Saturday, October 13, 2007

THIS JUST IN! COWARDLY BOYS TEAM UP!

 
BAMBI DECIDED TO 'GET TOUGH.'  AND WHAT BETTER WAY FOR THE WEAKLING NEWBIE SENATOR STILL YET TO SPROUT PUBES, BARACK OBAMA, TO PROVE HIS 'MANLINESS' THAN TO GO AFTER SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON?
 
 
CAMPAIGN ADVISOR SAMMY POWER EXPLAINED TO THESE REPORTERS, "OF COURSE BAMBI'S GOING TO STAND WITH JOHNNY!  JOHNNY HAS MORE HAIR ON HIS HEAD THAN BAMBI HAS ON HIS ENTIRE BODY!"
 
WHEN ASKED HOW SHE WOULD KNOW THAT, SAMMY POWER WARNED THESE REPORTERS SHE WAS "TRYING TO BE NICE" BUT WE ARE STILL ON HER "SH*T LIST, NUMBER 2 UNDER PEOPLE I WILL BOMB AFTER I BECOME SECRETARY OF DEFENSE."
 
WHEN THESE REPORTERS REACHED THE HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN, WE WERE SURPRISED TO BE CONNECTED TO THE CANDIDATE HERSELF.
 
"THOSE TWO BOYS," CLINTON TOLD US, "THOSE TWO LITTLE BOYS, THOSE TWO LITTLE, COWARDLY BOYS.  I INVITE THEM TO BRING THEIR TOUGH GUY ACT TO MY FACE AT THE NEXT DEBATE.". 
 
 
 
As Denise Winebrenner Edwards (People's Weekly World) notes, this was to be the week of the second court-martial of Ehren Watada until US District Court Judge Benjamin Settle granted a stay through at least October 26th.  Ben Hamamoto (Nichi Bei Times) reports on an October 8th San Francisco press conference held by Pacific Islanders Resist and the Watada Support Committee where Luke Hiken (of the National Lawyers Guild Military Task Force) explained, "Under our constitution, the military is under the judiciary of the United States.  In other words, all federal court systems, up to the United States Supreme Court, have authority over the conduct of military personnel when appropriate.  Accordingly, federal district courts, all the way up to the courts of appeal and U.S. Supreme Court, intervene when there are violations of U.S. military regulations or laws that contravene the U.S. Constitution.  The trial council indicated that there was no jeopardy attached to the case, because the defense had not completed its entire presentation, which is nonsense.  In (such a case) jeopardy is attached the second the first witness is called by the prosecution."  Hiken is referring to the double-jeopardy issue.  In February, Watada was court-martialed.  Judge Toilet (John Head) presided.  Opening arguments were presented.  The prosecution called their witnesses.  And their witnesses did a pretty good job of making the defense's case.  That was day two.  Day three was when Watada was supposed to testify.  Instead, Judge Toilet was suddenly shocked by a stipulation he had read, he had agreed to, and he had explained to the jury.  Despite his own involvement at all steps of the stipulation, suddenly Judge Toilet wanted to say Watada didn't understand it.  This was the excuse Judge Toilet created to call a mistrial.  He did so over defense objection.  Because the trial had started, double-jeopardy had attached -- as National Lawyers Guild president Marjorie Cohn has pointed out since the start. 
 
Through Thursday, November 1st, we'll be including, in the snapshots, this National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force announcement: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C.  The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C.  This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information.  The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman.  The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees.  The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937,  Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild." 
 
Watada is only one Iraq War resister.  Courage to Resist reports on James Circello Jr. who self-checked out in April of 2007 and writes about his experience in the poem "I saw kids turn into animals:"
 
I saw kids turn into animals.
Members of my own unit, who I will never speak negatively about,
doing things that one day I know
will haunt them.
 
I saw soldiers mistreating detained Iraqis.
Detained on nothing more than pure suspicion in some cases.
But why not, it was the Old West, anything goes and anything did go.
Honestly.
 
Questionable shootings.
Questionable decisions by superior commanders.
Nothing ever questioned by your superiors.
You as the Soldier were always in the right.
 
Courage to Resist also has an interview (transcript and audio) with war resister Mark Wilkerson conducted by The War Comes Home's Aaron Glantz.  At one point, Wilkerson explains, "I discussed many of these issues with a lot of other soldiers there [in Iraq]; a lot of them just didn't want to think about it at all.  And then when I got back, to see the way the media portrayed the war and the way many people thought the war was going on, and then finally, after a few months, seeing some resisters coming on television -- I remember seeing Camilo Mejia in an interview and thinking, 'Wow, there are people out there like me, who are confused and angry and upset.'  This 'conscientious objector' that I applied for, it was a very rough patch for me.  It was a period of -- I ended up applying for conscientious objector in June.  I took the rules fo conscientious objector home, and in the course of one night, I answered all the questions.  I filled out my form.  It was mostly seething.  I was very angry, so I put all the emotion into what should be a very proper, very well thought-out document and application.  I turned it in.  I was told that I had a week to fill it out.  And then over the next several months, I sometimes got in many arguments and heated debates with my chain of command -- my first sergeant, my platoon sergeant, some military chaplains, military investigators, military psychologists . . ."  November 2005, he was denied CO status -- as most who apply are -- and decided to self-check out.  He announced he was turning himself in August 2006 at Camp Casey and was eventually sentenced to imprisonment in Fort Still, OK.
 
Sunday in Corvallis, Oregon (a college town not far from Portland) Gerry Condon will speak at the Odd Fellows Hall, 223 S.W. Second St. at 7:00 pm.  Gerry Condon is a war resister from the Vietnam era and he's very active in war resistance today.  He can speak about war resisters in Canada -- not just Kyle Snyder, but he knows Snyder's case front to back -- and about the legal process in Canada which has thus far refused to grant any war resisters of this era refugee status.  Along with a can't-miss-speech, those attending will also be able to see Michelle Mason's Breaking Ranks -- a documentary about war resisters in Canada today.  Paul Fattig (Mail Tribune) reports that Condon will also "give a talk about his work at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Medford Congregational United Church of Christ."
 
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.


Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
 
Earlier this week,  National Lawyers Guild president Marjorie Cohn (at Truthout) addressed the issue of torture noting that the administration continues to deny it tortures when the reality is the White House has okayed torture for some time, "Torture is a war crime. Those who commit or order torture can be convicted under the U.S. War Crimes Statute. Techniques that don't rise to the level of torture but constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment also violate U.S. law. Congress should provide for the appointment of a special independent counsel to fully investigate and prosecute all who are complicit in the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody."  AP quoted former president Jimmy Carter declaring this week on CNN, "Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights. We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime."  Yesterday the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq released  (PDF format warning) "Human Rights Report 1 April  -- 30 June 2007" which found many human rights abuses but let's zoom in on the issues having to do with imprisonment.  Those being held went from 17,565 in March to 21,112 by the end of June leading to overcrowding in holding facilities across Iraq, prolonged periods of waiting for something resembling justice to arrive, denial of "access to legal counsel and to family visits," and "reports of the widespread and routine torture or ill-treatment of detainees, particularly those being held in pre-trial detention facitilities under Ministry of Interior facilities, including police stations.  Several such cases were document during the reporting period, where UNAMI was able to interview and examine victims of physical abuse shortly following their release or following their conviction and transfer to a Ministry of Justice prison."  So torture and abuse is alive and well in Iraq.  For all the Bully Boy's grand words of creating a torture free Iraq, Abu Ghraib (and other earlier, less well known events) demonstrated that the US will torture so it's no surprise that the Iraqis placed in charge (by the US and its puppets) will as well.
 

Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha!
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