Imam Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince : The Looming Specter of a Strike on Iran

U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft in Afghanistan.
Looming specter:
Strike on Iran an increasing possiblity

By Imam Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince / The Rag Blog / August 19, 2010

Reading the signs

Signs -- coming from a number of different sources -- suggest that some kind of major U.S.-Israeli military offensive against Iran could be in the offing between now and the November mid-term elections. Among them:

• A background of one of the largest regional military buildups in modern time, the creation of military and "floating bases," and the intensive arming through arms sales and grants of U.S. regional allies with sophisticated modern weapons and delivery systems. This was perhaps the only "new" element in what former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice referred to as the creation of "a new Middle East."


• New warnings of possible U.S./Israeli military action coming from the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the National Iranian American Council, Time’s columnist Joe Klein ("An Attack On Iran Is Back On The Table" -- July 15) -- among others.


• A bizarre July 31 piece in the Washington Post by Ray Tayeyh and Steven Simon arguing that the United States should only attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and then "signal" the Iranians that the bombing would stop and that the goal was not to overthrow the regime. This is part of a larger and mostly hidden debate within the administration over how extensive the bombing should be.


• Articles by neo-conservative columnists Reuel Marc Gerecht and William Kristol calling for a military strike.


• Admiral Mike Mullen’s August 2 admission that the United States "has plans" to attack Iran to prevent that country from producing nuclear weapons


• An August 4 open letter from former intelligence officers to President Obama warning that Israel could be planning to attack Iran and draw the United States into the conflict


• The Obama Administration’s stalling to issue the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. It will be secret and its conclusions will either be leaked or released in summary. Sources inside the intelligence community insist that it will support the 2007 NIE that concluded that Iran no longer has a weapons program. The White House has delayed the process seeking harder language to justify a range of options against Iran, including a military strike, but the analysts are reported to be resisting.


• Last but not least, the introduction of H.R. 1553 into the House of Representatives which provides explicit support for military strikes against Iran, stating that Congress supports Israel’s use of “all means necessary” against Iran “including the use of force."

House Resolution 1553:
A green light to attack Iran?

Of these, the introduction of HR 1553, currently making its way through House committees with more than 40 sponsors, expressing full support for an Israeli attack on Iran, has opened the gate to push the U.S. into military action.

It has long been the goal of Netanyahu’s government and the neo-conservative members of the Bush government who are still influential in the Obama Administration to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran. This has been Israel’s Iran strategy. Israel needs to know that the United States will finish the war that Israel wants to start.

Although this kind of saber-rattling is not new, it has reached a new pitch, suggesting that military action against Iran could be in the works. There is some evidence that the United States drew up plans to attack Iran as early as 1995. In 2007, it appeared that the Bush Administration was close to proceeding with a major attack when the National Intelligence Estimate was made public, contending that Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program.

In one of the few times in his presidency, Bush overruled his vice president, Dick Cheney (who favored proceeding with military action all the same) to stop the military plans. Admiral Mullen was sent to Israel to "deliver the message" of no war clearly and unambiguously. The Israelis were reported to have been furious about the change in plans. One of the most disturbing elements of the current escalation of tension is Barack Obama’s failure to do precisely the same thing: reign in Netanyahu.

The Israelis in particular and their more zealous supporters in the USA (AIPAC, neo-cons) have worked for three years, virtually tirelessly, to rebuild support for a military strike. Their efforts appear to have succeeded, at least in part. And other groups, like J-Street, while not supporting a military strike, have supported the sanctions against Iran and generally bought into the myth that Iran is an "existential threat" to Israel, rather than the other way round.

American-made Israeli F 15 fighter jets on the ready.

Arguments against a U.S.-Israeli attack

In an email a few days ago, a friend put the case against a U.S.-Israeli attack against Iran succinctly:

I’m sure the U.S. and Israel would love to hit Iran. Even with the saber-rattling, it’s hard to believe they’ll do it because:

1. Iran can hit the U.S. hard in both Iraq and Afghanistan where the U.S. has more than it can handle now; most of the top Pentagon brass knows this and Gates, Admiral Mullen, etc. have said that it would be nuts to hit Iran;
2. It would provoke really harsh opposition by China, Russia, Brazil, Turkey and numerous countries that the U.S. needs for more important things;
3. Iran can probably stop shipping in the Red Sea, etc.

I think that if they could do it, they would have already done it. It would be suicidal but suicide is often a psychotic response and there are definitely psychotics in Israel and DC pushing for it.

All these are reasonable arguments and we hope they carry the day. Perhaps they will. But each of them can be challenged in some ways. the United States these past years -- and certainly Israel for an even longer time -- have a tendency to deal with the crises they have created by escalation. With a few exceptions, Israel has most of its existence "resolved its problems with its neighbors" by the use of force. It is deeply ingrained in the national psyche to resort to military, rather than diplomatic means to implement policy.

And while we agree with Andrew Bacevich’s call for the Obama Administration to end the U.S. policy of permanent war, close the foreign bases, and bring home the troops, it does not appear that we’re anywhere near that. To the contrary.

How has the United States dealt with the crisis in Iraq, which is far from resolved? It invaded, or re-invaded Afghanistan, and might do it again, despite the rational -- and they are rational -- arguments my friend presented. Besides, recall that before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, there were also many rational voices arguing that that particular invasion would not take place, but it did. The U.S seems intent on maximizing its military position in the region as quickly as possible. That was the essence of the Bush-Cheney policy.

Unfortunately, despite his Nobel Peace Prize -- poorly deserved -- Barack Obama’s Middle East foreign policy is hardly different... despite the softer rhetoric. A fine speech in Cairo does not a foreign policy make.

But to respond directly to our friend: As mentioned above, Admiral Mullen in recent weeks has changed his tune; it is more strident and suggests that military action is possible. On the most recent UN sanctions, the United States was largely able to neutralize both China and Russia, although those nations still managed to somewhat water down the resolution.

Regardless, their opposition to a military strike seems less firm than it has been in the past. And while Turkey has opened up a certain breech with Israel, their military coordination and cooperation through NATO remains quite strong and NATO, it appears, is "on board" for a strike.

Add to that the way that the U.S. seems to consistently underestimate Iran’s ability to strike back militarily. Of course we’re not military analysts, but to compare Iran today with Iraq in 2003, after it had suffered defeat in the first Gulf War and then 12 years of crippling sanctions is way off the mark. Iran is a much stronger country militarily than Iraq was then and while we don’t underestimate the ability of the United States and its allies to wreak horrific damage on Iran, Iran has had a long time to prepare for such eventualities.

In addition the Iranians, through the Revolutionary Guard (which represents about half of its military strength, the other half being the conventional Iranian military), have the most ideologically oriented military in the world. And we would argue that an Iranian response could be devastating where it hurts -- the Saudi oil fields, Persian Gulf oil shipping, and the possibility of considerable destabilization of the U.S. position in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, we assume, it could do harm to Israel.

Finally, keep in mind that the United States and Israel are not the only military powers in the region capable of preemptive military strikes. Who knows, if the Iranians feel completely cornered and have come to conclude that there is no way to avoid an attack, perhaps they will, from a military point of view, take the initiative themselves as their way of dealing with what they perceive as the inevitable battle. We’re not saying this is their policy, just that such a response is not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

David Wormser has advocated attack for regime change. Photo from Telegraph, U.K.

New dangerous elements

There are a few other elements that make the current moment especially dangerous:

• For all the talk of U.S.-Israeli strains, the NATO-U.S.-Israel military structure in the Middle East is fully integrated. In Israel the thinking about striking Iran is, "If not now, when?" Momentum is building for a strike.


• There appears to be support for such a strike from key U.S. Arab allies, in particular Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Recently Egypt let 10 U.S. warships and one Israeli warship through the Suez Canal headed towards the Persian Gulf. There have also been reports that the Saudis would permit Israel use of its airspace to attack Iran. The fact that the Saudis have issued public denials does not necessarily mean that it won’t happen. It is also possible that the Kurdish regions of Iraq, Azerbaijan, or Georgia could be used by the Israelis to facilitate an attack.


• The Netanyahu government believes, according to some sources, that with the U.S. midterm elections approaching, the U.S. will not be able to reign in Israeli military actions (wherever they might occur) and that furthermore, at this time, Israel is more likely to drag the United States into fighting -- which they very much want and hope to do.


• Meanwhile public opinion in the United States has shifted from a position against to one in favor of a military strike against Iran. Only a few years ago one third of Americans polled supported military action against Iran, but now that figure is close to 57% -- probably a response to the Iranian crackdown on its democratic movement last summer, as well as AIPAC and the neocon’s unrelenting pressure.


• Before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq there were worldwide demonstrations; today there is hardly a whimper from the peace movement or major public figures either here or abroad. True, in 2003 the plans were for a full scale ground invasion and while now, the discussion -- at least the public discussion -- is limited to air strikes. However, more and more it has been admitted that these airstrikes would not be limited to Iranian nuclear facilities but would probably be aimed at striking a devastating and crippling blow against the whole country, its infrastructure and political command system.

`Getting’ Iran

Although on paper, Israelis and their lobbyists base their argument for war on a fanciful scenario of Iran doling out nuclear weapons to Islamic extremists all over the Middle East, their more likely objective is to destroy Iran’s Islamic regime (regime change) in a paroxysm of U.S. military violence. David Wurmser, formerly a close advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu and Middle East advisor to Dick Cheney, revealed that he had advocated a U.S. war on Iran, not to set back the nuclear program but to achieve regime change.

The idea of waging a U.S. war of destruction against Iran is obvious lunacy, which is why military leaders have strongly resisted it in both the Bush and Obama Administrations. Even though Israel, not Iran, has increasingly been regarded around the world as a rogue state after the Gaza incursion and the commando killings of unarmed civilians on board the Mavi Marmara, its grip on the U.S. Congress appears as strong as ever.

AIPAC has once again flexed its muscle, making it clear with the introduction of this resolution, that it can push Congress to bend Obama into submission on the Iran issue. It appears that Democrats in Congress, are mentally in a different galaxy than they were under Bush, and are, in large measure, willing to go along, making clear that the U.S. Iran policy has bipartisan support. It is a mistake thus, to place all the blame for this reckless policy on the Republicans.

Attacking Iran should be understood as part of a broader U.S. long term strategy of using its network of military bases worldwide as a way of maintaining its declining hegemony. "Neutralizing" Iran is something of a medium term goal, with the long range goal being the capability of preempting a Chinese challenge, even if it is decades a way.

Netanyahu must be rubbing his hands with glee about the prospects for pressuring Obama to join an Israeli war of aggression against Iran. It was Netanyahu, after all, who declared in 2001, “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.”

[Ibrahim Kazerooni is an Imam with Colorado's Muslim community. Rob Prince is a full-time lecturer in International Studies at the University of Denver and publisher of the Colorado Progressive Jewish News blog at robertjprince.wordpress.com.]

Thanks to Jay D. Jurie / The Rag Blog

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Dick J. Reavis : The Conspiracy in the Attic

Above, Dick Reavis now. Photo from San Antonio Current. Below, Dick Reavis then, in 1966 demonstration by Sexual Freedom League on University of Texas campus. Montage image scanned from The Daily Texan.

The conspiracy in an Austin attic:
My first rad-confab

I had never seen marijuana and though I knew that it was prohibited, it didn’t occur to me that my new friends were seated in a circle to pass a joint around.

By Dick J. Reavis / The Rag Blog / August 19, 2010

[The Rag Blog has a lively online discussion group composed of friends and contributors. Many are veterans of the Sixties New Left and underground press and lately have been been sharing war stories of the early days. We intend to pass some of them your way. Journalist, author, and educator Dick J. Reavis admitted to the following.]

I joined Students for a Democratic Society by signing a card at a sidewalk recruiting booth outside Gregory Gymnasium at the University of Texas in Austin during fall semester registration, 1965. I was new to the campus and had never heard of SDS.

Perhaps because I told the students at the booth that I had spent the summer as a civil rights worker in Alabama, one of them invited me to what he or she may have called a meeting -- but turned out to be a party. It was set for a Saturday evening, and I went by on my way to work.

My job was essentially that of a domestic servant. I was a photographer for Jack’s Party Pictures, a business on the Drag which sold pictures of Greek parties and dances. The night of the SDS gathering was my first day on the job.

The rad-confab was held at a two-story clapboard house near the corner of 17th St. and West Ave., where several SDS members lived. I presented myself, though a door to a kitchen, about 6:30 p.m. A young woman pointed me to a set of stairs that led -- to an attic! But it didn’t bother me that, as things seemed, SDS might be a conspiratorial group.

A few feet from the top of the stairway I found six to 10 people seated on crates or boxes in a circle. With his back facing a dormer window sat the apparent chairman or guest of honor, Al Shahi, a fleshy, dark-skinned Iranian student who, I later learned, was sometimes the titular president of SDS.

One of the attendees explained that Shahi had received an order to vacate the country or face deportation. But the mood was that of a farewell party, not of plot to foil the immigration service.
It only took a glance for me to conclude that maybe I was in the wrong place.

The word “hippie” did not then exist, or hadn’t reached Austin, but my new-found peers were developing the style. The males had hair longer than customary and may have been mustachioed or bearded as well. I was clean-shaven, burr-headed and probably wearing tan slacks and a white dress shirt, the de facto uniform for Jack’s.

If sartorially I was clean-cut, philosophically I was disheveled, the opposite of my new friends. That summer in Alabama had upended my picture of life, and on that evening, I wasn’t sure if I was still a Baptist, or even believed in God, but I was ready to burn the country to the ground. Respectable white folks were either enemies or hypocrites and we who were young and Southern, I had come to feel, had to oust them and overturn the whole way of things.

Before many minutes had passed in that attic, I felt tormented by what I saw and heard. Why were people sitting in a circle, anyway? Why were they chit-chatting? When would the meeting begin, who would announce its agenda?

It seemed that I had been invited into a conspiracy whose purpose was merely to waste time. I had never seen marijuana and though I knew that it was prohibited, it didn’t occur to me that my new friends were seated in a circle to pass a joint around. I didn’t even know what a “joint” was.

Finally, if memory serves me right, some brave soul produced a penny matchbox of pot, then rolled, lit, and passed a joint.

Before it came to me, I begged off and went down the stairs, figuring that my fellow radicals would take me for a cop, though I was confident that their suspicions would pass. Within minutes I was at my first photo shoot, at a fraternity house only blocks away. The frats were just beginning to congregate; only two or three couples were on hand. A guy who acted as if he had authority sidled up me and said, “Why don’t you come back at a white man’s hour?”

I looked at him pretty hard for a second. I knew that I couldn’t strike him and would probably lose a fight if I did, and I didn’t think I could object to his terminology, because, essentially, I was working for him.

“Okay,” I said, and walked to my car.

A “white man’s hour” for work, had I tried to hire the frats to work for me, was probably equivalent to never, I figured. So I didn’t return.

Monday when I reported for a new assignment, owner Jack gave me a piece of his mind. “They told me that you promised to come back but you didn’t,” he said.

I nodded and made no excuses, knowing that, as a newbie, I wouldn’t be fired.

Thinking back on that day, I suppose that I owe the SDS celebrants an apology for crimping or stalling their festivities. But the way I also figure it, those frats owe me an hour or two of wages. I’d have shot pictures at their party, as I did at dozens of subsequent fetes that semester, had their representative not convinced me that he wasn’t worth serving.

[Dick J. Reavis, who became active in SDS and contributed to The Rag in Sixties Austin, is a professor in the English Department at North Carolina State University. His latest book is Catching Out: The Secret World of Day Laborers. He can be reached at dickjreavis@yahoo.com

The Rag Blog

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Matt Wuerker : This is Hallowed Ground

"This is hallowed ground." Cartoon by Matt Wuerker / Cartoonist Group / Politico / Center for American Progress.
Thanks to Thomas Cleaver / The Rag Blog

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Michael Meeropol : Islamophobia and the 'Two Americas'

Muslims in America. Image from KUED / University of Utah.
'Islam in Two Americas':
Times piece reflects pernicious xenophobia

The implication... is that when Americans display anti-Muslim bigotry -- as in the past they had been anti-semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Mormon, anti-immigrant -- it makes for a quick and more complete assimilation...

By Michael Meeropol / The Rag Blog / August 18, 2010

In The New York Times of Monday, August 16, 2010, op-ed columnist Ross Douthat has a particularly pernicious article entitled “Islam in Two Americas.”

You can read it here.

To cut to the chase, Mr. Douthat’s argument is that there are “two Americas” -- one that respects the idea that we are a nation of many religions, cultures, ethnicities, and beliefs and the Constitution permits us all to enjoy the blessings of liberty without fear of persecution.

There is another America as well, one that, in his words, “...understands itself as a distinctive culture rather than just a set of political propositions... [that] speaks English, not Spanish or Chinese or Arabic. It looks back to a particular religious heritage: Protestantism... It draws its social norms from the mores of the Anglo-Saxon diaspora and it expects new arrivals to assimilate themselves to these norms…”

He then goes on to admit that this second America persecuted Mormons and Catholics and shut the door on immigration in the 1920s. It is this second America that is offended by the so-called “Mosque at Ground Zero.”

Rather than decry this second America, Douthat goes into all sorts of contortions to suggest that it is just this second America that creates the unity symbolized by our motto, “E pluribus unum.” He suggests that Mormon persecution helped force them to give up polygamy. He argues that suspicion of and persecution of Catholics forced them to give up their “illiberal tendencies” and made the church recognize “the virtues of democracy.”

Where can one begin to attack this incredible know-nothing-ism?

I tried with a sarcastic letter to The New York Times which I will share with Rag Blog readers if the Times doesn’t publish it.

Here, I want to treat Douthat’s “arguments” seriously -- if only to give readers of this blog some ammunition if they ever get into a discussion with someone who was seduced by Douthat’s piece.

The implication of Douthat’s argument is that when Americans display anti-Muslim bigotry -- as in the past they had been anti-semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Mormon, anti-immigrant -- it makes for a quick and more complete assimilation of the group being targeted. In effect, in order to escape discrimination, the various groups become “more like” the Americans who are persecuting them – thereby earning “acceptance” as “real Americans.” (Read Douthat’s article and see if that’s not the clear implication.)

He then lectures Muslim Americans on how to be good Americans -- telling them they need leaders “whose antennas are sensitive enough to recognize that the quest for interreligious dialogue is ill served by throwing up a high-profile mosque two blocks from the site of a mass murder committed in the name of Islam.”

By the way, note that Douthat, after originally accurately describing the proposed building as an Islamic cultural center, has returned to the misstatement that this is a mosque. Though it will have two floors devoted to prayer, it is only a mosque if a hotel with a prayer chapel is a church.

Note also that in asserting that America does not speak Spanish he is denying “Americanism” to Puerto Ricans and the Chicano descendants of Mexicans who became citizens when the U.S. conquered the Southwest from Mexico.

The problem with Douthat’s argument, of course, is that persecution and discrimination often lead to insularity, the opposite of assimilation, and resentful blowback. Decades of anti-Irish discrimination coupled with anti-Catholicism in the U.S. did not produce democratic assimilated Irish Americans for many generations. In fact, in the 1960s, some Irish Americans were raising money and running guns for the IRA.

Decades of anti-semitism produced strong character and great American contributions on the part of some American Jews -- but it also produced a mistrust of the American government on the part of some others, who have sought to make American foreign policy conform to Israeli national security needs.

And of course Douthat studiously ignores racism and slides over the current wave of anti-immigrant xenophobia. Are we to assume that black Americans should be grateful for the second-class citizenship they endured after the Civil War ended de jure slavery? How did that make them “better” Americans? How did that create the “unum” out of many??

In fact, segregation and second-class citizenship created not only the forward-looking NAACP but the retrograde nationalism of Elijah Muhammed’s Nation of Islam -- a nationalism from which Malcolm X escaped only to be killed by members of that organization. The isolated hyper-ghettos created by the American system of Apartheid have led to a horrendous gap between poor, isolated, under-educated African Americans and both “average” white Americans and the rising achieving black middle class.

And how will demonizing and marginalizing “illegal immigrants” (who are all considered Latinos even though many are from Europe) make them better Americans? The isolation they experience due to persecution is a prescription for keeping them from becoming Americans.

And now, of course, some xenophobic nativists want to repeal the 14th Amendment granting citizenship to every baby born in the United States. Tell me, Mr. Douthat -- how will that “encourage” them to assimilate?

The whole argument is crazy.

I urge everyone reading this to do everything they can to push back in favor of the First Amendment to the Constitution and against anti-Muslim bigotry. The only way to beat loud, disgusting hate speech is with louder, forthright GOOD speech.

[Michael Meeropol is Visiting Professor of Economics, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.]

The Rag Blog

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Greg Moses : A Conversation With Saad Nabeel

Image from Dallas Morning News / Facebook.
A Conversation with Saad Nabeel:

'While Everyone Goes to College, I Go to Jail' or How Saad Nabeel became an All-American Kid, majored in Electrical Engineering, was Thrown into Jail by the USA, deported to Bangladesh, denied Re-Entry, and Ignored by the New York Times White House Info Regime. All of This Instead of what he Really wanted, which was a Kickass Freshman Year...

[Previously on The Rag Blog: Greg Moses: Deporting Texas Student Was Big Mistake.]

By Greg Moses / The Rag Blog / August 18, 2010

The following conversation with Saad Nabeel was stitched together from more than a hundred emails during the months of July and August, 2010.

Part One: An American kid

Where were you born and when did you arrive in the USA?

SAAD: I was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1991. I moved to the USA in 1994, when I was three years old.

And that was in California?

SAAD: Yes I moved to Los Angeles, California.

Do you recall those first impressions of LA? What was it like?

SAAD: Well it was my home. That's all I knew since I have no memory of anything earlier than LA. I loved my home.

What was it about your home that you loved?

SAAD: I loved everything. Being able to play with my friends, go to school and have fun, go to all the cool places in LA with my parents. What I loved most about my home was that it was a place I knew that I was safe. It was a place I always knew would be there at the end of the day, no matter what happened.

But that changed?

SAAD: Yeah it changed when I was about to graduate from the 5th grade. Immigration forced my father to choose between returning back to Bangladesh and getting persecuted by rival political groups, or moving away from California and awaiting the approval of his green card that his brother had applied to get him.

And that's when your family brought you to Texas?

SAAD: Yes, in 2002, a few weeks before graduating from elementary school.

So you arrived in Texas just in time for summer. What was it like for you?

SAAD: Well I was in a place where I knew no one. I had just left my entire life behind and everyone I knew in it. Much like what it feels for me now in Bangladesh.

And then you started Middle School. What was that like for you?

SAAD: I started the 6th grade in Allen, Texas. A school named Reed Elementary is where I went. Middle School began in Allen when you started 7th grade, so I was stuck in elementary for another year. Reed was interesting to say the least. Going to school in Texas is where I experienced my first taste of racism. People made racist jokes on a daily basis about me, in front of other peers.

So you found it difficult to make friends at first?

SAAD: Yeah, at first. But I quickly made friends, though the racial slurs kept on at a steady pace with the kids who were strangers.

So let's talk about the friends for a minute and how your final year of elementary school ended.

SAAD: Well elementary school ended decently I'd say. I was good friends with most other students. Everyone generally liked me. After 6th grade we moved to our home in Frisco, Texas.

And that’s where you stayed until college?

SAAD: Yes sir.

What was it like making friends in Frisco? What was the Middle School like for you?

SAAD: It wasn't difficult making friends in Frisco, probably because the initial shock of leaving my life behind in California had eased away. Wester Middle School was fun. Eighth grade was the best because it was easy and I knew everyone. Going to Six Flags at the end of the year with my class was also great.

As you were busy growing up, how involved were you with your family’s immigration status? Given the upsetting nature of your family’s move from California, how much did it weigh on your mind that you might have to leave the United States?

SAAD: Well I was not involved. I was told it was being taken care of since we almost always had lawyers doing some sort of work for us. I didn't have time to be involved with immigration, because I knew nothing about it. I thought I was just a regular kid like everyone else I knew. It never occurred to me that I would have to leave America since it was my home. I was told we would eventually have our green cards.

So let’s talk about High School next. Did you go to the same High School as most of your Middle School friends? What interests did you develop there?

SAAD: I went to high school with all of my middle school class (at least for freshman year that is). I developed a keen interest in computers and everything about them. I learned everything I could about them. Other than that, hanging out with friends, going to the movies, going on dates were all the norm.

And you started your own company at that time? Tell us about that.

SAAD: That's when I started Easy PC (for lack of a better name). I figured "why not use my skills for a job?" I found cheap website hosting, made a site, and went around trying to advertise. Got a few flyers up in classrooms of teachers I had. Made an honest buck or two.

All in all, an all-American story. Then you went off to college?

SAAD: I applied for scholarships and was pleasantly surprised to receive enough funding to get a full ride for the University of Texas at Arlington. My years of hard work in high school finally paid off.

Did you move to campus housing or commute from home?

SAAD: I moved to the on-campus apartments. Centennial Court was the name.

I looked it up online. Seems like a perfect place to live out your college years. What was that first month like in September 2009?

SAAD: It was awesome. For the first time in my life, I was living alone. I had great roommates and we always had awesome times together. Classes weren't so hard since we had just begun. Everything was going right in my life.

And then came the turning point? What was your first notice that things had changed for you?

SAAD: I'd say the first indication was when my parents called to say that they were going to report to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in the morning, just as they did every month, except that day, they didn't call me to tell me how it went.

Is that the infamous ICE office on Stemmons Freeway?

SAAD: Yes it's the one on Stemmons.

How were you notified that this visit to ICE had turned out so differently?

SAAD: Honestly I wasn't aware of the implications of the situation until my father was detained, and he was detained before the date that ICE allowed him on his papers. I was honestly caught up in loads of school work.

Saad Nabeel. Image from Dallas Observer.

Part Two: Jail at the border

OK, so let’s focus for a minute on your experience of the events that unfolded. How did you first become aware that the situation was dire? How were you notified, and by whom? What did they say? What went through your mind?

SAAD: I first became aware of the situation on Nov. 3 when my mom called me at my apartment telling me that my father had been taken by ICE. Things didn't really function in my head. She told me the only choices we had were to go to Canada and try to seek refuge there or to go to Bangladesh, a third-world country. I had no idea what to say about any of this. Losing my life in a heartbeat isn't exactly something that's easy.

Nov. 3, 2009 was a Tuesday. By that time you would have completed your mid-term assessments? How were your grades at that point?

SAAD: Actually, mid-term exams were about to start. I had an Electrical Engineering lab exam in the morning so I was up studying all day. My grades were good in my opinion. I put a lot of effort into my work.

So what did you think about your options at that point? Canada or Bangladesh?

SAAD: I didn't want either one. I wanted to stay where I was at. I wanted to stay home. But I couldn't let my mother go alone to Canada. I had to go with her. She's my mother.

So you traveled with your mother from Dallas to the Canada border?

SAAD: We flew to NYC. Then my uncle drove us to the border.

Was that your father’s brother? Was he someone you had known well? What was that trip like? What was going through your head? Which border station did you approach?

SAAD: It was my father's brother. We used to live with him when we first moved to the USA. But we had not seen each other in years. The trip was long and tiring. The only thing in my head was, "Am I really leaving everything behind?" We approached the Buffalo border.

And this was still early November 2009? As you were approaching the border at Buffalo, what was the weather like? What time of day? Did you just try to drive through, or did you park the car and approach the border station on foot?

SAAD: It was towards mid-November since it took us a while to prepare clothes, food, and other items for the trip. It was very cold the entire time. Snow on the ground everywhere we went. When we got to the border, we worked with an organization that helps immigrants who are out of status and have only Canada left as a choice. We filed paperwork with them, camped out at a one-room motel for over a week. I would sleep on the floor, my mom on the bed.

As November wore on, were you able to keep in touch with friends? What were you saying to them? What were they saying to you?

SAAD: The motel had internet, so that's how I was able to communicate to my friends. I was telling them that I had to move to Canada. Only my closest friends knew the real deal. They helped me pack my belongings in Texas. They were all bummed out.

Do you want to talk a little about the organization that was helping you with the process? Besides filing papers and waiting for an answer, was there anything else for you and your mother to do?

SAAD: The name of it was Vive La Casa. They have a website. All my mother and I had to do was wait for the call to go to Canada, meet with her relative (in this case her uncle), and convince the border authority that their relationship was legitimate.

Her uncle?

SAAD: Yes. You need a relative to go into Canada. She was fortunate enough to have one. Although I use the term “fortunate” very loosely seeing as I'm not exactly in the best shape.

At Vive la Casa, they would call your mother’s uncle an “anchor relative”? So if we continue to use terms very loosely you had some “hope” that your passage to Canada would be approved?

SAAD: I do not know the terminology, honestly. That's probably correct though. You are also safe to assume that I had little to no hope that we would enter Canada. Why? Because I was never able to get over the shock of leaving behind everything in my life because of immigration, for the second time -- the first was the move from LA.

So what happened next?

SAAD: To make the depressing story short: we got the call that we had to go get interviewed at the border. We went there and met up with my mom's uncle. All three of us were separated from each other into different rooms and drilled with questions. Hours upon hours later, Canadian immigration said, "we do not believe you two -- my mother and her uncle -- have a relationship. Sorry, but we are sending you back to U.S. immigration."

By that time it was very late in the day? Were you able to communicate with anyone?

SAAD: I had been awake all night and they finally rejected us around 4 p.m. when the office closed. After that we were sent back to U.S. immigration and locked in a room until one in the morning or so. I was able to call one friend. That's it.

So there you were, locked into a room with your mother for eight hours, and the Canada option was closed? What kind of room was it? What were you expecting next? How was your mother holding up?

SAAD: It was a room with a few seats, a TV, and a glass wall looking out at the other side of the building we were housed in. A lot of people were there. There was a counter at the top of the room. Behind it is where the police officers and ICE agents were. I only expected to be taken to jail. That's what they told us when we got there. My mother was in tears the whole time.

It sounds miserable. Two weeks prior to that you had been in Texas studying for your electrical engineering midterms. Now you were a thousand miles away in New York, waiting to go to jail.

SAAD: That's my life. While everyone goes to college, I go to jail.

And that’s where they took you next? To jail?

SAAD: Yeah. Handcuffed mother and me and took us to separate facilities.

Did you have a clear idea of why you were being jailed? I mean it seems that you were doing everything according to established procedures. Were you given any kind of hearing or any chance to get a lawyer before they handcuffed you?

SAAD: No. I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that ICE was okay with us living in Texas. We did not get the right to a lawyer.

Did you get the impression that ICE was treating you as your mother’s child, under her supervision? Or were they treating you as an adult with full rights and privileges to be informed about what was going on with options of your own?

SAAD: I never had to report to ICE. Only my parents had to. I thought I was still under parental supervision.

Where did they take you? What did they tell you? How were you handled?

SAAD: They didn't tell me much. Not much conversation other than, "We're taking you to Batavia. Your mom is going to Chautauqua County Jail." We were handled like luggage.

So they took you to the Buffalo Federal Detention Center at Batavia, New York? That’s about a one-hour drive from the city of Buffalo. Were you cuffed the whole time? Am I correct to imagine that you were pretty numb from the shock of it all?

SAAD: I was cuffed the whole time. I had not eaten or slept in 36 or so hours. It was 4:30 a.m. when I was finally stuck into the room I was to live in for the next 42 days.

Do you recall the date? I see that the Batavia detention center has three diamond-shaped pods. Did you have a sense of your location within the facility?

SAAD: It was the day before Thanksgiving. No, I had no sense of location when I was inside.

Were you alone in your cell? What was the typical day like?

SAAD: I was with 60 men in the room. A typical day was spent by doing nothing. Later on I made friends with a few people there and we played cards for five hours at a time to kill the day. I kept a 20-page journal of what was in my mind.

There were 60 beds in one room? Do you want to share a passage from that journal?

SAAD: Yes, the room had two floors with 30 people on each floor. I was prisoner number 301. The journal is a madman's journal. It's full of random mood swings and trauma.

Were you able to communicate with your mother, your friends, or an attorney?

SAAD: I was not able to talk to my mother or father. I was able to contact a few of my friends.

What was that like? Not being able to talk to your parents? Did your friends help to keep your spirits up?

SAAD: It made me worry about them. I knew my father could take care of himself. But my mother had never even imagined she would experience torture like this. My friends tried their best to keep my spirits up. They told me time and again to not blame my parents for what was happening.

So you were kept in jail through the holidays? Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year?

SAAD: Yes.

Dallas Morning News, April 5, 2010. Image from Facebook.

Part Three: Deportee

And then you were deported? How did the deportation take place?

SAAD: Yes, I was deported. They took me out of the room. Forced me to sign papers stating I had a 10-year bar from returning to the USA. "If you do not sign what we give you, you will be criminally charged and kept in jail." I signed the papers. They stripped me in front of another officer once again to see if I had something concealed then gave me the 42-day-old clothes I wore when I entered the facility.

I was then taken by an officer out to a van that my mother was in. We flew from the Buffalo Airport to Chicago O'Hare, then to LAX -- my hometown... didn't think that was how I would visit it -- then from there to Bangkok, Thailand. In Thailand my mother and I were kept in a cell with no air conditioning, which was literally crawling with cockroaches and spiders.

Did your mother tell you how she had lived for 42 days at the Chautauqua County Jail? How long were you two kept in Thailand?

SAAD: She was devastated as expected. It's difficult to describe the feeling honestly. It's like walking to the gallows. She told me she was transferred three times, denied hot water, and kept behind bars. We were in Thailand for over three hours or so.

Then you were finally transported to Bangladesh for a reunion with your father? What was that like?

SAAD: Father was still in Haskell, Texas, at the Rolling Plains Prison. He came in February. My mom’s brother -- uncle to me -- made special arrangements with Bangladeshi immigration because if he did not, we would have been detained for three days.

Wait. So your father was still in Texas? You and your mother were deported before he was deported? And yet his status was the primary interest for immigration? Everything sounds completely mixed up to me.

SAAD: That’s completely correct. Trust me, I'm just as confused as you are.

For the record maybe we should make a note here that this section of the interview is transpiring on the day that the White House disinvited your Dallas advocate Ralph Isenberg from a fundraiser that he paid $10,000 to attend. We live in confusing times.

SAAD: It was to make it so the New York Times article was not contradicted by my case.

Yes, the Times was reporting that students like you were not being deported. There you were, a bona fide national contradiction. I’m sure we’ll come to Ralph in good time. Meanwhile, you and your mother were getting settled in Bangladesh. How did you find a place? What did you have with you? Who did you know there?

SAAD: My mom has family here. We stayed with her brother for a week or so. Then they found an apartment across the street from his. I arrived with a bag of clothes in a duffel bag. That's all.

And you hadn’t seen Bangladesh since you were two or three? You had jet lag and culture shock? What do you recall about that first week?

SAAD: I had no memory of this place at all. It was and still is a different planet. I don't even know the language, so 90 percent of the signs on the street were and are alien to me. Culture shock -- there's really no way to describe the feelings I had because I knew "I can't go home." The first week, I started getting sick, vomiting, depression, tirades against my mother, etc.

And then your father joined you? What do you recall about that reunion?

SAAD: It wasn't one that I'm proud of. All my life I knew how to control my anger. But when you lose your entire life in front of your eyes, you don't care anymore about control.

But what could your father have done differently? As I understand the situation from talking to Ralph, your father was very close to getting permanent residency.

SAAD: I don't know what he could have done. All I know is that there was probably a way to avoid all of this.

When did you begin campaigning for your return to the USA? How did that begin?

SAAD: I began in March I believe. My YouTube video has the date on there (March 18, 2010). It began after I recovered mentally a bit and regained some of what made me "The Saad" back home. Everyone knows the The Saad back home, and they know that when he sets his mind to something, he makes it happen. It's egotistical but it's what keeps me afloat.

When do you first recall being called “The Saad”? Was it connected to a specific achievement?

SAAD: I first started calling myself The Saad in 2007 during my junior year of high school. It caught on, as much as everyone hated saying it because it added to my ego, ha ha. Teachers started calling me that at one point.

What about “The Official Group: Bring Saad Nabeel Back Home to America”? The first signature at the petition is dated March 26, 2010. And there is a Facebook page. How did all that come into existence?

SAAD: I started the Facebook Page a long time ago. I was the one who created the Official Group. I made it as a central hub for people to learn about my situation. I would stay up all night spreading around my initial deportation video and group link. Very long nights. But the PR paid off eventually when the Dallas Morning News came knocking.

Yes, I see an excellent, comprehensive story on April 5, 2010 by Morning News reporter Jessica Meyers. She describes you as "a Taco Bell aficionado and Taylor Swift fanatic." Did she contact you via Facebook? The story is sympathetic to the unfairness of your status but not very optimistic about the chances of reversing it.

SAAD: My friends and I have been living off of Taco Bell for years now. We used to say "Taco Bell's our second home. It's the hand that feeds. Don't insult it. Don't bite the hand that feeds."

Ah yes, I am completely and utterly in love with Taylor Swift, no arguing that. The salutatorian of my graduating class mentioned me in her speech during our graduation ceremony because of how much I loved Taylor Swift. The Dallas Morning News contacted me by Facebook first.

But before the Morning News published their story, you were contacted by WFAA reporter Steve Stoler? He interviewed you via Skype for a March 22 report. And that was a few days before the online petition was posted (or the domain name created). So the Dallas media must have seen something compelling in your story.

Stoler presented supportive on-camera comments from your Liberty High School friends who called your treatment "unfair." And you say, "I really hope that someone in the government has a heart." Heart and fairness? What's wrong with asking for that?

SAAD: Yes, Steve contacted me on Facebook as well. What's wrong with heart and fairness? I have no idea. I still can't accept the fact that I'm stuck in Asia right now.

Speaking about heart and fairness, how did you get to know [attorney] Ralph Isenberg?

SAAD: After the Dallas Morning News article was published, Ralph contacted Jessica Meyers who wrote my article and she contacted me.

So you've been working with Ralph since about mid-April, 2010? What has that been like? What has Ralph been able to offer in the way of resources and strategy?

SAAD: Yes since mid-April. Working with him has been good. He has more information to share than any immigration attorney will ever tell you no matter how much you pay them. Actually he's more knowledgeable than most attorneys.

And he helped you try to return to college this year? What was your experience of that?

SAAD: Yes, he and I worked on me returning home as fast as possible to attend SMU. Dr. Charles Baker from SMU contacted the Dallas Morning News at the same time as Ralph did and so I introduced them.

So the three of you worked on the SMU option? What was that experience like for you?

SAAD: Well it gave me hope that people hadn't given up on me. I finally felt like I could go home.
How did the process play out over time? What things were you doing to qualify for admission to SMU and secure passport permissions to return to America for college?

SAAD: Dr. Baker would scan up the necessary documents for SMU, email them over, have me sign them, and then send them back. I qualified for SMU thanks to my ACT score. Passport permission was not given to me. I was denied my visa because my passport had an "ineligibility" on it. The U.S .Consulate told me to come back January 5, 2020.

So you visited the U.S. Consulate in Bangladesh? When was that? Did you have to fill out forms? Was there a meeting or an interview? Did they know that you had been accepted at SMU?

SAAD: I believe it was a day or two before June 30, when the Dallas Morning News pumped out a short article about it. At the consulate, I did not have to fill out any forms. It was an interview. There was a man behind a glass screen and I was on the opposite side. They knew everything. I gave them -- all the paperwork, letters from SMU, etc. They didn't care. They took one look at it and rejected me based on my passport. I don't understand how difficult it is for the government to just fix a simple mistake THEY made on my case...

And what mistake was that?

SAAD: The 10-year bar that I was never supposed to have by law.

Why were you never supposed to have a 10-year bar?

SAAD: A 10-year bar is only placed on someone who overstayed in the USA unlawfully for over 360 days starting at the age of 18. I was under ICE supervision since the age of 17 so I was never overstaying unlawfully. It was always with the permission of ICE. A three-year bar is only placed on someone who has overstayed unlawfully for over 180 days. The only overstaying I did was from November 24 to January 4 because I was detained. I was still 18 years old when I departed the USA.

And while you were detained you never got to consult a lawyer? But before they deported you, they said you had to sign the 10-year bar? It sounds like you were forced into an impossible situation. How do you take back a signature you should never have been forced to sign?

SAAD: No, I was not able to consult a lawyer nor given the ability to ask for one because they told me "if you refuse to sign any papers we give you, you will be criminally charged and kept in jail."

Your case has attracted recent coverage from important international press such as the German magazine der Spiegel and the Calcutta newspaper The Telegraph. Your Official Group at Facebook in mid-August has about 5,000 friends who like it. What are the chances that The Saad will be able to high-jump over his 10-year bar?

THE SAAD: Everyone knows The Saad as someone who gets things done. A lot of people expect me home soon and even have things planned out for it. But what the public doesn't know is that, even The Saad has his doubts about himself. We grow up in America knowing that "justice will prevail" so that's what I hope happens. Someone will recognize this mistake and fix it.

[Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence. He can be reached at gmosesx@gmail.com.]

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Marc Estrin : The Far-Reaching Effects of Child Abuse

Image from PsychCentral.
Child abuse:
Here, there, and likely everywhere

By Marc Estrin / The Rag Blog / August 15, 2010

There have been several large studies on the effects of occupation -- bombing, physical injury, house demolitions, tear gassing, house searches, etc. -- on Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza (Google palestine/children/trauma/). A few studies look at the rather smaller numbers of traumatized children in the southern Israeli towns bordering Gaza who experience occasional rocket attacks. (Google israel/children/trauma/.)

All studies demonstrate what might be expected from such direct and witnessed exposure: concentration and attention deficit, memory problems, and various levels of post-traumatic stress disorder. War, as they say, and as shows up in their drawings, is not good for children.

Yet there is another area of child abuse, not generally labeled as such, both here and in the middle east, with which we must also be concerned: educating children toward paranoia and retributive violence.

Whatever your position is on the Israel/Palestine situation, I heavily recommend that you watch these two 10-minute YouTube segments (here and here) by an Israeli filmmaker, documenting a state-sponsored high-school trip to Auschwitz.

Auschwitz/Birkenau is a hair-raising experience. Hair-graying, too. My companion assured me at the time, that I had a few gray hairs afterwards -- my first -- I hadn't had before that afternoon. The key question, however, is what does one understand and take from that experience.

My own feeling is that these Israeli children were battered and reduced in emotional capacity going from the before to the after. See what you think.

It's not hard to connect such an "educational" experience with such consequences reported here.

America's children have little direct experience of war, occupation, and lethally threatening violence, but their lives are full of virtual exposure via film, video, music, and electronic games. In a way, their cart precedes their horse: they are learning the response before the stimulus.

Consider this NPR piece on an Army Experience Center:

Your tax dollars at work, training children to deal with terrorists who -- the adults likely assure them -- hate us for our freedoms.

One Marine boot camp chant I've come across recently goes like this:

Throw some candy in the school yard,
Watch the children gather round .
Load a belt in your M-50,
Mow them little bastards down!”

Nice. I'm sure the indoctrination in the Experience Centers is not as strong or viscous as among the Semper Fi boys, but the subtler brain-washing may be more extensive and effective.

I don't know what kind of chants they use in the IDF, or in jihadist military training, but I assume it's all similar -- child abusing "education" preparing children for the abuse of children and others.

[Marc Estrin is a writer and activist, living in Burlington, Vermont. His novels, Insect Dreams, The Half Life of Gregor Samsa, The Education of Arnold Hitler, Golem Song, and The Lamentations of Julius Marantz have won critical acclaim. His memoir, Rehearsing With Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater (with Ron Simon, photographer) won a 2004 theater book of the year award. He is currently working on a novel about the dead Tchaikovsky.]

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Harry Targ : Robert Gibbs and the 'Professional Left'

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs slammed the "professional left" for being too critical of Barack Obama. Photo by Carolyn Kaster /AP.
Criticizing Obama:
A dialectical look at the 'professional left'

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / August 14, 2010

I view as despicable the Obama administration strategy, expressed through Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, of ostracizing members of what he called the “professional left” who criticize shortcomings of administration policies.

Progressives have appropriately condemned economic policies that limited job stimuli, bailed out banks without nationalizing them, assumed away the very popular single payer option in health care reform, escalated war in Afghanistan, stalled the end of the blockade on Cuba, and maintained an imperial military presence in Latin America, East Asia, and just about everyplace else. The administration has not pursued immigration reform, climate change legislation, and the Employee Free Choice Act.

However, the reality of the first 19 months of this administration includes some health care reform, modest symbolic gestures to reduce hostilities toward other countries and the reintroduction of diplomacy as a tool of international relations, negotiations on the reduction of nuclear weapons, reestablishment of funding to international agencies that promote family planning, and a set of economic policies that bailed out banks and the auto industry that reduced somewhat the horrific consequences of the current recession.

The Obama administration still has on the table a progressive agenda concerning the environment, labor, job creation, and foreign policy. This is a public agenda for which he can and will be held accountable while electoral and tea party opponents are committed to the destruction of public institutions, fairness, and access to basic human needs.

As I read the Gibbs comments, however, a small part of me, I confess, was reminded of those who are inalterably opposed to every policy and practice of this administration. Some analysts on the left have articulated views that seem to me to ignore the historical context, the constellation of political forces today, the consciousness of people at the grassroots, and the almost omnipresence of an electronic media that frames virtually everything in terms of markets, the terrorist threat, unions as “special interests,” and government as an unmitigated evil.

I was ruminating about this discomfort I have with some of our left discourse as I sat through the August meeting of the Northwest Central Labor Council, Indiana, AFL-CIO meeting. We were listening to a presentation by a labor lawyer who works for a firm that specializes in cases of worker injuries and deaths on the job. This firm, for years, has worked with liberal state legislators, mostly Democrats, to get legislation passed that might guarantee the right of families of deceased workers to sue for deaths of loved ones at workplaces and to provide access to workers compensation.

It seems that Indiana law limits legal and compensation claims for victims of mesothelioma and other asbestos exposure diseases to cases occurring within the last 10 years. Scientific evidence indicates that victims of workplace asbestos exposure may not appear for 20 or 30 years. In effect, most claims for survivors and victims of asbestos related diseases would be ineligible for compensation.

Then the Council heard from State Rep. Dennis Tyler (D-Muncie) who has been working with the law firm, George and Sipes, to change the law. Tyler described the procedural roadblocks to proposed legislative reform in 2009; Republican opposition in both the State House and Senate to legislative reform, and lobbying efforts by the Indiana Manufacturers Association, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, Associated Builders and Contractors, the National Federation of Independent Business, Indiana Energy Association, the Indiana Petroleum Council, and the Insurance Institute of Indiana.

The Tyler Bill was reintroduced in 2010. As George and Sipes describes the outcome:

The bill was assigned to the House Labor and Employment Committee and was heard in late January. With the bill about to pass the Committee and move to the House floor for a vote, the Republicans on the Committee, doing the bidding of the manufacturer and insurance lobbyists, walked out, which left too few members to hold a vote, effectively killing the bill.

In Council discussion State Rep. Tyler admitted that Indiana working people, including union members, are disillusioned with both parties and the electoral process generally. However, as expected from a state politician, he pointed out that the only hope workers and families have for some assistance when mesothelioma hits a family is to elect a pro-worker, largely Democratic, State House. Traditionally, in the Indiana legislature, Democrats have a narrow lead in the House and rarely control the Senate.

This fall, the Democrats could lose the House, which will not only bury any prospects of reform on asbestos compensation legislation but a Republican victory in the House and Senate would lead almost immediately to passage of legislation making Indiana a so-called “Right-to-Work” state. “Right-to-Work states allow workers in unionized workplaces to not join the unions that represent their interests. Wage rates and union membership in Right-to-Work states are uniformly less than in states that have not embraced such anti-union legislation.

So what do we on the “left” do? We surely do not want to be fodder for the White House strategy to convince voters that they are not “left.” We surely do not want to support more off shore drilling, more war in Afghanistan, allocation of fewer resources for public employment and green jobs etc.

But, at the same time, we need to work to protect workers stricken with mesothelioma. We need to work to create real regulation of mines, of oil drilling, of global warming. We need to push for single-payer health care. We need to mobilize around a real job creation agenda. And we need to demand that with tight resources our needs must be paid for by a dramatic draw-down of military spending.

In the end, I come to the conclusion that we on the “left” must continue to perform to Robert Gibb’s characterization. But, I believe we must also continue to work in our communities, our states and nationally, electorally and in the streets, to improve the lives of all who suffer today as we organize to build a better world tomorrow.

[Harry Tarq is a professor in American Studies who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical.]

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Amy Goodman : Climate Change is the Real Deal

This Greenland glacier split in two, sending a 100 sqare mile iceberg floating off into the Arctic Ocean. Image from Mirror, U.K.
News at 11:
How climate change affects you

By Amy Goodman / August 13, 2010

Our daily weather reports, cheerfully presented with flashy graphics and state-of-the-art animation, appear to relay more and more information.

And yet, no matter how glitzy the presentation, a key fact is invariably omitted. Imagine if, after flashing the words "extreme weather" to grab our attention, the reports flashed "global warming." Then we would know not only to wear lighter clothes or carry an umbrella, but that we have to do something about climate change.

I put the question to Jeff Masters, co-founder and director of meteorology at Weather Underground, an Internet weather information service. Masters writes a popular blog on weather, and doesn't shy away from linking extreme weather to climate change:

"Heat, heat, heat is the name of the game on planet Earth this year," he told me, as the world is beset with extreme weather events that have caused the death of thousands and the displacement of millions.

Wildfires in Russia have blanketed the country with smoke, exacerbating the hottest summer there in 1,000 years. Torrential rains in Asia have caused massive flooding and deadly landslides in Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and China. An ice shelf in Greenland has broken off, sending an ice island four times the size of Manhattan into the ocean. Droughts threaten Niger and the Sahel.

Masters relates stark statistics:

• 2010 has seen the most national extreme heat records for a single year: 17.
• The past decade was the hottest decade in the historical record.
• The first half of 2010 was the warmest such six-month period in the planet's history.
• The five warmest months in history for the tropical Atlantic have all occurred this year (likely leading to more frequent and severe Atlantic hurricanes).

"We will start seeing more and more years like this year when you get these amazing events that caused tremendous death and destruction," Masters said. "As this extreme weather continues to increase in the coming decades and the population increases, the ability of the international community to respond and provide aid to victims will be stretched to the limit."

Men row a boat carrying supplies while fleeing the flooded village of Karam Pur in Pakistan's Sindh province on August 10, 2010. Photo by Akhtar Soomro / Reuters.
And yet the UN talks aimed at climate change seem poised for collapse.

When the Copenhagen climate talks last December were derailed, with select industrialized nations, led by the United States, offering a "take it or leave it" accord, many developing nations decided to leave it. The so-called Copenhagen Accord is seen as a tepid, nonbinding document that was forced on the poorer countries as a ploy to allow countries like the U.S., Canada, and China to escape the legally binding greenhouse-gas emissions targets of the Kyoto Protocol, which is up for renewal.

Bolivia, for example, is pursuing a more aggressive global agreement on emissions. It's calling for strict, legally binding limits on emissions, rather than the voluntary goals set forth in the Copenhagen Accord. When Bolivia refused to sign on to the accord, the U.S. denied it millions in promised aid money. Bolivia's United Nations ambassador, Pablo Solon, told me: "We said: ‘You can keep your money. We're not fighting for a couple of coins. We are fighting for life.'"

While Bolivia did succeed in passing a UN resolution last month affirming the right to water and sanitation as a human right, a first for the world body, that doesn't change the fact that as Bolivia's glaciers melt as a result of climate change, its water supply is threatened.

Pacific Island nations like Tuvalu may disappear from the planet entirely if sea levels continue to rise, which is another consequence of global warming.

The U.N. climate conference will convene in Cancun, Mexico, in December, where prospects for global consensus with binding commitments seem increasingly unlikely. Ultimately, policy in the United States, the greatest polluter in human history, must be changed. That will come only from people in the United States making the vital connection between our local weather and global climate change. What better way than through the daily drumbeat of the weather forecasts? Meteorologist Jeff Masters defined for me the crux of the problem:

A lot of TV meteorologists are very skeptical that human-caused global climate change is real. They've been seduced by the view pushed by the fossil-fuel industry that humans really aren't responsible ... we're fighting a battle against an enemy that's very well-funded, that's intent on providing disinformation about what the real science says.

It just may take a weatherperson to tell which way the wind blows.

Copyright © 2010 Truthdig, L.L.C.

[Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 800 stations in North America. She was awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, dubbed the “Alternative Nobel” prize, and received the award in the Swedish Parliament in December. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.]

Source / Truthdig / CommonDreams

American tourists visiting Red Square wear masks to protect them from Moscow's air, filled with toxic smoke from raging wildfires. Photo by Pavel Golovkin / AP.
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John Ross : 'El Jefe Diego' and 'The Mysterious Disappearers'

Photo of kidnapped Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, released via Twitter. This is the second version, with the copy of the muckraking newsweekly El Proceso, featuring his face on the cover, apparently photoshopped in.
Bicentennial mischief in the making?
The mysterious kidnapping of 'El Jefe Diego'

By John Ross / The Rag Blog / July 13, 2010

MEXICO CITY -- Subcomandante Marcos, the quixotic mouthpiece for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) who has not been seen in public for the past 19 months, has emerged as a possible suspect in the kidnapping of powerful right-wing politico Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, who was taken by unknowns at the gate of his ranch in the rural Queretero county of Pedro Escobedo this May 14th and remains in captivity.

Up until quite recently, the snatching of "El Jefe Diego," as he is known by Mexico's political class, has been ascribed to mercantile motives -- sources close to the negotiations with the kidnappers indicate that the original $50 million USD ransom demand has been reduced to $30 million and the family of Fernandez de Cevallos is said to be selling off choice properties and a fleet of nearly 200 vehicles to raise the asking price. If the information is accurate, the ransom would be a record for Latin America.

Diego Fernandez de Cevallos is a former presidential candidate of the right-wing PAN party and a dark horse candidate to succeed current PANista President Felipe Calderon. Indeed one theory popular with Mexico City taxi cab drivers is that El Jefe Diego kidnapped himself to enhance his candidacy in 2012.

As the rightists' standard-bearer back in 1994, Fernandez de Cevallos racked up nearly 10,000,000 votes but finished second well behind the PRI's Ernesto Zedillo -- the PRI which had ruled Mexico for 71 years ceded the presidency in 2000 to the PAN's Vicente Fox, Calderon's predecessor.

During the reign of reviled ex-president Carlos Salinas (1988-94), El Jefe Diego served as head of the nation's senate and cut frequent deals with the PRIista, signing off on the burning of ballots cast in the fraud-marred 1988 election that most Mexicans believe was won by leftist Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. As quid pro quo, the PAN was gifted with its first ever governorship (Baja California) and Fernandez de Cevallos got a vacation home in the ritzy Punto Diamante neighborhood of Acapulco that the family is now trying to unload to meet the ransom demand.

A fierce litigator who inevitably defended the interests of the oligarchy, El Jefe Diego has been frequently accused of influence peddling, the suspected source of his immense fortune. The abrasive Fernandez de Cevallos with his trademark bristly beard and Havana cigar clenched tightly in his jaws has nurtured many enemies both as a litigator and a lawmaker. Among them is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), the left PRD's presidential candidate in 2006 who is thought to have edged Calderon only to have the victory stolen from him in the vote count, and the announced left candidate for high office once again in 2012.

When AMLO was the wildly popular mayor of Mexico City, El Jefe Diego got his hands on a series of hand-made videos in which a crooked contractor doles out fistfuls of Yanqui dollars to Lopez Obrador's former personal secretary and other high-ranking PRD officials. According to the contractor, after consulting with his old pal Carlos Salinas, Fernandez de Cevallos had the tapes delivered to Televisa and TV Azteca, Mexico's two-headed television monopoly, where they were repeatedly aired in a failed effort to derail Lopez Obrador's presidential bid. In his latest book, The Mafia That Took Over Mexico, AMLO lists both Salinas and El Jefe as leading members of the Mexican "mafia."

Diego Fernandez de Cevallos is not popular with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation either. In the wake of the Zapatistas' 1994 rebellion in Chiapas, El Jefe Diego repeatedly dissed the ski-masked Subcomandante Marcos and declared that he would never agree to negotiate with "Indians who wore socks on their heads." Later, he would reject the Zapatistas' Indian Rights Law, arguing that the recognition of indigenous uses and customs would lead to the restoration of "human sacrifice."

Within days of the kidnapping, Fernandez de Cevallos's family asked Mexico's Attorney General to suspend his investigation into the whereabouts of the politico, pending negotiations with his captors whose Harry Potter-like e-mail address identifies only as the "Mysterious Disappearers."

Communication with the authorities has been channeled through Fernandez de Cevallos's law partner Antonio Lozano Gracia, himself a former attorney general. The current AG, Arturo Chavez Chavez, yet another Fernandez de Cevallos law partner, now meets with Lozano three times a week to review developments in the case.

From all accounts, communication with the "Mysterious Disappearers" has not been fast paced. A cell phone photo of Diego, blindfolded and naked from the waist up, was sent via Twitter May 20th, probably to prove that he was still alive. What is apparently the same photo was sent again June 10th but now Diego was holding a copy of Proceso magazine with his mug on the cover dated May 23rd. Photoshop can work wonders.

The delivery also included an eight-page letter written in a firm hand that graphologists conclude is El Jefe's handwriting, and addressed to Diego's son, also named Diego, lamenting that his father was "living in hell" and expressing fears for his mental health. Fernandez de Cevallos implored his family to move quickly to post the asked-for ransom.

According to one informant quoted in the left daily La Jornada, Fernandez de Cevallos spoke directly with his son July 12th but no details of the conversation were disclosed. "Chisme" (gossip) floating around the Internet has the family reluctant to come up with the ransom because they don't want the irascible Jefe freed to further complicate their lives. Another chisme has the Mysterious Disappearers so exasperated with having Fernandez de Cevallos on their hands that they will soon release him free of charge.

In a surprise late July statement released to the Mexican press, Attorney General Chavez Chavez's office revealed that investigators have concluded that the motives for the kidnapping were political and not mercantile as had been broadly believed.

The Center for Investigation and National Security (CISEN), the nation's lead anti-subversive intelligence agency, pointed a finger at the long-lived guerrilla Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), a cell of which operating as the Revolutionary Democratic Tendency-Peoples' Army (TDR-EP) has been active in the Bajio, the rich agricultural region in central Mexico where Fernandez de Cevallos was taken, for the past 20 years. In 2007, the EPR claimed credit for the bombing of PEMEX pipelines in Queretero and Guanajuato in retaliation for the disappearance of two of its historical leaders.

The EPR is famous for financing its operations through political kidnappings, most notoriously the 1994 snatch of Alfredo Harp Helu, the president of Banamex, Mexico's oldest bank (now a branch of Citigroup), and cousin of the world's richest tycoon Carlos Slim.

Negotiations for Harp Helu's release were channeled through a defrocked Catholic priest Maximo Gomez of Atoyac Guerrero who one informant close to the negotiations says is again involved in the current bargaining between the family and the kidnappers. Harp Helu was released after six months in captivity for a reported $14 million USD ransom. According to newspaper accounts, the EPR invested the boodle in heavy caliber weaponry.

Armed to the teeth, the Popular Revolutionary Army made its public debut June 28, 1996, along the Costa Grande of Guerrero on the first anniversary of the massacre of 17 farmers and then launched a short-lived campaign against military and police installations that extended through six states. The CISEN reports that the EPR has more recently financed its activities from the kidnappings of 40 industrialists and ranchers in the Bajio region.

Intelligence sources quoted by La Jornada cite one Constantino Alejandro Canseco AKA "Comandante Jose Arturo" as the key organizer in the taking of El Jefe Diego -- the pseudonymous "Jose Arturo" was the most public EPR spokesperson during the guerrillas' 1996 campaign, meeting with the press at least twice at training camps in the remote Huasteca mountains of Hidalgo state.

Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos.
Canseco's brother, Felipe, a former guerillero and political prisoner, calls the accusations "absurd," insisting Constantino was shot twice in the heart during disturbances at Oaxaca's Benito Juarez University in 1976 and has been disabled ever since. Both Cansecos and the former rector of the university Felipe Martinez Soriano later formed the PROCUP, a guerrilla foco largely known for urban bombings. The PROCUP is thought to be at the heart of the EPR, a coalition of 14 small guerrilla bands that has since split into separate armed factions.

During its heyday, the Popular Revolutionary Army had a quarrelsome relationship with the EZLN, then the nation's topdog insurgent army. When Subcomandante Marcos vehemently rejected the EPR's offer of solidarity, Comandante Jose Arturo argued that Marcos was trying to fight a revolution with poetry and made fun of the pipe-smoking Sup.

But the kidnapping of Diego Fernandez de Cevallos suggests that the two have since reconciled and joined forces to pull off a spectacular operation on the eve of the nation's celebration of its bicentennial of independence and the centennial of the Mexican revolution.

Evidence of Subcomandante Marcos's involvement in the kidnapping of El Jefe Diego is exclusively circumstantial. In the Zapatistas' Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle issued in June 2005, Marcos called upon his supporters to set their sights on the 2010 twin centennials as a platform from which to launch a new Mexican revolution. In fact, the EZLN's "Other Campaign," also a creature of the "Sexta," was initiated precisely to forge alliances with other radical groups in preparation for a new mass uprising in 2010.

But in 2010, Subcomandante Marcos has vanished from the political map. His last public appearance was in January 2009 when he spoke briefly at the "Digna Rabia" ("Dignified Rage") forum in San Cristobal de las Casas and he has issued no public communiqués in the past 19 months. Chiapas's many daily newspapers, all of which suffer a striking dearth of veracity, have frequently reported that the Sup has split with the largely disarmed EZLN and left the state for more radical pastures.

Wherever the truth lies, Subcomandante Marcos has surely not been idle for the past year and a half. This writer, the author of four volumes on the Zapatista rebellion, has often speculated on rapprochement with the EPR in preparation for some major mischief during the upcoming bi-centennial and centennial celebrations.

Marcos has a vivid model for the Jefe Diego caper. In the first days of the January 1994 Zapatista rebellion in southeastern Chiapas, rebels captured the former governor of the state, Absalon Castellanos Dominguez, a general who had ordered brutal massacres in indigenous communities and who was much hated by the Indians.

Absalon was held for a month at Guadalupe Tepeyac, the rebel command's headquarters, before being taken before the community for a public trial where he was adjudged guilty of abusing and killing Indians and stealing their land and was sentenced to 30 years in an indigenous village hauling water and firewood.

A flurry of back-channel negotiations with the "mal gobierno" ("bad government") followed and the EZLN then pardoned the General on the grounds that he would now have to spend the rest of his life bearing the shame of having been pardoned by the very people he had so abused.

The ex-governor was released on a jungle road in early February 1994 in a nationally televised extravaganza -- for many Mexicans the ceremony surrounding the release was the first time they had even seen the Zapatistas. The blindfolded Absalon was marched down the dirt path accompanied by the Zapatistas' Major Moises and an unidentified woman comandante and handed over to the Salinas government's peace commissioner, Manuel Camacho Solis.

Neither the conditions of Absalon's release nor the amount of the ransom paid out was ever divulged, but two weeks later public negotiations between the EZLN and the mal gobierno began in the Cathedral of San Cristobal de las Casas.

For Subcomandante Marcos, the hoopla generated by Absalon's kidnapping and release proved a media coup that put the EZLN at center stage in the Mexican political dynamic and won national and international recognition that the rebels have rarely been able to replicate.

Curiously, in an interview with Proceso at the end of July, Max Morelos Martinez, a Bajio lawyer who is privy to communications between the kidnappers and Fernandez de Cevallos's family, speculated that El Jefe's captors intended to conduct a public show trial charging him with many crimes against the Mexican people after which a reasonable ransom would be paid for his release.

The language utilized by the Mysterious Disappearers in e-mails directed to Pepe Cardenas, a political columnist for the daily El Universal, is revealing. In one note, the Disappearers speak of El Jefe Diego as "the Archduke of Escobedo" (where the ranch from which he was kidnapped is located), a phrase that rings a bell with this assiduous reader of hundreds of Subcomandante Marcos's poetic, humorous communiqués sent to national publications in the early years of the rebellion that mordantly lampooned Mexico's political class.

Indeed, the title that the kidnappers have assigned to themselves, the "Mysterious Disappearers," invokes the Sup's unique, mocking literary style.

Lawyer Max Morelos Martinez, who has been the go-between in several negotiations between victims' families and kidnappers in the Bajio and who has talked personally with the likes of Daniel Arizmendi, "the Earchopper," who would often send his victims' ears or fingers to their families, observes that the tone adopted by the "Misteriosos Desaparacedores" doesn't sound authentic. When kidnappers demand ransoms, their language is always cut and dried: "send us x amount of money or you'll get your kid's ear in the mail tomorrow." Click. They don't have much of a sense of humor.

An E-mail sent last week (Aug. 5th) to the "Misteriorosos.Desaparacedores@yahoo.com" inquiring after Subcomandante Marcos's well being did not elicit a response. When the message was re-sent the next day, the account had been closed down.

Down the years, Mexico has had its share of political kidnappings. Back in the 1970s, urban guerrillas snatched the U.S. Consul in Guadalajara, eventually exchanging him for a plane to fly political prisoners to Cuba. The September 23rd Communist League kidnapped many wealthy industrialists in Monterrey, occasionally killing them in the process. The taking of Harp Helu by the EPR was the most notorious in recent years but many kidnappings of influential Mexicans such as former Interior Secretary Fernando Gutierrez Barrio in 1997 have never been publicly disclosed and the victims were quietly released once the ransom had been paid off.

As President Felipe Calderon gears up for his gala, multi-billion peso bicentennial celebration of Mexican Independence this September 15th, longtime observers of Subcomandante Marcos's media exploits cannot help but wonder if the Sup is about to steal the spotlight from the Mexican government once again?

John Ross, author of El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City ("gritty and pulsating" New York Post), will be otherwise occupied for the next month. These dispatches will be issued every 10 days until he returns to Monstruolandia. For queries, kvetches, or faint praise contact johnross@igc.org

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