Lamar W. Hankins : 'Masters of War' Target Syria

"Masters of War." Art from Society of Wood Engravers.

U.S. foreign policy:
The 'Masters of War'
are firmly in control

Diplomacy and fairly negotiated economic agreements have taken a back seat to violent military action as the primary way to deal with the world.

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / September 5, 2013

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
-- Bob Dylan, from "Masters of War"

The news this past week seems to confirm that “Masters of War,” the phrase from Bob Dylan’s 1963 song of that title, are firmly in control of U.S. foreign policy. Diplomacy and fairly negotiated economic agreements have taken a back seat to violent military action as the primary way to deal with the world.

At the age of 22, Dylan understood U.S. foreign policy more clearly than most politicians in my lifetime. I am not suggesting with regard to attacking Syria, for instance, that there are not some people genuinely concerned about the welfare of the Syrian people, who were likely gassed recently by President Assad. But I consider most of their comments hollow, hiding motives other than the humanitarian ones they espouse.

Sen. John McCain, for example, says,

For us to sit by, and watch these people being massacred, raped, tortured in the most terrible fashion, meanwhile, the Russians are all in, Hezbollah is all in, and we’re talking about giving them more light weapons? It’s insane.

John McCain has never seen a conflict that couldn’t be improved with a little war-making. He’s been a friend of the “Masters of War” his entire career, and has been richly rewarded. McCain is so pro-war that he made a trip to Syria last May and wound up having a photo-op with terrorists who were involved in a high-profile kidnapping case. The terrorists’ virtue was that they opposed Assad.

President Barack Obama is hardly any better than McCain:

It's important for us to recognize that when over 1,000 people are killed, including hundreds of innocent children, through the use of a weapon that 98 or 99 percent of humanity says should not be used even in war, and there is no action, then we're sending a signal that that international norm doesn't mean much. And that is a danger to our national security.

Obama apparently opposed the Iraq war 10 years ago against just as brutal a dictator as Assad and one who killed more people with chemical weapons than has Assad. Of course, some of Saddam’s gassings were done with U.S. approval and aid, when Iraq was fighting against Iran, our long-time enemy that does not bend to our will. And the U.S. gave Saddam a pass for killing between 3,000 and 5,000 Kurds in Halabja in 1988.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s comments on the subject are even more jingoistic than McCain’s and Obama’s:

Our sense of basic humanity is offended, not only by this cowardly crime but also by the cynical attempt to cover it up. What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality. The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons, is a moral obscenity. By any standards, it is inexcusable, and despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable.

These words come from an anti-Vietnam War veteran who nevertheless had few problems with agreeing to invade Iraq in 2003, making his talk of morality unpersuasive. War itself should be enough to shock the conscience, especially of someone who has participated in it.

Maybe these three U.S. leaders forgot that the U.S. has used the same excuses and equivocations to justify its use of depleted uranium against innocent Iraqis several times over a 20-year period, leading to vastly increased incidences of cancer (especially leukemia) and birth defects in Iraqi children.

As Marjorie Cohn and Jeanne Mirer, both associated with human rights organizations, have reported, the U.S. also used white phosphorous gas, which melts the skin and burns tissue down to the bone, in both Afghanistan and Iraq. A third weapon used by the U.S. in both those countries is cluster bombs, which contain tiny bomblets that spread over a vast area and can kill or maim long after being deployed if civilians, often children, disturb them.

Cohn and Mirer write, “The Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in time of War (Geneva IV) classifies ‘willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health’ as a grave breach, which constitutes a war crime.” Our leaders can always be counted on to lament the loss of civilian lives, but they do little else to prevent such losses.

Kerry’s comments about Assad’s use of gas, that it “defies any code of morality” and should “shock the conscience of the world,” apply equally to America’s conduct in its wars. But the U.S. has not been held to account for the “use (of) the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people."

And neither McCain, Obama, nor Kerry is calling for America to be held accountable. Their claimed moral outrage at the use of Assad’s weapons is mere hypocrisy until they take responsibility for our own human rights violations.

While I agree that Assad’s use of gas is an affront to civilization, it is time to acknowledge that the U.S. has committed similar atrocities that also affront humanity. What disturbs me even more, however, is that over 100,000 people have been killed so far in the Syrian civil war. This fact should be even more alarming than the deaths of 1,500 by unconventional methods.

I have tried to understand why unconventional weapons -- chlorine, phosgene, mustard, and sarin gas, along with phosphorous gas, depleted uranium, and cluster bombs, and atomic bombs and their successors -- are viewed as being in a special class of war-making weapons that various people see as so exceptional that they should be banned. I understand that a gas attack can be very painful and leave people in agony for days before they die, but conventional weapons often have the same result.

When it comes to atomic and hydrogen bombs, I understand that their widespread use would likely end life as we know it on the earth. But this is not true of the other weapons, including the sarin gas that Assad is likely to have used recently against his foes in Syria. Ninety-eight percent of the world’s countries oppose chemical weapons. This figure would impress me more if the same number of countries opposed all military weapons that kill and maim indiscriminately.

If the purpose of war is to kill the enemy until it surrenders, it is unclear to me why any weapon should be considered more horrendous than another. War has always meant indiscriminate death. The best solution to indiscriminate death is negotiation, preferably through the UN or other international bodies.

The U.S. has not pressed negotiation aggressively in Syria because its perceived interests are best served by prolonging that civil war. Syria’s allies include Iran and Hezbollah. Tying up Iran and Hezbollah in helping Assad diverts their attention from other mischief, such as bothering Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East.

In addition, the U.S. doesn’t know whom to support among groups that oppose Assad. All of the groups could become bitter enemies of the U.S. should they prevail and come to power in Syria. This is what happened in Egypt. The U.S. supported the ouster of Mubarak (after many years of supporting him), only to see a democratic election put the Muslim Brotherhood’s choice in power, making necessary (from the U.S. perspective) the ouster of President Morsi by the Egyptian military.

But the U.S. government won’t call that a coup by the military because we don’t have any good options there to bring someone to power who will do our bidding. The Egyptian military, supported by $1.5 billion in annual U.S. aid, is not a reliable friend. And why should it be, when $12 billion has been pledged by Arab sources?

For all those too young to remember Bob Dylan’s words, the lyrics to “Masters of War,” which I find useful to read occasionally as a reminder of what drives the American war machine, can be found here. Dylan identifies the “masters of war” as those who build weapons, from which they become wealthy, thus giving them an incentive to push for war whenever possible.

By implication, Dylan suggests we should “follow the money,” to see who benefits from war. He sees these people (and their minions in Congress) as indifferent to human life. He references their lies and deception, the fear they generate, and the immorality of their actions.

President Obama now wants to punish Syria for its use of sarin gas, but he wants the approval of Congress to do so. It is beginning to sound as if Obama will attack Syria, with or without congressional approval, but finds it politically advantageous to get its approval, if that doesn’t take too long.

Considering the forces arrayed in favor of attacking Syria -- the Pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, the neoconservative pundits who took us into Iraq, policy institutes (think tanks) that have produced such people as National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice, the entire arms industry, and most of the oil industry -- there is little doubt that the U.S. will attack Syria. Only the duration and extent of that involvement seem in question.

Dylan’s words remain relevant 50 years later, and will probably remain so as long as human beings exist. If it is possible to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice and freedom, we could do worse than pay more attention to what Dylan had to say.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Tom Hayden : Egypt is the Liberals' Slaughterhouse

Egyptian military chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Sisi speaks to the people after the coup. Photo from AP. Image from The Telegraph.

Post-coup Egypt:
The liberals’ slaughterhouse

The Egyptian coup, for now, marks a dead end for political Islam, and a vindication of those like Al Qaeda who reject the path of democratic elections as a deadly trap.

By Tom Hayden / The Rag Blog / August 28, 2013

When Secretary of State John Kerry described Egypt’s military coup as restoring democracy, it was a classic example of the periodic bond that exists between liberals and military dictators against those they perceive to be the dangerous classes. Their reasoning is that their version of democracy can only be restored when their enemies are eliminated, even if the enemy has won an election.

Think of the CIA overthrows of Iran’s Mohammad Mossadegh (1953) and Guatemala’s Jacobo Arbenz (1954), or the clandestine U.S. overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile (1973) and of Algeria’s slaughter of Islamists in the nineties when they were on the brink of electoral victory.

Think of the persistent discrediting and attempted coup against the elected Chavistas in Venezuela, the coup against Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, and the U.S. ouster of Jean-Bertrande Aristide in Haiti.

These are not isolated instances, but a pattern that has lead to the bloodshed in Cairo today. Movements inimical to Western interests cannot be allowed to peacefully come to power through elections. If they do, they will be targeted for destabilization or worse.

The Egyptian coup, for now, marks a dead end for political Islam, and a vindication of those like Al Qaeda who reject the path of democratic elections as a deadly trap. It also pleases Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad, who was strongly opposed by Morsi. Assad said that the Brotherhood is unfit to rule. (New York Times, July 5, 2013) The Israelis were "quietly pleased" with the coup too [New York Times, Aug. 17] The monarchs of Saudi Arabia and the Emirate are deeply satisfied.

In Egypt, thousands are being slaughtered by a military fully funded and trained by the United States government. The Egyptian generals’ coup -- which, shamefully, has not been named a coup by our government or mainstream media -- was welcomed with joy, even delirium, by many in Egypt who failed to win the elections, in particular by Egypt’s secular liberals and progressives. Did they think that tanks and bayonets could construct a liberal society?

The generals clearly used the liberals -- and a mass popular base of frustration -- while planning to proceed with the mass slaughter.

Mohamed Morsi and the Brotherhood are authoritarian in nature because of 80 years of brutal prosecution by Egyptians rulers with U.S. support. But they cannot be faulted for playing by the rules of Egypt’s electoral system, one in which Morsi won nearly 52 percent of the vote.

Morsi’s worst excess was his failed attempt to circumvent the Hosni Mubarak judiciary and place his constitutional reforms on the ballot. That was a power grab away from Mubarak’s judges in the direction of a democratic election. The history of Chicago politics is littered with far worse.

Morsi represented a shift toward the Palestinians diplomatically and politically, but not militarily, and a softer policy toward Sinai's tribal insurgents. He supported jihad against Syria's Assad, but avoided prosecuting the Egyptian generals, even protected the military's budget from parliamentary oversight.

In losing the election to Morsi, the secular liberals were to blame for their own divisions and marginal electoral status. The Facebook Generation wildly overestimated their support. They confused a media strategy with a political one, believing that the spectacle of bravely occupying Tahrir Square would not only appeal to CNN viewers but Egypt’s millions of voters who lived and worked far from the Square.

Their radical strategy of "occupying space," copied by many around the world, galvanized media attention to the spectacle, but led to a deeper polarization while draining resources and attention away from broad-based organizing to explain and protect the cause. Their implicit critique of Mubarak and the Brotherhood as being essentially the same has proven to be a disastrous mistake in judgment.

President Barack Obama could have sent a clear and immediate signal to the generals through Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel: we will not support you. This is a coup and, under American law, our $1.5 billion in military aid will be suspended. Period.

Had Obama done so, perhaps the generals would have blinked, or delayed their intended massacre. Or perhaps they would have gone ahead with their slaughter funded by the monarchs of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who recently gave the military junta $8 billion in emergency aid.

U.S. officials argue that Egypt's military is a strategic ally for reasons that deserve congressional hearings and urgent reexamination. First, defenders of the coup say that the Egyptian military, from Mubarak to the present, has been a cornerstone of the War on Terror and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Egyptians permitted air space and the the expedited use of the Suez Canal as conduits for American troops and equipment.

Unmentioned is Egypt's willing collaboration in U.S. rendition and torture programs. Those are good reasons to re-examine the US-Egyptian partnership because torture turned into a global scandal and the wars themselves into trillion-dollar quagmires. Those in the American national security establishment who concocted these follies should take responsibility for their disastrous thinking but remain protected and immune from personal consequences -- which only guarantees that the folly will be perpetuated.

An Egyptian man walks between lines of bodies wrapped in shrouds at a mosque in Cairo. Photo by Khaled Desouki.

The other rationale for supporting Mubarak and the current coup is that a repressive crushing of the Brotherhood is good for Israel. Since the 1979 Camp David Treaty between Israel and Egypt, the Egyptian military has been paid $1.5 billion annually to abandon any military support for the Palestinians.

The Israelis lobbied Obama and Congress to keep propping up the Mubarak dictatorship, which Obama resisted. But the Israelis also are closely tied to Gen. Sisi from his previous role in charge of Egypt's intelligence services. In recent days, according to The New York Times [Aug. 18], Sisi "appeared to be in heavy communication with Israeli colleagues, and [U.S.] diplomats believed the Israelis were also undercutting the Western message by reassuring the Egyptians not to worry about American threats to cut off aid."

That's because Tel Aviv believes that AIPAC controls the UC Congress. [When Sen. Rand Paul offered an amendment on July 31 opposing U.S. aid to the coup generals, the Senate turned it down on an 86-13 vote, with leading senators echoing an AIPAC letter, the Times noted.

Israel may think its security interests are protected by the coup and the violent demise of the Brotherhood. But that is short-term thinking at best. If the Arabs are killing each others, goes the neocon refrain, it's good for Israel.

Now, however, Israel faces a civil war which might spill over the border, including an insurrection in Sinai. The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks seem only to be a public relations gesture designed to prevent the Palestinians from taking their quest for sovereignty to the United Nations in September. With wars flooding through the Middle East, and with the Palestinians themselves divided, progress towards a Palestinian state seems blocked.

The future is completely unpredictable for now. The generals will continue their war to exterminate the Brotherhood, unless checked by internal resistance and outside pressure. Instead of an avenue forward for political Islam, the future appears to be Algeria where only military massacres prevented Islamists from taking power through democratic elections.

Algeria today, like Egypt, is a mainstay of the most extreme repression, including torture, in the arsenal of the War on Terrorism.

How long can this go on? No one knows, but it can be a very long time, a surge of renewal for the sagging War on Terrorism. Much depends on liberalism rethinking itself. Mohammad el-Baradai, the liberal who became Sisi's vice president with American support, has resigned after the latest army massacre of Brotherhood members. Perhaps more defections will follow, though the damage has been done.

The Brotherhood, which survived underground for 80 years, is likely to regroup and resist. Widespread sabotage, assassination of police and army officers, and rural guerrilla warfare are probable scenarios, unless the U.S. acts quickly to suspend military aid, which is required under American law.

A suspension of aid -- coupled with warnings to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates -- seems the only way to stop the generals. Instead of the failed liberal strategy of "working from within" to reform the military dictatorship, only the opposite course offers possibilities: a suspension of U.S. aid coupled with the release of Brotherhood prisoners and a UN-sponsored conference aimed at reviving a constitutional process.

Obama is more likely to continue ignoring American law than pursue a showdown with the Egyptian military. His Cairo speech, call for Mubarak's resignation, and acceptance of Morsi's election indicates that the president believes in a political role for Islam, contrary to many of his close advisers and allies.

For now he is described by the establishment as being in a "no win" situation [New York Times, Aug. 18] . Events still might force his hand, but not if liberal voices continue believing that democracy still lies just ahead beyond the mountain of bodies.

[Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and leader of Sixties peace, justice, and environmental movements. He currently teaches at Pitzer College in Los Angeles. His latest book is The Long Sixties. Hayden is director of the Peace and Justice Resource center and editor of The Peace Exchange Bulletin. Read more of Tom Hayden's writing on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Tom Hayden : Is President Taking New Tack on Counterterrorism?

President Obama speaks about his administration's counter-terrorism policy at the National Defense University in Washington, May 23, 2013. Photo by Larry Downing / Reuters.

Obama responding to critics:  
Tide turning on counterterrorism secrecy

While defending his military policies as constitutional, the president was promising to wind down the 'forever war,' sharply reduce drone attacks, repatriate detainees to Yemen, and move again to close Guantanamo.

By Tom Hayden / The Rag Blog / May 29, 2013

President Barack Obama’s speech at the National Defense University on counterterrorism revealed a commander-in-chief increasingly worried about political criticism of his Guantanamo detentions, his penchant for secrecy, and his drone warfare policies. Where Obama has shielded his policies on the basis of external terrorist threats, he now is responding to critics who threaten to upset domestic support for those policies abroad.

In past years, Obama has defended himself against attacks from neoconservative hawks and senators like John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsay Graham, who charged him with being “soft” on terrorism. But on May 23, while defending his military policies as constitutional, the president was promising to wind down the “forever war,” sharply reduce drone attacks, repatriate detainees to Yemen, and move again to close Guantanamo.

When disrupted by CodePink’s Medea Benjamin, Obama spontaneously said that Benjamin was “worth paying attention to,” and that he was “willing to cut the young lady who interrupted [him] some slack because it’s worth being passionate about.”

Such a gesture will hardly pacify CodePink or the president’s antiwar critics. But their criticisms have become a factor in the national debate. To criticize the president’s speech as “nothing new” is to miss the primary reason for which the speech was given: to explain a careful withdrawal from the Global War on Terrorism paradigm, the heinous impasse at Guantanamo, and the massive secrecy around drones.

The President was cautious in explaining his pivot toward deescalation, mindful that incidents like Benghazi or the Boston Marathon bombings can block his deescalation path, or at least complicate it severely.

The speech, along with Attorney General Eric Holder's letter and background briefings, for the first time revealed the following:

• Obama let it be known that the CIA will cede its control of the drone war to the Pentagon in six months, opening the way to greater public transparency and overdue congressional debate -- Pentagon budgets can be amended while CIA items are unmentionable secrets in Washington;
• Obama called the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force “near obsolete” and proposed its eventual repeal;
• Clarified that drones will not be used after American ground forces leave Afghanistan, a signal the Taliban and Pakistan will hear;
• Vowed to “limit the use of lethal force” to only those targets considered to be ”continuing, imminent threat(s) to Americans,” which could “signal an end” (according to The New York Times) of so-called "signature strikes" or where the threats are to partner-states but not American personnel;
• Acknowledged for the first time that U.S. drone attacks have killed civilians;
• Declassified the official information that the U.S. killed Anwar al-Awlaki and three other Americans;
• Dropped its judicial effort to block a California lawsuit seeking materials related to al-Awlaki’s killing;
• Announced consultations with the media and a report on new whistleblower guidelines by July 12;
• Appointed a new State Department official “to achieve the transfer” of Yemeni detainees from Guantanamo.

The ramifications of the Obama speech and Holder letter will be felt in the weeks ahead. Asked if there will be effects on existing human rights cases, Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said, “It does, because they never admitted to killing Abdul Rahman, the teenager, in the court papers, nor did they acknowledge that they killed people that they were not targeting. I have a sense that their legal justifications are going to shift, but not sure to what. [It] may be clearer in the coming weeks.”

In a related development, federal judge Rosemary Collyer required the Justice Department to report in two weeks on how the admissions affected the legal issues in the case. While defining al-Awlaki as a justifiable security threat, the administration now says the other three deaths, including aw-Awlaki’s 16-year old son, were not specifically targeted, raising the question of whether the administration will be held accountable in the federal court.

This article was also published at TomHayden.com.

[Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and leader of Sixties peace, justice, and environmental movements. He currently teaches at Pitzer College in Los Angeles. His latest book is The Long Sixties. Hayden is director of the Peace and Justice Resource center and editor of The Peace Exchange Bulletin. Read more of Tom Hayden's writing on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Medea Benjamin : Why I spoke Out at Obama's Foreign Policy Speech

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the political activist group CodePink, is removed by security after speaking out against President Barack Obama during his foreign policy speech Thursday. Photo by Kevin Dietsch  / UPI. Image from Common Dreams.

Why I spoke out at 
Obama's foreign policy speech

Or, Why Obama's policies themselves, not those who speak out against them, are rude.

By Medea Benjamin / Common Dreams / May 27, 2013

Having worked for years on the issues of drones and Guantanamo, I was delighted to get a pass (the source will remain anonymous) to attend President Obama’s speech at the National Defense University.

I had read many press reports anticipating what the President might say. There was much talk about major policy shifts that would include transparency with the public, new guidelines for the use of drones, taking lethal drones out of the purview of the CIA, and in the case of Guantanamo, invoking the “waiver system” to begin the transfer of prisoners already cleared for release.

Sitting at the back of the auditorium, I hung on every word the President said. I kept waiting to hear an announcement about changes that would represent a significant shift in policy. Unfortunately, I heard nice words, not the resetting of failed policies.

Instead of announcing the transfer of drone strikes from the CIA to the exclusive domain of the military, Obama never even mentioned the CIA -- much less acknowledge the killing spree that the CIA has been carrying out in Pakistan during his administration. While there were predictions that he would declare an end to signature strikes, strikes based merely on suspicious behavior that have been responsible for so many civilian casualties, no such announcement was made.

The bulk of the president’s speech was devoted to justifying drone strikes. I was shocked when the President claimed that his administration did everything it could to capture suspects instead of killing them. That is just not true. Obama’s reliance on drones is precisely because he did not want to be bothered with capturing suspects and bringing them to trial.

Take the case of 16-year-old Pakistani Tariz Aziz, who could have been picked up while attending a conference at a major hotel in the capital, Islamabad, but was instead killed by a drone strike, with his 12-year-old cousin, two days later. Or the drone strike that 23-year-old Yemini Farea al-Muslimi talked about when he testified in Congress. He said the man targeted in his village of Wessab was a man who everyone knew, who met regularly with government officials, and who could have easily been brought in for questioning.

When the President was coming to the end of this speech, he started talking about Guantanamo. As he has done in the past, he stated his desire to close the prison, but blamed Congress. That’s when I felt compelled to speak out. With the men in Guantanamo on hunger strike, being brutally forced fed and bereft of all hope, I couldn’t let the President continue to act as if he were some helpless official at the mercy of Congress.


“Excuse me, Mr. President,” I said, “but you’re the Commander-in-Chief. You could close Guantanamo tomorrow and release the 86 prisoners who have been cleared for release.” We went on to have quite an exchange.

While I have received a deluge of support, there are others, including journalists, who have called me “rude.” But terrorizing villages with Hellfire missiles that vaporize innocent people is rude. Violating the sovereignty of nations like Pakistan is rude. Keeping 86 prisoners in Guantanamo long after they have been cleared for release is rude. Shoving feeding tubes down prisoners' throats instead of giving them justice is certainly rude.

At one point during his speech, President Obama said that the deaths of innocent people from the drone attacks will haunt him as long as he lives. But he is still unwilling to acknowledge those deaths, apologize to the families, or compensate them.

In Afghanistan, the U.S. military has a policy of compensating the families of victims who they killed or wounded by mistake. It is not always done, and many families refuse to take the money, but at least it represents some accounting for taking the lives of innocent people. Why can’t the President set up a similar policy when drone strikes are used in countries with which we are not at war?

There are many things the President could and should have said, but he didn’t. So it is up to us to speak out.

This article was first published at and was distributed by Common Dreams. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

[Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org), cofounder of Global Exchange and CODE PINK: Women for Peace, is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. Her previous books include Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart, and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism.]

Medea Benjamin interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!
The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Lamar W. Hankins : Guantánamo Turns Us All Into Monsters

Photo by AP. Image from Salon.

The nation's shame:
Guantánamo turns us all into monsters

The President says the right things, but he doesn’t seem to have the political will to release those wrongly imprisoned in Guantánamo.

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / May 13, 2013

There should be no question that George W. Bush is the first to charge for the shame of Guantánamo. But now President Obama, the Congress, and the nation share that shame.

Just as the nation bought the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice-Powell lies that took us to war in Iraq, so the nation bought their claims that every person imprisoned at Guantánamo was the worst of the worst. We now know that was a lie, too.

Of the 166 men now being held at Guantánamo, 86 have been cleared of wrongdoing. There is no reason to hold them except for Congressional action to make their releases difficult and the recalcitrance of a president whose moral convictions have evaporated like steam from boiling water. No cases illustrate the shame and moral bankruptcy of U.S. actions better than the cases of Shakir Aamer and Sami al-Hajj.

Aamer was a humanitarian worker, born in Saudi Arabia, educated in the United States, and a resident of Britain, along with his British family. He was taken into custody by American agents who bought him from people who were responding to American-distributed leaflets that offered bounties for any foreigner that Pakistanis or Afghans turned over. Aamer was sold to the Americans.

He had been living in Afghanistan with his young family, building girls’ schools and digging wells as a charity worker. He was then tortured in prisons in Kandahar and Bagram before being shipped to Guantánamo, where he has been imprisoned for over 11 years, though both the Americans and the British acknowledge that he has done nothing wrong and the British government wants him repatriated. But neither the Bush nor Obama administrations have made that happen.

Aamer is one of the over 130 Guantánamo prisoners now on a hunger strike. His back has been injured by his being repeatedly thrown to the ground in a process known as “earthing,” extremely rough treatment, administered regularly to the prisoners along with other torture. He has been cruelly force-fed.

In a letter to his wife, he wrote:

I am dying here every day, mentally and physically. This is happening to all of us. We have been ignored, locked up in the middle of the ocean for years. Rather than humiliate myself, having to beg for water, I would rather hurry up the process that is going to happen anyway. I would like to die quietly, by myself. I was once 250 pounds. I dropped to 150 pounds in the first hunger strike. I want to make it easy on everyone. I want no feeding, no forced tubes, no "help," no "intensive assisted feeding."

This is my legal right. The British government refuses to help me. What is the point of my wife being British? I thought Britain stood for justice, but they abandoned us, people who have lived in Britain for years, and who have British wives and children. I hold the British government responsible for my death, as I do the Americans.

Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese citizen, was the only journalist held at Guantánamo. In 2001, while working as a cameraman for the Al Jazeera news network on his way to work for the network in Afghanistan, he was arrested by the Pakistani army and turned over to the Americans, and then shipped to Guantánamo. He was imprisoned there for more than six years without any charges of wrongdoing.

In early 2007, al-Hajj began a hunger strike that lasted 438 days until his release in May 2008. He described the procedure used to force-feed. Guantánamo medical staff intentionally use a too-large tube, which is threaded through the nose, down the esophagus and into the stomach. The size of the tube makes the process more painful than it would otherwise be, though it is unpleasant even when it is done properly as a voluntary medical treatment.

When the “feeding” is completed, al-Hajj says that the tubing is jerked out of the nose, another unnecessarily painful procedure and one that does not follow normal medical protocols for tube feeding. Often, the tubing, which is then used on the next prisoner without sanitizing or even cleaning, is contaminated with blood.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, an attorney for one of the hunger protesters, describes the force-feeding process this way:

The tube makes his eyes water excessively and blood begins to trickle from the nose. Once the tube passes his throat the gag reflex kicks in. Warm liquid is poured into the body for 45 minutes to two hours. He feels like his body is going to convulse and often vomits.

Now that he is free from Guantánamo, al-Hajj is working again for Al Jazeera, now as a journalist in charge of their human rights division. Based on what Guantánamo officials have told him, he believes the purpose of this mistreatment is to break the hunger strike. As law professor Marjorie Cohn has written, “the United Nations Human Rights Council concluded that force-feeding amounts to torture. The American Medical Association says that force-feeding violates medical ethics.”

Cohn reports that those “who are refusing food have been stripped of all possessions, including a sleeping mat and soap, and are made to sleep on concrete floors in freezing solitary cells.” Asa Hutchison, a former Republican congressman and member of The Constitution Project's Task Force on Detainee Treatment, has joined in a report that concluded the treatment and indefinite detention of the Guantanamo detainees is "abhorrent and intolerable." Yet President Obama has ordered it to continue.

When I read recently of the woman in Cleveland who had been held captive for over 10 years, I couldn’t help thinking of al-Hajj and the remaining innocent Guantánamo prisoners. A forensic psychologist expert in such matters described the ordeal of long-term kidnappings. “These are some of the most catastrophic kinds of experiences a human being can be subjected to.”

He described the people who engage in such kidnappings as having “longstanding fantasies of capturing, controlling, abusing and dominating” their victims. He said, “Total control over another human being is what stimulates them.”

Nothing could describe the motivation of the architects and operators of Guantánamo better than these words. Guantánamo was set up to afford total control of prisoners held there. The stories of those who are innocent (as well as those who did fight for al Queda) make clear that their experiences at Guantánamo have been catastrophic psychologically, emotionally, and physically.

Among those who want to keep Guantánamo intact are a large majority of the Congress, which passed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the President signed. The NDAA in part is intended to hinder the release of innocents we have incarcerated for over a decade.

Laura Pitter, writing in Foreign Policy magazine, has explained congressional efforts to keep Obama from closing Guantánamo and described a way for the President to overcome those roadblocks:

In 2011 and again in 2012, Congress enacted some restrictions on the transfer of detainees from the facility, but those restrictions are not insurmountable. They require receiving countries to take certain steps to ensure that those being transferred do not engage in terrorist activity and that the secretary of defense certify such steps have taken place.

If, however, the secretary of defense cannot, for one reason or another, certify those steps have been taken, he can waive the certification requirement in lieu of "alternative actions" -- a term which has no clear legal or procedural definition. The only guidelines are that they "substantially mitigate" the risk that the detainee being transferred may engage in terrorism.

Clearly then, the administration's ability to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo exists now, even with congressional restrictions. And with Obama again reiterating that keeping Guantanamo open harms U.S. security, the certification -- and even more so the waiver -- process seems to offer a clear path forward to emptying the facility of more than half its prisoners, if not closing it down.

Recently, President Barack Obama said that he’d do more to make good on his failed first-term campaign promise to close Guantánamo.

Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe. It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us, in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counter-terrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.

The President says the right things, but he doesn’t seem to have the political will to release those wrongly imprisoned in Guantánamo. The American people must let him know that the incarceration of human beings under these conditions is a denial of the values stated in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, of the human rights recognized by the Magna Carta 800 years ago, and of international treaties in which we are participants.

Imprisoning these men is a repudiation of the foundations of this republic, violates our laws, and turns us all into monsters.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : Pedro Gatos and Val Liveoak on Nicaragua, Cuba, and the Global South

From left, Pedro Gatos, Rag Radio's Thorne Dreyer, and Val Liveoak, in the studios of KOOP-FM in Austin, Texas, Friday, April 26, 2013. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Rag Radio podcast:
Pedro Gatos and Val Liveoak on changes
in Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Global South

We discuss the legacy of Hugo Chavez, the state of the Cuban revolution, the landmark genocide trials in Guatemala, and the growing challenge to U.S. hegemony in the hemisphere.

By Rag Radio / The Rag Blog / May 1, 2013

Peace activists Pedro Gatos and Val Liveoak joined Rag Radio host Thorne Dreyer in a discussion of recent developments in Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and the Global South on Friday, April 26, 2013. Rag Radio is a syndicated radio program produced at the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, Texas.

Listen to or download our interview with Pedro Gatos and Val Liveoak here:


Among the topics Gatos and Liveoak discussed on the show were the legacy of Hugo Chavez in Nicaragua and the recent narrow victory of Nicolas Maduro; Cuba in transition and the state of the continuing revolution; the landmark genocide trials in Guatemala of former head of state Efraín Ríos Montt and former military intelligence chief José Mauricio Rodríguez Sanchez; and the region's growing challenge to U.S. hegemony.

Pedro Gatos (aka Pete Katz) is an activist, a specialist in Latin American politics and history, a radio show host, and a licensed chemical dependency counselor. He was employed in the Travis County Justice System in Austin, Texas, for 24 years.

He founded the Pedro Gatos Institute on Addiction, Health and Social Theory. He has facilitated workshops on subjects ranging from addiction and the War on Drugs to U.S. foreign policy and "The Bay of Pigs 50 Years Later."

Gatos has visited Cuba five times since 2000 and has had exclusive interviews with then National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón and many others. Pedro hosts Bringing Light into Darkness Mondays at 6 p.m. on KOOP-FM in Austin.

Val Liveoak is the volunteer Coordinator of Friends Peace Teams’ Peacebuilding en las Américas program. An activist since 1971, she founded the Friends Peace Teams in 1993, and has been involved with many community organizations and nonviolent struggles.

For 21 years, she has been a facilitator with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), working in Mexico, Canada, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, St. Croix, St. Kitts, Bolivia, Colombia, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Val lives in San Antonio, but spends most of the year in Suchitoto, El Salvador, and travels throughout the region. She has been named a “Woman of Peace” by Womens’ Peacepower Foundation (2009) and Peacemaker of the Year by the Austin Peace and Justice Center (1986).

Listen to our December 9, 2011, Rag Radio interview with Val Liveoak here.

Rag Radio has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas. Hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor and long-time alternative journalist Thorne Dreyer, a pioneer of the Sixties underground press movement, Rag Radio is broadcast every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP, and is rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EDT) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA.

The show is streamed live on the web by both stations and, after broadcast, all Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.

Rag Radio is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive Internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

Rag Radio can be contacted at ragradio@koop.org.

Coming up on Rag Radio:
THIS FRIDAY, May 3, 2013: Free-form radio pioneer Bob Fass of Pacifica Radio's WBAI-FM in New York, with filmmaker Paul Lovelace (Radio Unnameable).
Friday, May 10, 2013: Journalism professor & activist Robert Jensen, author of Arguing for Our Lives: A User's Guide to Constructive Dialog.
Friday, May 17, 2013: Political economist Gar Alperovitz, author of What Then Must We Do?
May 24, 2013 (RESCHEDULED): Amsterdam-based poet John Sinclair, legendary founder of the White Panther Party and former manager of the MC5.

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Jean Trounstine : Texas Calls it 'Ad Seg' but Prisoners Call It Torture

Image of life in solitary via Buried Alive in Texas Prisons.

Solitary confinement:
Texas calls it 'Ad Seg' but
prisoners call it torture

A recent conference on solitary confinement at Harvard University prompted prisoners at Between the Bars to tell their side of the story. Here’s what they say about being caged within a cage.

By Jean Trounstine /The Rag Blog / March 19, 2013

This past February 25th, a panel of experts on solitary confinement converged at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to discuss the horrendous practice in our U.S. prisons that many call “cruel and unusual punishment.”

While the panel detailed the disastrous effects such isolation causes, the legal challenges through the years and the “judicial and institutional apathy” towards our 80,000 people in solitary confinement nationwide -- as of 2012, 8,100 of those in Texas alone -- what was most intriguing to me was the response to the panel by the real experts -- prisoners.

You can read their words at Between the Bars, which describes itself as “a weblog platform for people in prison, through which the 1% of Americans who are in prison can tell their stories.” Prisoners from across the country have created over 5,000 documents for BTB since the site began in 2008. Before the panel was held, Massachusetts Institute of Technology whiz kid Charlie Tarr and assistants, Carl McLaren and Benjamin Sugar, who maintain the site, put out a call to hundreds of prisoners telling them about the conference.

While I’ve written about Between the Bars before (see "Behind Bars and Blogging for Human Rights"), this time prisoners were asked to share their experience with solitary confinement through their blogs. Documents were posted online where anyone could post a response. The responses were then mailed to the prisoners who have a chance to reply. The circle continues: prisoners’ thoughts get voice; they have access to the online world; they become part of the conversation.

Texas prisoner, Guy S. Alexander, described his recent stay at the Allen B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston before his sentence of death was overturned in May 2012. Polunsky, he wrote, takes away “more of your dignity than anything... mental and long-term isolation of human contact... We had no television, or group recs, no contact visits ….a small narrow window at the top back of the cells... they made a day feel horrible… the so called paranoid rules.”

Alexander, who was in solitary at Polunsky for 12 years, is now in the Harris County Jail, close to his home in Houston. But he is still “in a cell 24 hours a day and it's bad, they don't even have air here… no circulation vents... I do have a TV and it helps, but a person needs input, friends to write and see and talk to.” On his profile page, Alexander wrote “I’m locked up but my soul and heart aren’t. I’m lonely and alone… an open book, not a monster.”

Jeremy Pinson, who made substantial threats against the government, is housed in a Colorado federal prison in solitary confinement in spite of the fact that he was diagnosed as mentally ill -- which he writes about in his over 77 blogs. Sadly, this is not uncommon. According to Solitary Watch, as of 2012, more than 2,000 Texas prisoners in Ad Seg were diagnosed with a “serious mental illness or a developmental disability.”

Obviously bright, obviously tormented, Pinson wrote:

For 943 days I have eaten meals alone. For 943 days I have watched men's minds break down in a painfully slow process. First they become eccentric. Then they become antisocial and belligerent. Next comes anger and they lash out at their captors only to be pepper sprayed and beaten into submission. Next comes despair as they realize that they are utterly helpless. For many the next step involves a noose, a bottle of pills, or a razor blade. For a few their misery ends in death. For 943 days I have wanted to and even tried to die... How many shattered minds, bodies and souls will it take before this practice, this cruelty, this barbaric evil is ended?

About solitary-confinement, Pinson wrote a series of questions for the panel, which included: Dr. Stuart Grassian, a psychiatrist who has extensively researched the psychological effects of solitary confinement; Professor Jules Lobel, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Mikail DeVeaux, himself a former prisoner who experienced solitary and who is now executive director and founder of Citizens Against Recidivism, an NYC advocacy group; and Bobby Dellelo, an activist working for the American Friends Service Committee who spent five years in solitary -- or what he calls the “monster factory” -- at Walpole Prison in Massachusetts.

Hopefully, Pinson will receive responses to questions such as “Why do civil rights groups allow mentally ill inmates to be kept in solitary confinement?” and “How can individual inmates in solitary effectively challenge their abuse and that which they witness?”

L. Samuel Capers, a prisoner on Death Row in California’s San Quentin Prison, wrote of the smell of the ocean so close to their walls as “torture... We look at dirty tan brick walls, razor wire and guns all day. We breathe in frustration, we eat anger, we walk in despair.” He asked in his blog why so few people know what solitary can do to prisoners, “especially when they are returned back to society without the proper psychological treatment.”

This past September, Grits for Breakfast reported on the perils of reentry following solitary. The Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee was told that in 2011, 878 prisoners who'd been locked in Ad Seg “were released directly to the streets without parole supervision of any type after finishing out their full sentence.” Another “469 were paroled directly” from Ad Seg.

While parole has proven to be more successful than direct release to the streets, under the best of situations it still is a recipe for disaster to send someone who has lived in solitary directly to the free world. Without time in lower security where he or she can do programs, prepare a home plan, and try to get job leads, a person is almost bound to return to captivity.

A Wisconsin prisoner, La Ron McKinley-Bey, an artist on BTB who has his artwork posted online, theorized what many others have written about -- that prison rehab is difficult when over 2.5 million people crowd our prisons. He wrote about people going to solitary as “those who couldn't adapt or conform to the structured demands of the prison environment,” and pointed out why we’ve confined so many to solitary:

Prison officials, having given up on the concept of rehabilitation, without resources or experience on how to effectively treat the mentally ill or the drug addicted, consigned many to languish in solitary confinement with the rest of the undesirables, and to add more chaos to that environment.

While excellent websites like Solitary Watch take apart the destructive practices in prisons that these prisoners have lived through (See "Texas Lockdown: Solitary Confinement in the Lonestar State"), it is the voices of those behind bars that give us the truest picture of a practice that we must work to change, the cage within the cage.

[Jean Trounstine is an author/editor of five published books and many articles, professor at Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts, and a prison activist. For 10 years, she worked at Framingham Women's Prison and directed eight plays, publishing Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women's Prison about that work. She blogs for Boston Magazine and takes apart the criminal justice system brick by brick at jeantrounstine.com where she blogs weekly at "Justice with Jean." Find her contributions to The Rag Blog here.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Jim Turpin : Is the Imperial Presidency the 'New Normal'?

The Imperial Obama? Image from The Express Tribune.

The 'new normal'?
The Imperial Presidency

"Same as it ever was..."
-- Talking Heads ("Once in a Lifetime")

By Jim Turpin / The Rag Blog / February 27, 2013

First of a two-part series.

Many presidents throughout our history, from revered to despised, have ignored the Constitution and taken on the mantle of imperial power. From Lincoln to FDR to Nixon, the examples are easily found.

In the ancient Roman world, the term imperium refers to the amount of power given to individuals of authority such as dictators or consuls and was frequently applied to generals with military power. The term “imperial” usually is linked to an empire or the concept of imperialism.

But how have we gotten to where we are today, where the president of the United States can detain or assassinate an American citizen without due process? Where American citizens are constantly monitored and personal information is subject to review? Where whistleblowers are now detained and prosecuted for exposing war crimes and corruption?

The development of the executive branch’s imperial power has its gnarled roots deep in American history. Frequently presidents have used it as an excuse during times of war, but this has not always been the case.

Abraham Lincoln famously suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War on April 27, 1861, in response to riots, local militia actions, and the threat that the border slave state of Maryland would secede from the Union. Habeas corpus (literally in Latin “you shall have the body [in court]”) is specifically detailed in the U.S. Constitution in Article I, Section 9: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

A writ of habeas corpus is used to bring a prisoner or other detainee before the court to determine if the person's imprisonment or detention is lawful.

Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 over 70 years ago on February 19, 1942, which led to the forced internment of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans that lived on the west coast.

The U.S., citing national security interests, demanded that Japanese-Americans be interned without due process or, it would eventually turn out, any factual basis. Whole communities were rounded up and sent to camps, sometimes just clapboard shelters or converted horse stables, in arid deserts and barren fields in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Arkansas.

Nixon's paranoid presidency..

Richard M. Nixon’s deep paranoia over the civil rights and peace movement led to the continued use of the secret FBI program Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), as a means to monitor, sabotage, and neutralize legitimate dissent across the country. COINTELPRO infiltrated the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the NAACP, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the National Lawyer Guild, and many other groups and organizations.

But what drives today’s constitutional overreach by the Executive Office? Recent history points to a number of factors, including:

• Codification of the Executive’s Imperial Power
• America’s One Party System

Codification of the Executive Imperial Power

Within days of the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. Congress responded by ramroding a number of open-ended laws that gave the Executive branch a blank check to wage war world-wide and indefinitely detain civilians at home and abroad.

Joanne Mariner of Justia.com neatly fits together the convoluted pieces of the Patriot Act, the Authorization of the Use of Military Force (AUMF), and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which, though initiated by George W. Bush, is now fully promulgated by Barack Obama:

During the Bush years, despite massive public and press attention to the administration’s detention policies, Congress remained largely out of the picture. While the USA PATRIOT Act contained some provisions on detention, they were never put to use; the Bush administration preferred to create a detention system that was, it assumed, largely free of legal constraints and judicial oversight.

The military prison at Guantanamo and the CIA’s secret prison system were therefore created by executive fiat, without congressional input or restriction. When cases challenging Guantanamo and the military detention of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil got to court, however, the administration claimed that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a joint resolution passed by Congress in September 2001, gave congressional approval for those detentions.

The AUMF, which authorizes the president to use “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11 attacks, or who harbored such persons or groups, is silent on the issue of detention. A plurality of the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the administration, nonetheless, that the power to detain is necessarily implied by the power to use military force.

The NDAA, which is renewed every year, also contains sections, according to Mariner, that are deeply troubling to human rights activists:

What is now known as Subtitle D of the NDAA -- the section on detention -- made its first appearance in March of this year (2011). Called the Detainee Security Act in the House, and the Military Detainee Procedures Improvement Act in the Senate, the bills, introduced by Representative Buck McKeon and Senator John McCain, respectively, were meant to shift counterterrorism responsibilities from law enforcement to the military.

The clear goal of the two bills was to require that suspected terrorists either be tried before military commissions or be held in indefinite detention without charge... every provision in subtitle D is objectionable from the standpoint of human rights and civil liberties. Among the controversial provisions are sections 1026, 1027 and 1028 of the bill, which restrict detainee transfers and releases from Guantanamo. But while human rights organizations are worried about these limitations, their gravest concerns pertain to sections 1021 and 1022.

Glenn Greenwald, while still at Salon, addresses Sections 1021 and 1022:

There are two separate indefinite military detention provisions in this bill. The first, Section 1021, authorizes indefinite detention for the broad definition of “covered persons” discussed above in the prior point. And that section does provide that “Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.” So that section contains a disclaimer regarding an intention to expand detention powers for U.S. citizens, but does so only for the powers vested by that specific section.

More important, the exclusion appears to extend only to U.S. citizens “captured or arrested in the United States” -- meaning that the powers of indefinite detention vested by that section apply to U.S. citizens captured anywhere abroad (there is some grammatical vagueness on this point, but at the very least, there is a viable argument that the detention power in this section applies to U.S. citizens captured abroad).

But the next section, Section 1022, is a different story. That section specifically deals with a smaller category of people than the broad group covered by 1021: namely, anyone whom the President determines is “a member of, or part of, al-Qaeda or an associated force” and “participated in the course of planning or carrying out an attack or attempted attack against the United States or its coalition partners.”

For those persons, section (a) not only authorizes, but requires (absent a Presidential waiver), that they be held “in military custody pending disposition under the law of war.” The section title is “Military Custody for Foreign Al Qaeda Terrorists,” but the definition of who it covers does not exclude U.S. citizens or include any requirement of foreignness.

That section -- 1022 -- does not contain the broad disclaimer regarding U.S. citizens that 1021 contains. Instead, it simply says that the requirement of military detention does not apply to U.S. citizens, but it does not exclude U.S. citizens from the authority, the option, to hold them in military custody.

The annual renewal of the NDAA by the Congress of the United States is a sad and deeply troubling testimony to how we empower an Executive branch that is ironically supposed to have their overreach limited by the very branch voting for this law.


America’s One Party System

John Kerry, Winter Soldier.

During the presidential election last fall, if I closed my eyes and listened to speeches on national security, there was basically no policy difference. Both parties called us the “Greatest nation on Earth” and tried to outdo the other with patriotic and nationalistic proclamations and slogans.

As pointed out by Mother Jones during coverage of the election for both party’s conventions, John Kerry (who coincidentally became our new Secretary of State in 2013) spouted, “Ask Osama bin Laden if he is better off now than he was four years ago."

The story went on:

...Democrats have adopted the kind of language that might have been derided as "cowboy rhetoric" four years ago. And Kerry wasn't the first or last speaker to invoke Bin Laden in Charlotte last week [in 2012]. Asking for four more years of Obama, Vice President Joe Biden intoned that "Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!" Eight years ago, Democrats trying to act tough on national security sounded like kids playing pretend; at times, this year's convention sounded like a Roman triumph.

Let’s remember, this is the same Lieutenant John Kerry who as a member of Vietnam Veteran’s Against the War (VVAW) spoke at Winter Soldier in 1971 in Washington, D.C., decrying militarism and war:

We are here in Washington also to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country, the question of racism, which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions also, the use of weapons, the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions, in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners, accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything.

I would be curious to know if Kerry as the new Secretary of State remembers the importance of his testimony in 1971 and what his brothers at VVAW think of him now.

The same Mother Jones article deftly points out that:

Barack Obama has a plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, but neither candidate [Democratic or Republican] actually has a plan to end the war that started on September 11, 2001. Both parties accept that conflict as a permanent feature of American life. An American citizen in the U.S. is as likely to be killed by their own furniture as a Muslim terrorist, but fear of violent Islamic extremism has changed this country almost irrevocably.

But let’s compare... are the Democratic and Republican Party really just the same party on issues like national security?

ProPublica recently did a side-by-side comparison of Bush and Obama policies on the use of torture, surveillance, and detention and the results are not very surprising.

To Obama’s credit, CIA “black sites” (outsourced torture sites to foreign countries) and “enhanced interrogation techniques” (also known in the vernacular as “torture”) have been, as far as the American public is aware, discontinued and stopped by this administration.

But... Obama has continued the following policies started by Bush and ramped them up dramatically under his administration:

• Continued renewal of the Patriot Act;
• Wiretaps and data collection of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals;
• Continuation of Guantanamo prison as an indefinite detention center;
• Targeted killings (also known as “assassinations”) of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals without legal oversight;
• Significant increase of drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and possibly now in Mali, that have killed thousands of civilians;
• The use of military commissions to nullify the rights of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in civilian court.

On issues of national security, America really remains a one-party system that use the “War on Terror” as an excuse to abrogate civil liberties of its’ citizenry.

“You may ask yourself, where does that highway lead to?” -- Talking Heads ("Once in a Lifetime")

In the second installment of this article, I will investigate the use of assassination by "Star Chamber” and how a subjugated and cravenly media has led us down the highway of a fearful nation with fewer and fewer civil liberties.

[Rag Blog contributor Jim Turpin is an Austin activist and writer who works with CodePink Austin. He also volunteers for the GI coffeehouse Under the Hood Café at Ft. Hood in Killeen, Texas. Read more articles by Tim Turpin on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Ron Jacobs : From Wounded Knee to Idle No More

Image by Andy Everson from Huffington Post.
From Wounded Knee to Idle No More

The movement is slowly spreading to the indigenous nations of the northern United States, which have seen their lands ravaged numerous times over the course of history in the name of resource extraction.

By Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog / January 29, 2013

The American Indian Movement’s (AIM) best known and most controversial protest began in February 1973 in Wounded Knee, South Dakota, a small town on the Pine Ridge reservation. Wounded Knee Two began as a conflict within the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) tribe between the supporters of the tribal Chairman Richard Wilson and other tribal members who considered him to be a corrupt puppet of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

Like many other such conflicts, it had simmered for a while. In 1973, the disagreements between the two segments of the Pine Ridge Lakota Sioux created so much anger and division that both sides ended up arming themselves. The forces allied with Wilson, along with Federal law enforcement officials and U.S. military, entered into a 71-day siege of the AIM forces.

The AIM group included local citizens, national AIM members, prominent entertainment figures, and members of national philanthropic, religious, and legal organizations. National news organizations covered the entire 71 days of the siege and its aftermath.

When the siege ended on May 9, 1973, two Native American members of AIM were dead and an unknown number were wounded on both sides. Richard Wilson remained in office and was challenged in the next election. Many AIM members spent the next years in litigation, in exile, and in prison.

Several more armed conflicts erupted in the wake of the siege, in large part due to continuing counterintelligence programs and vigorous prosecutions that targeted AIM members. The most well-known of these cases is that of Leonard Peltier who remains in prison because of an at-best questionable conviction in the death of an FBI agent in 1975.

Although I was living in Germany at the time, the occupation came close to home. A classmate of mine whose family was connected to Pine Ridge left his senior year in early March to participate. His father was supportive, despite his rather contradictory role as part of the U.S. Army’s infantry. Indeed, it is likely that while he was in Vietnam he participated in campaigns named after earlier military actions against his own people.

As anyone who heard about the U.S. Navy’s killing of Osama bin Laden knows, the practice of naming military actions after indigenous Americans continues; that operation was code-named “Geronimo.” Some U.S. Army helicopters are called “Apaches.” Furthermore, some of the most-studied generals at West Point are those who got their start, or even made their name, killing Native Americans.

So, it has been 40 years since the second face-off at Wounded Knee between members of the Lakota nation and the United States government. To be fair, the 1973 engagement was much more of a face-off than the first intrusion. If you are unfamiliar with that incident, let me tell you about it.

Early in the morning of December 29, 1890, U.S. troops went into a camp at Wounded Knee Creek to disarm the Lakota staying there. After a scuffle or two, the 7th Cavalry opened fire and killed men, women, and children, as well as some of their own fellow troopers. Those few Lakota warriors who still had weapons began shooting back at the attacking troopers, who quickly suppressed the Lakota fire.

After the shooting had stopped, at least 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux had been killed. Some believe the number of dead was closer to 300. Twenty-five troopers also died, and 39 were wounded. Many of the dead troops were the victims of friendly fire. At least 20 troopers were awarded the coveted Medal of Honor.


It’s been a long time since I was in South Dakota. The last time was in 1979. A group of friends and I were driving a VW bus across the country on our way to the San Francisco Bay Area. While traveling across the state, we stopped near the Pine Ridge Reservation to buy gas. While paying for the gas, the driver attempted to purchase a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the clerk in the store connected to the gas tanks. She looked at his long hair, his hairless face (his mother was part Cherokee) and refused to sell it to him.

He told her he needed it to clean the heads on the car’s cassette player. She called him a liar, stating that she wasn’t going to allow him to drink it and poison himself. Not wanting to argue (the area is pretty remote, after all), he paid for the gas and left the store. After he explained what had happened, I went back into the store. The clerk looked at my full beard, made me promise I wouldn’t let any “Indians” drink the alcohol, and sold me the same bottle of rubbing alcohol she had refused my friend.

We spent a good part of the next hundred miles wondering what her motivation could have been. Did she hate “Indians?” Was she doing her Christian duty? Was she just afraid that my friend was going to drink the alcohol and then his family would sue her store?

The situation of America’s indigenous people continues to be tenuous. On both continents in the hemisphere, indigenous people’s homelands and livelihoods are threatened. Gambling casinos and resource extraction operations in northern America siphon away native cultures and resources; making money for some members while furthering impoverishing others.

In southern America, people's lands and lives are threatened on a very real fundamental level, thanks to fossil fuel exploration and farming and ranching operations designed to supply other people near and far.

Recently, a movement of native peoples (known as First Nations in Canada) calling itself Idle No More arose in Canada. The impetus for the movement is the Canadian government’s Omnibus Bill C-45. This bill seems designed to further abrogate treaty rights assigned to First Nations in order to expand resource exploration and extraction.

The movement is slowly spreading to the indigenous nations of the northern United States, which have seen their lands ravaged numerous times over the course of history in the name of resource extraction. Most recently, this has meant opening these lands to fracking and the construction of pipelines across the continent.

Despite the ongoing attempts to destroy the culture and well-being of America’s First Nations, they continue to battle despite the odds. Their struggle remains an important part of the struggle for humanity’s survival.

[Rag Blog contributor Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way The Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. He recently released a collection of essays and musings titled Tripping Through the American Night. His latest novel, The Co-Conspirator's Tale, is published by Fomite. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. Ron Jacobs can be reached at ronj1955@gmail.com. Find more articles by Ron Jacobs on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Jean Trounstine : Behind Bars and Blogging for Human Rights

Texas born, Johnny E. Mahaffey’s profile page at betweenthebars.org. Image from Between the Bars.
Behind bars and 
blogging for human rights

Martin Luther King Day reminds us about fighting for human rights. It might seem like an oxymoron, convicted criminals blogging for dignity, equality, and inalienable rights, but here’s why it’s not.

By Jean Trounstine / The Rag Blog / January 21, 2013

For some prisoners, blogging is a lifeline to the world. It is the chance to weigh in on the issues of the day and on the particular concerns of those locked up -- often unseen and unheard. It also allows them to learn about social media for the eventuality when 95% will return to their communities.

Prisoners send letters with prose, poetry, and art to blogs; those on the outside comment; replies are then mailed to the prisoners who have the opportunity to respond with new posts. Thus, they see that their ideas matter.

Between the Bars.org (BTB), managed by MIT co-creator and Phd candidate Charlie DeTar, has allowed more than 5,000 prisoners to find voice online. This is a significant number, but DeTar reminds us on BTB that it’s still only 1% of the 2.2 million housed in U.S. prisons and jails.

Joining the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, California, this past December 10, BTB honored the anniversary of the worldwide adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They aimed to give prisoners the chance to bring attention to human rights abuses within the walls of the world's largest incarceration system. The Ella Baker Center, named after Civil Rights heroine, Ella Baker, is dedicated to reducing the U.S. incarceration rate by 50% over the next 10 years.

More than 300 BTB authors and artists participated along with other individuals and groups from across the country. Some of the topics that prisoners blogged about for Human Rights Day included: business and job security; human rights violations behind bars; the inhumanity of solitary confinement; the travesty of juveniles in adult prisons; suppression of dissent from prisoners; electronic intrusions at all hours; the high suicide rate in U.S. prison, and the idea that “there can never be justice on stolen land.”

Johnny E. Mahaffey, born in Texas and currently incarcerated in South Carolina, answered the call to discuss human rights in a piece he titles his “Essayistic Ponderings ”

There are those who believe that prisoners should be removed not only from society, but life itself -- all death-penalty arguments aside -- into a state of out-of- sight and out-of-mind... and it is this non-existence they seek to impose upon inmates dwelling within the walls of confinement, already removed from their family, and life that they once had -- and it is this state of non-existence that contradicts the very thought of "human rights..." Throwing away the key is not an answer to crime, it's just a lazy way to deal with it...

Mahaffey also says in the same piece that blogging for him is a way to connect with his five children:

Though this blog, they will know always that they were loved, thought of constantly, and that they themselves are in no way to blame for their father's situation. I may not live long enough to ever see them -- prison is dangerous -- and these words I type on my typewriter to be mailed out for my blog, could be all that's left of me.”

Tim Muise, incarcerated at MCI Shirley in Massachusetts, takes on treatment of those behind bars who are gravely ill and near death in a devastating critique, “The Death Chamber -- 'Shirley Style'.” He writes, “Here at the Hospital Unit (HSU), you will see examples of a 'slow death penalty... feces left in an adult diaper for over 36 hours... Ants were found... maggots...”

A man Muise calls “WB,” was beaten at age 72, thrown into HSU, and Muise maintains, was denied his life-saving medication. “This brought on six separate major heart episodes which required outside hospital attention and major surgeries.”

Maisha Mahalia Durham was one of the few women who responded to the call-out for human rights. Of the nearly 1.5 million housed in state prisons, only 200,000 are women, but there is a considerable body of literature on the particular issues for women behind bars.

Durham, incarcerated in Georgia, is president of a writing group at Pulaski State Prison called “Inkspills” for others like herself, yearning to write. Her blog post for human rights is about the devastating parole system which she has seen keep many prisoners from returning to their communities -- in spite of transformation of attitudes and behavior.

She wrote that “When the Judicial System stops looking at the nature of the crime and starts evaluating the nature of the person, justice can be served.”

While Durham joins a notable group of men and women who seek to publish their words in articles and books, blogging gives her immediacy. Prison bloggers can also earn respect for their ideas and position themselves as knowledgeable, as well as reconnect with a community that has, by and large, abandoned them. One blogger poignantly makes this point on BTB by opening up his post with the words, “Hello World.”

[Jean Trounstine is an author/editor of five published books and many articles, professor at Middlesex Community College, and a prison activist. For 10 years, she worked at Framingham Women's Prison and directed eight plays, publishing Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women's Prison about that work. She blogs for Boston Magazine and takes apart the criminal justice system brick by brick at jeantrounstine.com where she blogs weekly at "Justice with Jean." ]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...