A Lovely Promise

Msgr. Oscar Romero: ¡Presente!

2011-03-24T21:13:00.004-04:00

Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.

Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, assassinated March 24, 1980.

Egypt: huge milestone

2011-02-11T12:45:00.010-05:00

Congratulations, people of Egypt!

I look forward to this banner being re-hung in Tahrir Square with the first demand checked off, because the next several are just as crucial.

1. Resignation of the president
2. End the State of Emergency
3. Dissolution of the People’s Assembly and Shura Council
4. Formation of a national transitional government
5. An elected Parliament that will amend the Constitution to allow for presidential elections
6. Immediate prosecution for those responsible of the deaths of the revolution’s martyrs
7. Immediate prosecution of the corrupters and those who robbed the country of its wealth.

Youths of Egypt

The banner first appeared on February 4. Photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy (3arabawy)

How to help Haitians

2010-01-15T06:32:00.021-05:00

Partners in Health has been working in Haiti in an exemplary way for years. The literal collapse of many medical facilities in Port au Prince and other areas hardest hit by the quake has made their network of clinics and local health workers an even more important part of the country's sparse medical infrastructure. Please support them today.

Some people consider it unseemly to speak about the political context in which a massive, tragic catastrophe is happening. If you're one of those people, please stop reading this post now.

On February 29, 2004, the U.S. government helped depose the elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Marines forced him onto a plane in the middle of the night and flew him to the Central African Republic. With U.S. and U.N. military and economic support, Haiti's new rulers launched a campaign of assassination, detentions, and intimidation against leaders and activists of Aristide's Lavalas party. The U.N. "peacekeepers" have participated in this campaign, firing on demonstrators, ignoring crimes committed against Lavalas activists by the police (who are being trained by the U.N. troops), and massacring civilians while carrying out sweeps in Lavalas neighborhoods against "criminal gangs".

Lavalas candidates have been prevented from running in subsequent elections. Their exclusion from this past spring's Senate election resulted in a massive boycott; even the government claimed only 11% participation. Now they have been barred again from the general elections scheduled for February 28, the eve of the coup's sixth anniversary.

Through all this, most of the U.S. political class has painted the overthrow and forced exile of Aristide and the reimposition of government for the rich as a good thing, a "transition to democracy". (This piece by Mark Leon Goldberg of UN Dispatch is typical.) This is a lie, as big a lie as the claim that the coup against Pres. Manuel Zelaya in Honduras was a legal "democratic transition".

The Obama administration, and the State Department run by Sec. Clinton, are firmly committed to this lie and the policies for which it is a cover story. But suppression of the largest political party in the country is not going to make it, or Haiti's poor, disappear. Haiti can only rebuild and develop if its people drive that development. An organization supporting such work is the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. Your solidarity can make a difference to Haitians struggling for something they need as badly as shelter, food, and water: genuine democracy.

Update: 3:15pm, 19 Jan - Media analyst Danny Schechter forthrightly assesses the near-FUBAR relief effort, which is making the situation even more explosive. [Hat tip to Rupa Shah in comments at A Tiny Revolution.] Mark LeVine has an incisive overview of exactly how the U.S.-imposed economic model has set Haiti up for maximum damage from the recent series of natural disasters.

On the horizon is a prolonged U.S.-U.N. occupation of Haiti, even more comprehensive than the MINUSTAH mission that's been in place for the last five years. The proconsuls of the "international community" will do everything in their power to prevent Aristide from returning, but that demand will be heard again and more often as the crisis deepens.

State spokesman P.J. Crowley, a reliable fount of empire-speak,

says the Obama administration is discouraging visits to Haiti by prominent political figures, including Mr. Aristide. "The last thing that we need is to have someone land and put an additional burden in an already-stressed situation," said Crowley. "We've sent that same message to our members of Congress."

Ass. Aristide wouldn't be jetting in for a "visit" like prominent political figure Secretary of State Clinton (whose arrival caused the U.S. to hold up landings of relief planes for hours), he'd be a citizen of Haiti returning to his country, from which he is illegally being barred.

Update 2: 6:15pm, 19 Jan - People-to-people solidarity ties are the way around our overlords' high-handed approach of creating ever-deeper dependence. The program developed by Haitian popular organizations themselves should be the rebuilding project that we support by word and action, not the kind of "help" our government wants to impose. (Did you know that the International Monetary Fund conditioned disaster relief funds to Haiti on an immediate freeze in public sector wages and a rise in electricity rates? No, apparently there's not a minute to waste in even a fleeting gesture of human compassion; the only thing to do in a crisis on this scale is to press the advantage.)

Beverly Bell puts it well:

Friends: There are ways that your donation, no matter how small, can have a big impact. They are not via the huge bureaucracies, but via the foundations who have long histories of accompanying, trusting, and strengthening the grassroots groups which, in Haiti, are the only ones who have ever made a sustained difference. These are small foundations that know that the only thing that ever works in Haiti is for people to have control over their own rebuilding, over their own communities, and over their own needs and destinies. These are the small foundations who understand that the best that they can do is strengthen those groups' capacities and strength with funding, infrastructure, and technical support.

The need today is of course enormous and overwhelming. Even the UN and Red Cross have no idea how to respond to a calamity of this size. Past the urgency of everyone now getting food and water (which will not happen) and the wounded getting care
(neither), what will be needed is what the Lambi Fund called today "second responders." That involves rebuilding the efforts that were under way to move Haiti "from misery to poverty with dignity," as it is known there. That is the slow, careful work of helping grassroots movements get back on their feet, reclaim what they lost, and move forward - both individually, and as organized movements working for change and justice.

We're not yet beyond the first responder stage, for which Partners in Health is the best "multiplier" channel. But the Lambi Fund and Grassroots International, along with the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, are organizations of integrity that have earned the respect and trust of Haiti's real leaders.
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Honduras: death toll update

2009-12-14T14:10:00.016-05:00

For more than a month I haven't been able to bring myself to post; I haven't even done much commenting on other sites following the situation.

But my promise to update the post summarizing murders of resistance activists (Honduras: high price of the struggle) forces me to note a number of additions:

Luis Gradis Espinal, a teacher from the department of Valle, was found dead on Wednesday, November 25 in Las Casitas neighborhood in western Tegucigalpa. He was tied and had been executed. His family reported him disappeared when he didn't return after having left for the capital on Sunday, Nov. 22. During the weeks before the election (and since) there were dozens of police search and captures for resistance participants.

Isaac Coello, 24; Roger Reyes, 22; Kenneth Rosa, 23; Gabriel Parrales; and Marco Vinicio Matute, 39. The five men, active in the resistance from the Victor F. Ardon and Honduras neighborhoods of Tegucigalpa, were massacred [Sp.] on December 7 by men in military and police uniforms. A young woman working with them was also shot, but not fatally; she survived by pretending to be dead.

Santos Corrales García was found dead [Sp.] on Thursday, December 10, near Talanga (50 km east of Tegucigalpa). His body was headless. On December 5 Corrales had been taken away with four others from the Nueva Capital neighborhood of Tegucigalpa by five men dressed in uniforms of the national criminal investigation directorate (DNIC). He was tortured and interrogated about the location of a businesswoman who provided supplies to the resistance during demonstrations. The two men and two women who were taken with Corrales were transported, tied hand and foot, dumped at highway exits far from home and told not to return to their neighborhoods.

Walter Orlando Tróchez, a human rights advocate, member of the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transsexual community, and active member of the Resistance Front was assassinated with two shots the morning of December 14, just outside of Larach & Co. in the center of Tegucigalpa. On December 4 Tróchez had been kidnapped outside the "El Obelisco" Park in Comayaguela by four masked men who drove a gray pickup without plates (presumed to be DNIC). They hooded and beat him, and demanded information about resistance activities; Tróchez managed to escape and filed a formal complaint. More from Adrienne Pine and Feminists in Resistance, via Honduras Resists.

There have been several attempted assassinations, and continued police sweeps of homes and offices in which resistance participants have been sought and many taken away. Most of those taken have resurfaced alive, but have been forced to move. Four activists who were taken from the Carrizal neighborhood of the capital on December 5 have not been seen since and are considered disappeared.

Assistant Secretary Valenzuela now freely describes the current regime as a military coup, yet no one in the State Department at any level will acknowledge, much less condemn, these ongoing acts of terror. What a sickeningly familiar feeling.

Update: 7:00 pm, 15 Jan 2010 - Added another couple of entries to the archive post. The last month has seen a wave of murders, kidnapings, and disappearances of both resistance activists and ordinary Hondurans, as well as ongoing violence directed against farmworkers in Aguan by those trying to drive them off their land. A Garifuna radio station was torched. It's difficult to sort out the targeted political killings from the background violence, which is no doubt the point for some of the assassins involved.

[Images from Honduras Resists]

Honduras: elections a sick joke

2009-11-06T10:15:00.021-05:00

The coup regime has made a mockery of the agreement, the U.S. is playing along, and Bertha Oliva of COFADEH (Committee of the Families of the Disappeared/Detained, Honduras' largest human rights organization) has the appropriate response:

...[T]he United States government is silent while Hondurans are subjected to arbitrary arrest, the closure of independent media, police beatings, torture and even killings by security forces. ... And now the U.S. government says we can have free elections in less than three weeks. That is a sick joke.

She was speaking in Washington yesterday, where she met with members of Congress.

While Oliva was in DC, the State Department continued its months-long practice of issuing statements encouraging rightist intransigence and undercutting the pretense that this administration supports democracy. Undersecretary Thomas Shannon, who negotiated the agreement a week ago, said that the U.S. would recognize the November elections whether or not Zelaya was restored. Sen. Jim DeMint said that Sec. Clinton told him the same thing, and expressed his satisfaction by releasing the long-standing holds he'd put on two nominations (Shannon as ambassador to Brazil and Arturo Valenzuela as his successor for Western Hemisphere Affairs). The closest State Dept. spokesman/punching bag Ian Kelly came to walking back the damage: "[W]e believe [Zelaya] should be restored to power. ... Let’s just see how it works out."

How it's working out: Verification commission members Richard Lagos and Hilda Solis returned to their countries yesterday after barely 48 hours in Honduras. That's a mighty casual approach to implementation of a difficult agreement on a tight deadline. The coup-supporting leaders of the national congress are stalling on a vote on Zelaya's restitution. Micheletti has named a "unity government" headed by himself, with no nominations from Zelaya or from the Liberal or National parties -- apparently taking 'unity' in its sense of 'one'.

Brazil and the ALBA governments aren't amused, reaffirming their refusal to recognize the result of elections without Zelaya's restoration as president. The resistance is at the point of no return on rejecting the elections. Sec. Clinton has not had the courtesy to respond, in person or through intermediaries, to Pres. Zelaya's request four days ago for a formal clarification of U.S. policy. Even the LA Times can see what's going on: 'A U.S.-brokered deal to return ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to office is unraveling, and the Obama administration seems to be wavering'. Conclusion:

If the Obama administration chooses to recognize the election without Zelaya first being reinstated, it will find itself at odds with the rest of Latin America. That would be a setback for democracy and for the United States.

When fascists like Jim DeMint are satisfied with your foreign policy, you're doing it wrong.

Update: 3:15pm, 6 Nov - The agreement is dead. Zelaya retains his dignity and integrity; the coup-makers blew their chance to have their phony elections blessed. The crisis is bigger than ever now. Heckuva job, U.S. gov!

Update 2: 10:20am, 9 Nov - Another excellent video report by Jesse Freeston of the Real News Network on the breakdown of the agreement, including footage of Shannon's damning remarks. Carlos Reyes has withdrawn his candidacy, and the Front reaffirms it's actively rejecting the elections regardless of what happens with Zelaya's restitution. There are talks to try to revive the agreement, but given the U.S. government's apparent determination to pretend that elections are a way out of the crisis, there's little basis for optimism. The agreement appears more than ever to have been a way out of Tom Shannon's personal crisis of having his ambassadorship held up, and to hell with the Honduran people.
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Honduras: figleaf restitution, not real democracy

2009-10-30T11:01:00.017-04:00

As expected, an agreement has apparently been reached for a last-minute, highly symbolic restoration of Zelaya to the presidency, now that the U.S. has involved itself directly. A comparison of the points reported in Honduran papers with Laura Carlsen's October 15 summary of agreements reached at that point shows that the only change is the crucial one, restitution -- dependent on a vote of Congress (as Zelaya's delegation proposed at the time).

The only people at any level of the U.S. government who come out of this sorry episode with my respect are the members of Congress who pushed the administration to put more effective pressure on the coup regime and to explicitly condemn the dictatorship's violence. Their most recent letter to Pres. Obama, sent just before the State Dept. delegation left for Honduras, contains two passages that are worth remembering:

While the siege of the [Brazilian] Embassy is a serious violation of the Vienna Convention, more disturbing is the broad assault against the Honduran people unleashed by the coup regime.
...
Free and fair elections cannot take place under these conditions.

Though we commend the administration for having strongly stated their support for the restoration of democracy in Honduras, we are concerned that neither you nor the Secretary of State has denounced these serious human rights abuses in a country where US influence could be decisive.

It is now more urgent than ever to break this silence. It is critical that your Administration immediately clearly and unequivocally reject and denounce the repression by this illegitimate regime. We can say sincerely and without hyperbole that this action on your part will save lives.

Obama and Clinton have not done so, and never will. Message received.

Update: 7:45pm, 30 Oct - The agreement has been signed, but its actual text is unlikely to become public for a while, so the coup regime is already citing obstacles in it that are denied by the Zelaya delegation. There's going to be a difficult, tedious process of implementation; see RNS and Laura Carlsen for good overviews.

So it may well be that Zelaya will not even be restored to office until just before the elections, the "last minute goal" alluded to by OAS snake John Biehl. Even in the best-case scenario, too much time has already been allowed to pass for anyone to feel obliged to respect the legitimacy of the upcoming elections -- presided over by an illegally constituted election tribunal, who will now have nominal command of the murderous armed forces.

Update 2: 3:25pm, 31 Oct - The signed agreement is posted as a PDF at Adrienne Pine's and as plain text in a comment by El Cid at Al Giordano's. RAJ has an English translation. The Honorable Raúl Grijalva does even more to earn that title by hosting a visit to Congress on November 5 by Berta Oliva of COFADEH, the Committee of Families of the Disappeared and Detained.

[Image: Resistance participant beaten by police yesterday when they charged a peaceful demo with tear gas and batons, while the State Dept. delegation met with coup negotiators. Honduras Resists]
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Honduras: too late to pretend there's democracy

2009-10-20T14:20:00.016-04:00

Since posting 'Honduras: high price of the struggle' five days ago, I've had to add two more names to the list of those killed by the coup regime since Zelaya's return. I will continue to put any additional names there, so that the post can serve as a reference (and have added a link to the sidebar); pray that there will be no need.

As the Obama-Clinton State Department worms its way toward recognizing elections held under conditions of dictatorship, remember these men and women. As firms like Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter and Associates take in hundreds of thousands of dollars for being willing to put a smooth facade of lies on a brutal regime, remember their blood. Remember the courage and commitment for which they were targeted. Look into the eyes of Jairo Sánchez, whose funeral was yesterday; then make our government do the same.
Nothing now can make the November elections any kind of exercise in democracy, whether Zelaya returns to office or not. Presidential candidate Cesar Ham and all the other Unification Democratica (UD) candidates have withdrawn. A hundred members of the social-democratic party PINU, including several of their candidates, have denounced their presidential candidate's support of the coup and will withdraw unless Zelaya is restored. Three weeks ago, 68 Liberal Party candidates announced their withdrawal en masse (Avi Lewis' acclaimed Al Jazeera video shows them taking the vote).

The members of the national tribunal overseeing the elections, the TSE, were selected for their jobs in blatant violation of Honduras' election laws, which bar current elected officials from serving. That's just one of the many reasons why the upcoming elections can't possibly be made free and fair, and should receive no support or recognition, but it's a particularly relevant reason in light of their being invited to visit Congress tomorrow by coup-supporting Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Some administrations would deny visas for such a visit, given that the men are part of and support the coup government. This one won't even rule out meeting with them.

Update: 1:30pm, 21 Oct - If coup paper La Tribuna can be believed, some more coup functionaries had their U.S. visas revoked yesterday -- too little, too late even if true (~~no announcement from~~ now confirmed by State). The lifting of the decree hasn't changed much for the police, who in addition to assassinating another resistance leader Monday morning used batons and live ammunition to break up a demonstration later in the day in El Progreso, home of Micheletti, and yesterday in San Pedro Sula, home of most of Honduras' industry.

The resistance, and the campaign for a new constitution, is truly national. Getting back on its feet, Ch. 36 showed a big demo from a rural area yesterday [via Charles]. The police and military are concentrated in the cities, and are going to be spread thin if, as appears to be the case, there has been a fair amount of local organizing since the National Front's convention in early September. On tap for today: a big caravan from towns to the west of Tegucigalpa, ending up in the capital. Tomorrow, a gathering in El Paraiso (near the Nicaraguan border). Friday morning, an assembly of popular candidates on the elections, to take place in the national headquarters of the union of the recently martyred Eucebio Fernandez. The OAS meeting going on now is broadcasting live [via Oye], if you feel like sitting through hours of speeches to see how offensive Lew Amselem manages to be this time.

[Image: Union president Jairo Sánchez, two days after being shot in the head by police Sept. 23, just before the second of five operations. Photo by Mirian Huezo Emanuelsson.]
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Honduras: U.S. media fail

2009-10-17T13:28:00.021-04:00

Tim Padgett's writing for Time on Honduras has been significantly better than that of many U.S. reporters. But that's faint praise, and his latest piece contains several seriously problematic passages.

1. Micheletti ... lifted many of his emergency decrees during a visit last week by U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen... But human-rights groups like Amnesty International say police and soldiers are still blocking street protests.

The decree has not been lifted. A state of siege has been in effect since Sept. 26, when the decree suspending constitutional rights of assembly and free expression (issued on Sept. 22) was published in Honduras' federal register, La Gaceta Oficial. Decrees, and decrees repealing other decrees, take effect when published. The repeal has not been published. Update: 2:15pm, 19 Oct - Repeal published today. UN human rights team in for three-week investigative visit. End update.

No one should need Amnesty International reports to be able to tell that demonstrations continue to be broken up with force. Soldiers and police teargassed and beat demonstrators the day after the supposed "lifting" of the decree, the very day the OAS-mediated dialogue began, in full view of the international press, who reported it. The police gave as the reason for the repression that the demonstrators were "violating the decree" (which, among other things, forbids public gatherings of more than 20 people). They repeated the performance two days later, again widely reported: Riot police shoot tear gas to disperse supporters of ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya during a demonstration outside the hotel where representatives of Zelaya and Honduras' interim government are meeting in Tegucigalpa, Friday, Oct. 9, 2009. [AP caption]

2. To their credit, the leading presidential candidates — Porfirio Lobo of the National Party and Elvin Santos of the Liberal Party — have contributed responsibly to resolving the crisis.

As the front-runner in the elections, Lobo has the most to lose from their being discredited, so he did push back strongly against Micheletti's constitution-suspending decree -- once the international response made clear how lethal a threat it posed to the elections' acceptance.

But I'm unaware of anything Santos has done to help resolve the crisis. Instead, on several occasions he's actively and violently intensified it: During his visit to the national university in August, when students jeered the candidate for his support of the coup, Santos' bodyguards fired their weapons and pistol-whipped one student; the charming episode was YouTubed. A month later, his goons responded to demonstrators heckling a Santos campaign appearance in Choluteca by attacking the protesters with machetes; this too was captured on video, broadcast on Ch. 36. As a result of his role in tearing apart the Liberal party, Santos was only polling a few points ahead of independent candidate Carlos Reyes in a late August national survey by COIMER&OP (solid polling with other newsworthy results that is still unreported by any English-language news outlet other than the site that first made it available).

3. [Acting U.S. Ambassador to the OAS] Amselem, a holdover from the George W. Bush Administration, called Zelaya's surprise reappearance in Tegucigalpa "irresponsible and foolish."

That he did, but he's not a 'holdover' in the sense of being a political appointee, and State Dept. spokesman Philip Crowley defended his comments as consistent with the administration's policy. While Amselem has throughout his career demonstrated the kind of energetic support of right-wing governments characteristic of Republican administrations, he's a career State functionary. He is serving as the acting OAS representative without Senate confirmation, at the pleasure of the Secretary of State. If Sec. Clinton wanted another State employee acting in that position until the new administration's pick is confirmed, it would happen. Speaking of that pick: Despite the declared intention to re-engage with the hemisphere, and despite the emergence in June of a crisis on which it was purportedly determined to work with and through the OAS, the Obama administration didn't even nominate its own OAS representative until September 15; I wouldn't bet on her being confirmed until sometime next year.

4. After setting up in the Brazilian embassy last month, [Zelaya] claimed Israeli mercenaries were trying to zap him and his entourage with high-frequency radiation.

The source of this assertion, Frances Robles' Sept. 24 Miami Herald article, was a hit piece intended to paint Zelaya as unhinged. The writer didn't repeat the president's actual words, just luridly characterized them -- and has yet to produce the quotes to back it up. But the damage is done; one commenter after another repeats her unsupported attribution as gospel.

Moreover, the smear is repeated without even a nod to the context in which Zelaya spoke to Robles: a day after the coup regime had laid military siege to the Brazilian embassy. The regime cut the power, water, and phone service to the whole neighborhood. They filled the street with tear gas (some of which infiltrated the embassy). They set off the LRAD sonic cannon from the street outside, well within the 300 feet within which the manufacturer warns the device causes damage. The weapon is designed to flush out buildings and disperse crowds; use against people who are trapped in the path of the highly focused, 150-dB directed sound is torture. Soldiers ordered out the residents of houses on all sides of the embassy and occupied the buildings. The next day the regime inserted at least one phone-jamming device into the embassy and directed others at it from outside. Pro-coup Honduran media reported that the sonic cannon was supplied by the Israelis.

A day after the Robles hit piece appeared, the regime subjected the embassy to chemical attacks and renewed the sonic blasting with the LRAD. More than a third of the 60 people inside the embassy had serious symptoms ranging from nosebleeds to respiratory irritation to vomiting blood, while medical personnel were prevented from entering the embassy for hours. That Manuel Zelaya -- what a craaazy guy.

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The main point of Padgett's article is that the State Department is considering supporting and recognizing the November elections even if Zelaya is not restored to office. Evidence for this includes a revealing email from "a high-level official in the U.S. OAS delegation" who is not Amselem, as well as signals new and old in State briefings that the U.S. is counting on the elections as an escape route.

What puts Padgett on a slightly higher level than the run of U.S. reporters and commenters is that he does some actual reporting, treats anti-coup sources seriously, manages to write about Zelaya's presence in the Brazilian embassy without using the phrase 'holed up', and -- most significantly -- recognizes that the rest of the world isn't blind and that their opinion counts for something:

if Micheletti doesn't yield the presidency back to Zelaya by Nov. 29, whoever wins that day is likely to be a global pariah — a fact that perhaps the U.S. needs to come to terms with.

Perhaps.
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Honduras: World Cup sweetness

2009-10-16T17:03:00.007-04:00

Yesterday Micheletti had the World Cup qualifying football team in to the presidential house, trying to hog the national celebration. Team captain Amado Guevara, in a lovely gesture, sent a jersey to Pres. Zelaya with a message of support.

Above is his mom Flor presenting it to Zelaya's daughter Pichu.

Update: 3:00pm, 17 Oct - Bonus! Adrienne Pine's friend Oscar reports that Amado Guevara declined to receive his medal from the dictators at the ceremony Micheletti arranged. Update: 2:30pm, 21 Oct - Or maybe not; see comments.
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Honduras: two paths diverge

2009-10-16T13:25:00.014-04:00

Via Hibueras, Zelaya early this morning called on the popular movement to assemble at 10:30am to demonstrate for his restitution, saying that it could come within hours. Laura Carlsen provides the best account of what's been agreed to in negotiations up to this point.

But it's too late for any agreement to legitimize the elections. The regime, and the U.S., blew off that deadline. They're fine with symbolic restoration, a point of view expressed by the snake-in-the-grass OAS envoy John Biehl, who said he’s confident the country will resolve its political crisis before election day. "Some goals are scored in the final minute." (Cute. Honduras qualified for the World Cup yesterday and everyone, including Zelaya, is celebrating.)

Israel Salinas made clear this morning that only immediate and full restoration today could bind the resistance to the elections. It's not going to happen.

As Zelaya said in the Al Jazeera video (you have watched it, haven't you?), there's a two-stage process. One stage is reversing the coup -- restoring formal democracy. The other is the longer, larger struggle to democratize the country. The two efforts were fused up until now, but the popular movement can't let its hands be tied by negotiations in which it's not taking part.

The ALBA countries are meeting today to consider new sanctions against the coup regime. No hint of anything similar from the U.S. government; apparently even formal democracy's too much trouble to defend. Ben Fox of AP brings home the effect of the ho-hum U.S. approach on the Honduran people, detailing the intense economic pain caused by the drawn-out crisis.

Oh, and a special brass balls award to others in the brain-dead media, who are still, three and a half months on, propagating the zombie lie:

A wealthy rancher who moved to the left after taking office, Zelaya angered conservatives by building close ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and toying with a reform of the constitution to change term limits for presidents. [Reuters, no byline]

Gosh, it must be true; they keep saying it.

Honduras: high price of the struggle

2009-10-15T13:03:00.046-04:00

As the hours tick down on the last chance for restoration of the Zelaya government that could provide a fig-leaf of legitimacy for the November 29 elections, the price being paid by those resisting the coup is getting more, much-needed attention.

A recent Reuters story by Frank Jack Daniel, 'Honduran abuses rampant after coup', reinforces the NY Times account mentioned in a previous post:

Suspicious deaths. Beatings. Random police shootings. Life under the de facto government of Honduras at times feels uncannily like Latin America's dark past of military rule..

Via Honduras Oye, an outstanding Al Jazeera video episode makes the point even more vividly. (The interviewer's penetrating questions to all parties are also a startling reminder of how rare real journalism is these days.)

Update: 2:15pm, 16 Oct - Human Rights Watch weighs in, urging the international community to back human rights prosecutors in the Attorney General's office, whose efforts to investigate military and police killings and abuse have been obstructed and threatened by the coup regime and the military. "If anyone questions the damage that the de facto government has done to Honduras’ democratic institutions it’s clearly illustrated by these cases ... by obstructing the investigations, the public security forces are thumbing their noses at the rule of law." HRW also urged support for overturning Micheletti's illegal decree and opposed amnesty for human rights violations as part of any agreement. End update.

Update 2: 4:00pm, 16 Oct - Excellent: "The United Nations human rights chief is sending a team to Honduras on Sunday for a three-week official visit to examine violations of rights in the wake of the coup d’état in the Central American country in June." Not so excellent is that the report is expected to be delivered by ...next March?!. End update 2.

The death toll since Zelaya's return is high. Below are just some of the victims, those for whom I have information [links provided for those not mentioned in previous posts]. In the same period there have been more than a few young men taken away in nighttime sweeps of neighborhoods whose whereabouts are unknown or whose bodies have not been identified.

Update 4: 2:00pm, 15 Jan 2010 - Additions:

Edwin Renán Fajardo Argueta, 22, a member of Artists in Resistance, was found strangled to death in his apartment in Tegucigalpa on Dec. 23. He had received death threats before his murder.

Carlos Turcios, vice-president of the Choloma chapter of the Resistance Front, was kidnapped [Sp.] near his home on the afternoon of Dec. 16. He was found dead the next day in Baracoa, Cortes, with hands and head cut off. There is a report that the body was not Turcios', so he may be considered disappeared. End Update 4.

Update 3: 3:40pm, 14 Dec - Additions:

Walter Tróchez, a human rights advocate, member of the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transsexual community, and active member of the Resistance Front was assassinated December 14 with two shots just outside of Larach & Co. in the center of Tegucigalpa. On December 4 Tróchez had been kidnapped outside the "El Obelisco" Park in Comayaguela by four hooded men who drove a gray pickup without plates (presumed to be DNIC). They hooded and beat him, and demanded information about resistance activities; Tróchez managed to escape and filed a formal complaint. More from Adrienne Pine.

Santos Corrales García was found dead [Sp.] on Thursday, December 10, near Talanga (50 km east of Tegucigalpa). His body was headless. On December 5 Corrales had been taken away with four others from the Nueva Capital neighborhood of Tegucigalpa by five men dressed in uniforms of the national criminal investigation directorate (DNIC). He was tortured and interrogated about the location of a businesswoman who provided supplies to the resistance during demonstrations. The two men and two women who were taken with Corrales were transported, tied hand and foot, dumped at highway exits far from home and told not to return to their neighborhoods.

Isaac Coello, 24; Roger Reyes, 22; Kenneth Rosa, 23; Gabriel Parrales; and Marco Vinicio Matute, 39. The five men, active in the resistance from the Victor F. Ardon and Honduras neighborhoods of Tegucigalpa, were massacred [Sp.] on December 7 by men in military and police uniforms. A young woman working with them was also shot, but not fatally; she survived by pretending to be dead.

Luis Gradis Espinal, a teacher from the department of Valle, was found dead on Wednesday, November 25 in Las Casitas neighborhood in western Tegucigalpa. He was tied and had been executed. His family reported him disappeared when he didn't return after having left for the capital on Sunday, Nov. 22. During the weeks before the election (and after) there were dozens of police search and captures for resistance participants. End Update 3.

Eucebio Fernández Suárez, director of the Mateo School in Macuelizo, Santa Barbara, union leader, constant participant in resistance actions, and candidate for vice-mayor, was shot Oct. 19 at 7:10am at the Macuelizo exit of the Virrey highway. [Added 3:00pm, 19 Oct. Name corrected 9:15pm, 20 Oct.]

Jairo Ludin Sánchez, president of the union of workers at the National Institute for Professional Formation, died Oct. 17 in hospital. He had been in critical condition since being shot in the head by a policeman while taking part in a demonstration on the afternoon of Sept. 23 in his neighborhood near Morazan Boulevard in Tegucigalpa. Details. [Added 2:00 am, 18 Oct. More details 3:15pm, 19 Oct.]

Olga Osiris Uclés, 35, died Oct. 4 from effects of the tear gas police used against demonstrators at Radio Globo on September 30. She lived in the La Joya neighborhood of Tegucigalpa, and leaves four children.

Mario Fidel Contreras, a teacher and vice-principal at Instituto Abelardo R. Fortín, was shot twice in the head on Oct. 2 by a man on a motorcycle near his home in the San Angel neighborhood of Tegucigalpa.

Antonio Leiva, a Lenca campesino and resistance leader, who had disappeared some days before, and had been detained previously by security forces, was found dead on Oct. 3 with signs of torture in Canculuncus, a village in Santa Barbara.

Marco Antonio Canales Villatoro, 40, was shot on Sept. 26 by two men on a motorcycle as he was leaving an evangelical church in Tegucigalpa. He was a PINU candidate for suplente (alternate legislator) for Francisco Morazan department, and the nephew of the owner of Radio Globo, Alejandro Villatoro.

Wendy Elizabeth Avila, 24, law student. A resistance activist non-stop since the coup, she died on Sept. 26 from the effects of tear gas used against people in the street in front of the Brazilian embassy on Sept. 22.

Elvis Euciado, a teenager, was riding his bike toward a neighborhood soccer field on Sept. 23 when he yelled 'golpistas' at a police patrol 200 feet away. The patrol stopped; one policeman got out and shot him dead on the spot. [The policeman's since been charged with murder, the sole exception to impunity among these cases.]

Francisco Alvarado, 65, was shot with an M-16 while going out for food on the evening of Sept. 22 (more than 24 hours into a continuous curfew) in the Flor del Campo neighborhood of Tegucigalpa.

Oscar Adán Palacios was shot to death by the military in the Victor F. Ardon neighborhood of Tegucigalpa on the afternoon of Sept. 22 (just short of 24 hours into the curfew).

Felix Murillo was found dead ~~with signs of torture~~ after apparently being hit by a vehicle in Talanga, Francisco Morazan department (near Tegucigalpa) on Sept. 20, the day before Zelaya reappeared in the capital. His body entered the morgue at the Escuela hospital as an unknown. He was a resistance activist and witness in the case of the death of Roger Vallejo, a fellow-teacher shot to death while taking part in a demonstration on July 30.

Whatever happens by the end of today, the next phase has begun: fighting for a national assembly to write a new constitution. These and all the martyrs of the resistance to the coup since June 28 will be present in the struggle. ¡Presente!

[Image: Elvis Euciado, from newspaper Tiempo]
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Schmeace Prize

2009-10-09T10:05:00.002-04:00

This would make a sick joke of the Nobel Peace prize, if the committee hadn't already done so long ago by awarding one to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (who at least had the decency to refuse it).

Honduras: farmworkers freed, Micheletti meltdown

2009-10-08T13:45:00.009-04:00

Good news (if accurate; will post another source when I find it): The farmworkers imprisoned for their long occupation of the National Agrarian Institute have been released. The down side is that they'll supposedly be subject to house arrest. That sounds sinister, but how easy or likely is it to be enforced against several dozen farmworkers scattered around the country in remote rural locations?

What this account doesn't note is that the campesinos driven forcibly from the Institute a week ago had been held together in a single cell, and had launched a hunger strike. Their release is a small but real victory won by their own struggle.

Not good news, but not a real surprise: Micheletti continues to be intransigent. Speaking to the press last night after the "dialogue" had ended for the day, he went into a tirade against the OAS delegation [video, via Doug Zylstra in comments at RAJ's]. No one from this government seems inclined to say a word about the continuing illegal state of siege, or to do anything else that might provide a reality check for the coup crew.

Update: 3:50pm, 8 Oct - Over the weekend the body of a Lenca resistance leader, Antonio Leiva, was found in a village in Santa Barbara province, murdered and with signs of torture. He had disappeared earlier. Yesterday twelve men, women and children from the indigenous organization COPINH sought and were granted political asylum in the Guatemalan embassy. They denounced the wave of repression happening under the state of siege, directed especially at ethnic minorities who participate in the resistance. The Guatemalan foreign ministry put out a statement announcing that the group was being granted asylum and demanding that the coup government respect human rights and stop acts of repression against its citizens.
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Honduras: majority supports Zelaya, siege goes on

2009-10-07T16:38:00.012-04:00

On one hand, the news [Sp.] is the same as it's been for a while:

Today Honduran soldiers and police repressed supporters of deposed president Manuel Zelaya in front of the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, at the moment that a dialogue was beginning in search of a solution to the political crisis.

Some 150 demonstrators chanted Mel, hold on; the people are rising up and Mel, friend: the people are with you as they gathered near the embassy. Lines of police protected with shields and wielding batons threw tear gas grenades and dispersed the demonstrators, who ran into other streets.

The demonstrators "were violating the decree" that restricts constitutional liberties and "were violating the rights of others" to free circulation, said Captain Daniel Molina, head of the police detachment, to local media. Tegucigalpa is virtually militarized today as the dialogue begins between representatives of Zelaya and de facto president Roberto Micheletti, supervised by the Organization of American States.

So Micheletti's illegal decree continues to be enforced, there's still no formal publication of repeal, and the capital is in virtual lockdown. What an excellent climate for dialogue and negotiations. And what a mood it sets for the World Cup qualifying game versus the U.S. in San Pedro Sula on Saturday; dictatorship's no obstacle to a good football match, eh, FIFA?

On the other hand, the resistance demonstrators' chant that the people are with President Zelaya is now solidly grounded in polling data. An opinion research company chosen by Honduras' election tribunal to do official election polling conducted a large-sample nationwide survey just over a month ago; the results and all the internals were obtained and posted by Al Giordano. Go read; the results are encouraging, though they shouldn't surprise anyone but those who've drunk the coup-makers' Kool-Aid. [4:05pm, 8 Oct - Paragraph rewritten for accuracy.]

Zelaya says there's no chance for elections November 29 unless he's restored to office by October 15. At least 68 Liberal Party congressional and mayoral candidates from eleven different departments announced [Sp.] late last week that they'll withdraw from the race en masse unless Zelaya and the constitutional order are restored. The poll mentioned above shows Liberal Party presidential candidate Elvin Santos only a few points ahead of independent resistance candidate Carlos Reyes (though Reyes, naturally enough, draws a much larger proportion of "unknown/no opinion" responses).

The U.S. government uses the excuse of "delicate negotiations" to avoid applying any further pressure to Micheletti, Gen. Vasquez, and their paymasters. But the dictators are giving the finger to the world with their continuing state of siege. Tell Sec. Clinton to declare a military coup, and let her know about the poll results: Supporting full restoration of Zelaya's government is the right thing to do and good politics.
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Honduras: human rights violations actually news

2009-10-06T21:12:00.013-04:00

At long last, after 100 days, a major media outlet takes a straightforward look at the violence of the coup regime. Elisabeth Malkin talked with survivors and with the human rights groups, and "balances" with only a touch of coup propaganda.

The militarized police direct their weapons against not just those who demonstrate against the coup regime, but those who might:

Since Mr. Zelaya’s return, security forces also have been rumbling through poor neighborhoods that are the base of his support. “They are going into neighborhoods in a way to intimidate people,” said Mr. Acevedo, the lawyer. In that time, the center has documented an increasing level of violence. Investigators have seen more than two dozen people with bullet wounds in hospitals, and some detainees have had their hands broken and have been burned with cigarettes, he said.

While the police and soldiers are looking for the activists who have been organizing resistance, the sweep seems to pick up anyone who gets in their way.

Yulian Lobo said her husband was arrested in the neighborhood of Villa Olímpica and accused of having a grenade. “It came out of nowhere,” she said, adding that her husband, a driver, had not been to pro-Zelaya marches.

A most welcome development in New York Times reporting. Of course, nobody's perfect:

...Mr. Micheletti lifted the decree [suspending constitutional rights] Monday.

Not so fast. The repeal supposedly doesn't take effect until published in Honduras' federal register, La Gaceta. As of the end of today, still no publication.

Update: 10:30 pm, 6 October - Olga Osiris Uclés died [Sp.] yesterday from effects of the tear gas police used against demonstrators at Radio Globo on September 30. Via Charles.

[Image at top: boy beaten by police at demonstration at the Mercado Belen in Tegucigalpa, 30 July. Photo from Via Campesina.]

Mercedes Sosa

2009-10-02T10:14:00.006-04:00

Via Otto at IncaKolaNews, the sad news that Mercedes Sosa is in critical condition. Listen to her here with Leon Gieco and reflect some of that warmth and strength back to her now.

Update: 6:00pm, 4 October - She's gone. As a commenter at this clip said: Gracias a la vida ... que nos dio la oportunidad de escucharte. (Thanks to life ... that gave us the chance to listen to you.)
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Honduras: siege goes on behind coupmakers' theater of dissent

2009-09-30T15:42:00.014-04:00

This morning at dawn, hundreds of riot police surrounded and invaded the National Agrarian Institute, arresting at least 50 farmworkers who had been occupying the building since the coup. The campesinos acted to prevent the coup regime from destroying or altering land titles that were in the process of being registered as part of land reform under the Zelaya administration.

Today's arrests are just the latest brutal crackdown under Micheletti's decree suspending the constitution for 45 days -- the one he issued in secret on September 22 but didn't publish in the government register until September 26, over the names of 16 functionaries of his usurper cabinet. When reaction to the decree began to sink in, further shredding the already tattered legitimacy of the widely unrecognized elections, even some of the coup backers distanced themselves. Micheletti, wanting to appear to respond and to spread the responsibility around to his co-conspirators, promised to repeal the coup "as soon as possible", pretending that doing so would require action by the Supreme Court and Congress. That's transparent b.s.: he could repeal the decree by the simple act of issuing another to cancel it.

It's a perfect theatrical setup for the coupmongers: Headlines give the dictatorship credit for "relenting", rightist presidential candidate Porfirio Lobo gets international credit for opposing the antidemocratic decree, but the actual state of siege remains in effect as a cover for not only Monday's military shutdowns of Radio Globo and Channel 36 television, but threatened shutdowns of radio stations in Choluteca and Valle, the removal and arrest of the farmworkers, and assaults on whatever other targets remain on the golpistas' hit list.

And we enter the fourth month of the coup. Barack Obama was one of only two presidents in the hemisphere to make no mention of Honduras in his address to the UN. Thanks so much for all the change, Mr. President.

Update: 1:15 pm, 1 Oct - Even Ramon Custodio gets a role in the theater of dissent, though apparently the script he picked up was not that of the nation's human rights ombudsman. He wants the decree suspending the constitution repealed not because it deprives people of their rights of free assembly and free expression, but because issuing the decree "is to accept that we are no longer able to maintain public order, peace, and is a tacit acceptance which does not reflect the situation in which we are living." Okaaay then...

The illegal decree continues in force, now in its second week. For the first time since the coup, the riot police actually completely prevented the resistance from conducting a march in the capital. Looks like a military dictatorship from here. The people responded last night by holding a pot-banging, horn-blowing show of support for Zelaya in the area around the Brazilian embassy. Take your hands off your ears, Sec. Clinton.

Update 2: 4:15 pm, 1 Oct - Stories running next to each other in Tiempo: The election tribunal wants the decree repealed immediately because it puts the credibility of the elections at risk. The state prosecutor promises the election tribunal he'll send to jail anyone who boycotts or advocates against participation in the elections. Carlos Reyes confirms that he'll withdraw his candidacy for president unless Zelaya and the constitutional order are restored. Hmmmm.....

Image: riot police at National Agrarian Institute.
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Honduras: saying my piece

2009-09-28T11:53:00.010-04:00

The news is very bad, and I can't be on the computer much more today.

This was my email letter to the State Department this morning (links added here; the previous post has more on the embassy attacks and rejection of negotiations):

Subject: Honduras

What will it take to get the U.S. government to do the right thing? How many dictatorial, murderous, and outlaw acts must the coup regime take before this department utters one single word of condemnation?

Since Friday morning alone, the regime has:
- mocked the UN Security Council by renewing its attacks on the Brazilian embassy, assaulting those inside with chemicals and sonic cannon (LRAD).
- detained, searched, and harassed diplomatic and medical personnel entering and leaving the embassy.
- deported from the country OAS ministers arriving to help facilitate negotiations.
- rejected negotiations of all kinds, including those previously agreed to (including feeble, obvious time-wasters like the 'consultations' suggested by the U.S. as announced by spokesman Ian Kelly on Thursday).
- issued a decree suspending basic human and constitutional rights, paving the way for even more deadly repression.
- decreed the closure of the only two broadcast media reporting on the regime's crimes and giving air time to the majority of citizens who support the restoration of the legitimate, elected government.

Lives are at stake. The credibility of the U.S. government, and this administration in particular, is at stake. The future of elected democracies in the hemisphere is at stake.

Don't delay: Immediately denounce the undemocratic, vicious repression of the Micheletti regime. Freeze the U.S. accounts of those participating in and backing the coup; you know who they are. Formally declare this a military coup, at long last, now that the masks are completely off, and follow through by ending all U.S. aid -- including the so-called "democracy promotion" money that goes exclusively to the coup-supporting organizations in the Union Civica "Democratica".

The two-faced policy must end today. Stop encouraging the dictators in Honduras by remaining silent while they assault and murder citizens, by encouraging their run-out-the-clock-to-elections strategy with fake negotiations, and by continuing to send money while mouthing support for restoration of the constitutional order.

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[Image: Wendy Elizabeth Avila, a law student in Tegucigalpa who died Saturday from the effects of tear gas.]

Honduras: reality sinking in?

2009-09-25T10:22:00.016-04:00

The vicious and hysterical response of Micheletti and his regime to Pres. Zelaya's return has, understandably, made a negotiated settlement even less appealing to people who have been actively resisting the coup for three months. But the talking has begun. Gen. Vasquez visited the Brazilian embassy on Wednesday night (purely routine! no meeting with Zelaya! Uh huh.). Yesterday the four coup-supporting candidates and the Auxiliary Bishop of Tegucigalpa openly visited with Zelaya. La Prensa's pictures of the hugs and handshakes have elicited resentful grumbling among the resistance, but also, I have to think, deepened cracks among the coup-makers.

The UN's action of withdrawing political and material/technical support for the elections has had a real effect (hence the candidates' meeting); it's a direct blow to the coup regime's strategy of pretending that the elections will be a "reset button" magically returning the country to democracy. Today the UN Security Council meets [Sp.] in a special session on Honduras (requested by Brazil on Tuesday).

Update 2: 4:00pm, 25 Sept - Yikes. On the very morning that the UN Security Council met and condemned the coup regime for harassing the embassy, the military and police launch tear gas and high-decibel sound attacks at it. First Lady Xiomara Castro de Zelaya reports by phone that the gas is forcing those inside to wear cloths to cover their mouths and noses, that some are vomiting blood and bleeding from the nose, and that they have severely irritated throats. Medical personnel are being prevented from getting in, as are deliveries of supplies. This is via Radio Globo, and photos appear to confirm; I'm not sure what, if any, media correspondents are inside the embassy this morning.

A mission led by OAS chief Insulza will arrive today or tomorrow; it was planned for Tuesday but the coup regime prevented it with their lockdown of the country, which involved a 42-hour curfew, suspension of constitution, closure of all airports, and sealing of the borders.

Update 1: 3:00pm, 25 Sept - Nope. Micheletti still trying to run out the clock, per this AP report from two hours ago:

Honduras' coup-installed government plans to block the arrival of a commission of foreign ministers heading to the country this weekend to help resolve the country's political standoff, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said Friday [on the Costa Rican radio program Nuestra Voz].

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate who moderated previous talks between Honduras' opposing factions said the government of interim President Roberto Micheletti has told the Organization of American States not to send the ministers because they will not be allowed into the country.
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His announcement signaled a setback just as the two sides appeared to be edging toward possibly restarting talks to end the turmoil sparked by the ousting of President Manuel Zelaya on June 28.

Micheletti's government spokesman Rene Zepeda said interim leaders want Arias to visit Honduras first so they can explain the situation to him, and that the ministers would be welcome next week.

Arias said he has no immediate plans to visit Honduras.

The curfew, illegally imposed to begin with, has been arbitrarily lifted and reimposed several times since, and is still in effect in five departments and the border areas with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. There are only 9000 troops in Honduras' military; as they and police from outlying areas have been deployed to the capital to put down demonstrations and any sign of resistance (which became explosive in the many poor neighborhoods after the regime's violent crackdown and extended curfew), they're leaving behind towns and villages without much of any presence by government forces. Oscar reports that local resistance organizations have announced that they will take control of their own areas and declare them liberated.

This isn't only about Zelaya, but about the way politics functions in Honduras. It's a long struggle to achieve genuine, participatory democracy. The organizing that's happened in response to the coup has changed the equation since the first weeks after June 28. Pres. Zelaya grasps, I hope, that the coup-makers are not the only ones with cards to play in the negotiations that ~~have begun~~ may lie ahead.

Update 3: 4:15pm, 25 Sept - Given the two depressing updates above, it's clear to me that the embassy visits and "dialogue" was all for show, to buy time and unearned benefit of the doubt, while the repression continues and increases. Just how much will the U.S. government tolerate? The current U.S. ambassador to the UN got where she is by being willing to look the other way while hundreds of thousands, ultimately millions, were slaughtered. We have to put the current atrocities in their faces, and in that of the public, to have the slightest hope that this administration will do enough and in time. There's a demo on Monday in DC; it's time to enlist the "respectables" to help bring more visibility to those speaking for the Hondurans under assault.

Update 4: 8:15pm, 25 Sept - Perhaps thanks to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights' publicizing Xiomara Castro's reports, the coup regime went on the national broadcast system this afternoon to offer up lame, lying explanations for the symptoms of those suffering inside the embassy ("routine street cleaning, loud machinery"). Red Cross medical staff and Andres Pavon of the human rights organization CODEH were allowed inside; they were accompanied by UN investigators. See Al Giordano for more of the sickening story.

Maybe this will be the last straw for some who might be heard by our government. I don't fool myself that anyone in power cares about poor Hondurans tortured and stabbed to death, or a left-wing Congressman beaten by twelve policemen right in front of the legislature in broad daylight. But the protection of embassies -- unfettered communications, entry and exit, and immunity from police or military force -- is such a fundamental basis of international law and international relations that this dirty and spiteful assault might actually shock the conscience of some elites.

Update 5: 5:15pm, 26 Sept - It's hard to overpraise the work of The Real News' Jesse Freeston over the last three months. Someone who hasn't been following the situation could get up to speed just by watching the collection of his video reports on the Honduran coup, and even someone who's been paying close attention would be likely to learn things. He deserves an award. [As Charles notes in comments, in the meantime, you can express your appreciation with a contribution to The Real News Network.]
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[Image: men and women among the nearly 200 taken prisoner when police violently cleared the street in front of the Brazilian embassy 22 September; photo by Paul Carbajal]
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Honduras: over the edge

2009-09-22T12:47:00.013-04:00

The best summary of the roller coaster of events over the last two days is by Laura Carlsen. Her post yesterday, when Zelaya returned to the capital and connected with his cabinet and his supporters in and outside the Brazilian embassy, conveyed clearly the hopeful possibilities of the development.

The coup regime has responded by dropping even the facade of constitutionality, declaring a curfew beginning at 4 pm yesterday with no legal process whatsoever. Since then they've extended the illegal curfew, declared a state of emergency, suspended the constitution, and have begun attacking coup opponents both at the embassy and throughout the country. Carlsen has the cogent summary and the vivid details.

The shameful silence of our own government is now intolerable. If it continues through the end of this day, no one will be able to deny our complicity. There's already a lot of blood on our hands; please read and act to prevent more. Update: 5:30pm, 22 Sept - This inadequate, equivocal crap is only a baby step up from tacit endorsement of the coup regime's response. There is no mention -- much less condemnation -- of the illegal curfew, the assault on peaceful protestors, and the suspension of the constitution. Instead, the State Department "appreciates" Micheletti's "promise" to respect the Vienna convention protecting diplomatic sites, even after the coup regime has already violated it by cutting power, water, and phone to the Brazilian embassy.

State Department 202-647-4000. Demand that the U.S. government publicly recognize and condemn the coup regime's abuses against peaceful political expression, media, and diplomatic integrity, and that stronger actions be taken to sanction the coup participants.

Update 2: 6:15pm, 22 Sept - One ray of optimism: Giordano says (no source) that the administration has invited Rep. Bill Delahunt, sponsor of the strongest anti-coup resolution in Congress, to join the UN delegation in New York. He's certain to be a voice for effective measures; good on whoever had that idea. Brazil has asked for a Security Council session on the crisis; another good idea.

News reports from those in touch with Hondurans and on-the-scene observers as well as the now-intermittent internet transmissions from Radio Globo and other media under siege:
RAJ/RNS, Adrienne Pine, Al Giordano, DailyKos posters 1 2, 9/24 UN, 9/24 OAS, and Charles the indispensable.
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Honduras: long road no matter what

2009-09-04T11:59:00.013-04:00

Authentic democracy means that people at the grassroots level actually participate in shaping the policies and laws that affect their lives. We don't have that here, and we're not getting any closer to having it.
There's no mass movement to demand it, and there won't even begin to be for some time. Many of the people and organizations that might form part of such a movement in the U.S. are still waiting and hoping for some shadow of the changes they thought they were voting for last year. A few are beginning to grasp that in some fundamental ways, the major political parties here are not really so different than they are in Honduras: two wings of the rich overclass, one with a slightly more warm and fuzzy reputation, but neither willing to broaden the small group of people who really make decisions.

But there is such a movement in Honduras. It's been building for decades. Thanks to the arrogance of those who funded and organized the overthrow of the elected president, and to the half-support of our government, the coup regime has sparked sustained resistance that has fused that movement into a national organization.

They have a concrete goal: la constituyente, a national constituent assembly to rewrite Honduras' constitution. Restoring President Zelaya to office between now and the November 29 elections will not change that, because, as independent presidential candidate Carlos Reyes said this week, constitutional reform is the only way out of the country's social and political crisis.

A long-term, nonviolent organizing movement facing a repressive government that represents the rich needs every human resource it can call on. Faith is one such resource, and Honduras is blessed with several priests and bishops who recognize that the church needs to be with the people. International solidarity is another. The national resistance is devoting the fall to organizing itself down to the local level, and has called on supporters abroad, particularly in the United States, to form solidarity committees. The first international conference for a constituyente will take place in Tegucigalpa October 8-10.

Update: 3:30 pm, September 18 - Admin note: This post was begun and saved on the date shown, but posted today around noon. Another excellent video from RealNews's Jesse Freeston on the topic of this post is out today (link includes transcript). It features Oscar Estrada, the Honduran filmmaker and resistance participant whose dispatches have appeared on Adrienne Pine's blog since the coup.
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[Image: marchers from La Esperanza heading to the capital for the national demonstration on August 11. Shaun Joseph, Quixote Center.]

Honduras: beat the clock

2009-08-27T16:05:00.014-04:00

Finally, the State Department ends its six-week charade of "legal review":

U.S. State Department staff have recommended that the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya be declared a "military coup," a U.S. official said on Thursday, a step that could cut off as much as $150 million in U.S. funding to the impoverished Central American nation.

This move was heavily foreshadowed in the press backgrounder by two State Dept. officials on Tuesday that accompanied the baby step of suspending non-emergency travel visas:

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: We have said from the very beginning, what we do know is that the legitimate government, the legitimate president, was taken out of office in a way that was not prescribed, in a way that was unexpected and forced. And we call that a coup, a coup to the head of the government.

There are specific ... laws ... that deals with ... the way we can handle assistance and the way we can handle our relationship with a country if there is a military coup, if the person in charge of, leading, and then taking over the government after the coup are the military. And we are examining to determine whether or not that’s the case here.

QUESTION: Thank you. One last question. Just when would you expect to finish that inquiry?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Immediately.

Stories appeared as soon as Tuesday afternoon reporting that the U.S. government was considering the formal coup declaration, and the backgrounder was released yesterday afternoon. On Tuesday the military and police high command huddled with coup backer Jorge Canahuati. Yesterday Cardinal Rodgriguez met with the officials of COHEP, the business council. Micheletti increased the guard around his house. Yet the oligarchs did not seem to have been willing to take the broad hint the U.S. was dropping: to push Micheletti aside. So today, a day before the two-month mark of the coup regime, the other shoe drops. Monday the election campaigns formally begin.

We await news of further meetings in Tegucigalpa and will update.

Update: 4:00pm, 28 August - Twenty-four hours later, and two months into the coup, no action by Sec. Clinton. I've expressed the idea that yesterday's leak was a big signal to the coup backers to act so the U.S. wouldn't have to take this step. Clinton is clearly reluctant to take it, and apparently even a laughable "new" proposal from Micheletti is enough to stay her hand. Don't let her get away with it:

Call* and write the State Department. Urge Sec. Clinton to:

- immediately formally declare the coup a military coup.

- denounce the continuing human rights violations by the coup regime.

- announce U.S. support for an Organization of American States resolution declaring that the November elections will not be recognized unless the Zelaya government is restored by September 1.

*202-647-4000; wait through recordings for operator, ask to leave message. The calls and messages can go on all weekend, so take action and pass this on to friends. Two months is appalling; this shouldn't have lasted two days.

Update 2: 8:00pm, 4 September - Scorecard a week later: 0 for 3, with a lot of gestures and spinning. The glass-half-full perspective, that the government "formally cut off millions of dollars in assistance to Honduras because of the coup that occurred two months ago, and threatened to withhold recognition of the new president who emerges from elections scheduled in November" can only be maintained by ignoring the unpleasant details:

This is the same money that was suspended two months ago, not the much more substantial cutoff that a formal coup designation would require. The non-recognition threat was couched like this: That election must be undertaken in a free, fair and transparent manner. It must also be free of taint and open to all Hondurans to exercise their democratic franchise. At this moment, we would not be able to support the outcome of the scheduled elections.. Charles of Mercury Rising correctly translates this as: "Put enough lipstick on the pig and we'll kiss it."

Sec. Clinton is demonstrating her formidable capacity for "going deaf." President Zelaya said on Wednesday he intended to focus his talks with her on the severe and continuing human rights abuses of the coup regime. Presumably he did so, but she still hasn't said a single word on the subject. Rep. Howard Berman, chair of the House Foreign Relations committee and one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic party, forthrightly urged her in an LA Times op ed to formally designate the military coup and invoke the sanctions that go with it. She ignored him.

Berman's op ed is unusually good. He invokes the multiple credible reports of human rights abuses, the impact on the rest of the elected governments in the hemisphere, and decency and common sense against letting the coup stand. Use it and its arguments to get your member of Congress to put pressure on Sec. Clinton, to write letters to the editor, and to continue to needle the State Department.

Simple answers to simple questions

2009-08-24T14:31:00.002-04:00

Glenn Greenwald: Looking back several decades or more from now, who will possibly be able to understand how that happened: the almost perfect inverse relationship between one's culpability and the price they paid for what they unleashed?

A: People who've been alive long enough to see the same thing happen again and again to the 'unleashers': Henry Kissinger, George H.W. Bush, all the Iran-Contra criminals who came right back into policy-making positions under Bush II...

Honduras elections in the U.S.

2009-08-19T14:48:00.017-04:00

From Prensa Latina; my translation:

Coup government continues with illegal elections

Tegucigalpa, 19 August (PL) - Despite rejection internally and by the international community, the de facto government of Honduras continues to prepare for the general elections scheduled for this November.

Members of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and the National Registry of Persons (RNP) are in the United States to process voter registration for Hondurans living there. Reports in local media reveal that the delegation now in the U.S. is headed by the director of elections, Carlos Humberto Romero, and that his intention is to get help from associations of Honduran emigrants to promote the expatriate vote, for which they lack the support of the consular offices.

These diplomatic offices reject elections conducted under the de facto government, installed here by the [mob] military on June 28. According to the daily El Heraldo, the group headed by Romero dismisses the possibility of going through the consular offices.

The technical deputy director of the RNP, Luis Fernando Suazo, said that their presence in the U.S. is for the purpose of processing changes of address, taking applications for identity cards for youths who will vote for the first time, and preparing the infrastructure for setting up voting locations. The coup government is trying to organize voting in the North American cities of Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, Washington, New York, and New Orleans, Honduran papers reported.

The National Front Against the Coup reiterated in several communiques its complete opposition to recognizing any election taking place under current conditions. The international community maintains a similar position, according to statements by the United Nations, the countries belonging to the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), and the Organization of American States (OAS).

On Tuesday [8/18] the foreign ministers of Argentina, Jorge Taiana, and of Mexico, Patricia Espinosa, said that Latin America would not recognize any government created under the de facto regime in Honduras.

The OAS has not, as far as I know, made an official joint declaration that they will not recognize the results of elections taking place under the coup government. Our government could exert some real pressure and walk its multilateral talk by proposing such a resolution, which would be all but certain to pass unanimously if it had U.S. support.

Latin Americanist blogger Boz says there's nothing stopping one of the other OAS governments from introducing that proposal. What may be stopping them is the fear that the U.S. would block or abstain, making any resolution considerably less meaningful and risking the exposure of divisions in the organization (Canada, Colombia, and/or Peru might take the opportunity to follow the U.S. lead).

That concern isn't imaginary, to judge from recent State Department briefings and Amb. Llorens' response to a visiting U.S. delegation that asked about a possible election boycott. The official line appears to be that U.S. rejection of the Honduran election results now (or any other actual pressure on the coup government) would "harm the climate for negotiations" -- as if any real negotiations were happening now or are likely to in the absence of such pressure.

Deadlines are approaching: Official campaigning begins August 31, and the ballots are to be finalized for printing on September 5. If our government doesn't clearly state in the next few days that it won't recognize the results of elections conducted under the coup regime, then one of the OAS member governments that has already taken that position will have to force the issue in the OAS to get the U.S. on the record.

The Inter-American Human Rights Commission will have completed its investigative visit to Honduras by August 22. In the face of their preliminary findings [Sp. link added 24 Aug, Eng. 20 Sept.], the Amnesty International report, and the report of the earlier independent international human rights observation mission, it should be impossible to avoid recognizing that the conditions for legitimate elections don't exist, and cannot exist unless Zelaya is restored to office.

Update: 4:30am, 20 Aug - Late night thought: No visa problems for functionaries of a coup government that our government supposedly doesn't recognize, who come here to arrange election infrastructure explicitly designed to bypass the offices that represent those voters' legitimate government. This really is a free country.

Update 2: 7:30pm, 20 Aug - Carlos Reina, Zelaya's minister of government and head of Liberals Against the Coup, mentions in an interview [Sp.] a UN resolution being discussed this week that would put the General Assembly on record as not recognizing the elections unless Zelaya is restored to office by September 1. Excellent if it happens; every little bit helps.

Update 3: 11:40am, 24 Aug - Support for my speculation about the OAS maneuverings from Mark Weisbrot. Noting the existing resolutions against recognition of the elections, he projects:

The next step would be for the Organization of American States, where all countries in the hemisphere – except Cuba – are represented, to take this position. But it operates mainly by consensus, and the United States is reportedly blocking that move. Of course, Washington can’t be seen to be the sole opposition, so it has recruited some right-wing governments, according to sources involved in the OAS discussions: Canada and Panama, along with a couple of other small country
governments that can be bribed or bullied into joining Washington’s rapidly shrinking regional coalition of the willing.

I'd much rather be proved wrong by a unanimous OAS vote this week...
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Honduras: What about those elections?

2009-08-14T14:49:00.024-04:00

As the days peel away, it's time for a closer look at that festival of democracy, the Honduran elections, and what approach the popular movement will take to them.

The big spike in repression against anti-coup demonstrators of the last two weeks, combined with the clear signals by the U.S. government that it's content to sit by silently and pretend that the November 29 elections will wipe the slate clean, presents supporters of genuine democracy with the decision of whether to boycott the elections or participate in them.

The choice might seem obvious, but is complicated by several factors. One of the biggest is the presence on the ballot for the first time in many years of an independent candidate who is a long-standing leader of the popular movement, Carlos Reyes. In addition to succeeding in having his 70,000 signatures accepted by the election authorities, Reyes lucked into [Sp.] the 'end spot' on the ballot, the next best thing to being first. There is also another left candidate, Cesar Ham of the Unificacion Democratica (positioned next to Reyes on the ballot); the UD has gotten about 2% of the presidential vote in the last several elections.

Honduras holds elections for president, Congress, and mayor at the same time, every four years. Voters mark different ballots for president, legislature, and mayor ~~(of the two big cities)~~, and place them in separate ballot boxes (urnas; hence, the hypothetical fourth ballot asking Congress to call a constitutional assembly, the 'Cuarta Urna'). For president, a voter marks an X below the picture and party symbol of his/her chosen candidate. The mayoral vote works the same way.

On the Congressional ballot, ~~voters don't directly choose candidates, but vote for a party.~~ [See update at end of paragraph.] Before the election, party bosses draw up a list of Congressional candidates for each department (the equivalent of states here), and the proportion of the votes each party receives in that department determines how many of those candidates become members of the next Congress. Position high on the party list is obviously crucial, and is determined in secret by the people who run the party. Like I said, a festival of democracy. Update: 6:40pm, 23 Oct - The Congressional ballot contains a row of candidates for each party, with pictures and names. In theory, voters can pick and choose among the members of different slates; in practice, they tend to vote for those of the same party as their choice for president. In the Liberal and National parties, the congressional slates are chosen in the primary elections. Each presidential candidate puts forward a slate for his/her "movement". The tendency to straight-ticket voting is even more intense in the primary, so a good number of congressional incumbents who signed up with the losing presidential candidates' slates find themselves out in the cold this November.[End update]

The National and Liberal parties that have dominated Honduran politics for decades represent two wings of the economic elite who run the country [link added 3:05pm, 16 Aug]. This explains the backing of big funders of both parties for the coup, and their outrage at Zelaya's increasing closeness to the popular movement, particularly during the second half of his term. The movement for constitutional reform, the coup that was intended to stop it cold, and the resistance to the coup have begun to forge a possible realignment: an informal coalition of reformist and genuinely liberal Liberal Party members, UD partisans, supporters of the mildly social democratic indigenous party PINU, and the large group of poor and working-class Hondurans who don't trust the big parties and don't usually vote (turnout runs less than 50%), but who might be inspired to support an independent reform candidate.

Before the coup, organizations backing Reyes' candidacy were hoping to use the November elections to expand the voter pool and build pressure for constitutional change, since both major party candidates, Zelaya's 2005 National Party opponent Porfirio Lobo and his own former vice president, Elvin Santos, opposed the 'Cuarta Urna' campaign.

Now? Both major party candidates also supported the June 28 coup, whatever they may say now or in the future. Many governments in the hemisphere (but not yet, shamefully, our own) have explicitly refused to recognize the winner of elections held under the coup regime. Conditions for free and fair elections simply don't exist. Reyes himself has been arrested in anti-coup demonstrations, and on July 30, at the roadblock at Durazno in northern Tegucigalpa, was seriously injured when the police beat and charged after participants. After surgery ten days ago, his doctors advised him not to go in the street again for another month. Police have refused to guarantee his safety.

The National Party is the clear front-runner entering the campaign; Zelaya only narrowly beat Lobo in 2005, and the Liberal Party is severely split and discredited as a vehicle for change. As the probable winners, Lobo and his backers have the most to lose from the delegitimizing effects of an election boycott. This could explain the recent article in the National Party pro-coup newspaper El Heraldo that talks up a possible left-liberal voting coalition in November. More evidence that an election boycott is a highly unpleasant specter for the powers-that-be was the reaction of U.S. Ambassador Llorens when confronted with the idea by popular movement leaders he'd invited for a chat.

Stay-away boycotts can be effective for very large, well-established mass organizations that have already shown their strength at the polls. But an election boycott is a really tough way for a still-emerging, fragile coalition to start out. A movement that's building for long-term constitutional change, that depends on expanding the electorate, would benefit from giving supporters something to do at the polls that sends the message of rejecting the coup-supporting major parties and supporting change, while not actually legitimizing the election by casting a valid ballot. After all, they're going to want those new and infrequent voters voting for real in the not-too-distant future, and the experience of participating is invaluable preparation.

I'm not in on the discussion that is starting to happen among the organizations involved, and I'm sure there are many strategic and tactical considerations of which I have no inkling. But I do have one thought, a suggestion to offer for what it may be worth: A campaign to have voters circle the two candidates on right-hand end of the ballot. It wouldn't count as a vote for either one; the result would be a spoiled ballot. But it will be unmistakable, and recorded, in the voting results; each party is allowed to have representatives present when the ballots are opened and counted. The symbolism is also perfect: a circle that encompasses independents, the traditional left, and (depending on the size of the circle) a little slice of the Liberal Party.

Food for thought, offered in humility and the full awareness that my ignorance of the situation probably blinds me to the many problems with the idea.

August 11: Global Day of Action for Honduras

2009-08-10T18:50:00.015-04:00

Since last Wednesday, thousands of Hondurans have been walking along the highways toward Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. Tomorrow the plan is for them to converge into demonstrations against the coup in the country's two largest cities.

They've called on supporters everywhere to join in by making tomorrow, Tuesday, August 11, a global day of action for Honduras. The resistance on the part of grassroots Hondurans has been tireless for the last month and a half, a phenomenal achievement in the face of assassinations, mass arrests, beatings, and commercial media lies and silence. Support them tomorrow by attending local actions where they exist (as in DC and Boston [added 9:20pm, 10 Aug]), and by demanding that our government back up its words with action.

It's not just Hondurans' democracy that's at stake. The integrity of every elected government in the region is at risk if this coup is allowed to stand. Letting the clock run out, pretending as if November's presidential elections will erase this violent step backward into the dark but not distant past, sends the clear message that grassroots pressure for real change is "off the table," in the United States as well as Honduras. Our government is sending that message by its inaction.

President Obama has twice recently made what he thinks is a clever dig at those who call for more pressure on the illegal coup regime, noting "the irony that the people that were complaining about the U.S. interfering in Latin America are now complaining that we are not interfering enough." "Interference" is what fake president Micheletti and the coup supporters call Obama's verbal backing of Zelaya's presidency. To equate following our own laws (which forbid continued foreign aid to countries that have undergone a military coup) with our past active support for coups -- real and lethal interference -- isn't clever. It's insulting.

The President and Secretary of State claim to be dealing with the problem of the coup regime "in an international context", but they're referring to Arias-mediated negotiations that they set up, that failed, and that now exist only in their imagination. The Organization of American States' biggest member is not actively supporting that body's efforts to get the coup regime to face reality, and as a result Micheletti feels free to jerk them around.

The economic pinch, which of course falls most heavily on the Honduran majority, the poor and workers who form the basis of the resistance, is beginning to be felt by the coup's backers. The economic slowdown is the result of a combination of pressures: the resistance's strikes and road blockades, brief trade shutdowns by neighboring countries, the "pause" of World Bank and Inter-American Development lending, the cutoff of Venezuelan oil with its favorable payment terms, and a severe drop in tourism resulting from the recession and the coup. Cracks are forming in the coup coalition, as some of the businessmen and politicians try to distance themselves from the military. [Update: 9:30pm, 10 Aug - More cracks appear: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on the illegality of the military's actions on June 28. It could be more delaying tactics, or the beginning of a way out for the coupmakers.]

Now is the moment when action can make a difference.

Email the State Department [link fixed 7:35 pm, 11 Aug; click 'email a question/comment' tab] and White House to tell them to:

- Recognize and condemn the human rights violations being committed by the coup regime in Honduras.

- Formally declare it a military coup to trigger the Foreign Assistance Act: cut off U.S. economic aid and withdraw Ambassador Llorens.

- Revoke the diplomatic visas of all coup participants and supporters.

- Freeze the U.S. assets of all coup officials and funders.

- Join with other governments in the hemisphere to pledge not to recognize the results of the November elections unless they're held under the legitimate elected government headed by Pres. Zelaya.

[A different version of the above is guest-posted at A Tiny Revolution].
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Media suppression: a human rights abuse

2009-08-04T18:58:00.014-04:00

The coup regime in Honduras has just ordered the shutdown [Sp.] of Radio Globo, which has consistently provided the most complete coverage of the resistance to the coup. Honduran media that have managed to keep functioning have done so by extensively self-censoring.

This is an outrage, a crime, and a violation of human rights.

Venezuela's attorney general has recently proposed a new media law whose broad language would allow the government to shut down hostile broadcasters and publications; it's to be introduced to the Venezuelan legislature sometime this fall. Yesterday, a group of Chavez supporters attacked the offices of Globovision, a private television broadcast channel that is, like most of the private media there, anti-Chavez. This, too, is an outrage.

Media suppression is bad, mkay? It's bad when legislated by elected governments, bad when it's done by thugs purportedly acting on their own, and bad when done by military-installed, illegitimate regimes whose police are beating up and arresting peaceful protestors. It would be bad at any time, but it's particularly damaging at this moment. People inside and outside Honduras are working hard to make public the abuses on the part of the Honduran coup regime, including media suppression, and to get some acknowledgement and criticism of the repression by U.S. government spokespeople. The silence has been deafening so far.

Actions to intimidate and shut down media by leaders who've provided concrete support for Zelaya's restoration threaten both to overshadow the Honduran coup regime's actions and provide a ready distraction for right-wing U.S. coup supporters in Congress who already see Zelaya and coup opponents as Chavez pawns. A recent LA Times feature on Daniel Ortega's attacks on press enemies will come in handy for others who insist on framing this military coup as a regrettable but understandable defense of "democracy" against the spreading menace of "socialist strongmen" in Latin America.

The situtation in Honduras is not about Hugo Chavez or Daniel Ortega. It's about the attack on an already seriously weak democracy there in the face of popular demands for real participation. It's about the determination of a tiny stratum of rich business families and their military henchmen to maintain their traditional monopoly on power. They can't stop the protests, they can't stop the news from getting out to the world on the internet, but they will do whatever they can to keep Hondurans, most of whom do not have internet access, from hearing what's going on in their own country.

I have to go; will add links later, but wanted to post the urgent news about Radio Globo. Update: 8:30pm, 4 Aug - Edited and links added.

Update 2: 6:00pm, 5 August - Radio Globo is defying the order to shut down, which was produced by the military and executed by a military judge. Good for them, and good news for Hondurans. Al Giordano has the details along with another piece of good news: The mayor of San Pedro Sula, who was driven out by coup supporters on July 2, is safe in exile, and the municipal workers have since that day prevented the attempted usurper, Micheletti's nephew William Hall Micheletti, from taking office. National marches are planned for San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa early next week.

Do your part to support them: If you're in Boston or Chicago, attend and/or promote the events of the Honduran speaking tour. Wherever you are, call on Sec. Clinton and Pres. Obama to do more to increase the pressure on the coup regime: freeze U.S.-held assets of coup backers and participants, revoke more diplomatic visas, start withdrawing U.S. military from the base at Soto Cano (Palmerola), denounce the regime's media suppression and the beatings and arrests of peaceful protestors, and make clear that the U.S. will not recognize a government resulting from elections held under the coup regime. Get your representative to sign the Congressional letter to Pres. Obama with the same message.

Soldiers today attacked students and administrators at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, in the capital, using batons, tear gas, and live bullets. Hundreds may be wounded. [Update 3: 4:00pm, 13 August - Dozens, in the event, but the rector of UNAH, who had been keeping the university neutral on the coup, is suing the police over the invasion of the campus, where she was one of those beaten.]

Update 4: 4:50pm, 13 August - The Venezuelan legislature will not be taking up the legislation proposed by the Attorney General anytime soon. This news is at the end of a hostile item on the legislature by AP reporter Christopher Toothaker. The people who wreaked havoc in the Globovision offices were arrested (via bloggingsbyboz.com, no link). The people who ordered the shutdown of Radio Globo in Honduras continue to severely beat [Sp.] members of Congress and others peacefully demonstrating against the coup, and no one in the U.S. executive branch seems to be a bit bothered. Huh.

[Image: Eduardo Maldonado, director of Radio Globo.]
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Honduras - massive crackdown

2009-07-31T12:13:00.030-04:00

Yesterday the resistance to the coup took the form of many tomas, or highway blockades, across the country. The army and police responded with violent mass arrests in at least four locations. Read about it via Al Giordano, who's now reporting from Honduras, and Adrienne Pine and her correspondents (one of whom was arrested yesterday). Hundreds of people were arrested, including popular movement leaders Juan Barahona and Carlos Reyes, the independent presidential candidate, who was beaten badly enough to break his arm. In Tegucigalpa, the police fired into a crowd of demonstrators, flooding hospital emergency rooms; a shot to the head has left one man in critical condition [~~Rodrigo~~ Roger Vallejo, in image above by Arnulfo Franco, AP]. [Update: 2:55pm, 1 August - Vallejo died early this morning. As with the murders of two other demonstrators, a golpista mouthpiece claimed he'd been killed by fellow opponents of the coup. There are really no limits to their deranged lies.] Police assaulted anti-coup reporters, seizing and smashing their equipment.

Meanwhile, U.S. ambassador Hugo Llorens met with Pres. Zelaya yesterday afternoon at the U.S. embassy in Managua. That should have happened a week ago, but it's still a good thing. Llorens restated that the U.S. recognizes only Zelaya as president. The meeting was a signal to the coup regime, but at this point much stronger pressure is needed: freezing the U.S. accounts and revoking visas of the coup funders, Lanny Davis' employers Camilo Atala and Jorge Canahuati, and the military high command. It's long past time for Sec. Clinton to take note of and criticize the repression that the coup regime is inflicting on the population. Silence, after a crackdown on the scale of yesterday's assault, is consent.

Maybe this violence is the snarling response of a cornered, desperate coup that's about to implode. Help make it so by calling on the administration to speak up and to put the pressure where it's needed. Get your member of Congress to cosponsor H.Res.630, Rep. Delahunt's bill calling for an end to the coup and restoration of the legitimate government of Honduras. [Update: 3:15pm, 31 July - More urgently, have him/her sign Rep. Grijalva's letter to Pres. Obama urging the U.S. government to do more to put pressure on the coup-makers. (Edited 3:50pm for clarity.)]

A U.S. speaking tour of Hondurans opposed to the coup has been organized by the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC). Tonight they're in Philadelphia [from comments]:

Direct from Honduras: Voices of Resistance to the Coup d'Etat
7pm, Friday July 31, Calvary Church (48th & Baltimore Ave.)

Dr. Juan Almendares - internationally known Honduran medical doctor, human rights activist, environmental leader and alternative medicine practitioner; recipient of the 2001 Barbara Chester Award for his ground breaking efforts with prisoners, victims of torture, the poor, and indigenous populations; torture survivor himself, has been targeted by death squads on several occasions.

Abencio Fernandez Pineda - coordinator of the non-governmental Center for the Investigation and Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CIPRODEH)

and three more Honduran speakers.

The tour will continue to New York. Tomorrow, Saturday, August 1, the speakers will hold a community forum at 4:00pm, 1184 Fulton Ave., Bronx. [Update: 3:30pm, 31 July - Event added: Sunday, Aug. 2, 7:00pm, Bluestockings, 172 Allen St.] A press conference is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 3, at 11:00am. at UN Plaza, 1st Ave. and E. 44th St. The tour will also go to Boston and Chicago.

An emergency delegation to Honduras for August 2-9 is being organized by the Quixote Center. See here for more information (post also includes address through which contributions can be made to support the popular resistance). [H/t Charles.]

Update 1: 6:15pm, 31 July - Police and military violently broke up a road takeover near Santa Rosa de Copan, in western Honduras. Many people including women and children are reported wounded, over 50 arrested. Report from COPO, the Committee of Western Popular Organizations [Spanish] here, backed up by observations from John Donaghy, an English-speaking lay religious worker in the area. The COPO report makes a number of references to threats against Father Fausto Milla; an earlier report from Donaghy about Fr. Fausto is useful background.

Update 2: 5:10pm, 1 August - In the dark 1980s, the U.S. government converted the Honduran countryside into a gigantic base for its regional war against the left. The U.S.-trained and -funded military and its special squads kidnaped, tortured, and killed anyone who might be sympathetic with the left, who might offer resistance to the presence of camps of armed men everywhere, and who might form the seeds of a popular movement like those the U.S. right and the Honduran upper class were determined to crush. Very few people were brave enough to speak out against this terror. One of the loudest and bravest voices was that of Ramon Custodio, who helped build the Honduran Human Rights Committee (CODEH) into the respected organization it remains today.

Custodio himself, however, has destroyed the respect he earned then. Caught up in a political spat with Zelaya since before the 2005 presidential election, he increasingly abandoned his responsibilities as governmental human rights ombudsman. By June 28, he was one of the most enthusiastic participants in the coup (which he denied had taken place, calling it a "democratic transition"). He's continued to promote lies: pretending that the coup government has committed no human rights violations, that there's been no media suppression, and even that Isis Murillo, shot and killed when soldiers fired on the crowd at Toncontin airport waiting for Pres. Zelaya's plane on July 5, had been shot by other demonstrators.

On Tuesday, he was one of the coup officials whose diplomatic visa was revoked by the U.S. State Department. Yesterday, he was stripped of his membership by the International Federation of Human Rights. The Federation called for an investigation into Custodio's recent actions and omissions, which have so completely discredited him. Such appropriate sanctions are satisfying, but it's impossible not to be saddened by the sorry spectacle: a man who has turned his back on everything for which he once fought and for which he was so deservedly admired. [Update: 4:00pm, 30 Aug - 'Rubber Man', essay on Custodio by Allan MacDonald, Honduran political cartoonist who was one of the first targets of repression after the coup.]

Rest of world turns as usual

2009-07-30T16:10:00.004-04:00

It's been all Honduras here for the last month because for once I feel I can actually contribute something by blogging. I'm no expert, but fifteen years of Central American solidarity work and my (weak, weak) Spanish still put me far ahead of many people likely to be mildly interested but unable or uninclined to seek out information. Connecting with posters who are experts in one way or another, and who're using their skills to provide a solid alternative to the superficial and zombie-lie-filled old media, reminds me that another world is possible.

But maybe, reader, you're looking for an update on how our own democracy continues to be threatened by an out-of-control military in a permanent-war national security mindset, impunity for torture, and an overweening oligarchy. A Lovely Promise is here to serve:

- Peaceful and law-abiding people and organizations continue to be massively spied on by the U.S. military and "fusion centers" that connect the military with intelligence and law enforcement agencies and completely unregulated, unaccountable private database contractors.

- U.S. troops are never going to leave Iraq. The ones who've come home are assaulting and killing other people and themselves, and those who stay alive and out of jail are heading off to that other war. Which is unwinnable and on its way to becoming permanently unpopular.

- No one who ordered or had command responsibility for torture (always illegal) is going to be prosecuted. At most, cases might be brought against some more scapegoats, underlings who went beyond what was "authorized" (impossibly, illegally) in spurious opinions written by Justice and Defense Dept. lawyers.

- Corporate rule of our politics and media means that the very best we can hope for in the way of health care reform is the House bill, H.R. 3200. And it sucks.

- The banks and financial companies own us. That very much includes Pres. Obama, who's helping to keep us from being able to see what's being done with the trillions we've handed over to them.

But there are occasional bright spots: Mohammed Jawad, who was twelve when U.S. soldiers took him prisoner in 2002, has been ordered to be freed next month and returned home to Afghanistan, won't face charges there, and probably won't face U.S. criminal charges (in part because much of the "evidence" against him was produced by torture). Huzzah! [Hat tip Gary Farber]
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Honduras hopeful signs

2009-07-28T19:39:00.030-04:00

Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, held hostage by the military since Friday with her children in the town of El Paraiso, 12 ~~miles~~ km from the border, has been ~~allowed to~~ told she can proceed [Sp.] to Las Manos to reunite with her husband. She intends to make it a caravan that will bring food, water, and medicine to supporters who've been trapped in the border zone; the military and police have prevented any supplies from reaching them since Saturday.

In a possibly related development, the U.S. State Department has, at long last, revoked the diplomatic visas of four officials of the coup government and is reviewing the cases of others, as well as family members. [Informative comment on diplomatic vs. tourist visas here.] The U.S. embassy spokesman in Honduras declined to name the officials, citing (unspecified) "privacy laws". Two who have acknowledged the U.S. action are Tomas Arita Valle [Sp.], the Supreme Court judge who signed the order for the military to 'arrest' Zelaya, and José Alfredo Saavedra, president of the Honduran Congress, elected to replace Micheletti in that position. Surely Micheletti himself is one of the other two. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Update: 11:40am, 29 July - Excellent: The third confirmed newly visa-less coup participant is Ramon Custodio [Sp.], former human rights activist turned lying pond scum. He's the the government's Human Rights Ombudsman, who's been publicly fighting with Zelaya since before his election. Custodio immediately supported Micheletti as president on June 28, denied there'd been a coup, said since that he's seen no evidence of media suppression or human rights violations, and insisted that Isis Murillo was shot by other demonstrators at the airport on July 5.

Micheletti says he hasn't been notified [Sp.] that his visa has been revoked. Uh huh. I'm surer than ever he was first on the list.

Another hopeful sign from yesterday: Nike, Adidas, The Gap, and Knights Apparel wrote an open letter Monday to Sec. Clinton supporting democracy. Adrienne Pine brings the righteous snark:

Micheletti: when these guys start opposing you, you really know you've gone too far. Nike can move its subcontracting to any number of "stable" regimes, and come out as a promoter of human rights. When they beat the U.S. State Department to it, that's just embarrassing.

It goes without saying that this letter from big U.S. businesses with Honduran manufacturing facilities got way more coverage than similar appeals from visiting Honduran members of Congress who oppose the coup. It might have been what finally provoked the long-overdue cancellation of visas.

Update 2: 1:20pm, 29 July - Another visa revoked. (I think this is in addition to the ones announced yesterday, because State Dept. spokesman Ian Kelly seemed to be saying then that the original four targets were all people currently in Tegucigalpa.) This latest loss of visa is doubly significant, as it belonged to Roberto Flores Bermudez, Honduras' ambassador to the U.S. at the time of the coup, who stayed on to represent the coup government. The step makes way for Enrique Reina, the legitimate ambassador appointed since by Zelaya, to take over the office. (Reina was minister of communication at the time of the coup). With continued pressure, maybe this will result in restoration soon.

Update 3: 12:15 pm, 30 July - Zelaya, still in Nicaragua near the border, named Carlos Ortez Colindres as one of the coup officials to have his U.S. diplomatic visa revoked, and called for the U.S. also to freeze the assets of coup participants. Ortez was the ursurper govenment's first foreign minister, whose racist remarks about Obama forced his removal from that office, but not from the cabinet (he's now the minister of government). This may mean that Micheletti still has his visa. At the end of the Tuxtla summit yesterday (where Vice President Mejia stood in for Zelaya), Oscar Arias called for further sanctions on the coup government; take the hint, Sec. Clinton.

There is clearly some level of disunity in the Honduran military. Several reporters and DC think tank types have said that the communique placed on the armed forces web site this past weekend was drafted by two young colonels in Washington with the aides of a Democratic senator or member of Congress. In interviews with Radio Globo Saturday and the BBC Mundo Monday, Gen. Vasquez gave conflicting interpretations of the statement's apparent support for the "San Jose accord". Today, a document purporting to be from dissident officers surfaced, calling on Gen. Vasquez to step down. If genuine, it's another hopeful sign. If not, it's still a very interesting dishing of dirt on the high command.
[Update 3 edited at 1:30pm July 30 to add links and new information.]

Update 4: 2:15 pm, 30 July - Pres. Zelaya did an interview ~~with Amy Goodman~~ that aired on Democracy Now this morning. At the end, he said, "Many thanks; during the thirty days I’ve been in exile, it’s the best interview I’ve had." He's got that right; a must read (or watch).
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Honduras crossroads

2009-07-24T11:22:00.015-04:00

Lots of comings and goings.

President Zelaya is on the road in Nicaragua, heading to the border at Las Manos. The military, which does not normally man the crossings, has deployed in strength across all the southern entry points, and has reimposed a 6 pm curfew (11 pm in the rest of the country). Hondurans are trying to reach the border, some on foot because the military has shot out the tires on their vehicles. ~~The~~ Some police are on strike, apparently wanting to make it clear who's in charge of repressing the resistance to the coup. {But see Charles' posts in Update below.]

Coup leader Gen. Romeo Vasquez is headed to Miami to address a Christian Dominionist convention. He's scheduled for a Saturday morning session, from 9:45-10:45, to "release powerful revelation concerning God’s Kingdom in the earth today, and how you can live victoriously in His Kingdom no matter what is happening in the world system." The most optimistic reading of that would be "how you can retire to Miami even if the U.S. government cuts you off". [h/t BoRev]

But here in the real world, despite Gen. Vasquez' thinly veiled death threat today against Zelaya, the U.S. government won't break ties with the Honduran military, revoke visas or freeze the assets of coup leaders, or do anything further to put pressure on the generals or the businessmen who give them their orders. Instead, they'll tut-tut about Zelaya's decision to return "resulting in violence", as if he were the one firing on unarmed citizens. If Obama and Clinton were truly intent on Zelaya's restoration to office, they'd send the ambassador and the commander of the U.S. airbase at Palmerola to the border to welcome and accompany him.

Not far from where Gen. Vasquez is scheduled to impart prophetic anointing is the headquarters of the U.S. military's Southern Command. School of the Americas Watch demonstrators will be there at noon Saturday to condemn the coup and call for an end to U.S. military ties to Honduras.

And at the same time, Rep. Connie Mack, R-Nation of Miami, will be going to Tegucigalpa to meet with the coup regime, conveying the support of the Republican right that so clearly would welcome a coup here.

Update: 2:45pm, 24 July - Good sources for further info: Charles' blog posts at MercuryRising, RealNews video overview of the battle over Honduras in Washington, and Adrienne Pine's reports from friends inside Honduras and Hondurans in DC.

Update 2: 4:30pm, 25 July - Highly recommended: Adrienne Pine's concise and accurate rebuttal of the most common lies/misconceptions surrounding the coup. Do read it all, but this passage is the most urgent:

It is time for President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take a firm stance against the violence being carried out in Honduras by individuals and institutions trained by the U.S. military both in Honduras and at the School of the Americas, by taking concrete measures required by U.S. law in the case of a coup: removing their ambassador, ending all military alliances, and cutting off trade. It is time that we, as Americans, demand they do so. If we accept the lies supporting the violent attack on Honduran democracy, we only weaken our own.

For Sec. Clinton to chastise Zelaya's return to Honduras as "reckless", while saying not a word in criticism of the coup regime's repression and violence -- arbitrary detentions, assassinations, media suppression, suspension of constitutional rights -- sends an unmistakable message to the rest of the hemisphere that the U.S. government is fundamentally allied to the coup supporters, unwilling to apply full pressure to them, and backing Zelaya's return more for appearance's sake than out of any real determination to beat back this threat to democratic governments everywhere.

Update 3: 12:30pm, 26 July - At about the time that the NY Times story about the military's split with the coup government's rejectionism hit the web last night, Gen. Vasquez was interviewed by phone on Radio Globo making the same point, live-blogged by by listeners Al Giordano and Charles. This new media world is a strange and wondrous thing... [Update 7/27: Charles has the remarkable Radio Globo exchange between Xiomara Castro (Zelaya's wife) and the general. An earlier post has more distressing reports from the ground in Honduras. Via a commenter at RAJ's (who's done the tremendous service of translating and analyzing both the 'San Jose Accord' and the military's communique), Gen. Vasqez is now denying [Sp.] that the military supports negotiations or Zelaya's return.] Negotiations seem set to resume in Washington on Tuesday, with the "San Jose accord" (a proposal, not an agreement) as the basis for discussions. [Update 7/27: Nope; Zelaya will probably attend [Spanish] a long-scheduled regional summit, the Tuxtla Group, with the other presidents of Central America, Mexico, Panama, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, that begins today in Tamarindo, Costa Rica; it will focus on the Honduran crisis.] We have today and tomorrow to convey to our government the demand for full restoration of Zelaya's government, including all cabinet ministers, as well as the mayor of San Pedro Sula, whose removal by force has gone uncovered by U.S. media. Amnesty for Zelaya's removal is up to the politicians, but there can be no amnesty for the killings and assaults on coup opponents.

Media and U.S. government silence reigns on these crimes of the coup-makers and their supporters, of which the most recent are: The death-squad-style murder [Spanish] of Pedro ~~Ezequiel Martinez~~ Magdiel Muñoz, a man taken prisoner by the military near the border Friday (along with many others trying to get to Las Manos), who was found by a highway Saturday dead, handcuffed, and with 42 stab wounds. [Update 7/27: El Tiempo coverage of his funeral, attended by thousands.] The same message was sent in the capital Friday, when 15 shots were fired near the airport at a car carrying the son of Rodrigo Trochez, a Liberal Party member of Congress who'd been publicly speaking and lobbying against the coup in D.C. this past week. Juan Trochez and a friend with him were both wounded, Trochez seriously.

Honduras: waiting game is no game

2009-07-11T16:19:00.018-04:00

It's sickening enough that there are members of Congress who openly support the coup in Honduras. But Ginger Thompson of the New York Times' Mexico bureau wants you to believe that the squawking of a little splinter group of Republican rightists represents "tiny cracks emerging in the solidarity of the coalition of countries demanding the return of the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya."

How else to intepret this passage, as she presents no other evidence for the assertion?

There were also signs of discord in the coalition of countries demanding Mr. Zelaya’s return. At a subcommittee hearing in Washington on Friday, several members of Congress criticized the Organization of American States for suspending Honduras not long after it lifted the suspension against Cuba.

Representative Connie Mack, Republican of Florida, urged the United States to cut its support for the O.A.S., which gets 60 percent of its financing from Washington. He said the organization’s response to the crisis in Honduras proved it was a “dangerous organization,” because it had sided with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, a stern ally of the ousted Honduran president, in undermining democracy in the region.

"What has happened in Honduras was not a military coup,” Mr. Mack said. “If anyone is guilty here it is Mr. Zelaya himself for having turned his back on his people and his own Constitution." [my emphasis]

The only way this would represent disunity among the countries pushing for Zelaya's return to office is if Miami were a separate country. Which, well... never mind.

The article as a whole is actually better than the run of recent big-media accounts of the coup and its aftermath. It reports the strikes and roadblocks by the popular movement supporting Zelaya's return to office, and reports the actual results of the CID-Gallup poll in Honduras showing a plurality of opposition to the coup (as compared with Reuters and Juan Forero of the Washington Post, who simply repeated the results as reported by La Prensa. Wild that "journalists" would take their cue from a coup-supporting paper that photoshopped the blood from the now-iconic photo of Isis Murillo (taken by Eduardo Verdugo for AP), shot dead by the military at the airport while waiting for Zelaya's attempted return.

Murillo's father, an anti-logging activist, spoke to the press recently recounting [Spanish] the shootings at the airport last Sunday and holding responsible Billy Joya, a retired Battalion 316 commander who's evaded every effort to bring him to justice for tortures and murders in the 1980s and who was named a ministerial advisor by the coup government. Yesterday Sr. Murillo was taken away by men in plain clothes. He is at serious risk.

Murillo's is one of the many lives at stake if the U.S. government does simply fold its hands and wait for magical results from the Costa Rica "negotiations". It may be that this administration, which is clearly eager to demonstrate that it opposes Zelaya, the Honduran popular movement, and Hugo Chavez, is backing away from its support for Zelaya's restoration. But Miami Republicans spreading pro-coup nonsense in a House hearing is not evidence for that. (For an interesting account of the hearing, see Adrienne Pine's anthropological field notes.)

Update: 12:30 pm, 13 July - All you'll hear about in the U.S. media is that the coup government lifted the curfew, but the repression is actually ratcheting up: Two leaders in the popular movement were assassinated [Spanish] over the weekend, and seven TeleSUR reporters and crew are in the process of being expelled [Sp.]. What will it take to get the U.S. government to cut off the rest of the aid and exert the many other forms of pressure it can bring to bear on the coup-makers?

The victims: Roger Ivan Bados, a labor leader and activist in the Democratic Unification party, killed on Saturday evening by three shots fired by a man on a bicycle near his house in San Pedro Sula. Ramon Garcia, from the province of Santa Barbara in ~~eastern~~western Honduras, was forced ~~under~~ off a bus by soldiers and shot; his sister and his nephew's wife were also wounded in the incident. [Updated to correct 11:45am 14 July.]

[Image: Anti-coup demonstration at U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa July 2; Eduardo Verdugo, AP]
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Everything old is new again

2009-06-29T14:07:00.025-04:00

Pleasant surprise: A coup is taking place in Central America and the U.S. government is not backing it (now). Nor is anyone else.

Seriously, I was impressed and pleased with the U.S. government response. See my comments here, in response to understandable kneejerk ~~cynicism~~ skepticism of a kind found widely througout the left end of the blogs today.

Not that there's anything wrong with cynicism if it's funny: My favorite post so far is from the guys at BoRev, who take apart the zombie lie of this news cycle (ZOMG the leftist president is trying to make himself dictator for life!).

For coverage of the issues involved, see coup vet Al Giordano and reporter Karen Bricker at NarcoNews.

The rightists' line is that this is all perfectly legal, not a coup, but a "democratic transition." The Supreme Court openly says it ordered the troops to kidnap Pres. Zelaya out of his bed in the early morning -- so it's legal! The usurper Micheletti (Congressional speaker) showed up with a laughably phony "resignation letter" supposedly signed by Zelaya (on Thursday yet), got voted in, and put his hand on the Bible -- so it's Constitutional! The "democratic transition" was made especially smooth because none of the leftish members of Congress showed up, for fear of being taken prisoner. Like the eight members of Zelaya's administration on whom there is little to no information. Oh, and the fake president promptly declared an indefinite period of martial law, because how else would you kick off such a festival of democracy?

Here's hoping the international isolation has the desired effect: a climbdown in which no one is killed, and the return of normal political life, which can be pretty dangerous on its own in Honduras. Via CISPES, a rundown of what's made Pres. Zelaya so unpopular among the ricos he grew up with:

The proposal to draft a new constitution is the culmination of a series of controversial measures undertaken in his presidency, which include a significant raise in the minimum wage, measures to re-nationalize energy generation plants and the telephone system, signing a bill that vastly improves labor conditions for teachers, joining the Venezuelan Petrocaribe program which provides soft loans for development initiatives via petroleum sales, delaying recognition of the new US ambassador after the Bolivian government implicated the US embassy in supporting fascist paramilitary groups destabilizing Bolivia...

You can see why the Washington Post and New York Times editorial staffs are a bit thrown by the Obama administration's failure to accept the gift of this "democratic transition" gracefully. [Hint: It's the tanks; so ~~nineties~~ ~~eighties~~ ~~seventies~~ over.]

Update: noon, 30 June - The beginning of the end: Two military battalions have turned against the coup plotters, the popular movement has blockaded major highways, and Honduras' neighbors have sealed the borders for 48 hours, shutting down trade. Micheletti's illegitimate government has blocked international media channels, including CNN and Venezuela's TeleSur, and has arrested AP and TeleSur correspondents.

Update 2: 1:40pm, 30 June - Mexico, Brazil, and Chile have withdrawn their ambassadors. Pres. Zelaya has announced that he will return to Honduras accompanied by the president of the Organization of American States after speaking before the UN in New York (at the invitation of General Assembly president Miguel d'Escoto). The UN General Assembly has just unanimously passed a resolution demanding that the coup plotters step down and that Zelaya be returned to his office.

Update 3: 11:45am, 2 July - The OAS has given a 72-hour deadline to the coup government that expires Saturday morning, and Zelaya has agreed to postpone his return until then. Within hours of Zelaya's announcement, the Honduran Congress yesterday afternoon passed a decree suspending indefinitely during curfew hours the five articles of their constitution that most resemble our Bill of Rights. Clearly, they're planning to try to use the night to arrest and intimidate enough popular leaders to prevent a big showing of support for Zelaya's homecoming.

It's remarkably convenient for the Obama administration that these events will be buried in a holiday weekend. More than ten countries and the European Union have withdrawn their ambassadors; the U.S. has not, saying that Amb. Hugo Llorens, a Cuban-born economics specialist who was the State Dept's Andean advisor to the Bush administration during the 2002 attempted coup in Venezuela, will be needed to help reach a peaceful solution. Nor has the U.S. government cut off aid, despite being required to do so by the Foreign Assistance Act. (However, the Defense Dept. has suspended all operations with the Honduran military indefinitely and the World Bank has "paused" aid). The administration has put a big emphasis on working through the OAS, so the test will be Saturday: if the coup government hasn't stepped down by then, the U.S. response needs to include an immediate aid cutoff. But don't just wait and watch: call State at 202-647-4000 and leave a message reminding Sec. Clinton that U.S. law requires an immediate end to U.S. aid to Honduras.

Update 4: 4:55pm, 7 July - Negotiations begin in Costa Rica Thursday, with Arias mediating. Restoration looks likely, with Zelaya agreeing to drop effort for constitutional reform. Cracking of ice internally in Honduras has been quite visible: the National Party candidate for President backed Zelaya's return, the head of the Supreme Court has proposed amnesty for the collection of charges against Zelaya, and today even bozo Micheletti toned down the bluster in accepting the negotiations.

Obama and Clinton get to distance themselves politically from Zelaya while getting multilateralist and democratic cred for backing his return to office through regional efforts. The tepid response, the failure to cut off aid ("pausing" it instead), and the indisputable and continuing U.S. role in funding right-wing elites as "democracy promotion" will encourage pessimists to conclude that nothing has changed. But I think the popular movement's pressure for a constitutional assembly provoked the military and the rightists in Congress to overplay their hand badly. The Liberal Party has discredited itself for some time to come as a path to any real reform. Honduras' majority understand that their determined actions helped force the restoration -- although at a high cost.

The distorted accounts in U.S. media and punditry of what led to this crisis are hard to dispel partly because so few people know much of anything about Honduras. Blogger RAJ has stepped into that breach with very useful information. [Update edited and links added at 6:15 pm.]

Update 5: 11:00am, 9 July - Finally! U.S. suspends military aid. That's the right tone to set as Zelaya enters the talks. This will be the last update to this post unless the situation's resolved within a day.
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Watching and hoping

2009-06-20T07:22:00.004-04:00

Update: 21 June, 2:30 pm - To clarify what I'm hoping for: that this movement continues to deepen, that it can pry open more space for authentic democracy in Iran, and that it will be able to do so with a minimum of bloodshed. I say that with full consciousness of the long and continuing history of my government's pernicious intervention in Iran and around the world, and its exploitation of popular movements for its own ends. I say it while aware of the unsavory and compromised backgrounds of the powerful men who "lead" or support this movement.

We all knew people going out onto the streets today would be killed. Grandstanding by reckless cheerleaders who want this to be all about their own moral or political stance disgusts me. But, likewise, it's unnecessarily constricting to allow the ugly background to block one's ability even to acknowledge what has been accomplished in the last ten days. [See my comment here for more along those lines.]

Assassination in a dirty war

2009-06-01T13:44:00.006-04:00

What Digby said.

People always act like this issue is simple. But pregnancy is one situation in life that falls across all kinds of moral, emotional and rational lines, calling into question the autonomy of the very body in which we live and lifelong commitments made in the heat of the moment --- painful choices and primitive imperatives in the most basic human drive we have. Whether it's the idea that women should be "punished" with pregnancy for failing to use birth control, to the idea that adoption is a simple and painless alternative, to the insistence that women who carry a child for seven or eight months must be forced to give birth when the child has no chance at life, to the spectacle of the Octamom, the fact is that there is no broad brush answer that can be applied to all these different circumstances. Certainly, the crude instrument of the law isn't the answer as even the anti-choicers tacitly admit when they refuse to consider the women who have abortions murderers and instead focus on the doctors.

Indeed, the murder of Dr Tiller in a demented defense of a "culture of life" should be all it takes for everyone to see that this is not the simple, straightforward issue they'd like to believe it is. And once you recognize that it's a unique circumstance in which the moral boundaries are blurry and indistinct, the only possible course is to trust the person with the most knowledge of the circumstances, the symbiotic relationship to the fetus and greatest stake in the outcome --- the woman. [emphasis mine]

Pres. Obama was right in his Notre Dame address that it's unfair to impute to every individual who opposes abortion an ideological right-wing drive to coerce women and control their bodies and sexuality. That's true as long as we're dealing with individuals. But the anti-abortion movement as a political entity is waging a war on women's right to choose, to control their own lives. Their extreme fringe is literally waging that war.

My heart goes out to the family, friends, co-workers, and patients of Dr. George Tiller. May we honor his memory by calmly proceeding with the work of ~~defending~~ reaffirming women's right to choose.

Update: 12:30 pm, 3 June - If a war is being waged on us, why not make it a real war by fighting back with "whatever it takes"? Because, as usual, war is not the answer. It strengthens the already-too-strong state and its mechanisms of repression, which will be turned against us far more than against the right.

But neither is this moment a time for mawkish hogwash about finding common ground with organized anti-abortion, anti-choice operatives (there isn't any; they don't support contraception or sex education, either), or how abortion is always a difficult and painful decision (it's not). Dr. Tiller's murder is a clarion call to end apologetic, defensive retreat and affirm our rights as autonomous human beings. Abortion must be safe, legal, and available. Contributions to Medical Students for Choice or another pro-choice organization help make that a reality. [links via commenter John Protevi at michaelberube.com]
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Memorial Day

2009-05-25T19:17:00.007-04:00

Two soldiers I'm remembering today:

Alyssa Peterson and LaVena Johnson.

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May justice be done.
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Pull the other one.

2009-05-13T13:19:00.010-04:00

Pres. Obama's getting cold feet about releasing long-withheld images of U.S. torture. [Update: Decision made.] The excuse he gives insults our intelligence:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters yesterday that President Obama has "great concern" about the impact that releasing the photos would have on soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Asked whether the Justice Department's decision might be reversed, Gibbs declined to reaffirm the government's intentions.

"Great concern about the impact on troops?" Brotha, puhleeze. He's worried about the impact on the U.S. public, half of which is already far more interested in accountability for torture than he is, and the other half unwilling or unable to conceive of U.S. torture unless shown pictures.

He's worried about the impact on the Senate confirmation of Lt.Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who led a network of torture and assassination squads in Iraq until last year, as commander in Afghanistan. Many members of McChrystal's dirty-war task forces are still in the field in both countries, and probably Pakistan. They were told by Army JAGs that the abuse and torture of prisoners was legal, given a directive that said they were allowed to use torture techniques forbidden to regular soldiers, assured repeatedly that they'd be protected by higher-ups from being held responsible for their actions, and when a little investigative heat was applied, managed to scuttle it by the convenient destruction of computer files.

It's sickening to see Obama try to justify illegal secrecy by hiding behind the troops in just the way Bush used to do. It's even more appalling to see him not only do nothing to hold torture commanders accountable, but promote them.

Update: 1:00 pm, 14 May - Guest poster Neel Krishnaswami at Unqualified Offerings wonders if the connection between the photos and McChrystal is even more direct.

Update 2: 1:05 pm, 14 May - Revised and expanded version cross-posted at A Tiny Revolution.
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Where is Hassan Ghul?

2009-04-20T10:53:00.005-04:00

We don't torture.

And we certainly don't remove captured prisoners of war from an active theater to a secret prison and never account for their whereabouts.

That's 'disappearing', something that we just don't do.
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It takes all kinds.

2009-04-03T13:43:00.015-04:00

Throughout my life, I've had the experience of bridging different 'worlds'. It started young, when we lived in Bavaria for a year. Immersed through attendance at a Catholic nursery school, I quickly became fluent in the local dialect, and acted as interpreter, linguistic and cultural, for my mother; at school I was a little ambassador for Amerika. Once back home in a community sharply divided between college town and agricultural county, I was part of a tiny minority of town-centric students in my county school. I was the only child at Sunday school or in my Brownie troop to stick up for county kids -- my neighborhood and school friends -- when townies made redneck jokes. I was also the only member of the 4-H club to do my exhibit project on ornamental hollies...

Later on, as an LBJ-liberal southerner at a northern Quaker high school divided internally between 'jocks' and 'artsy-craftsies', I was unusual in having friends in both camps. As I got involved in political work, it seemed I was always the radical among liberals or the moderate among radicals. Bridging the gulf between election-focused and movement activists has been a long-standing tension.

This lifetime of straddling has sharpened my ability to see the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, and the usefulness of having a variety of approaches overall.

That said, I find myself lately at a low ebb in my appreciation for "process liberals." Familiarity gained by yoking myself to them over the last seven years in the broad anti-Bush/Cheney coalition has inevitably bred a bit of contempt.

Human rights, specifically the issue of torture, is what brought me into political work and continues to motivate me. The record of just who stood up for what principles and when over the last fifteen years has been instructive. Those who didn't shrink from voicing their darkest suspicions early on out of concern for being thought unreasonable or "reflexive America-haters" were proved right, and quickly. Those who stepped up to take on the cases of people accused of terrorism when doing so was beyond unpopular -- considered treasonous, even -- have my undying respect.

I trimmed my own sails for several months after September 2001, trying to see things from the centrists' view well enough to make myself effective in communicating to them the wrongness of wars of choice and of endless, lawless, unreviewable detention. I've not only used pragmatic arguments but tried to help others learn when and how to make them. But for some time now, an inner Nell has been curling her lip and saying, "Fvck that noise."

Which brings me to Clive Stafford-Smith and Reprieve.

Stafford Smith's career m.o. involves publicity and showboating, but always for a point, and to good purpose. I don't doubt that his actions sometimes make other Guantanamo lawyers wince. But without someone with his chutzpah, we'd be much more in the dark than we are about the crimes committed by the U.S. and U.K. authorities and their accomplice states. In a system of lawless dictatorship and Catch-22 -- the system in which the prison at Guantanamo was established, and from which it has yet to break free -- there has to be a Yossarian or two.

Hilzoy (of Obsidian Wings and Washington Monthly), someone who exemplifies the best and the most maddening qualities of process liberals, posted this back in February:

[Binyam] Mohamed's lawyer has alleged that DoD officials censored a letter that he sent to Barack Obama about what his client had gone through. His evidence seems to be that he got a redacted copy of the letter back. ... does it sound plausible that some DoD official could have blacked out these pages in order to keep Obama from seeing them and succeeded? The President can see any classified information he wants. And if I were trying to prevent him from seeing something, handing him a letter with two pages blacked out would not be my method of choice.

In comments to that post I responded:

Good on Clive Stafford [Smith] for publicizing the Kafka-esque redaction of his own client's [history]. By posing the question of whether the information in it was kept from Obama, he implictly raises the serious issue of Obama's obligations should he become undeniably aware of what was done to Mohamed at the behest of the U.S. government.

Now the Pentagon's privilege review team has confirmed my reading of their purpose in redacting the memo (to give Obama plausible deniability of the knowledge of the U.S. crimes), by retaliating against Stafford Smith for publishing it:

Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed face the incredible prospect of a six-month jail sentence in America after writing a letter to President Obama detailing their client's allegations of torture by US agents.

Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal charity Reprieve, and his colleague Ahmed Ghappour have been summoned to appear before a Washington court on May 11 after a complaint was made by the privilege review team ... [who] argue that by releasing the redacted memo Reprieve has breached the rules that govern Guantánamo lawyers and have made a complaint to the court of "unprofessional conduct".

There are significant differences among Guantanamo defense lawyers in their adherence to the letter and spirit of the rules laid down by the Department of Defense. But I imagine that even those lawyers who've been most circumspect about complying would agree that the rules and the enforcement of them by the privilege review team have been arbitrary, punitive, petty, and abusive over the last seven years. Granting the lawless jailers legitimacy at all is a grim necessity of functioning as a lawyer in such a repressive system; giving them the benefit of the doubt and attributing decent motivations to them means being played for a fool.

Thanks be for seriously un-foolish jesters like Clive Stafford Smith. He deserves support and gratitude, not sniffy diffidence.
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Cross-posted to A Tiny Revolution

Torture: It's not about "intelligence gathering"

2009-03-30T12:42:00.019-04:00

One of the most persistent and discouraging themes that crops up in discussions of torture is the question of whether it "works" or not. The people engaging this question make a fatally wrong assumption: that the goal of torturers is the same as that of legitimate interrogators -- to get reliable information useful for active, circumscribed military operations or police investigations.

But torture does something else altogether, and is designed to do so: it extracts false confessions. These confessions, along with the agony of the torture itself, serve the goals of limitless, lawless "war": to humiliate and break opponents, to divide them from supporters, to terrify those not actively in opposition into staying inactive, and, most importantly, to justify the operations of the dirty war within which torture takes place: commando raids, assassinations, spying, kidnaping, secret and/or indefinite (and unreviewable) detention, and further torture.

The mistaken assumption that those in the previous administration who set the torture policy were motivated solely by an urgent need for information has several other bad effects. It reinforces the absurd ticking-bomb hypothetical that allows so many people to justify torture to themselves. It provides a noble-sounding excuse for the officials who promoted torture, making it harder for citizens to muster the will to hold them legally accountable for their crimes: "They were just trying to keep the country safe."

The euphemism of "enhanced interrogation" for torture was chosen by both the Nazis and the Bush-Cheney regime exactly because of its propaganda value in reinforcing this false picture: It's just legitimate questioning that goes a little further. An error of enthusiasm, if you will. An understandable mistake, a policy difference that we sure don't want to criminalize, looking backward with our 20-20 hindsight.

But, as useful as these effects are to the torturing regime, the most important role of the spurious linkage with intelligence-gathering and interrogation is as a screen: It hides the role of torture in creating and expanding the dirty war itself.

The Principals knew by mid-2002 that the vast majority of prisoners they were holding in Guantanamo and elsewhere had no meaningful connection to terror attacks against the U.S., past or planned. But they had a global "war on terror" to pump up. That "war" was vital not only for promoting the long-planned assault on Iraq, but for expanding executive power, cowing political opposition, and maintaining enough of a threat level in the public mind to make voters reluctant to change parties in the next several rounds of elections.

So the torture regime was set in motion and migrated to all the prisons in the dirty war: not just the dozens of CIA secret prisons, but Bagram, Guantanamo, and the many military and secret prisons in Iraq. Statements extracted under torture from a few prisoners could suffice to justify the continued detention of hundreds of others simply by being inserted into the uncontestable list of charges against them. People could be picked up, shipped off to cooperating torturers in Morocco and Syria and Egypt, and the results trumpeted as foiled terror plots to forestall Congressional questions, round up still other men, convince judges to quash lawsuits by asserting that state secrets would be endangered, and feed allies information to justify their own involvement in the dirty war. In Iraq, the process spun into a perpetual motion machine of raids, imprisonment, and "questioning", leading to further raids and captures, as well as the bombing and mortaring of purported "enemy safe houses."

The prolonged failure at Guantanamo to gather the evidence against prisoners into even minimally professional, reviewable form for prosecution was a big red flag that those in charge knew there was no real evidence to be had. The 2005 destruction of the tapes of the CIA's sessions with Abu Zubaydah and Al-Nasiri was intended to hide not their torture, which was well known to the Principals who authorized it in detail, but the way in which the "intelligence" about other "terror plots" was fed to the prisoners through the process rather than originating from them.

The origins of the occupations and wars in which we're now mired are almost completely phony; only the costs are real. They were ginned up to their current scale by the use of torture and the resulting "intelligence." The human, material, political, and propaganda investment up to now makes it all but impossible for those in power to admit to the phoniness at the roots of each conflict.

This self-justifying, self-multiplying quality is inherent to torture. It's poison that seeps everywhere if it's allowed anywhere. That's why the Convention Against Torture prohibits it absolutely -- in all cases, for any reason. That's why jurisdiction is universal. Torture is a grave crime against humanity because of the violence it does not only to the person tortured but also to the society in which it takes place.

Cross-posted at A Tiny Revolution

Update: 17 April, 10:00 am - Valtin makes an important contribution to the thoughtful comments below, and in slightly longer form at his blog (which should be a regular stop for anyone concerned with this issue). I've responded in comments there.
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FMLN wins presidency in El Salvador

2009-03-17T12:47:00.008-04:00

Of course I'm pleased.

But I feel about the victory as I did about Obama's: I've viewed it as a certainty for almost a year now. It's long overdue. The candidate's program is far less progressive than I'd prefer. And the road ahead is daunting, with the country in sorry shape from so many years of right-wing rule.

On the other hand, I should take my own advice, so:

Woo-hoo!

Tim's El Salvador Blog has an excellent round-up of excerpts and links from post-election coverage.

Update: 4:30 pm, 17 March - {Sigh.} Many reports and opinion columns in the English-langage press repeat the same lie: "Funes is the first FMLN presidential candidate who was not a combatant/guerrilla commander/etc. in the civil war."

In the elections of March 1994, the first in which the FMLN participated as a legal political party, their candidate was Ruben Zamora, who was never a combatant or an FMLN member at any point in the decades of armed conflict before the peace agreement of 1992. He was one of the leaders of the FDR (Democratic Revolutionary Front), a political coalition formed in 1980 that allied with the FMLN.

Given the historic nature of the 1994 elections ("the elections of the century"), you might think it would be hard for such a bogus factoid to get going. But ignorance of what happened in El Salvador before, during, and after the U.S.-sponsored war was vast, and remains so. Mainly, the first non-combatant candidate bit is just too convenient to give up, true or not, for the "FMLN grows up" narrative the media have decided to push.

[Disclosure: I was a volunteer for the FMLN election effort in 1994, doing data entry and computer support. Despite serious, systemic fraud on the part of the governing-party-dominated Elections Tribunal, mainly worked by the omission of FMLN voters' ID numbers from the lists posted at the polling places, the FMLN won 25% of the legislature, coming in second to ARENA's 45%. Zamora got 25% of the presidential vote; ARENA candidate Calderon Sol was denied an absolute majority at 49%, but in the later runoff crushed Zamora 68%-32%.]

Update 2: 12:40 pm, 2 April - A fine post-election report by Robert Lovato that captures the double-edged emotions of the FMLN victory. Salvadorans have moved forward only by reclaiming their history; we could learn a thing or two from them. A detail from the story that embodies the fusing of defiance, sadness, liberation, memory, and commemoration: the FMLN's official celebration (in image above) was staged on Escalon Boulevard, a main street through the richest neighborhood in San Salvador and the site of intense fighting in the November 1989 offensive.
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Evidence in the public domain

2009-03-15T11:21:00.006-04:00

This is my favorite passage from the letter* calling on the Obama administration to appoint a special counsel to investigate for prosecution those responsible for U.S. torture:

We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or "truth" commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain.

A new article by Mark Danner puts possibly the most substantial piece of evidence yet in the public domain, the Red Cross report of the accounts of what prisoners experienced in CIA "black sites" before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.

The accounts are chilling and detailed. The report notes that the strong similarities in the accounts by 14 prisoners who had had no contact with each other before speaking to the Red Cross, down to small details, add to their credibility.

---
*More than a hundred organizations have now signed on. Perhaps your local bar association or other concerned group would be interested in joining the effort.
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Prosecute Bush and Cheney for their crimes

2009-02-24T17:26:00.016-05:00

Hell, yes:

We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.

Our laws, and treaties that under Article VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land, require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed. Both the former president and the former vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations. The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or "truth" commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain. We believe the most effective investigation can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.

Signed by a collection of organizations I admire greatly, led by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

More kudos for CCR's timely pushback to Admiral Walsh's misleadingly reassuring report on conditions at Guantanamo, criticism effective enought to generate actual coverage. Though I'm puzzled by this bit from the NY Times story:

Rear Adm. Frank Thorp IV, the Navy’s chief of information, said the criticism of Admiral Walsh’s report did not take note of its detailed nature or the fact that it had been made public.

Maybe printed copies of the report were distributed to reporters, but it's not available online anywhere I can find. As a result, it's difficult for most of us to appreciate its "detailed nature." (Will link the report if I find it.)

At any rate, the time for pussyfooting around with the new administration is over.

Update: 6:40 pm, 25 Feb - Sometimes you just can't muster enough cynicism to do the politicians justice. This morning, I made a snarky prediction in the comments to a post by Avedon that noted Sen. Leahy being quoted by Scott Shane in the Sunday NY Times saying the proposed Truth Commission's work should include the role of Democrats in Congress in approving the Bush policies. Great, if so, I said, because it would quickly move the Democratic "leadership" over to support for prosecution -- something only contemplated (even by fire-breathing lefties) against Bush administration officials.

Today, Speaker Nancy "Impeachment is off the table" Pelosi was on Rachel Maddow's show criticizing Leahy's commission idea and favoring prosecutions instead. Hmmmmmmm...
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Plus ça change

2009-02-09T21:47:00.020-05:00

Torture continues at Guantanamo. Fifty prisoners on hunger strike are being strapped down and force fed. They are also being beaten and abused as they are "extracted" from their cells.

No prisoners have been released, even those, like Binyam Mohamed, against whom charges have been dismissed and who have been cleared for release for months. The only reason why Binyam Mohamed is not on his way back to England now is that the U.K. and U.S. governments want to silence his potential testimony about torture.

In furtherance of that end, the Obama Justice Department has today maintained with no change at all the Bush administration's claim of 'state secrets' privilege to block accountability for rendition to torture in a suit in which Mohamed is the lead plaintiff. ACLU spokespeople are disappointed and shocked. I am only disappointed. And disgusted.

If you know nothing about force feeding and prison hunger strikes, your mental health is no doubt the better for it, but there's a significant gap in your grasp of political history. This article provides some context. This interview with al-Jazeera journalist Sami El-Hajj a few months after his release this past May after more than six years of imprisonment and torture, makes it impossible to find excuses for the new custodian of the torture regime.

Update: 7:30 pm, 10 February - Thanks to the Military Commissions Act, U.S. judges cannot affect the conditions under which Guantanamo prisoners are held. So one has just ruled that she cannot stop the force feedings, leaving it up to the Obama administration. As I said, there are no excuses for the new custodian. Disturbingly, Judge Kessler also said

even if she had authority to consider the case, she would not have stopped the force feeding process because the government’s actions do not violate an established legal standard.

Update 2: 2:15 pm, 15 February - The new administration is either very far from having established control of the prison, or they are affirming that they have the same understanding of "humane" treatment as the Bush regime.

A letter from the ACLU on the issue of force feeding was answered by the Bush holdover in the Defense Department who is still in charge of detainee affairs. Written after the Obama executive orders were issued, it reads in exactly the same way as it would have if Bush and Cheney were still in charge.

Reporting on Guantanamo is sketchy at best, due to the difficulties of access. The Miami Herald's reporting has been consistently the most detailed, but contains no sign that Obama's choice for new commander of the base has taken over nor any indication when he will. Apparently, the visit of the Navy's second-ranking admiral last week was something in the nature of advance work.
I see no sign of any broom being taken to the operation, and am growing less and less optimistic than anything will change for the prisoners as a result of the review now happening.

Update 3: 4:30 pm, 20 February - Finally, something to cheer. Binyam Mohamed may be released to Britain as soon as Monday. White House Counsel Greg Craig was at the prison this week. Privately, a lawyer recently at the prison says that conditions have improved somewhat, though not enough, for prisoners; he's forbidden to go into details.

Another extremely easy-to-accomplish release would be that of the 17 Uighurs, who were just failed by the D.C. Circuit court of appeals. It's solely up to the executive branch, apparently. Call the White House and urge their release (background here). Although VP Biden said in the first week in office that he doesn't expect that any prisoners will be released to the U.S., the reality is that, partly due to threats from China, there is no other country that will accept the Uighurs. There are communities here ready to take them. If we do not accept some men released from Guantanamo, it will be that much harder to expect other countries to do so.

Image: drawing by Lewis Peake based on censored drawings of Sami El-Hajj, originally published by Reprieve and reproduced by Andy Worthington, whose site and book are definitive sources for information on Guantanamo prisoners.
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Salam Pax is back!

2009-02-03T23:10:00.003-05:00

And he has been since mid-January. Back to being a blogger from Baghdad, and back in full, with archives from the beginning in late 2002.

Who knew? In a bit of bloggy serendipity, I found out about the return in my first visit to Needlenose in almost a year.

I alternate between hope and dread in thinking about the results of the Iraqi provincial elections, and in thinking about Iraq generally. Being able to read Salam's reflections from on the scene makes the news more approachable. It also deepens the feeling of circles closing, new eras beginning -- but with a strong undercurrent of sadness at the unchangingness of so much.

Single payer health care: It's aliiiiive!

2009-01-30T14:19:00.006-05:00

Best political news of the month: Single-payer advocates are refusing to fade quietly from the field in favor of the tiny-slice-of-the-loaf plan of Health Care for America Now:

A coalition of liberal advocacy groups and labor unions ... announced Wednesday the launch of a lobbying campaign to build support for a health care overhaul that would expand Medicare, the health entitlement for the elderly, to cover everyone and act as the "single payer," putting health insurance companies out of business.

The only hope for getting any public pool of health coverage at all is if 'Medicare for All' is a credible threat.

This diary at DailyKos outlines the changes in this Congress' version of H.R. 676 and is filled with excellent action suggestions and links to further resources.

[Hat tip Daily Kos]

Israel's Lies

2009-01-25T14:49:00.006-05:00

Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas’s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network.

I am not aware of a single major American newspaper, radio station or TV channel whose coverage of the assault on Gaza questions this version of events. Criticism of Israel’s actions, if any (and there has been none from the Bush administration), has focused instead on whether the IDF’s carnage is proportional to the threat it sought to counter, and whether it is taking adequate measures to prevent civilian casualties.

Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie.

Israel's Lies, Henry Siegman, January 15, 2009
Siegman is director of the US Middle East Project in New York and a visiting research professor at SOAS, University of London. He is a former national director of the American Jewish Congress and of the Synagogue Council of America.

h/t Eric Williams at Wampum, who also provides a list of links for relief contributions for Gaza. Eric's Gaza posts have been consistently insightful, starting with one on Christmas day that essentially predicted the events about to unfold.
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Afterglow

2009-01-24T17:06:00.005-05:00

If you can't enjoy moments of joy, dignity, unity, and celebration when the occasion arises, then it's hard to endure the much more constant parade of disappointments and injustice.

In that spirit: Is this the hottest first couple in U.S. history, or what?

. . .

Thank you, President Barack Obama, for an excellent start.
Congratulations.
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Shout!

2009-01-18T16:30:00.016-05:00

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.

Pete Seeger just led the crowd at the 'We Are One' inaugural celebration at the Lincoln Memorial in the most beautiful version of 'This Land is Your Land' I ever hope to see. Flanked by Bruce Springsteen and his grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, he followed Obama, the prime spot on the program. And he used several of the less-frequently-sung lyrics, including my favorite verse above. [~~video~~ Update/Irony Alert: 2:30 pm, 19 Jan - HBO yanked the video for copyright violation. Update 2: 10:15 am, 20 Jan - Another one is up, for who knows how long. Happy inaugural day!]

Same old flannel shirt, knit cap, and blue jeans -- no dress-up concessions to the teevee production (whose message to performers and crowd alike was clearly "wear black"). No nod to the President-Elect; Pete was speaking directly to the people.

It's not substance, I know. It's not as if we just passed single-payer health care, or are likely to. But it was an acknowledgement, no, a celebration of dirty effing left-wing hippies that sent out a mighty and much-needed encouraging message of inclusion. Thanks, Bruce.

The event's other high spots: The opener, with Bruce in black and a gospel choir in red singing 'The Rising'. Powerfully simple. Garth Brooks doing a fine version of 'Shout!' with the ~~same~~ Washington Youth Choir, a surprising and smart choice on many levels. The shot of the vast crowd jumping and jiving was unexpectedly moving. And Stevie Wonder's 'Higher Ground', which had the first family up, stepping and clapping with the precision of a backup band. Much respect. Most of the rest was Hollywood schmalz, but who's counting?

HBO's putting it on again tonight at 7:00 and 11:30 pm, open to all with digital cable or satellite TV. (Or wait for the DVD -- but viewer discretion is advised: the bloom may be off the rose by then. ;>)
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Image: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Snowballs in hell

2009-01-11T13:31:00.014-05:00

In a Ha'aretz analysis that by turns examines and displays the cynicism and delusions of all parties to the slaughter in Gaza, this passage actually made me laugh out loud, but not in a good way:

In just 11 days, president-elect Barack Obama will take office. On Tuesday he was asked about the war between Hamas and Israel. He said he was concerned about the civilian casualties on both sides. That concern could turn into anger at Israel in the course of the inauguration ceremony. Washington expects - though it is not saying so out loud - that Israel will end the war before Obama is sworn in as president. [my emphasis]

Anger at Israel in the course of the inauguration ceremony is about as likely as 80-degree temperatures on Inaugural Day. No, there's nothing for the Israelis to fear from the new administration, or from Congress. If the Israeli government ends its assault before Obama is sworn in, it will be for their own internal political reasons.

It certainly won't be because they've run out of bullets, bombs, and shells with which to bury Gazans in the rubble of their houses. Those have our names on them. Anyone who wants to pretend that the current Israeli onslaught wasn't green-lighted by the U.S. government needs to explain the unusually large, irregular, commercial shipments of weapons and ammunition from Sunny Point, NC to Ashdod, an Israeli port 20 miles from Gaza -- 3000 tons in December, another 1000 tons planned for this month.

But the ice is cracking. The discussion of the occupation can no longer be shut down or controlled here as it used to. The spectacle of active political support for Israel's latest atrocities is increasing the disconnect between the American people and our elected "representatives" and media elite.

As with so many things, the change seems to be coming too late to do much good, but you never know where it will end up. The important thing is to push it along when you can.

Launching Qassam rockets over the Gaza border is a war crime. Over a period of years, the rockets have killed dozens of Israeli civilians and a few Palestinians, injured others, caused damage, and fostered a climate of fear and uncertainty.

Years of U.S.-Israeli blockade and economic strangulation, "targeted assassinations", an attempted coup against the elected government, with periodic and ever-more-savage aerial bombing, missile and tank assaults on densely populated areas: these constitute a far greater war crime, one in which we are directly complicit. More than a third of the 800+ killed since December 27 are women and children; well more than half are civilians and noncombatants. It is simply wrong to characterize the Israeli actions as self-defense.

Tell your Senators and your House member how you view their active cheerleading for Israel's assault on Gaza. If you're represented by one of the 27 House representatives who voted 'no' or 'present', please thank and encourage them.

Update: 2:10 pm, 12 January - Rep. Dennis Kucinich speaking [4 min video] in opposition to the House resolution on Jan. 9. David Luban post on the legalities and illegalities of Israel's current assault on Gaza. Pat Lang's comments on IDF ground forces.
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The beginning...

2009-01-05T13:49:00.005-05:00

...finally, of the Al Franken Decade. Or the Al Franken six years, at least. Close enough.

Bleak, even horrific news abounds. With the new year only five days old, I'm trying to avoid being overwhelmed by taking satisfaction from the bright spots that present themselves.

Update: 5:50 pm, 30 June - Okaaaaay, that was a long pause. Now the Al Franken Decade gets underway!

Honor thy enemies

2008-12-17T15:23:00.009-05:00

And spit in the face of thy base.

A right-wing megachurch preacher who's huckstered his way into the political system as a supposed "new, moderate" evangelical will deliver the invocation at Obama's inauguration.

I was going to watch, but think I'll keep the sound off until Aretha steps to the mike. Rev. Joseph Lowery, representing actual religious progressives, will deliver the benediction. Bringing up the rear as so often.

Speaking of that, still no nominee for Secretary of Labor. Update: 2:15 pm, 18 Dec - New rumors on candidates: Harley Shaiken, Rosa DeLauro. With a brawl on the Employee Free Choice Act certain, corporate point man Rick Berman's track record of personal smears probably makes Mary Beth Maxwell less appealing to union presidents, not to mention Obama political advisers. But the Rick Warren choice, the role of the Obama campaign and voters in the Prop. H8 vote in California, and passing over Maxwell all reinforce the message that lesbian and gay Americans are an inconvenience that can safely be ignored.
Update 2: 12:45 pm, 19 Dec - Now it's said to be Hilda Solis, whose name hadn't even come up before. No questions about her sympathies, but I wonder what she has over other candidates in experience, grasp of the NLRB overhaul needed, auto industry expertise...? If she's got the trust of the internationals and the fire to back EFCA effectively, good enough for me; she can appoint the expertise.
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Tea Viburnum redux

2008-12-13T20:18:00.004-05:00

The something-less-than-triumphant return of gardenblogging. Ta-da.

Two years ago I posted about Viburnum setigerum, a shrub whose best qualities are evident from Thanksgiving onward.

This season, adequate rainfall has loaded it down with more berries than ever. It was showy even during our colorful fall, but now it positively lights up the back of the garden -- a treat for the color-starved eye. (Photo taken today.)

Human Rights Day

2008-12-10T15:54:00.003-05:00

It's the 60th anniversary of the UN General Assembly's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

[R]ecognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world...

A lovely promise.

. . .

December 10 is a day on which to reflect and recommit to the defense of those inalienable rights. As with so much else in life, the soundest approach is to begin by cleaning one's own house.

Meteor Blades has for a long time been the only front-page poster at Daily Kos for whom my respect and appreciation is unconditional. His post today, which puts in perspective former president Jimmy Carter's public advice to Obama on human rights, is typically worthwhile.

The dog that failed to bark in the night

2008-11-24T21:13:00.006-05:00

As the disappointments come thick and fast, it would be tedious to list them all. But this one is worth mentioning because, being an offense of omission, it's likely to escape notice in most commentary:

President-elect Obama today made public the choices for his administration's "economic team." What sort of signal does it send that a Secretary of Labor was not among them?

Capital seems more than adequately represented.

Update: 4:30 pm, 10 December - The implicit disrespect shown for labor's role in setting economic policy can't be undone. But the appointment of Mary Beth Maxwell as Secretary of Labor would please me no end.

"That word 'example'...

2008-11-19T15:02:00.021-05:00

...I do not think it means what you think it means."

Scott Horton has been a clear, principled, and authoritative voice against torture and other high crimes of the current administration. He's made the case unflinchingly for holding accountable those who institutionalized torture, abused the justice system for political purposes, and ordered massive domestic spying. He's earned great respect for his views.

But he's not always right. One mistake, which he's already acknowledged, was to support Michael Mukasey's confirmation as Attorney General and to give him the benefit of the doubt as he undertook that job. Horton has documented his many and deep disappointments since, concluding recently that Mukasey has shown nearly the same degree of commitment as his predecessor Gonzales to covering up the administration's abuses.

Horton is making another mistake now in his approach to accountability for torture. In this case, there's plenty of time for reconsideration before it's too late. Commenting on the recent AP story, 'Obama advisers: no charges likely vs. interrogators', he correctly warns against accepting the statements of unnamed sources as anything other than efforts to move forward those sources' agendas. Horton rightly dismisses any statements, on or off the record, about decisions in advance on the part of a not-yet-in-office Obama administration Justice Department to prosecute or not:

the bottom line is that there should be no call about prosecutions until there has been an investigation. ... In the end any prosecution would require a special prosecutor, but who should handle the threshold inquiry into whether enough [evidence] exists to appoint one?

But then he goes very wrong:

There is one clear answer, which is for President Obama to follow the example of President Ford in his dealings with allegations of intelligence community misconduct with high-level complicity that rocked the mid-seventies. He should appoint a commission to lay bare the facts, putting what the public needs to know on the record. Only then should the call about a special prosecutor be made by the attorney general. He should have the commission’s advice and findings to draw on in the process...

This is either a little joke on Horton's part, or a bizarre rewriting of the history of the Rockefeller Commission of 1975, which was widely viewed even at the time as an attempt by the Ford administration to fend off more energetic investigations by Congress and to limit disclosures of CIA wrongdoing. The attempt, moreover, was a failure; especially by comparison with the results unearthed by the Church and Pike committees during and after the commission's brief existence, its efforts amount to a classic whitewash.

But even if it had conducted an independent, wide-ranging, and thorough examination of the CIA's activities, the Rockefeller Commission has no relevance as an example for the Obama administration because it was never intended to develop evidence for weighing possible prosecution. Its explicit, public mandate was to determine whether any domestic CIA activities exceeded the Agency's statutory mandate and to make appropriate recommendations. Specifically, it was to address whether existing safeguards were adequate to prevent violations.

There was no hint that revised safeguards or corrective action might include prosecution of anyone -- the idea was very much that the administration itself would take care of any excesses, with possibly some restructuring of Congressional oversight. The closest the commission came to the subject of prosecution was in its recommendation that the administration draw up written guidelines for handling criminal allegations against Agency personnel, with the idea that these would be handled by the Justice Departmnet in consultation with the CIA (i.e., virtually giving the Agency a veto on prosecutions).

The internal objectives of the Ford administration in convening the commission were documented by the aide who encouraged Ford to form it, one Dick Cheney:

In a draft memo to the president written on 27 December, Deputy Chief of Staff Richard Cheney explained that the president had several reasons to establish such a commission: to avoid being put on the defensive, to minimize "damage" to the CIA, to head off "Congressional efforts to further encroach on the executive branch," to demonstrate presidential leadership, and to reestablish Americans' faith in their government. [From Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI by historian Kathryn Olmsted]

There may be a real case for a commission as the best procedure by which to gather evidence that would then provide a basis for the Attorney General to appoint a prosecutor or not. Citing the Rockefeller Commission as an example does not make that case; it undermines it. Update: 21 November, 5:10 pm - Horton makes the case for a commission more cleanly in an interview with Glenn Greenwald. End update.

Furthermore, any assessment of the best course of action open to the Obama administration has to take into account the dramatically contrasting political situations of Presidents Obama and Ford in their first year in office. A popular incoming president elected by a wide margin with a mandate for change and strong, increased majorities in both Houses of Congress who has explicitly promised to end the policy of torture and close the prison at Guantanamo, Obama is clearly counting on being given time to deal with the mess created by the previous administration's policies before facing the question of how to hold its officials accountable.

He is not facing a hostile Congress that has just exercised its power against the executive branch, but a cooperative legislature that even under an unpopular and discredited Republican administration has shown very little determination to do its own investigations into the executive branch's crimes. The focus of Obama, Congress, and the public is almost entirely elsewhere: on the down-spiraling economy, health care, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan, and the narrowing window for action to avert climate and energy crises.

Much of the pressure for legal accountability is likely to come from abroad, though there are enough of us seeking it here to warm my heart.

Update 2: 24 November, 9:30 pm - TPM Cafe book club discussion of proposals for accountability, with Scott Horton, Charles Homans, Daniel Larison, Mickey Edwards, and others; start here.

[Image from Hecate's Daughter, linked above at 'warm my heart']
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Obama in Roanoke

2008-10-18T12:50:00.008-04:00

Finally yielded to Obama-mania yesterday and went with three friends to the noon rally in Roanoke. The Civic Center was filled with 8000 keyed-up supporters, all of us having been part of a loooong (but steadily moving) line in a light rain to get in. As we drove by at 10:30, the line of umbrellas circled the arena; the lot was full and the signs directed us to a parking garage on the other end of the city. Our hearts sank a bit, but the shuttle buses were plentiful and constant, and informative volunteers were posted at every spot along the way in where confusion might have set in. We made it into our seats by 11:15, when the only section unfilled was directly behind the speakers. My friends were disappointed, but I consoled them with a Chicago-style slogan: "He's just as fine from behind."

As I've read about so many Obama rallies elsewhere, this one was well organized, started on time, and delivered the goods from start to finish. You know it's going to be high-energy when the opening invocation gets applause! [One organizing opportunity was missed, though: the Obama staffer's brief remarks should have included the address of the Roanoke office, not just the street it's on.]

The crowd was everybody: old, young; black, white; latte-sippin' liberals from Lexington, rotund rednecks from Roanoke County, and everybody in between. Jim Webb, who'd also done four events the previous day from the tip of SW Virginia to just south of Roanoke, delivered a warm, pointed intro. The roar that greeted Obama took things to a whole new level.

Obama spoke for 45 minutes. He's mighty good. I can't believe anyone can do this day after day for so long and show so little strain -- just a hint of exhaustion right after the speech and before the hand-shaking on the way out. I wish for his sake and ours that there were only a few more days to go.

There were some excellent bits added to the prepared remarks. Obama can be truly funny when he abandons presidential dignity for a few moments and puts his body and voice into it. He did that in comparing the McCain campaign's account of its health care proposal to "those prescription drug ads; you've seen 'em on TV. At the beginning people are running around in a sunny field and everybody's so happy... and then near the end you get [lower-register stern voice] 'Side effects may include...'" Everyone cracked up and and we all, Obama included, basked in the unexpectedly delightful moment before he got back to being Mr. Seriously Hopeful Change We Need.

My favorite part of the speech was near the end. Some of us had begun to tune out a bit as the candidate moved through a list of spending promises and then into the rote "I will go through the entire federal budget, page by page, line by line, and eliminate programs that don’t work and aren’t needed...". But then came the kicker: "We’ll start by ending the war in Iraq." The crowd burst to its feet and let loose. We'll hold you to that, guy. My carmates are part of the growing consensus that Obama's approach to Afghanistan is wrong, wrong, wrong and will only get us in further over our heads, so we're expecting to have to keep pushing unpleasant truths on the new administration.

But before that can happen, we're in for a long seventeen days. One important effect of the rally should be to mollify the Roanoke black community's concerns about local leaders not being involved or included enough in the campaign, potentially hurting getting-out-the-vote. They got earlier notice than most about the possible appearance, and clearly responded.

We still feel the urge to pinch ourselves when we read the Virginia polls, but the idea that our electoral votes will go to the Democrat seems more and more of a living possibility. Maybe we can!

Video of the speeches and comments of other attenders at Raising Kaine.
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Image: myscoper

Deal: raw

2008-09-28T12:28:00.011-04:00

Blech. I'm not loving it. But along with the pols, I failed to do enough to take on the premises of the bailout. Even within the limits of what can be done around the edges, though, the deal appears to be disappointing.

I'm seriously unhappy that Henry Paulson, who's already handed over billions of our money in broad daylight to help his old firm, appears still to be the decision-maker in this giveaway. [Update: 5:45 pm, 28 Sept - Yep; it's actually worse than I thought: "So it's all up to the Secretary to establish the rules. Same with [equity] Warrants - it's up to the Secretary to negotiate." The form and amount of disclosure of purchases is also up to Paulson. End update.] $350 billion is way too much to commit before any Congressional brakes can be put on. There's almost no punitive aspect, and no re-regulation. There's nothing of the needed bankruptcy changes Dick Durbin tried to insert.

Update 2: 3:00 am, 29 Sept - Reports from the conference call Treasury held Sunday night with the industry (no media, no public; would have gone unreported except for industry-observing bloggers) confirm my worst suspicions. This is not good enough to vote for; it's the original Paulson naked class war with Democratic fig leaves. In particular, the whole $700b can be committed before the clique of looters leaves office. Which was the point. I'm just numb with despair. End update 2.

Bernie Sanders' proposal needs to be a bill come February 2009. As does Durbin's bankruptcy re-reform and Sen. Clinton's recreation of the depression-era Home Owner Loan Corporation. A serious tax is the first priority; the only way to fund health care is to claw back some of the outrageous share of national income from them what took it:

... the total share of national income going to the super-rich has more than doubled [since 1979]. The merely well off have also gotten a slightly bigger piece of the pie, while everyone else has funded this free-for-all. "Everyone else," in this case, means 90% of the country. Our share of national income has gone down in order to make sure that virtually all the fruits of economic growth over the past four decades could go to the well-off, the rich, and the super-duper-rich.

Image: Afferent Input

Letter to the editor - bailout

2008-09-22T13:56:00.006-04:00

Sent to the Roanoke Times, just at their word limit of 200; I hope it's one of many.

Six years ago Bush and Cheney used scare stories to stampede Congress into authorizing a ruinous war. Now they're using the same tactics to make a huge grab for the bank on the way out the door.

After two years of saying things were under control, while ignoring the pain of homeowners struggling with unaffordable mortgages, suddenly they’re painting the picture of a financial "mushroom cloud" unless we fork over $700 billion right now, to be handed out to their Wall Street friends with no questions asked.

For Congress to agree would be an unconstitutional abdication of its power of the purse -- even if this administration had proved trustworthy in dispensing vast sums of money. Given the actual Bush-Cheney record of corruption, incompetence, and cover-ups, it would be insanely irresponsible.

The timing also guarantees conflict of interest. In January Secretary Paulson is likely to be looking for work among the very businesses to whom he's proposing to hand out billions.

Congress should pass no proposal that doesn't
restructure mortgages to keep people in their homes,
protect taxpayers' interests with oversight and accountability, and
lay the groundwork for re-regulation to solve the problem.

Now reworking for Rep. Goodlatte and Sens. Warner and Webb.
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Groundhog day

2008-09-21T12:52:00.010-04:00

Through their tears, they see opportunity.

In this case, the opportunity is a $700-billion grab, with unfettered authority, from the taxpayers to the administration's best friends on Wall Street.

Six years ago to the day, the regime was demanding unfettered authority for another such project from Congress. Common sense warned that the tidy, antiseptic slogan of "regime change" was a facade for vast devastation and killing, and a long, open-ended commitment of resources for unstated goals. But complicit, ambitious, and fearful Democrats were only willing to tinker with the language, not confront the basic policy, and agreed to a vote before the election. So here we are, a trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives later.

The clique of lawless plunderers in the executive (and fourth) branches has used the technique again and again, and it always works: They back Congress up against a deadline and "brief" them with visions of the catastrophic consequences of not granting yet more unchecked power and retroactive absolution for crimes already committed.

The Military Commissions Act was introduced at this time two years ago as an electoral club: fearful of "soft on terrorism" smears, the Democrats acceded to authorizing show trials, legalizing torture, and actively cooperated in stripping habeas protections from prisoners. The Protect America Act, to authorize previously illegal massive domestic spying, was pushed through with tales of terrorist threats against Congress itself and with an August recess looming.

In this latest crisis, the Democrats are as complicit as they are fearful; Wall Street runs both parties. I look for nothing but the tiniest concessions, nibbling around the edges rather than addressing the causes, much less sticking the people who caused the problem with the tab or holding them accountable in any way.

And the timing, when so many activists are in full-out election mode, means that it's unlikely that a cohesive alternative can be put together in time to provide even a missed opportunity for the craven congressional Dems. Still, I'll keep alert to signs of organized resistance.

Update: 2:30 pm, Sept 21 - This, purportedly from a member of Congress (vouched for and via Matt Stoller) is a spirits-lifter, but I'd be more encouraged if s/he'd go on the record:

Nancy [Pelosi] said she wanted to include the second "stimulus" package that the Bush Administration and congressional Republicans have blocked. I don't want to trade a $700 billion dollar giveaway to the most unsympathetic human beings on the planet for a few fucking bridges. I want reforms of the industry, and I want it to be as punitive as possible.
...
I also find myself drawn to provisions that would serve no useful purpose except to insult the industry, like requiring the CEOs, CFOs and the chair of the board of any entity that sells mortgage related securities to the Treasury Department to certify that they have completed an approved course in credit counseling. That is now required of consumers filing bankruptcy to make sure they feel properly humiliated for being head over heels in debt, although most lost control of their finances because of a serious illness in the family. That would just be petty and childish, and completely in character for me.

David Obey? Barney Frank?

Update 2: 4:00 pm, Sept. 21 - By far the best summary of how Congress should respond to this outrageous ploy by the regime is a guest post by Rebecca Gordon at Happening Here? Her most important point, one which the Democrats fail to grasp again and again, is that there is no reason to grant the regime's terms of debate, that unlimited authority must be ceded right this minute or the sky will fall.

The Great Swindle

2008-09-21T02:12:00.008-04:00

The shock is beginning to wear off, which is bad news for the Shock Doctrine practitioners. These guys put it well:

Any member of Congress who looks at the plan to give [Treasury Secretary]Hank [Paulson] unchecked power to transfer $700 billion from the Treasury to his friends' companies and has any reaction other than "You've got to be fucking kidding me" does not deserve to hold office.

Atrios.

This loathsome bailout plan is a slap in the face to anyone who believes in either free-market principles or social justice.
...
Right now a corrupt and spent corporate class is on the brink of getting a corrupt and spent governing class to perpetuate its privilege by almost dumbfoundingly transparent means. Anyone with a soul needs to oppose them.

Jim Henley.

Update: 3:55 pm, Sept 21 -

There’s no institutional mechanism; there’s no logic to this bailout that could not apply to a future one. It not only culminates the previous era of Moral Hazard, it inaugurates the next one. It guarantees more of the same behavior that led to the current crisis.

More Jim Henley.

If millions of people take mortgages that they can't afford, and the ensuing mess threatens the stability of the financial system, the government can't bail them out --- some of them may have been ill-advised or rushed into bad deals by shady financiers, but it would destroy market incentives, and they just have to suffer.

If major financial institutions buy those mortgages, and the ensuing mess threatens the stability of the financial system, the government must bail them out --- they're getting off easier than they deserve, but the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Charles Dodgson.

[I]f this really happens, forget universal health insurance, aid to education, and middle class tax cuts as promised by Obama. The Republicans will have stolen the bank on the way out the door.

Jan in San Fran.
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Prepare to dare or prepare to despair

2008-09-07T14:22:00.008-04:00

Email conversation with Thomas Nephew about the Million Doors for Peace effort got me to pull together some thoughts I've only let myself reflect on briefly over the last few months.

There's been a divide among antiwar activists -- between those who are serious about ending the occupation of Iraq and those who’d like to do that but only if it doesn’t cost Democrats politically. Depending on the size of the Democratic majorities in Congress, and assuming an Obama administration, that divide might be less important in 2009 than it's been for the last two years.

Given that Voters for Peace (the coalition organizing Million Doors) includes both tendencies, it's an encouraging sign that their petition calls for a faster and firmer wrapup in Iraq than even the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, not to mention the probably-never "conditional engagement" plan of Colin Kahl and company, who have Obama's ear. If the Responsible Plan were the strongest demand on the Obama administration, then we'd end up with something closer to permanent bases and endless occupation. With Voters for Peace mobilizing a million petition signers this winter for something stronger, the Responsible Plan backers in Congress should be able to position their policy (accurately) as the centrist choice.

There’s a whole constellation of issues just ahead of us in which this dynamic plays out, where an insufficiently vigorous presence on the "radical" end of the spectrum could result in blown opportunities that haunt us for the next decade or more.

Health care: Health Care for America Now has more than a little in common with Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (see 'divide' above). I accept that there's an imperative for Dems to pass something that concretely provides access to affordable health insurance for everyone. I also accept the political impossibility of legislating the private insurers out of the medical market in the next Congress. So I grasp the incrementalist strategy, whose goal is to get a public insurance pool into whatever's passed as the thin end of the wedge that could lead eventually to an all-public plan.

What I don’t buy is that single-payer advocates should just fold into the HCAN campaign rather than mobilizing to create the serious threat of a stronger plan from which the HCAN public-pool proposal can be urged as the compromise retreat. If HCAN’s is the starting position, then we’ll end up with less than that. In this case, anything less would mean foreclosing the chance for public health care for another generation.

Impeachment right away: Only a small minority of the American public -- even of informed, activist liberals -- understands that the Constitution provides for impeachment of officials after they've left office, not just for sitting presidents. Yet post-power impeachment hearings are the single best way to uncover just what lawbreaking was done. Not only do impeachment investigations have much stronger testimony-extracting powers than regular Congressional hearings, but post-term impeachment is much less easily characterized as a "partisan witch hunt" because it's removed from an electoral landscape.

Other excuses will be will be thrown up by compromised, fearful, lazy, and/or power-loving Democrats. The two most common are "we don't want to be seen as vindictive" and "impeachment would be a distraction from the vital work we have to get done".

The best answer to ‘vindictive’ is that this is about restoring the Constitution, pruning back these dangerously expanded executive powers that no one -- including "our" people -- should have. That’s the opposite of vindictive.

We’re going to get the ‘distraction’ line not only from politicians but from our allies, every organized progressive constituency desperate to get issues addressed by Congress after eight (or 28) years in the desert. Yet if the impeachment investigations are put off for even a year, we’ll run right up against the midterms, and by 2011 the presidential campaign will have begun. So if hearings don't begin in 2009, it’s hard to see how they could get going before 2013 -– by which time the "ancient history" charge will have more effect. So it could be 2009 or never.

We cannot wait. If there’s no serious domestic move toward accountability for torture, for which impeachment hearings are among the most practical and plausibly effective forum, then within a year there will be international legal interventions. The politics and optics of that are terrible, for anyone who cares about achieving a systemic rooting-out and reversal of this country's policy of torture. Legal threats from outside the country risk creating an effect of rallying around the old regime (however incredible such a thing seems now), and not only among Republicans. The most secure footing for international law will be created by Americans ourselves restoring the rule of law in the United States.

Likewise, only actual exposure of what went on with domestic spying under Bush-Cheney can light a big enough fire under Congress to get them to roll back the legislation that enables it, and only impeachment hearings seem to me to have the testimony-inducing force to get that exposure.

Impeachment is the key to reversing the damage of the last eight years, not simply papering it over. The time to organize for demanding it is not after the election, but now.

(The mechanics to accomplish this are for another post. Please don't wait for that; share thoughts and suggestions in comments.)
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Conventional clampdown

2008-09-02T01:48:00.017-04:00

I watched more of the Democratic convention than I've done since 1972, on the blessedly unfiltered C-SPAN. But I didn't see much coverage, online or off, of what was happening outside the hall in the streets.

Before the Denver convention got going, we were given a look at the chilling warehouse (video) in which the security forces planned to hold people they arrested. But how many people ended up there, and what took place?

As has become sadly routine, a big area around the convention hall was sealed off to the uncredentialed, and protest was supposed to be channeled into a distant, penned-in "Free Speech" area. Helicopters droned above, and the police were out in force, in riot gear.

Iraq Veterans Against the War did the most effective job of challenging that b.s. The march they led was covered surprisingly well by the Denver Post. I'm a little ticked off that none of the bloggers who went to the convention reported on it (none that I saw, anyway; correction invited).

Clearly, the cops were spoiling for a fight. At one event, they slammed a CodePink member to the ground (video); CP's suing. And they responded to non-permitted demos with preemptive gusto: A second Post article provides the account of a mass arrest, in which the police pepper-sprayed more than a hundred people out of one area, then pinned them in for two hours before hauling them off to the warehouse. There, those arrested weren't allowed to make phone calls unless they pled guilty to charges, and weren't given access to lawyers, despite teams of ACLU and National Lawyers Guild attorneys waiting at the site for the purpose.

An ABC cameraman was arrested and charged for taking pictures on a public sidewalk of Senators coming and going from meetings with big donors and lobbyists, pretty clearly at the behest of Dems inside.

That was the worst of Denver, which was bad enough.

The Twin Cities clampdown over the Labor Day weekend was pure Minority Report.

Combined forces of the Ramsey County Sherrif's Dept., the FBI, and the ATF launched raids on the Convergence Center and four houses in residential neighborhoods. They surrounded the buildings, came in with guns drawn, cuffed everyone, and seized laptops, cell phones, cameras, and literature. In a press conference on Saturday afternoon, they bragged of using infilitrators and justified the clampdown on the basis of information from their spies. They stopped three IWitness video volunteers who were biking in from the airport and took their equipment. They commandeered an environmental group's bus and left everyone riding in it on the highway. They forced everyone in another house outdoors at two in the morning while they tore apart a vehicle parked nearby, "looking for explosives." Many were detained, but only a few arrested; they were charged with conspiracy to riot. Shades of Chicago!

Undaunted, a fine collection of groups hit the streets peacefully as planned Monday; see if the pics don't warm your heart as much as they did mine. However, there were also a hundred or so roamers, many masked, who left a wake of broken windows, smashed-up cop cars, and street-blocking debris. Arrests are already at 284, so the provocateurs are accomplishing their mission: legitimize the arrest of anyone else on the street. Amy Goodman and two Democracy Now crew members were arrested and sprung, as was an AP photographer. Charges have been much heavier than in Denver: 130 felonies (including against the DN producers) along with hundreds of misdemeanors (including Goodman; the AP guy was not charged).

John Emerson has the best collection of links.

All of these tactics were already being deployed against the anti-corp-globalization protestors in 2000 and early 2001, especially in Miami and D.C. But since then, the "war on terra" has brought a massive buildup of paramilitary equipment, spying capabilities, and Fusion Centers that amplify the power of a podunk sheriff by uniting it with the federal arsenal. The war mentality has both multiplied the weapons at their disposal and normalized this kind of military operation on our city streets.

The counter-terror targets: us. We commit conspiracy to riot by planning to assemble. Sure, you might insist it will be peaceable, but the security forces' infiltrators have a different story to tell. And look: guys in masks smashing stuff, proving it's just like they say.

Off we go.
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Update: 3:50 pm, 3 Sept - Cross-posted to A Tiny Revolution with some additional links and editing, and update on Tuesday repression. Added to this post: Denver arrest of ABC cameraman and Saturday police press conference in Minnesota.

Update 2: 2:15 pm, 4 Sept - As I noted in the ATR version of the post, this kind of aggressive "security" display is guaranteed by the $50 million grant each convention city is awarded. Pacifica has a breakdown of what the money was spent on in Minnesota (Denver has not publicly accounted for its spending). What caught my eye: $2 million for a closed-circuit TV system and many more downtown security cameras. This is an echo of the phenomenon Naomi Klein reported in Beijing: state surveillance and control put in place for a one-time event that ratchets up control forever after. Thomas Nephew makes the Beijing connection and passes along more detail on the Tuesday police attacks.

Update 3: 11:45 am, 6 Sept - In all, 818 people were arrested during the Republican convention week, close to 400 of them the last night of the convention. Almost all of those were ticketed and released. The number of felony charges (reported by St. Paul police chief on Tuesday as 120) has apparently fallen to 16, with 6 more possible. Eight of those are against Republican Welcoming Committee organizers, for conspiracy to riot to further terrorism, a charge under Minnesota's state version of the Patriot Act passed in 2002. (Wonder how many other states have these?)
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Image: St. Paul riot police, Glenn Greenwald

More military murder

2008-08-27T14:52:00.012-04:00

Another case in which three U.S. soldiers appear to have shot and killed four bound Iraqi prisoners has come to light. This one took place in the spring of 2007, in West Rashid, a Shiite neighborhood in southwest Baghdad.

As in the Fallujah case, the ranking officer on the scene shot two of the prisoners and ordered the men with him each to shoot the others. Other members of their company were aware of the group's crime, but did nothing to prevent it or to report it. They're being charged with conspiracy murder; the shooters will probably be charged with murder.

After taking small-arms fire, the patrol chased some men into a building, arresting them and finding several automatic weapons, grenades and a sniper rifle, they said. On the way to their combat outpost, Sergeant Hatley’s convoy was informed by Army superiors that the evidence to detain the Iraqis was insufficient, Sergeant Leahy said in his statement. The unit was told to release the men, according to the statement.

"First Sergeant Hatley then made the call to take the detainees to a canal and kill them," Sergeant Leahy said, as retribution for the deaths of two soldiers from the unit: Staff Sgt. Karl O. Soto-Pinedo, who died from a sniper’s bullet, and Specialist Marieo Guerrero, killed by a roadside bomb.

The execution-murders took place in April 2007. Guerrero was killed on March 17, Soto-Pinedo on February 27. How many other non-commissioned officers think it's fine to kill Iraqis in cold blood as payback for the deaths of U.S. soldiers?

Update: 4:15 pm, 27 August - While I'm posting on the subject, another recent case and an update on an older one:

Two soldiers were charged in early August with assault and premeditated murder in the death of Ali Mansur Muhammad at some point after his release from U.S. detention in mid-May. Very few details were released; I'll follow up if more comes out.

Steven Dale Green, the main defendant in the rape of Abeer Hamza and the murder of her family in Mahmoudiyah in March 2006, will be tried three years after the crime.

Update 2: 12:55 pm, 28 Aug - Remember the right-wing screechfest a year ago when soldier Scott Beauchamp wrote a pseudonymous article for The New Republic portraying his unit as having, among other things, run down dogs with Bradley vehicles? The Army outed Beauchamp, said that he'd fabricated the incidents in his article. Among those denying the account was none other than Sgt. Hatley, in whose unit Beauchamp served (credit Bernhard at Moon of Alabama for the catch).

So, while members of the unit were busily denying that honorable soldiers could possibly do anything as terrible as kill a dog or show disrespect to Iraqi remains, at least seven of them were aware that its officers had murdered live Iraqi human beings, handcuffed prisoners.

Spencer Ackerman recently released a backgrounder/update he wrote last year on Beauchamp, who was hung out to dry by TNR. He notes at his blog that the Army began an investigation into the murders this past January, though they wouldn't confirm at the time that the unit in question was Beauchamp's.

Update: 1:00 pm, 9 Jan 2009 - Hatley is being charged with murder in the killing of the four Iraqi prisoners, and "faces additional charges of murder for a separate incident in January 2007" for which the Army has not provided details.

A farewell feast

2008-08-13T20:07:00.003-04:00

My friends are always preparing a farewell feast for me,
A soothing grave in the shade of oak trees
A marble epitaph of time
And always I anticipate them at the funeral:
Who then has died...who?

From Under Siege

Mahmoud Darwish, buried today in Ramallah

Fallujah: Death of command responsibility

2008-07-11T16:38:00.011-04:00

The "battle of Fallujah" was itself a war crime, a punitive assault on a densely populated city initiated immediately after the November 2004 U.S. elections. It incorporated many specific war crimes, among them the use of white phosphorus, the murder of civilians, the sealing-off of hospitals and ambulances, and the killing of wounded and prisoners.

Remember when reporter Kevin Sites documented the shooting of a wounded, unarmed, prone prisoner by a Marine? [see image] The Marine wasn't charged with anything. There was a wave of denunciation and questioning of Sites and justification of the shooter. Well, there was more prisoner killing going on. In fact, it's pretty clear that the rules of engagement, such as they are in Iraq, were suspended in Fallujah.

Yet as each new atrocity comes to light, somehow commanders are never the ones facing charges, even when they're clearly responsible. In this case, three Marines were ordered to conduct a sweep of a house after another platoon member was killed by a sniper ("to get our heads back in the game", not because the sniper was firing from the house). They'd found and handcuffed four men, but their unit was moving out and "there was no time" to take prisoners:

"We called up to the platoon leader and the response was, 'Are they dead yet?'" Weemer said on the tape.

The three are in a hearing to determine if they'll be court martialed on charges of murder and dereliction of duty. The platoon leader is not facing charges. He's not even named in the news coverage of this hearing.

All this only came out because one of the participants talked about the experience during interviews as part of applying for a Secret Service job. Who knows how many more incidents are known only to the perpetrators?

Some veterans of the Fallujah rampage went on to murder civilians at Haditha a year later, and were only charged after video evidence became available and Time reported the story. In another perversion of command responsibility, all those shooters and their commanding officers have been let off one by one except Sgt. Wuterich, the squad leader. His court martial begins soon.

Your FISA summariza

2008-07-07T19:29:00.010-04:00

(Title ~~a shameless ripoff of~~ inspired by The Editors' Your FISA Advisa)

The vote has been postponed until Wednesday to make it easier for Senators to attend Jesse Helms' funeral. So keep the calls and letters coming. Thomas Nephew has a splendid roundup of resources, and more how-to.

I talked to a legislative assistant today to get a reading on Webb's vote, and found that they haven't discussed it yet. He protested that none of the amendments is in final form. Although true, typical, and unsettling, that's not an excuse to duck taking a position; the amendments' basic outlines are known. This is especially so for the Dodd amendment, S.Amdt.5064, that will simply strike the telecom immunity provisions from the bill. So we'll talk again tomorrow.

The Webb aide did say that Judge Walker's recent ruling in the Al Haramain case is "changing the game a little" for members of the Judiciary Committee. I expressed the hope that the change was in the direction of eroding support for the bill, since the main effect of that ruling was to expose as a sham the Democratic leadership's claim that exclusivity was a big part of what was "won" to make this bill an acceptable "compromise". This might, though, mean that Specter's amendment is shape-shifting -- something to keep an eye on.
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Update: July 8, 10:30 am - As so often, Glenn Greenwald drives home the fundamental issues at stake here. Worth reading especially to see the full-page ad in the Washington Post placed by the liberty-and-law-defending rabble, and news of a fundraising push for Accountability Now (the rabble's PAC) set to "explode" on August 8, the anniversary of Nixon's resignation. I was among the crowd celebrating outside the White House that evening. Ah, 1974-75: our own little Prague Spring.

Update: July 14, 5:00 pm - Just for the record: Roll call votes on the Dodd amendment (full text: "Strike Title II" [immunity]), the Specter amendment, the Bingaman amendment, and the bill itself. All went wrong by bigger margins than I'd expected. Webb voted only for Bingaman and the bill; I never reached his aide again before the vote.
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Go down fighting.

2008-06-23T17:26:00.020-04:00

The ~~compromise~~ capitulation FISA bill is horrible, but at least the provisions of Part I relating to the executive branch can, in theory, be reversed in the next Congress.

Retroactive immunity for lawbreaking telecoms is forever. The precedent it would set is also permanent. That makes it worth fighting hard to strip immunity from the Senate version of the bill.

An amendment to do that will ~~probably~~ [see Update] be offered, even if only to give Sen. Obama and others a chance to register opposition to immunity before voting for the bill as a whole. But calls and faxed letters to Senators are needed now to make sure that an amendment to remove telecom immunity materializes.

There is currently no sign of any filibuster planned, by Sen. Dodd or anyone else. ~~Nor will there be.~~ [see Update] Majority Leader Reid filed and 17 Democrats signed a cloture petition today. Together with 49 Republican votes, that's well more than the 60 needed to limit debate. So it's on.

Update: 6:15 pm, 24 June - Sens. Dodd and Feingold issued a statement today [emphasis added]:

This is a deeply flawed bill, which does nothing more than offer retroactive immunity by another name. We strongly urge our colleagues to reject this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation and oppose any efforts to consider this bill in its current form. We will oppose efforts to end debate on this bill as long as it provides retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that may have participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program, and as long as it fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans.

If the Senate does proceed to this legislation, our immediate response will be to offer an amendment that strips the retroactive immunity provision out of the bill. We hope our colleagues will join us in supporting Americans’ civil liberties by opposing retroactive immunity and rejecting this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation.

So it's still on. The filibuster will almost certainly fail; every effort has to be made to get the votes to kill immunity. End update.

As to timing, commenter cboldt at Firedoglake watched today's Senate proceedings on C-SPAN2 so you didn't have to and reports [my emphasis]:

I was looking for (and saw) a procedural move that sets some parameters for handling of FISA. A cloture vote will happen Wednesday (unless the objectors agree to compress the time provided for in the rules), and then, if the objectors stick to the time frame provided in the rules, the FISA bill won’t be made formally pending until an additional 30 hours have elapsed.

Make the most of the time between now and Wednesday at 10:00 am, by getting your Senators on the record on their position on a no-immunity amendment. Sen. Specter (R-PA) spoke out against immunity today, for what it's worth, but also announced his intention to vote for the overall bill whatever happens. (This recapitulates his performance on the Military Commissions Act two years ago, when he introduced and voted for the amendment to restore habeas corpus protections, and then, when the amendment failed narrowly, voted for the bill anyway.)

Toll-free phone numbers for Congress and other useful links are at the end of this post by Christy Hardin Smith. She offers another helpful tip in comments:

it’s a good idea to contact these folks at local offices — which don’t often get calls and FAXes, so when they do get several on a single issue, they get a bit more notice. And sometimes you get a much more receptive ear from the staffer on the issue as well.

It can be especially useful to talk with the local office because, occasionally, you’ll get a heads up on a potential local appearance and information on how to get a sit-down or at least an opportunity to talk with your Senator in person when they are in the area. THAT can be very, very useful.

Senators' web site URLs are all in the form of [lastname].senate.gov; find their listing of offices and start now to build a relationship with the staffers nearest you.

There is no grassroots constituency for immunity to lawbreaking telecoms; it's only money talking. That, and the desire of everyone who was complicit in warrantless spying on American citizens to shut down any chance that we'll discover what was done to us.

Update 2: 28 June, 9:10 am - Via Emptywheel, the vote will come on July 8th, and three amendments will be offered:

Dodd-Feingold-Leahy to strip the immunity provisions. Needs 51 votes to pass; we got 32 in February (I'm glaring at you, Jim Webb).

Specter to ~~do I'm not sure what~~ "allow the court [what court?] to deny telcoms immunity if it found that the government's surveillance activities were unconstitutional" (EFF, see below); 60 votes needed.

Bingaman to stay the court cases until ~~I'm not sure when~~ the report of an investigation into the program by the Dept. of Justice Inspector General is released; the investigation is mandated by the FISA bill. 60 votes needed.

Update 3: 6:45 pm, July 1 - Electronic Frontier Foundation explains the amendments here. EFF urges all Senators to support the Bingaman amendment if the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy amendment to strike the immunity provision fails, so that Congress can know what it's immunizing before doing so. The hope is that Congress might revisit and reverse the immunity decision then; the idea is to keep the cases against the telcoms alive to allow for that possibility.

Image by Mike Harding used by permission.

Zimbabwe opposition forced out of rigged runoff

2008-06-22T14:53:00.005-04:00

Capping a week I wish I could wipe out of existence, the MDC has reluctantly pulled out of the runoff election for the Zimbabwean presidency scheduled for June 27. Morgan Tsvangirai, who was almost certainly elected president free and clear in the voting on March 29, lays out the obstacles that made it impossible to continue. The list makes me ashamed of my readiness to throw up my hands in the face of setbacks.

The failure of the governments of Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, and South Africa to provide real security for the elections is particularly sad. Liberation struggles that built people-to-people ties of solidarity continue to be sold out by cronyism among "leaders."

One-party rule is poison, whether official or de facto.

Gutless pukes

2008-06-19T12:47:00.019-04:00

The House and Senate Democratic leadership are quietly colluding with Rep. Steny Hoyer and Sen. Jay Rockefeller to legalize Bush's warrantless spying on Americans, and to give retroactive immunity to the telcom corporations who broke the law by cooperating with it. A vote on this cave-in may come as early as ~~tonight~~ tomorrow.

Update: 11:05 am, 20 June - Or, as I put it in a comment section yesterday: We're going back to Nixonland, where the law is what the president says it is, and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are taking us there on an express train. Today. End update.

Immunity will end the court proceedings against the telcoms, which at this point appear to be the only route through which the public has any hope of discovering the extent and nature of the criminal invasion of privacy conducted by the ruling regime. Last-ditch, bipartisan efforts to stop this are underway, but the complicity of Pelosi, Emanuel, Reid, and Durbin in rushing the calendar means they come too late for anything but retribution.

George W. Bush has clearly violated the law and contravened the Fourth Amendment in spying on U.S. citizens without a warrant. But impeachment is "off the table."

Bush has also clearly violated the law in authorizing the torture of detainees. He's admitted to doing so. This is not only an eminently impeachable offense, but a war crime. Still, impeachment is "off the table."

So is democracy.

Democratic strategists (so-called) are apparently willing to risk the certain demobilizing and demoralizing effect of this sellout on the party's activist liberal base and on potential supporters among libertarian-minded independents and Ron Paul Republicans. They claim to believe that caving will take the spying issue "off the table" and prevent Republican Congressional candidates from running ads charging Democrats with tying our hands against terrorists. They're idiots if they really believe that. And they're cowardly and idiotic not to see that this line of attack isn't even working the way it used to.

The party's presumptive presidential nominee is blessing this telcom-written sellout with his silence and his active support of a Bush-voting Blue Dog Democrat against a progressive African-American primary challenger. Brave Sir Lancelot, Knight of Change You Can Believe In.

I give up. I'm not giving a dime, I'm not lifting a finger, I'm not making a phone call for Democrats. I'll vote to prevent the greater evil, but that's all.

Update: 22 June, 11:45 am - The leaders of the party appear determined to stifle any inclination I might have had to pull myself together and focus on other issues on which there is some daylight between the Ds and Rs by insulting the intelligence of friends of the constitution in their "explanations" of support for this cave-in. Obama's statement adopts Bush's must-give-up-liberty-to-stop-terror framework and flatly lies about the effects of the bill, as does Hoyer's, Rockefeller's, and Pelosi's. They're aiming at the rubes and plainly don't think they have to deal with us at all. Message received and understood.

But it wasn't about the oil. Not at all.

2008-06-19T11:02:00.004-04:00

On blogs where the Bush administration's proposed "security framework agreement" with Iraq has been discussed, the question has come up of why the July 31st deadline. My answer has been electoral politics: An agreement that extends the U.S. military presence indefinitely is the "victory" and "success" that the regime would like to show for its policy, and that McCain can run on.

But if it's not politics, it's business, Bush's base. Today's New York Times business section brings the news that four oil majors are close to returning to Iraq, having almost wrapped up negotiations on no-bid foothold contracts:

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations. [emphasis added]

So there'll be plenty for President Obama's residual force to do:

Any Western oil official who comes to Iraq would require heavy security, exposing the companies to all the same logistical nightmares that have hampered previous attempts, often undertaken at huge cost, to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure.

And work in the deserts and swamps that contain much of Iraq’s oil reserves would be virtually impossible unless carried out solely by Iraqi subcontractors, who would likely be threatened by insurgents for cooperating with Western companies.

Torture Awareness Month Update

2008-06-09T22:05:00.011-04:00

Everyone's observing Torture Awareness Month in their own way.

The clique of criminals who rule us are making efforts to cover up the extent and specifics of the tortures to which prisoners at Guantanamo have been subjected, while doing so in a way that actually calls attention to the cover-up:

Urging interrogators in a printed operations manual to destroy their notes to avoid revealing torture.

Using a sound delay and mute button to prevent observers at the arraignment of five defendants in Guantanamo from hearing the men describe their treatment, while allowing several outright references to torture.

The crudeness of these evasions makes it hard for those who want to deny that a systematic policy of torture is in effect to keep up the pretense.

Carol Rosenberg's coverage for the Miami Herald of the show trials underway at Guantanamo is the best in the corporate media. Her account of the recent arraignment of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and four other defendants makes vivid the surreal, Soviet atmosphere in which prosecutors and defendants cooperated to shed the defense lawyers who might slow down the express train to judicial murder/martyrdom/permanent destruction of witnesses to torture.

Some other journalists who've already earned respect are about to mark this month by strengthening their reputation for putting the truth in front of the public. Here's a preview from one of them, John Walcott:

Next Sunday, June 15, McClatchy will begin publishing the most extensive investigation to date of the treatment of detainees, not only at Guantanamo but also at Bagram and Kandahar in Afghanistan. Reporters Tom Lasseter and Matt Schofield tracked down and interviewed 66 former detainees -- more than any other organization, media or NGO, we think -- in 11 countries on three continents. They also interviewed former prison guards, interrogators, translators, Pentagon and administration officials, defense lawyers and Afghan intelligence and security officials to paint the most complete picture we could of who U.S. picked up, how and why, what happened to “suspected enemy combatants” and who’s responsible.

The package was overseen by the McClatchy Washington Bureau’s Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign editor, Roy Gutman, the editor of "Crimes of War" and the author of a new book on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan before 9/11. It includes five main stories, a video, photos, numerous sidebars, the stories of all 66 former detainees and an online database.

If you don’t live in an area served by one of our papers, or even if you do, you can find the whole package at www.mcclatchydc.com starting on Sunday, June 15 and running for five days.

[A heartfelt hat tip to bmaz at Emptywheel for all the items above.]

The Supreme Court is observing Torture Awareness Month by upholding, narrowly, the principle of habeas corpus that is fundamental to preventing indefinite detention and torture: the guarantee of access to civilian federal courts to contest the basis of the detention. As Human Rights First pointed out in fighting Congress's craven passage of the habeas-stripping Military Commissions Act in September 2006, virtually everything known about the mistreatment of prisoners up to that point was made public only through the process of their habeas appeals.

The Boumediene/Al Odah decision is not as far-reaching as some had hoped, but not as narrow as some had feared. It is resoundingly Constitution-affirming. A sigh of relief, a small sip of champagne.

Speaking of affirming the Constitution, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and three co-sponsors this week made Bush's policy of torture two of the central articles of impeachment (pdf) introduced against him, along with 33 other high crimes and misdemeanors. The House Judiciary Committee has to take the next step.

So. What are you doing for Torture Awareness Month?

Update: 15 June, 2:00 pm - The McClatchy series has begun. Bless them for including photos of each of the detainees in their 'detainee database', a degree of humanization that even many sympathetic accounts have not reached.

News from the Ministry of Love

2008-06-03T12:23:00.003-04:00

Walter Pincus commits old-school journalism by actually watching what the ruling clique does rather than reporting what they say. In a story that the Washington Post editors place on A11 today, he examines the Iraq-related contracts now being put out and shows how they paint a picture of U.S. occupation stretching far into the future, carried out by contractors with a minimum of overt military presence.

The article deserves to be read in full. But this is the passage that chilled me most (my emphasis added):
Another contract noticed last week previews the opening, apparently in September, of a U.S.-run prison, now labeled a Theater Internment Facility Reconciliation Center, which is to be located at Camp Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad. The new contract calls for providing food for "up to 5,000 detainees" and will also cover 150 Iraqi nationals, who apparently will work at the facility. The contract is to run for one year, with an option year to follow.

The U.S. holds about 20,000 Iraqis at two facilities today, mostly in Camp Bucca in southern Iraq and the rest at Camp Cropper near Baghdad. Along with the facility at Camp Taji, which is expected to hold Iraqis detained in Baghdad, another new reconciliation center, mainly for Sunnis, is being built at Ramadi in Anbar province, where many of these detainees were captured.

In March, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, who runs the detainee program, told reporters that, on average. Iraqi detainees remain in a U.S. facility for 11 months.

But that might not be the case for the roughly 9,000 Iraqis whom he described as having "a very rigorous view of an ideology that we would broadly categorize as al-Qaeda." They are headed to the new reconciliation centers for what could be longer stays.

Did the editors remove scare quotes, or does Pincus assume that his ironic use of the new euphemism is clear?

June: Torture Awareness Month

2008-06-01T15:01:00.005-04:00

June 26th is the International Day in Support of Survivors and Victims of Torture. In recent years the month of June has become a time in which to undertake actions to raise awareness of this country's use of torture, and to end it.

The month of June in a presidential election year presents a specifically political opportunity to help end U.S. torture: No Torture. No Exceptions. is an initiative to get both political parties to adopt comprehensive no-torture provisions as part of their platforms at this year's national conventions. The admirable Scott Horton is involved in the effort, and in my opinion makes a more effective case for it than its originators. (Whoever they are; I've guest-posted about that and my other reservations at A Tiny Revolution.)

Torture is a moral issue. Torture is wrong. These are the fundamental truths about this grave crime against humanity, no matter what other kinds of arguments have to be employed in the compromised political arena. The National Religious Coalition Against Torture and Rabbis for Human Rights are partnering to spread this message by way of banners in every state, in as many communities as possible. Get a banner for your church, synagogue, mosque, school, business, organization, or home here.

Zimbabwe update

2008-05-08T16:40:00.007-04:00

The level of violence against Zimbabweans suspected of supporting the MDC, the party that won the March 29 elections, has soared. Hundreds of people have had to seek medical attention after being beaten, cut, and worse.

The full results of the election have still not been released, and there is no word on when the supposed runoff election between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, the MDC candidate, will take place. Or even if the MDC will take part, given the horrific level of violence and obvious rigging of results by the electoral commission, and the lack of any proposals by other governments so far to help assure conditions for a legitimate vote.

In this context, I felt somewhat awkward about focusing an update to my previous post on the Chinese ship carrying weapons intended for the Mugabe forces, which is now sitting just outside the port of Luanda, Angola. A blogger at This is Zimbabwe relieved that concern by explaining why the ship is a focal point in this crisis:

Nothing is conclusive at this stage, but there are three reasons why this story is important, even if, as we write, more weapons are possibly coming in invisibly via other routes:

1. The need to prevent weapons coming in to Zimbabwe is critical: politically motivated and politically directed murders are increasing in Zimbabwe.
2. As cynical as this may sound, the story galvanises people in a way stories of battered and tortured people cannot; most likely because this is something that people feel they can try and help with and becaiuse they directly associate this ship with those victims.
3. For me personally, the story is important because it is also forcing countries in the region to ‘nail their colours to the mast’, so to speak. In the open glare of the public eye, this story shows us which nations are concerned for the safety of the Zimbabwean people, and which ones are more concerned with the loyalty to the Zanu PF regime.

African nations surrounding Zimbabwe are the powers with the most realistic chance to intervene in a way that can allow the democratic process to proceed. Please appeal to them to do so.

The view from under the bus

2008-04-30T07:27:00.003-04:00

Since I was young, I've understood that our national political discourse is stupid, fearful, and fundamentally rightist. Forty years on, I've had to revise this view: it's irredeemably stupid, fearful, and right-driven.

Zimbabwe - arms race

2008-04-19T15:03:00.004-04:00

There is a Chinese ship carrying weapons intended for delivery to Mugabe's forces. It was turned away at the port of Durban after the South African transport workers refused to unload them, a decision upheld by a judge. (Once again, no thanks to the current SA government, which disgracefully was quite willing to let the weapons be shipped across SA to Zimbabwe. Unions, churches, and concerned citizens prevented the transit of the weapons.)

After efforts to make arrangements to offload in Mozambique, whose authorities refused permission to dock, the ship is now heading for Angola.

The results of the Zimbabwe election, now three weeks in the past, are still not being released, and there is every sign that Mugabe and ZANU-PF want to have these weapons -- 70 tons of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and AK-47 ammunition -- before the results of their fraudulent "recount" are announced. Ten Chinese officers carrying revolvers have checked in at the Holiday Inn in Mutare, Zimbabwe, where about 70 senior officers of the Zimbabwean army are also staying. They are going back and forth between the hotel and the army headquarters. The official line, which we've heard from our own government in many similar situations, is that they're there to protect their country's economic interests. But the weapons shipment and the meetings make it look very much as if they're advising and assisting Mugabe's efforts to subdue the population and thwart democracy.

Actions around the world (see end of this post) are helping Zimbabweans to know they're not alone as the crisis deepens. Continue to urge the African Union and regional body SADC to send a delegation to Harare to support the demand for immediate release of the election results. Urge the government of Angola to refuse transit to the Chinese weapons shipment (link to details to follow).

Sorta like mowin your lawn 3

2008-04-16T15:40:00.014-04:00

The relative silence that's greeted Pres. George W. Bush's nonchalant confirmation that he authorized torture -- in the corporate media and among some biggish liberal blogs where I'd expect to see at least a reference -- has been unsettling. I'm sure they all have their reasons or excuses.

For now, an antidote is to focus on actions that can be taken, however small.

You can support the ACLU's call for a special prosecutor.
Thanks to tenure, John Yoo will probably not be removed from his position on the faculty of Berkeley's law school unless and until he is convicted for the crimes he committed. However, there's no issue of academic freedom surrounding his association with the U.S. Constitution Center; help end it. Via commenter James Mullin.
The Defense Appropriations bill will be considered in the House before too long. Urge your Congressman to
attach H.R. 1416 the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 repealing the portions of the Military Commissions Act which suspended habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions --- and H.R 1352 the Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act which would “prohibit the return or other transfer of persons by the United States, for the purpose of detention, interrogation, trial, or otherwise, to countries where torture or other inhuman treatment of persons occurs, and for other purposes.” [Digby, whose response to the recent revelations has been exemplary.]
Urge ABC to follow up on their own story by asking the presidential candidates about it. [Many editors and reporters in the stenographic traditional media openly say that they won't cover issues unless members of Congress or candidates are talking about them -- that'd be "making news."] This excellent suggestion courtesy of dday:
contact them here and demand that they follow up their reporting on torture by pushing it into the Presidential race. Contacting World News Tonight with moderator Charlie Gibson and ABC News Programming Specials would probably be the most helpful.

Update: 10:00 pm, 16 April - The disgraceful quality of ABC's debate questions makes clear that the above suggestion was pointless. But you can help break the silence by writing a letter or letters to your local and area newspapers. Firedoglake's gizmo makes it easy, and you'll be one of many. As you compose your less-than-200-word message, you may find inspiration in Dan Froomkin's column of a few days ago. He explains concisely why this story is new and startling.

Image: Tom Tomorrow design from June 2004, as seen on my wrinkly T-shirt. Alas, no longer available via his CafePress store.

Let them know they're not alone

2008-04-12T14:24:00.006-04:00

Zimbabweans who have voted for a new government have once again been let down by their most powerful potential ally. All of us who have looked to our Congressional representatives for help in resisting the creeping dictatorship in this country can identify with the feelings of democratic activists in Zimbabwe working to throw off an entrenched dictatorship:

I’m struggling to write this because I am angry, I feel sick, and yes, I am crying over my keyboard.

[South African President Thabo] Mbeki, after going to Harare to see Mugabe, says today that there is “no crisis”…

I cannot believe I am so upset - again - because whenever I know Thabo Mbeki is about to meet to discuss anything to do with the Zimbabwean crisis, I steel myself for extreme disappointment. He never fails to deliver, so why do I stupidly, even when I expect it, feel dumbfounded when it comes?!

A general strike has been called for next Tuesday to demand the publication of the election results. Meanwhile, the houses of opposition candidates are being burned, and supporters are being beaten. Follow the news at Action for Southern Africa.

Human solidarity is what the people of Zimbabwe need now. Despite Mbeki's disgraceful, apparently unshakable support of Mugabe, continue to pressure the governments of Southern Africa, individually and through their regional body SADC, to back the demand that election results be released. To his credit, Jacob Zuma, African National Congress candidate to succeed Mbeki as president of South Africa, has joined this call.

Via Thomas Nephew at Newsrack. Image from Sokwanele blog of burned-out house in western Zimbabwe.

Priorities

2008-04-11T10:51:00.007-04:00

There's much of interest for the clear-eyed in this Washington Post front-page story on Obama's big-dollar fundraising. But this bit was grimly amusing:

The Chicago contingent also includes James Crown, a director of General Dynamics, the military contractor in which his family holds a large stake. The company has been the beneficiary of at least one Obama earmark, a request to spend $8 million on a high-explosive technology program for the Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The program got $1.3 million.
...
Crown said he and Obama never discussed General Dynamics, which, with its focus on Army programs, is a defense contractor that has benefited directly from the Iraq war. Obama's opposition to the war never meant that he wanted the armed forces to be poorly equipped, Crown said.

"I stand in agreement with what he has said [about the Iraq war.] Those who work in the defense industry are extremely focused on the national defense," he said. "That doesn't mean we want to be fighting wars."

Just as long as the money keeps rolling in.

Ward bosses in Philadelphia don't need to read the Post article to know that their candidate is not hurting for cash, and are ticked off that his campaign has no plans to take part in the tradition of street money for get-out-the-vote efforts. If they stick to the high road, the campaign could lose a few wards to Clinton.

Festivals of democracy at both ends of the most unequal society this side of Brazil...

The gang's all here

2008-04-10T01:15:00.008-04:00

We don't have to wonder who should be on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity:

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency ...
The high-level discussions about these "~~enhanced interrogation techniques~~" tortures were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies. [My editing from Orwellian to plain English in the first paragraph - Nell.]

What a surprise to see that Colin Powell took part, after all the exertions of Larry Wilkerson and other loyalists to paint him as out of the loop and shocked, shocked...
~~and Wilkerson~~ Armitage, as Powell's deputy, is likely to have attended some of these sessions ~~himself~~.

Wondering who was the source for this story?

Then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

Update: 10 April, 3:00 pm - Emptywheel has a different and very plausible possibility for the source, and corrects my misunderstanding of who would have been Powell's deputy at Principals meetings. She helpfully lists all the deputies.

Update: 20 April, 3:30 pm - Cogent further post and comments at Emptywheel on the question of sourcing. Most persuasive to me are cases for Robert Mueller (FBI Director) and David Ayres, Ashcroft's chief of staff.

A new low in cowardice

2008-03-13T19:32:00.003-04:00

No matter which way the vote on the unnecessary but not-as-bad-as-it-could-be FISA "reform" goes in the House tonight, the House leadership has sunk to a new depth of craven, shameful complicity with the Republican regime.

They are going to hold the vote in a closed session. That means: no press, no media, no C-SPAN, and members and staff present are forbidden to report on the proceedings.

Land of the free.

Update: 8:25 pm, 13 March - They will probably hold the vote tomorrow in open session. The secret session is an opportunity for the Republicans to grandstand with more scare-tactics hooey that Bush and Cheney have fed them. Conyers and Holt are refreshingly skeptical; hope that the closed session emboldens other Dems to be equally frank in calling the Rs on their b.s.

International Women's Day

2008-03-08T15:33:00.007-05:00

These women inspire me. If they haven't given up hope, I have no right to.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Scores of women rallied outside a Baghdad hotel on Saturday demanding an end to violence and equal social status with men as part of the observations of International Women's Day.

"Stop neglecting women. Stop killing women. Stop creating widows," read a large banner that the women, from various ethnic and religious backgrounds, held at the Babylon Hotel in Baghdad's central Karada neighbourhood.

After the rally, the protesters joined a much larger group that included men and children at a hotel conference room to hear from various speakers.

One of the speakers was Nariman Mahmoud Othman, minister for women's rights, who led a delegation of women to the office of the head of Iraq's parliament, Mahmoud Mashhadani, with a list of issues concerning women's rights they wanted to discuss.

The list also called for more women to be appointed to positions of power, including ministries and embassies.

Another speaker was Maisoon Al-Damloji, a female member of parliament from the secular Iraqia party.

"We are united today in our desire to spread the peace in our country," she said. "We reject murder, torture and revenge."

Women in Iraq "suffered during Saddam's time and during the embargo, and now are suffering because of sectarian violence," she said.

Iraq's constitution reserves 25 percent of the country's 275 seats of parliament for women, though not all are currently filled because in some cases female candidates were unavailable.

Orbia Tawfiq, a professor at Baghdad's College of Arts, said "we demand that women be given their rights. They should not be oppressed and they should be treated like human beings. "Women must not be treated as commodities. They must be granted freedom in choosing their husbands and careers," she said.

Mohar Abdel Hamid, 38, said that the needs of widows like herself must be addressed. "I hope the government listens to us because women have always suffered in Iraq," she told AFP.

A recent report by US-based Women For Women International said the state of Iraqi women since the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq has become a "national crisis."

According to the report, released Thursday, 64 percent of the women surveyed said violence against them had increased since the war. "When asked why, respondents most commonly said that there is less respect for women's rights than before, that women are thought of as possessions and that the economy has gotten worse," it said. The report also found that 76 percent of the women interviewed said that girls in their families were forbidden from attending school.

No, it's not a grassroots event. My cynical self knows it's taking place with U.S. encouragement and under U.S. guard. The occupiers may even hope that any demonstration by women will be seen as a sign that "we're bringing freedom." Nobody's fooled, guys. The occupation has been a disaster for the Iraqi people in general, but especially for Iraqi women.

Update: 5:30 pm, 8 March - Speaking of which: Accounts of daily life for non-elite Iraqi women. Be warned, those of you with a heart; these stories will make you want to rip it out.

I'd advise my Iraqi sisters demanding more women be appointed to positions of power not to put too much stock in the results of that. Too few of the women in power here seem to want to end the occupation any time soon.

Book meme tag

2008-02-29T23:59:00.017-05:00

The closest book to where I'm sitting is American Silver 1840-1940: A Century of Splendor, by Charles Venable. On page 123, after the fifth sentence, the next three sentences [Context: British parliamentary hearings on the decline in British sterling silverware production and the massive increase in American production]:

One witness who had spoken to a Tiffany's representative on the matter said, "The growth of the last 20 or 30 years has arisen by the home demand; before that time comparatively little silver was used in the United States, and most of that was imported from England, but that importation from England has now entirely ceased. He told me, moreover, that the use of silver was very great, notwithstanding the increased use of electro-plate.

Another witness gave an often-heard foreign response, "The Americans are ostentatious people, who are likely to go in for expensive articles in gold and silver in proportion to their increasing prosperity."

Last fall I decided for mental health reasons to pull back a bit from political reading. My first refuge was food blogs and cookbooks. This stimulated more and more interesting cooking, then thoughts of entertaining more. That led to my dragging out the boxes where I'd stuffed away the family silver thirteen years ago. Polishing and organizing the pieces made me want to identify them. A few library books, much online browsing, and a little ebay bidding later, I'm reveling in the process of learning about nineteenth century silver.

I'm grateful for the tag from Jim Henley, who wasn't sure what the point of this meme is. For me it's the opportunity for a nice break from the bleakness of the usual topics here -- and to share what's providing pleasure in my life at the moment.

I tag Thomas, Gary, and Jan. Don't feel obligated, y'all.

Image: Mustard pot by Peter L. Krider, Philadelphia, c. 1870

Torture and Democracy

2008-02-15T14:54:00.005-05:00

I cannot recommend strongly enough Scott Horton's interview with Darius Rejali, an Iranian expatriate whose recently released book Torture and Democracy emphasizes uncomfortable truths that most Americans prefer not to face.

These include:

- Liberal democracies torture.

- Torture techniques always come home from wars "over there."

- Focusing just on waterboarding is a distraction.

- Two-track systems, in which one agency is allowed to torture and others are not, or in which it's allowable to torture some categories of people but not others, invariably spread the rot throughout the society:

...[T]orture just doesn’t hide in a vault in the CIA. It hides in all the dark pockets of society -- military barracks, schools, frat houses, our supermax prisons and immigration lockups.

And much more. Read the whole interview, and then read the book.

Jim Webb is dead to me.

2008-02-12T19:28:00.001-05:00

Sen. Webb's vote for the horrible "Protect America Act" last August made me decide not to waste any more effort in electoral work. It was a direct betrayal of what he'd promised on the campaign trail, when he made reining in the out-of-control executive branch one of the three major points of his message.

After the intial wave of rage and revulsion receded, I held out a tiny hope that by the time the Senate revisited the issue, Webb might recognize that vote as a mistake. That hope was sustained during last week's deliberations when he seemed to be voting the right way, even making floor statements in support of those fighting the good fight to preserve the constitution. His office told constituents he was opposed to immunity for the telecom corporations who broke the law to carry out warrantless eavesdropping for this lawless regime.

But today he cast an unforgivable vote for telcom immunity -- all the more unforgivable for being unnecessary and un-bought. Glad to have that cleared up. I'm walking away with no nagging regrets.

Update: Feb 15 3:00 pm - Pretty sad day when Silvestre Reyes is a profile in courage and Jim Webb is the calculating weenie. Reyes' letter to the president announcing the House's refusal to be stampeded into making further bad law is a refreshing read.

Nuremberg principles for thee but not for me

2008-01-12T15:33:00.000-05:00

A federal judge rules against four British men who were tortured at Guantanamo:

Without addressing the details of the alleged treatment, the judge said the officials could not be made individually responsible for it under the terms of the suit brought against them, since they were doing their jobs.

Just following orders...

The former prisoners were also suing Donald Rumsfeld, to whom this "defense" does not apply, but we'll have to look to human rights lawyers rather than reporters to explain the actual status of this case. Via Jan at Happening Here?, the Center for Constitutional Rights relays an even more chilling part of the judge's ruling:

Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a statute that applies by its terms to all "persons" did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law. The Court also dismissed the detainees' claims under the Alien Tort Statute and the Geneva Conventions, finding defendants immune on the basis that "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military's detention of suspected enemy combatants."

This may reach the Supreme Court. Let's hope the justices retain the more robust commitment to the rule of law shown by participants in the peaceful but intensely serious protests around the world marking the beginning of the seventh year of lawless indefinite detention at Guantanamo. Eighty people were arrested at the Court yesterday.

Lame duck reversing course?

2007-12-06T11:08:00.000-05:00

A recent guest post at Tony Karon's Rootless Cosmopolitan by Gary Sick, a knowledgeable analyst of U.S.-Iran affairs, struck me as worthwhile when it appeared just before the Annapolis meeting.

Now it's even more worthy of a look, in light of DNI Mike McConnell's declassification of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran -- delayed for many months because of its conclusion that the Iranian nuclear program has been dormant since 2003. Many commenters have wondered why the Bush regime would have allowed this release, since it's eliminated one of their major arguments for war.

Part of Karon's summary:

Gary argues that while some factors now point towards the possibility of a U.S. opening to Iran in the final year of the Bush Administration, this remains a “policy that dare not speak its name,” meaning that any such shift will definitely not be declared even if it is underway.

Gary Sick: The Policy That Dare Not Speak Its Name

If Sick is right, my conviction that the regime will strike Iran before leaving office is wrong. Never so happy to be proved wrong in my life! Now to keep a close eye on the signs one way or the other...

Saturday syndrome

2007-12-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

Today's Washington Post continues the tradition, noted here before, of submerging stories that reflect poorly on our permanent national security state in the least-read edition of the week: "Jordan's Spy Agency: Holding Cell for the CIA."

Credit where credit is due -- the story's on the front page, and the subhead actually contains the magic word: "Foreign Terror Suspects Tell of Torture."

Apologies for lack of posting. The pace may or may not pick up; I'm trying to stay away from politics for my own mental health. This story speaks too strongly to what got me involved in political work to ignore.

Yikes redux

2007-10-30T17:25:00.000-04:00

Slow news day? The Washington Post runs a front-page story that Patrick Cockburn reported months ago, to very little response: the Mosul dam is in imminent danger of collapse, threatening the inundation of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis immediately downstream.

No acknowledgement of Cockburn's report in the extensive Post story. A Lovely Promise's hat tip is cold comfort, no doubt.

President above the law? Block Mukasey.

2007-10-30T03:26:00.000-04:00

Deepest thanks to Sens. Sanders, Dodd, and Obama, who have stated unequivocally that they will not vote to confirm Mukasey as attorney general. Bonus points to Bernie Sanders for putting his finger on the real issue at stake:

Mukasey should not be confirmed because he could not muster a simple, straightforward answer at his confirmation hearing when he was asked the simple, straightforward question: Is the president of the United States required to obey federal statutes?

"That would have to depend," he weaseled, "on whether what goes outside the statute nonetheless lies within the authority of the president to defend the country."

Everything else depends on this point -- warmaking, torture, warrantless spying. We cannot appoint yet another man to the highest law enforcement position in the country who does not believe that the president is subject to the law.

C'mon, Senators, three's a movement!

Update: 5:20 pm, 30 Oct - It is indeed: Sen. Clinton joins in. Good move.