparalleled" is remotely justified even for that period. But for the entire time ("much of his Presidency" says the Times), the increase in jobs has been only 5.5 million. But that's a decrease in "job-inflation-adjusted" jobs of a whopping 8.9 million jobs! And the "claim" that Bush "has spent much of his presidency riding high on claims of solid (or unparalleled) job growth" has about as much validity as my claim that I'm 6'11" - it falls well short of reality.

"I said to Barack Obama last year, 'If you get elected, November the 5th I'm coming after you, because you'll be representing a government whose policies grind under people.'"

- Rev. Jeremiah Wright, today at the National Press Club

While we're on the subject of Obama, and with the verdict in the Sean Bell murder trial fresh in the news, I should take note of Obama's comments on the subject:

"I said at the time, without benefit of all the facts before me, that it looked like a possible case of excessive force. The judge has made his ruling, and we're a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down."

And this statement from Obama is quite wrong: "The judge has made his ruling, and we're a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down." Leaving aside the arguable nature of the "we're a nation of laws" statement, and assuming it to be true for sake of argument, that statement only applies to the legal system itself. These officers will not be convicted of manslaughter, thanks to the double jeopardy statutes. That's the law. But any individual is under no obligation to "respect the verdict" in the sense of accepting it or agreeing with it; any individual, and that would include Obama, is perfectly within the law to denounce the verdict as a travesty of justice, to call for a federal prosecution under civil rights laws, and to throw their support behind a civil suit brought by the families and the injured survivors against the city, even if they want to restrict their actions to "legal" means (as opposed to demonstrating or committing civil disobedience in the streets). Obama could have done any of those things, but of course he didn't.

And, for the sake of completeness, the same naturally applies to Hillary Clinton and John McCain as well. As far as I can tell, though, neither, presumably because only black people are interested in the issue according to the press, has even been asked about the verdict, and neither has volunteered their opinion.

Here are two of the highlights, not in terms of rarity, but in beauty (click to enlarge):

Bullock's (a.k.a. Northern) Oriole

Cedar Waxwing

On Feb. 6, 1962, President John F. Kennedy secured a supply of 1,000 cigars from the legendary Cuban tobacconist H. Upmann. The next day, Kennedy made it illegal to import Cuban cigars, imposing a trade embargo that remains to this day.

"This change increases our emphasis in the region on employing naval forces to build confidence and trust among nations through collective maritime security efforts that focus on common threats and mutual interests," said [Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of Navy operations].

Rear Admiral James Stevenson, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command, was a bit more honest than Roughead:

The fleet could "certainly bring a lot more stature to the area and increase our ability to get things done," Stevenson said.

Ever since then, Filipino veterans have been fighting to obtain the benefits they were promised. Most have died by now; only 18,000 remain alive. And now they're happy, unfortunately prematurely so, because the Senate has passed a bill restoring those promised benefits (not, by the way, retroactively). I say prematurely because the House will be taking up the bill "before the end of the year" (no rush), and the President may veto the bill anyway.

Sooner or later the world is going to learn that the word of the United States Government, even in the form of a law or a treaty, is absolutely worthless.

Maybe he was just reaching for his wallet, like one of the last famous murder victims of the New York City police, Amadou Diallo. Let's listen to Bruce Springsteen honor that victim, and as we do, let's remember that the New York City police had the audacity to picket Madison Square Garden while Bruce was inside singing this song.

Update: Statement from the La Riva/Puryear campaign.

Update 2: Bruce Springsteen's tribute to his recently deceased bandmate Danny Federici, in which we learn of their own encounters with the police.

Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, the public face of Saddam Hussein's regime, will face trial next week over the execution of dozens of merchants in 1992, a prosecutor said on Thursday.

The merchants were accused of increasing prices of essential goods against state policy at a time when Iraq was suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"It’s just god awful. If you think about it, if you compare those amounts of money—and I heard this statistic the other day—to maintain, to maintain status quo of world starvation—that means not improve it...but just for people to hang on, we need $700 million. And these two, have generated more than that already and still people are going hungry."

"The world" has suddenly discovered the problem, which has, for sure, taken a significant turn for the worse. But there is one world leader, in my opinion the greatest political leader the world has ever known, who has been calling the world's attention to this problem, and to its cause, for nearly 30 years (and probably more).

Fidel Castro at the U.N., 1979:

Mr. President, distinguished representatives: Human rights are often spoken of, but we must also speak of humanity's rights. Why should some people walk around barefoot so that others may travel in expensive cars? Why should some live only 35 years so that others may live 70? Why should some be miserably poor so that others may be exaggeratedly rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not even have a piece of bread. [applause] I speak on behalf of the sick who lack medicine. I speak on behalf of those who have been denied the right to life and human dignity.

Some countries are on the sea; others are not. [applause] Some have energy resources; others do not. Some possess abundant land on which to produce food; others do not. Some are so glutted with machinery and factories that even the air cannot be breathed because of the poisoned atmosphere; [applause] while others have nothing more than their emaciated arms with which to earn their daily bread. In short, some countries possess abundant resources; others have nothing.

What is their fate? To starve? To be eternally poor? Why then civilization? Why then the conscience of man? Why then the United Nations? [applause] Why then the world? One cannot speak of peace on behalf of tens of millions of human beings all over the world who are starving to death or dying of curable diseases. One cannot speak of peace on behalf of 900 million illiterates.

The exploitation of the poor countries by the rich countries must cease. I know that in many poor countries there are both exploiters and exploited. I address myself to the rich nations, asking them to contribute. And I address myself to the poor countries, asking them to distribute. Enough of words. We need deeds. [applause]

Enough of abstractions. We need concrete action. Enough of speaking about a speculative new international economic order that nobody understands. [applause] We must speak of a real, objective order that everybody understands.

I have not come here as a prophet of revolution. I have not come here to ask or to wish that the world be violently convulsed. I have come to speak of peace and cooperation among the peoples. And I have come to warn that if we do not peacefully and wisely resolve the present injustices and inequalities, the futurewill be apocalyptic. [applause] The sounds of weapons, of threatening language, and of prepotent behavior on the international arena must cease. [applause]

Enough of the illusion that the problems of the world can be solved by nuclear weapons. Bombs may kill the hungry, the sick, and the ignorant, but they cannot kill hunger, disease, and ignorance. Nor can they kill the righteous rebellion of the peoples. And in the holocaust, the rich -- who have the most to lose in this world -- will also die.

According to the calculations of renowned economists, the world economy grew six-fold and the production of wealth and services grew from less than five trillion to more than twenty-nine trillion dollars between 1950 and 1997. Why then is it still the case that each year, 12 million children under five years of age die -- that is to say 33,000 per day -- of whom the overwhelming majority could be saved?

Nowhere in the world, in no act of genocide, in no war, are so many people killed per minute, per hour and per day as those who are killed by hunger and poverty on our planet -- 53 years after the creation of the United Nations.

The children who die and could be saved are almost 100% poor and of those who survive, we must ask why 500,000 are left blind every year for lack of a simple vitamin which costs less than a pack of cigarettes per year? Why are 200 million children under five years of age undernourished? Why are there 250 million children and adolescents working? Why do 110 million not attend primary school and 275 million fail to attend secondary school? Why do two million girls become prostitutes each year? Why in this world -- which already produces almost 30 trillion dollars worth of goods and services per year -- do one billion 300 million human beings live in absolute poverty, receiving less than a dollar a day -- when there are those who receive more than a million dollars a day? Why do 800 million lack the most basic health services? Why is it that of the 50 million people who die each year in the world, whether adults or children, 17 million -- that is approximately 50,000 per day -- die of infectious diseases which could almost all be cured -- or, even better, be prevented -- at a cost which is sometimes no more than one dollar per person?

How much is a human life worth? What is the cost to humanity of the unjust and intolerable order which prevails in the world? 585,000 women died during pregnancy or in childbirth in 1996, 99% of them in the Third World, 70,000 due to abortions carried out in poor conditions, 69,000 of them in Latin America, Africa and Asia? Apart from the huge differences in the quality of life between rich and poor countries, people in rich countries live an average of 12 years longer than people in poor countries. And even within some nations, the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest is between 20 and 35 years. It is really sad to think that just in the area of maternal and post-natal services, in spite of the efforts of the WHO and UNICEF over the last 50 years, the number of deaths from lack of medical services has been 600 million children and 25 million mothers who could have survived. That would have required a more rational and more just world.

In that same post-war period, in the area of military expenditure, 30 trillion dollars were spent. According to UN estimates, the cost of providing universal access to basic health care services would be 25 billion dollars per year -- just three percent of the 800 billion dollars which are currently devoted to military expenditure -- and this after the end of the Cold War.

By the way, in that second speech, Fidel also talked about another problem which no other world leader was talking about at the time...climate change:

The climate is changing. The seas and the atmosphere are heating up. The air and water are becoming contaminated. Soil is eroding, deserts are growing, forests are disappearing and water is becoming scarce. Who can save our species? The blind, uncontrollable law of the market? Neo-liberal globalization, alone and for its own sake, like a cancer which devours human beings and destroys nature? That cannot be the way forward or at least it can only last for a brief period in history.

Soaring food prices are a "massacre" of the world's poor and are creating a global nutritional crisis, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday, calling it a sign that capitalism is in decline.

"It is a true massacre what is happening in the world," Chavez said in a televised speech, citing U.N. statistics about deaths caused by hunger and malnourishment.

"The problem is not the production of food ... it is the economic, social and political model of the world. The capitalist model is in crisis." (Source)

Update: Just so you know Chavez isn't spouting rhetoric about capitalism, read Bill Quigley's article on yesterday's CounterPunch to learn how Haiti, where there are now food riots happening and people are starving, was self-sufficient in rice 30 years ago, until capitalism in the form of the IMF stepped in and forced Haiti to reduce tariffs and open itself up to American rice.

Egeland, the former U.N. humanitarian chief, estimated in 2006 that 200,000 people had lost their lives because of the conflict, from violence, disease and malnutrition. He said this was based on an independent mortality survey released in March 2005 by the U.N. World Health Organization.

"That figure must be much higher now, perhaps half as much again," Holmes said Tuesday.

But the real point to be made is what I said back in 2006:

Have you ever seen the word "killed" applied to people who have died from disease or famine (otherwise known as malnutrition) in Iraq, or pretty much anyplace else? The issue does arise, as I have discussed in writing about the distinction between the figures for Iraqi dead, as estimated by the Johns Hopkins/Lancet study, and the numbers of Iraqis "killed," as estimated, for example, by Iraq Body Count. But the media has uniformly discounted the former, and never, to my knowledge, used the word "killed" to apply to people who met their death by "natural" causes.

The other interesting comparison is that number, 200,000. I have no idea where it comes from, nor am I questioning it. But I'll just note that Iraq is a largely urban country with large cities, hospitals, morgues, etc., while Darfur is an almost entirely rural region of Sudan. It's curious that the media can quote authoritative figures for the numbers of people killed in Darfur, but don't have a clue how many people have been killed (or have died) in Iraq, isn't it?
...
Here's an interesting "fact sheet" you can find on the U.S. State Department's website . It appears to be the most recent thing they have; unfortunately, it's dated March 25, 2005. Interestingly, it uses the same "excess deaths" concept as the widely disparaged Johns Hopkins study in Iraq, and produces a result with wide variance: "63-146,000 'excess' deaths can be attributed to violence, disease, and malnutrition because of the conflict." It also claims that "wildly divergent death toll statistics, ranging from 70,000 to 400,000, result from applying partial data to larger, nonrepresentative populations over incompatible time periods." [I should add that there are only the most general indications of the methodology of the studies which this fact sheet encompasses, and no indication whatsoever that the information it reports was the result of studies in any way are careful and detailed as the Johns Hopkins study] I can't find anything more recent that appears to qualify as actual data, rather than just claims. Nevertheless, even this one study from a year ago [Three years ago now] indicates that the "certainty" suggested by the...use of the figure "200,000" is surely not warranted.

I'll close by quoting what I wrote last year:

But, of course, it's the U.S. and the U.K. governments which are responsible for the genocide of three-quarters of a million people in Iraq [now scientifically estimated at more than a million], and the displacement of an estimated three million people (two million to other countries and one million internally displaced) [now more than four million]. And that makes all the difference in the way that facts pertaining to that situation are treated in the press. The corporate-government-military press.

[The lawyer for the veterans] showed the judge two e-mails written last year among high-ranking officials that said an average of 18 military veterans kill themselves each day — and five of them are under VA care when they commit suicide. Another e-mail said 1,000 veterans under VA care attempt suicide each month.

Editor and Publisher's Greg Mitchell has more on the scandalous nature of the attempted coverup of this epidemic:

Yesterday, in federal court In San Francisco, attorneys for veterans' groups accused the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs of a shocking cover-up in lying about the epidemic of suicides among veterans. Internal emails written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's head of Mental Health, seem to bear this out.

"There is no epidemic in suicide in VA," Katz told CBS last November. He had informed CBS that there were only 790 suicide attempts for all of 2007. And he attacked CBS numbers that suggested otherwise.

But in a February 2008 e-mail to his top media adviser, Katz wrote: "Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities." CBS notes today, "it appears that Katz went out of his way to conceal these numbers."

How's this: Katz titled his e-mail: "Not for the CBS News Interview Request" and opened it with "Shh!" Beautiful.

The e-mail ended: "Is this something we should (carefully) address...before someone stumbles on it?"

Stevens Creek

...and all things great and small...

Butterfly, San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers

These are just some of the reasons that the earth and all its inhabitants need to be saved from the scourge of capitalism, and some of the things that an equitable distribution of the fruits of the labor of the working people of the planet would give more people more leisure time to appreciate (as opposed to having the leisure time to appreciate them because they're unemployed!).

And as a sort of poetic justice complement to that last paragraph, I'm reminded that today is Lenin's birthday.

As I've already explained in a post on the most recent debate, the idea that Clinton and Obama (and McCain, for that matter) have different positions on this question is nonsense. Anyone who thinks President Obama or President McCain wouldn't respond to this absurdly unlikely hypothetical situation with the identical "massive retaliation" that President Clinton would use is smoking something.

Meanwhile, a far more significant statement from an important political figure has flown under the radar. This one, from Defense Secretary Robert Gates:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believes Iran is "hell bent" on acquiring nuclear weapons.

Yes, Gates did say we shouldn't go to war with Iran because of their alleged development of nuclear weapons, but not for any principled reason, only because "another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need."

Recently Fadel, who is normally the Baghdad bureau chief for McClatchy and, as far as I can tell, pretty much reports independently, turned herself into an "embed" and accompanied U.S. troops into Sadr City during the recent fighting there. In doing so, however, she demonstrated that a good reporter can embed their body without embedding their mind. She appeared on Bill Moyers Journal a few nights ago to talk about her experiences (and more). The full video is 35 minutes, if you've got time:

Here are some excerpts from the interview, which demonstrate the extent to which Fadel actually behaves like an "embed"...with the Iraqi people:

LEILA FADEL: Yeah. I had been in Sadr City five or six days earlier talking to the victims of air strikes, U.S. air strikes, who had so much anger towards what the U.S. military calls collateral damage. I mean, these people were angry. Angry, angry that their four year olds had shrapnel in their body, that there were soldiers shooting from abandoned buildings in their neighborhoods. They were extremely angry.
...
And I asked these men [the U.S. soldiers she accompanied into Sadr City, who were using a supposedly unoccupied house as a sniper base, and whose owner returned, but wasn't allowed in, while they were there], you know, what would you do if there was a foreign army in your house?

BILL MOYERS: You asked the Americans?

LEILA FADEL: I asked the American soldiers. And one soldier told me he would blow up half the house to get back into it. And another said he would be a sniper on a rooftop and start taking people out. And I said, "Well, isn't that what this group is doing?" And one soldier told me-- he was from Athens, Tennessee, I think. And he said, "But we're trying to do something good for them."

"The U.S. military says that they have people in detention that say they were trained and supplied in Iran and apparently have killed U.S. soldiers. I don't know. That's what they say. I don't know that it's true."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday the Air Force is not doing enough to help in the Iraq and Afghanistan war effort, complaining that some military leaders are "stuck in old ways of doing business."

Gates said in a speech at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., that getting the Air Force to send more surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft to Iraq and Afghanistan has been "like pulling teeth."

He cited the example of drone aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents without risking the life of a pilot. He said the number of such aircraft has grown 25-fold since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The military's reliance on unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft has soared to more than 500,000 hours in the air, largely in Iraq, according to Pentagon data.

The Afghan Army and police forces should be able to secure most of Afghanistan by 2011, allowing international forces to start withdrawing, the American commander of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, said Sunday.

The U.S. Army and Marine Corps let 861 convicted felons join their ranks in 2007, an 88 percent jump over the previous year that helped meet recruiting goals in wartime, according to data released on Monday.

The waivers for convictions ranging from assault and burglary to manslaughter and sex crimes allowed the military to enlist people otherwise precluded by recruitment standards.

Both the Army and Marine Corps also granted waivers to recruits convicted of making terrorist threats, including bomb threats. The Marine Corps granted five such waivers in 2007 while the Army granted two.

The Marines gave waivers to 11 people convicted of carrying a weapon on school grounds.

But there are a few things that have to be noted about the article. First, it's great, but like the Democrats' "opposition" to the war in Iraq, it comes about six years too late. If the Times wanted to make sure the American public was getting a "fair and balanced" picture of the war in Iraq, both before the invasion (with respect to the "justification" for the war) and after the invasion (with respect to the "success" of the effort, the "handful of rotten apples" at Abu Ghraib, etc.), it needed to do a better job itself at the time, not now.

Second, until you get to the final few paragraphs (of an article that takes 11 pages on the web!), you don't hear a word about the networks themselves. It's all from the point of view of "the Pentagon did this," "the Pentagon manipulated that." Which is certainly newsworthy, but the fact is, it was the networks who accepted this kind of "analysis," and who from the get-go acted as if the operative word in "military analyst" was "military" and not "analyst." Someone like Norman Solomon has every bit as much to say (and one heck of a lot more insight) about the "war effort" than any of the generals you could see on CNN or FOX or MSNBC etc., but you never saw him (or anyone like him) on any of those channels (and not just FOX) as any kind of analyst, much less as a "military analyst."

And even those final paragraphs of "network reaction," which didn't run in the print edition of the paper I read (and, for all I know the Times itself), don't shed any real light on that central question, only on the question of did the networks know of and disclose conflicts of interest their analysts had (like serving on the boards of defense companies profiting from the war they were "analyzing").

A former Colombian congresswoman whose vote was key to approving a constitutional reform that cleared the way for President Alvaro Uribe's reelection bid in 2006 claims she was offered certain benefits for her ballot, in apparent violation of Colombian law.

Yidis Medina said in a previously unseen 2004 video that Uribe, then-Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt and Alberto Velásquez, then secretary general of the presidency, offered her "whatever she wanted" in exchange for her vote favoring the reelection.

According to Medina, 17 other congressional representatives were also approached with similar offers.

The granting of special benefits to congressional representatives in exchange for votes has been standard practice throughout the history of the Colombian Congress.

But a 2003 constitutional amendment backed by Uribe outlawed the practice.

Medina, who at first opposed the reelection proposal, admitted in the interview that she requested several government positions for friends and supporters to change her vote. She said she also accepted an offer by Uribe to appoint one of her close friends to a consular position.

She voted in favor of the proposal in mid-2005, allowing Uribe to run for reelection in May 2006.

And while you're at it, remember that Chavez put his proposal to extend the limits on Presidential terms of office up to a vote of the people, not up to a vote of easily-bribed members of Congress.

"Hunger has not been down to fate for a long time -- just as (Karl) Marx thought. It is rather that a murder is behind every victim. This is silent mass murder."

- Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the right to food

Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told Kurier am Sonntag that growth in biofuels, speculation on commodities markets and European Union export subsidies mean the West is responsible for mass starvation in poorer countries.

Ziegler blamed globalization for "monopolizing the riches of the earth" and said multinationals were responsible for a type of "structural violence."

"And we have a herd of market traders, speculators and financial bandits who have turned wild and constructed a world of inequality and horror. We have to put a stop to this," he said.

Ziegler said he believed that one day starving people could rise up against their persecutors. "It's just as possible as the French Revolution was," he said.

"More than three billion people in the world condemned to premature death from hunger and thirst."

The reason officials such as [World Bank president Robert] Zoellick are sounding the alarm may be that the food crisis, and its attendant political risks, are not likely to be resolved or contained by the laissez-faire operation of capitalism's market forces. Government intervention on behalf of the poor - so out of fashion during globalization's roaring '90s and the current decade - may be about to make a comeback.

Heating up the class struggle to expose the incurable contradictions of capitalism is a central task for the working-class movement.

This is, in fact, not a "live" situation, but a drill on the campus of San Jose State University in one of the most peaceful large cities in the United States, San Jose, CA. But the point is not that this was "real," but to see how the campus police (campus police!) are equipped in this country.

On March 23, six activists from Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War staged a die-in during Easter Mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, Ill. The protest was one of many direct actions that took place all across the country on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.

During the die-in, the activists spoke out against the war and spurted a packet of fake blood on themselves to dramatize the violent nature of the U.S. war on Iraq.

All six were arrested shortly after the anti-war action. They were later charged with felonies for criminal damage to property: Purportedly, some of the fake blood stained the carpet.

The outrageous charges against the six are a brazen attack against the anti-war movement meant to discourage protest.

At an impromptu press conference after the arrests, Cardinal Francis George suggested that the protesters were guilty of committing a violent act.

"The international community must intervene [in the event of unspecified "massive human rights abuses and humanitarian disasters" in other countries of their choosing] with the juridical means provided in the U.N. charter and other international instruments," Benedict said. Such action, if carried out lawfully, "should never be interpreted as an unwarranted imposition or a limitation of sovereignty."

The Pope did say that "What is needed is a deeper search for ways of pre-empting and managing conflicts by exploring every possible diplomatic avenue, and giving attention and encouragement to even the faintest sign of dialogue or desire for reconciliation." As I recall, George Bush said pretty much the same thing before invading and destroying Iraq. He explored "every possible diplomatic avenue" to avoid the "need" to attack Iraq.

The poor Pope. I'm sure he longs for the days when he had his own army.

The Israeli government revealed plans Friday to build 100 homes in two Jewish settlements — one of them deep in the West Bank — in violation of its pledge to freeze settlement expansion.

The new construction apparently is part of ongoing negotiations between the Israeli government and Jewish settler leaders. Approval for the 100 homes came in return for the recent voluntary evacuation of two small unauthorized settlement outposts.

"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. It's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on."

- Jimmy Carter, speaking in Cairo about the Israeli blockade of Gaza

And Section 8J of the code says, "No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations. The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing. Therefore, the lapel flag pin being a replica, should be worn on the left lapel near the heart." Which implies that anyone who isn't "military personnel..." etc., like, say, most members of Congress or talk-show hosts or many others shouldn't be wearing the pin at all. Hmmmm.

"Iran continues to pursue a nuclear option. Those weapons, if they got them, would probably pose the greatest threat to Israel."

Obama or Clinton could have taken the opportunity, as Dennis Kucinich did at one of the early Democratic debates*, to point out that this was a complete fabrication, rebutted by the total lack of evidence, the repeated positive statements by Iran's leaders disavowing any desire for nuclear weapons, a fatwa issued by Iran's supreme leader, and, last but not least, the U.S. government itself in the form of a National Intelligence Estimate.

Needless to say, not only did they not do that, they both took the opportunity to issue threats against Iran. Clinton vowed "massive retaliation" should Iran attack Israel, and has been portrayed as having issued the more "aggressive" response to the non-existent threat. Obama vowed only "appropriate action" in the event of such a hypothetical (and highly improbable) attack, which has been portrayed as more "diplomatic," but surely everyone (everyone in the leadership of the United States) thinks that an "appropriate action" in the event of an Iranian attack on Israel would be "massive retaliation." But Obama went even further, claiming that "no options [would be] off the table when it comes to preventing them from using nuclear weapons or obtaining nuclear weapons, and that would include any threats directed at Israel or any of our allies in the region." "No options" is code for anything up to and including nuclear weapons, and Obama would be taking this action not just in the event of an attack on Israel, but if Iran obtained nuclear weapons or even if it "threatened" Israel or other "allies" (which would include Iraq), and in fact American politicians and media all pretty much agree that Iran has regularly "threatened" Israel and is doing more than "threatening" Iraq, but actively helping to attack its "government." Which means "all options are on the table" right now according to Obama.

By the way, doesn't the U.S. have to have a treaty with Israel in order to justify such a response, and even if it does, doesn't the President have to get a vote from Congress before launching a war? Or do Obama and Clinton think the law means as little as Bush does?

Update: *As a reminder, here's what Obama had to say at that debate a year ago about Iran's nuclear weapons:

Obama: I understand that, but they're in the process of developing it. And I don't think that's disputed by any expert.

It turns out that isn't half the story:

About 300,000 U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, but about half receive no care, an independent study said on Thursday.

The study by the RAND Corp. also estimated that another 320,000 troops have sustained a possible traumatic brain injury during deployment.

Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu says he would ignore agreements reached between Olmert and Abbas, should he be elected.

1. Projected total US spending on the Iraq war could cover all of the global investments in renewable power generation that are needed between now and 2030 in order to halt current warming trends.
   
   
2. The war is responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) since March 2003. To put this in perspective, CO2 released by the war to date equals the emissions from putting 25 million more cars on the road in the US this year.
   
   
3. Emissions from the Iraq War to date are nearly two and a half times greater than what would be avoided between 2009 and 2016 were California to implement the auto emission regulations it has proposed, but that the Bush Administration has struck down. Finally, if the war was ranked as a country in terms of annual emissions, it would emit more CO2 each year than 139 of the world’s nations do. Falling between New Zealand and Cuba, the war each year emits more than 60% of all countries on the planet.
   
   
4. Just the $600 billion that Congress has allocated for military operations in Iraq to date could have built over 9000 wind farms (at 50 MW capacity each), with the overall capacity to meet a quarter of the country’s current electricity demand. If 25% of our power came from wind, rather than coal, it would reduce US GHG emissions by over 1 billion metric tons of CO2 per year – equivalent to approximately 1/6 of the country’s total CO2 emissions in 2006.
   
   
5. In 2006, the US spent more on the war in Iraq than the whole world spent on investment in renewable energy.
   
   
6. US presidential candidate Barack Obama has committed to spending "$150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of green energy technology and infrastructure." The US spends nearly that much on the war in Iraq in just 10 months.

The Israelis, as you'll see in the footage, blame all the civilian deaths on "Palestinian militants using civilians for cover." Watch the footage and see if you think there were gunmen hiding behind the two boys on bicycle. Watch the footage and see if, from where they were, the Israeli tank gunners who fired the shell that killed the Reuters cameraman could have possibly identified him accurately, and imagine if you think it's likely he would have allowed militants to use him for "cover" as he was filming the Israeli tanks.

If you're an American, as I am, these are your (our) tax dollars at work.

Update: Overlapping (but supplementary) footage posted by Al Jazeera on YouTube. I am reminded that Al Jazeera posts a lot of its coverage on YouTube, which is important because, thanks to U.S. corporations (and no doubt pressure from the U.S. government), only a minuscule fraction of the American cable-TV viewing public gets Al Jazeera English on their TV.

Additional update: Thousands turn out for the funeral of Fadel Shana, the Reuters cameraman.

"I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances."

Hedge fund managers, those masters of a secretive, sometimes volatile financial universe, are making money on a scale that once seemed unimaginable, even in Wall Street’s rarefied realms.

One manager, John Paulson, made $3.7 billion last year. He reaped that bounty, probably the richest in Wall Street history, by betting against certain mortgages and complex financial products that held them.

Mr. Paulson, the founder of Paulson & Company, was not the only big winner. The hedge fund managers James H. Simons and George Soros each earned almost $3 billion last year, according to an annual ranking of top hedge fund earners by Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine, which comes out Wednesday.

To make it into the top 25 of Alpha’s list, the industry standard for hedge fund pay, a manager needed to earn at least $360 million last year, more than 18 times the amount in 2002. The median American family, by contrast, earned $60,500 last year.

Combined, the top 50 hedge fund managers last year earned $29 billion.

Around 75,000 US soldiers have been either killed, wounded or were evacuated during their participation in the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, admitted the Department of Defense on Monday.

According to the latest Pentagon report, the number of deaths in the two wars amount to 4,492, with 31,590 wounded and 38,631 troops that had to be sent away from the war scenes under the category of "non-hostile-related medical air transports."

The statistics failed to include the large number of veterans needing medical attention in the US.

A January report by the Department of Veterans Affairs showed 299,585 veterans who recently served in the Middle East had been treated by the VA since 2002. Forty percent (120,049) of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who sought care from the VA did so for mental health disorders.

Incidentally, I know of no estimates whatsoever of the number of wounded Iraqis, which clearly exceeds the million-plus killed, although not by the ratio of wounded/killed for the U.S. military, considering that the latter receive vastly better medical care than the Iraqis.

Iraq's financial free ride may be over. After five years, Republicans and Democrats seem to have found common ground on at least one aspect of the war. From the fiercest foes of the war to the most steadfast Bush supporters, they are looking at Iraq's surging oil income and saying Baghdad should start picking up more of the tab, particularly for rebuilding hospitals, roads, power lines and the rest of the shattered country.

Their bill also would require that Baghdad pay for the fuel used by American troops and take over U.S. payments to predominantly Sunni fighters in the Awakening movement.

As a reminder, in the Paris Peace Accords which ended (or began the end of) the U.S. war against Vietnam (a.k.a. the Vietnam War), the U.S. promised to pay $3.5 billion in reparations to Vietnam. Not a cent was ever paid. If the Iraqis are "hoarding" their money now, perhaps they, unlike Americans, actually learned a lesson from Vietnam, and are taking their reparations "in advance," rather than waiting in vain for them to show up after the Americans finally get out of their country.

No, she didn't exactly phrase it that way. :-)

An inspiration to us all.

"[The amount of money being spent on war in Iraq] pales when compared to the cost of another terrorist attack on our people."

Is there really any reasonable chance, much less the absolute certainty expressed by Bush, that "another terrorist attack on our people" would extract a greater price than the one paid by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? I think not.

I have issues with Ralph's approach to politics, but not with the content of his politics (ok, I have some issues with that too, but not much). His dedication to creating a better world is unsurpassed.

Well, I can't argue with the concept, but alas the execution has a rather major flaw. Because while you can get a close-up view of refugee camps in Darfur (the one that the media have focused on), Chad, Iraq, and Colombia, there's a rather glaring omission. Six million glaring omissions in fact - Palestinian refugees.

This site, which called my attention to the issue, claims that "Palestinian refugee camps within the Occupied Palestinian Territories" are slighted by the project, but actually, as far as I can tell, all Palestinian refugee camps are non-existent as far as this project goes. Indeed, there are various icons in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, but when you click on those, you learn about Iraqi refugees, not Palestinian refugees. Not to slight Iraqi refugees, of course, the latest Western-power-caused refugee crisis, but the omission of any mention of Palestinian refugees is rather striking. And reprehensible.

I can only speculate that Google wanted to focus on "non-controversial refugees," the kind that good liberals in the West can support without wrestling with their consciences. But the fact is that, whatever your view of the Palestinian liberation struggle, and of terrorism, only the tiniest fraction of the six million Palestinian refugees are actively involved in that struggle. The rest are just people living difficult lives, just like refugees from all sorts of other countries, and just as deserving of the world's sympathy and energies. The difference, of course, is that the "civilized" world ("civilized" in the Gandhian sense) doesn't want the Palestinian refugees returning to their homes, and would just as soon like to forget they exist.

Overall, Mike's platoon came under enemy attack during 75 percent of their missions. And in most of these engagements, Mike was out front defending his brothers.

Alas, Bush had to spoil it with a prediction which can never be fulfilled: "We will not let his life go in vain." Because Petty Officer Monsoor's life, like the lives of more than 4000 other members of the American military (note: I started to write "Americans," but some of them were most definitely not Americans, but foreign mercenaries fighting in American uniforms), hundreds of citizens of "allied" countries, and more than a million Iraqis, has already been lost "in vain," and nothing that happens in the future can change that. Actually some of those Iraqi lives will not have been lost in vain, because they were Iraqis who lost their lives trying to free their country from occupation. One day their efforts will be rewarded.

Obviously, the definition of "civilians" is somewhat fluid, especially in a situation where even "regular civilians" are willing to take up arms and expel an occupying force. Indeed, it's arguable that most of those 8,000 people were probably "civilians" in the sense that if there weren't an occupation, they'd be busy tending fields (poppies, probably) or doing something other than holding a gun. Some, of course, would be part of local militias, but what the proportion is is impossible to know.

In either case, however, and however one defines any particular dead person, the fact that 6,000 people died supposedly taking up arms against the occupation, and yet the resistance continues as strongly as ever, should provide a pretty good indication of the extent and resilience of that resistance, and, by extension, a pretty good indication of how unwelcome the occupation is.

Thousands of Somali citizens flee their homes as more than 14,000 Ethiopian soldiers have entered the East African nation's territories.

Over 9,000 of the troops with armored vehicles are heading to the Capital, Mogadishu after crossing the border. (Source)

In pockets of the United States, rural and urban, a confluence of market and medical forces has been widening the gap between the supply of primary care physicians and the demand for their services. Modest pay, medical school debt, an aging population and the prevalence of chronic disease have each played a role.

Now in Massachusetts, in an unintended consequence of universal coverage, the imbalance is being exacerbated by the state’s new law requiring residents to have health insurance.

By the way, whenever the subject of single-payer health care comes up, someone is sure to talk about how long people in Canada wait for medical care. The family physician profiled in this article? Her next opening for a physical is not until early May — of 2009.

Update: Of course, the situation in the United States is to be contrasted with that in socialist Cuba, which not only trains enough doctors to care of its own people, but also enough to be able to send contingents of them halfway around the world to assist in medical emergencies, but even offers free medical training to medical students from other countries, even students from a country whose stated policy in Cuba is "regime change" and which has maintained a vicious blockade on Cuba for nearly 50 years.

Actually, the news is even worse, because, as I read in the article above but didn't hear on any of the broadcast coverage, a net 914,000 American workers have lost jobs in the last 12 months. This particular article, incidentally, claims that "economists say" that "to keep pace with normal rate of population growth, the economy needs to create about 100,000 jobs a month," which is interesting because it's a whole 50% lower than previous estimates of that number that I've read. Even at that rate, that would be 2.1 million "population-adjusted jobs" lost in the last year.

And some of those same "economists" are still debating whether the country is in a recession.

Forty people have been killed and 252 wounded by Israeli cluster bombs dropped during the 2006 war in Lebanon, says the UN spokesperson.

Obama, Clinton, McCain to co-Chair Israel 60th committee

The committee will also be co-chaired by former American presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and every living former U.S. secretary of state.

Chris Matthews: At any time in this campaign did you have a chuckle that you just couldn't get rid of? Something weird that happened, that was so crazy that you just went to bed laughing about it?

Barack Obama: Oh, I think that happens once a day. But then I stopped watching cable news.

At least eight Californians die every day because they don't have health insurance.

An estimated 3,100 adults in the state died in 2006 because they lacked insurance and either couldn't afford the care they needed, got substandard care or got treatment after it was too late, determined researchers with Families USA, a national health care advocacy organization based in Washington.

The national Institute of Medicine concluded that between 2001 and 2004, a lack of insurance caused roughly 18,000 deaths nationwide per year.

Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called on Thursday for a million Iraqis to march against U.S. "occupiers", threatening a massive show of strength a week after his Mehdi Army militia battled U.S. and government troops.

"The time has come to express your rejections and raise your voices loud against the unjust occupier and enemy of nations and humanity, and against the horrible massacres committed by the occupier against our honorable people," [the statement released by al-Sadr] said.

Venezuela is planning a windfall tax on what it calls "excessive" profits of energy firms to allow state revenues to benefit from high oil prices.

The tax will take 50% of oil revenues above $70 per barrel, and an additional 60% of revenues over $100 per barrel, legislator Angel Rodriguez said.