February 21, 2012
Tuesday, February
21, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, veterans issues in the US
include a call to suicide prevention which then resulted in criminal
charges against the veteran, Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi
delivered a speech yesterday on the charges against him, ane more.
Last night, Hal Bernton (Seattle Times) reported
on the US Army Medical Command launching an investigation in Washington
state's Madigan Healthcare System, specifically investigating
"complaints by soldiers that their PTSD diagnoses were improperly
reversed and into comments a Madigan psychiatrist made about how costly
PTSD diagnoses were for taxpayers." As part of the investigation, Col
Dallas Homas was "administratively removed from command" -- that's as
part of the investigation and standard procedure which does not mean
that he's guilty of anything or suspected of being guility of anything.
ABC News (link is video) reports,
"Tomorrow 14 soldiers from Joint Base Lewis McCord will receive the
results of their PTSD re-evauations" as a result of the complaints.
PTSD
is one of the many important issues the veterans community is facing
today. Another one is suicide. If you call the VA's suicide hotline,
you have a right to believe your call is confidential. Christian Daventport (Washington Post) reported
yesterday on Gulf War veteran Sean Duvall's troubles caused by seeking
help. He called the hotline and now he's facing criminal charges and,
if convicted of them, could spend as many as 40 years in jail. Sean
Duvall called because he wanted to take his own life. The homeless man
had a gun he'd made himself. He called for help and got that to a
degree immediately (or that's how the story is being told). What
happened after that is that he found himself charged for the homemade
gun. That's what he could face up to 40 years in prison for.
So
you save someone's life to throw them in prison? The case can be
dismissed and should be dismissed. If it's being done to 'protect'
anyone then the answer is clearly to provide Sean Duvall with therapy
because he's the one who needs protection. He was contemplating
self-harm, he wasn't stating he would harm others. To put him beind
bars for this is ridiculous and will also, as many are noting, make
veterans less likely to use the hotline. Let's pretend I'm a veteran
(I'm not). I'm depressed and I'm considering killing myself and
I decide a gun's the way I want to go but I don't have one and I don't
want for any waiting period. So I buy a gun from something other than
'direct channels.' I then decide maybe I don't want to take my life and
call the VA hotline. I get help and I feel like maybe life is worth
living, maybe things weren't as bad as I thought and then,
knock-knock-knock, it's the police arresting me for the way I purchased
the gun.
Or I decide I want to do it with pills
and swipe some from a friend of a hospital tray from a nurse's cart.
Then I call the VA hotline because I think I might want to live. I
decide not to take my life but then learn that I'm being prosecuted for
having those prescription drugs that weren't my prescription.
This
is nonsense that is neither therapeutic nor helpful. In the article, a
family connection is noted. I'm not interested in that. If they were
calling it a conflict of interest, I might be. But a son-in-law (or
daughter-in-law) rarely can be called off (prosecution in this case) by a
relative. I think the attempt to prosecute is a huge mistake. I think
bringing in the family connection to Eric Shinseki, Secretary of the VA,
is besides the point. (Unless the point is to humiliate Shinseki.) It
is wrong to presume that Shinseki can 'call it off' because people don't
know the relationship between the two for starters. It's legally wrong
to try to get Shinseki to call it off because someone took an oath not
to Eric Shinseki but to uphold the laws. I would hope that the decision
to prosecute or not would be resolved (and quickly) by the AG grasping
that prosecution did not serve either justice or the interests of the
state. If the person can't grasp that, I would hope that a judge would
and that he or she would toss the case out when the defense noted the
events that led up to the arrest. But while we might hope that everyone
related to Eric Shinseki by blood, adoption or marriage thought as he
did, that's never going to be the case and to ask someone to disregard
what they feel their responsibility is because of the family they
married into is a lousy argument and one that most people -- if it were
argued to them -- would reject.
Focusing on
Shinseki -- who has no role in this at present -- also distracts from
the main issue that if the suicide hotline is going to be effective,
it's going to require that veterans have trust in it.
Another issue facing the veterans community is unemployment. Sunday, Steve Vogel (Washington Post) reported,
"It is against federal law for employers to penalize service members
because of their military service. And yet, in some cases, the U.S.
government has withdrawn job offers to service members unable to get
released from active duty fast enough; in others, service members have
been fired after absences." Those Vogel spoke with included people who
felt that since the federal government, if caught and prosecuted,
doesn't have to pay fines -- the way a civilian company would -- a
number of federal employers feel they can risk it.
February 2nd, the House Veterans Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity held a hearing.
The witnesses (government workers) as well as those on the Committee
gave no indication that they knew it was against the law to fire someone
because they were called up to active duty. As I noted then, I stepped
out the second time this came up in the hearing to call a friend with
the Justice Dept and make sure the law hadn't changed. (Again, I never
assume I'm the smartest in the room, I start with the premise that I'm
the least informed. And if House Reps are saying, 'Golly, we should
pass a law to stop this,' I'm going to assume that the existing law must
have been overturned because surely these law makers know more than I
ever could. So I called and asked and, no, the law hadn't been
overturned and it was still on the books.) Another reason that this is
happening may be because there is so little education on this law.
Maybe it's time for the Pentagon and VA to do one of those PSA they love
and bombard it over the airwaves. It's one of the few times that a PSA
getting information out there might actually work -- especially if
combined with serious law enforcement and with federal supervisors
ensuring that those under them who broke this law didn't get promoted,
didn't get a pay raise and maybe even lost their job over it. If
ignorance of the law is no excuse when you're before the court, why are
we retaining federal workers who are breaking the law? Whether they
know the law or not, if they break this law, they should be fired.
Monday
afternoon in Lacey, Washington, Senator Patty Murray held a listening
session with veterans. Senator Murray is the Chair of the Senate
Veterans Affairs Committee. Matt Batcheldor (The Olympian) reports
on that session and quotes Murray explaining afterwards about asking
the veterans if they were putting their military experience on the job
applications:
The reason I asked the
question about whether or not they put veteran on their employment when
they apply for a job is because I'm hearing so many veterans quietly
tell me that they never do. We need to call this out; people need to
know this is happening, and it needs to be fixed. That's just wrong.
A
number of veterans, Guard and Reserve and active-duty service members
are following the US presidential primaries. Of those choosing to
donate, they've repeatedly donated the most to US House Rep Ron Paul.
Veterans for Ron Paul staged an event yesterday. Julie Ershadi (Reason) reports:
On February 20, libertarian activist and Iraq War veteran Adam Kokesh, and Nathan Cox, co-founder with Kokesh of Veterans for Ron Paul, hosted
a rally and march for veterans and active duty service members who
support the Texas Congressman for the 2012 Republican nomination. The
"Ron Paul Is the Choice of the Troops" rally began at noon in the Sylvan
Theater by the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.. Troops marched
on the White House in a 48 x 8 formation, totaling 384, and they were
joined by roughly a hundred supporters and observers.
Many
people at the event were new to politics, yet they had traveled from
out of state to participate in the rally. I spent some time with John, a
teacher from Long Island, who told me that he came to support Ron Paul
because of the financial meltdown of 2008. "I worked for Morgan Stanley
in 2007. That's how I saw it coming. All that reckless betting." He said
that in the aftermath of September 11, he supported the Iraq War. "I
was eighteen. My dad is a fireman. But I got duped in the Iraq War. Most
of us did. The same thing is happening now with Iran." He cited the rational self interest
of Iranian authorities as reason to discount them as a threat to the
United States, a much more powerful entity capable of causing
disproportionate damage in response to any provocation. "That's what I
try to teach my students. I say, they're crazy, but they're not stupid.
You don't get to be a dictator by being stupid." John said he won't vote
for any candidate who supports war at this point. "Look, I don't want to fight, so why am I going to vote for someone who's going to make someone else go and fight?"
Samantha Wagner (Hearst Newspapers) explains,
"A crowd of more than a thousand people met alongside the Washington
Monument Monday afternoon and marched to the White House in a
demonstration of support for Ron Paul. With an "about face," veterans
and active duty service members turned their backs to the White House
and sent a message to the President: Ron Paul is the choice of the
troops." Matthew Larotonda (ABC News) adds,
"The demonstration was a mostly silent affair, with the veterans
standing calmly at attention in rows. An organizer bellowed that each
second of quiet was for every military suicide since President Obama
took office. A second moment of silence was for each soldier to die
abroad under the current commander in chief." Andrew Moran (Examiner) notes:
Paul,
who has received a lot of criticism from the Republican base for his
stances, is a non-interventionist that opposes pre-emptive war, wants to bring troops home from Germany, South Korea, Japan, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere and supports defense spending over military spending.
Instead, the bestselling author wants to apply the "golden rule" to foreign policy, which was actually disapproved as some Republican voters booed the Texas Congressman during a debate held
in South Carolina last month. However, the voters did cheer when former
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said to "kill them," referencing
enemies of the U.S. government.
AFP notes at least 4 more people were executed this week bringing the grand total to 69. Al Rafidayn reports
that Iraq's presidency council signed off on 33 more executions Sunday.
If all are conducted in the next weeks, Iraq will have executed close
to 100 people before 2012's half-year mark and AFP notes the 4 this week
mean that Iraq has already executed more people in 2012 than it did in
2011. Observing the high rate of executions back in January, former UK Ambassador Craig Murray noted that the judicial killings were only the tip of the ice berg:
Extra-judicial killings by state sponsored actors are much higher, and still higher are killings by various violent factions.
Meantime
there are less than a third as many operational hospital beds as before
the invasion, and less than 20% of the doctors. There are three million
maimed people in Iraq. Available electricity in MW/h is about 30% of
pre-invasion levels.
January 24th, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesperson Rupert Colville (link is video and text) explained,
"Thirty-four individuals, including two women, were executed in Iraq on
19 January following their conviction for various crimes. Even if the
most scrupulous fair trial standards were observed, this would be a
terrifying number of executions to take place in a single day. Given
the lack of transparency in court proceedings, major concerns about due
process and fairness of trials, and the very wide range of offences for
which the death penalty can be imposed in Iraq, it is a truly shocking
figure. The High Commissioner is calling on the Government of Iraq to
implement an immediate moratorium on the institution of death penalty,
around 150 countries have now either abolished the death penalty in law
or in practice, or introduced a moratorium." That moratorium never
took place. Iraq wants the UN to remove it from Chapter VII and has been
lobbying for that for years. Apparently Nouri wants to kill Iraqis
more than he wants Iraq to be truly independent and sovereign.
In
other 'great moments' in Nouri leadership, al-Maliki still can't
provide a national conference still -- despite Speaker of Parliament
Osama al-Nujaifi and President Jalal Talabani calling for one since
December 21st. Aswat al-Iraq reports
that Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc states it has prepared an agenda for the
national conference -- to deal with Iraq's ongoing political crisis --
which is scheduled to be discussed today in yet another prep-meeting.
The agenda is said to "start with the topics that were not implemented
from the Arbil agreement and the joint issues between Iraqiya and the
Kurdish blocs." The Erbil Agreement ended Political Stalemate I in
November 2010. Following the March 2010 elections, Nouri at first
disputed the results, demanded a recount and then refused to abide by
the results. This created Political Stalemate I. Though his State of Law
came in second, the US-brokered Erbil Agreement found the other
political blocs (including Iraqiya which came in first) agreeing to
allow Nouri to remain as prime minister. As a result of that aspect of
the Erbil Agreement, the political blocs were supposed to get various
things. What happened was after Nouri was named prime
minister-designate, he refused to follow the Erbil Agreement. This
starts the ongoing Political Stalemate II which can be said to have
begun at the end of December when Nouri refused to name the Minister of
Defense, the Minister of Interior and the Minister of National Security.
The nominees for the post were reportedly agreed on and in the Erbil
Agreement. Nouri refused to fill the positions. He lied and stated he
would shortly. Critics of Nouri insisted he was refusing to name the
positions because it was part of his power-grab. The US press largely
ran with Nouri's claim as reality and either ignored the critics or else
chided them. All these months later, it's the critics and not the US
press that were correct. For a year and two months now Nouri has refused
to name the posts. (Per the Constitution, he should not have been
transferred from "prime minister-designate" to "prime minister" as a
result of this. Per the Constitution, Talabani should have named a new
prime minister-designate at the end of December 2010.) Ayad al-Tamimi (Al Mada) reports
that sources in the National Alliance (which State of Law is a part of)
state that they want the security ministries to remain empty until the
next prime minister is elected.
Hossam Acommok (Al Mada) reports
that KRG President Massoud Barzani stated on Sunday that he hopes the
national conference ends the political crisis and that Baghdad decides
to abide by the Erbil Agreement including the issue of Kirkuk. Al Rafidayn notes
that the spokesperson for the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Hamid
Maaleh, states that his party is working with various components of the
National Alliance including the Sadrists and are striving for a way to
move the political process forward. In addition, the Adel Abdul Mahdi
has recevied a delegation from the Sadr bloc and discussed the situation
and what can be done. Adel Abdul Madhi isn't just a high ranking
member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, he's also the former vice
president of Iraq. He was v.p. from 2006 through the summer of 2011
when he resigned due to the corruption in the government and the refusal
of 'leadership' to address it. Aswat al-Iraq, citing the Chair of Parliament's Human Rights Commission, reports
Iraqiya's calling for the national conference to limit the three
presidencies (Iraq's President, Prime Minister and Speaker of
Parliament) to two terms. The big news yesterday was Iraq's
Sunni Vice President delivered a speech from Erbil denouncing charges
against him and stating he would not be tried in Baghdad, that the trial
should be moved to Kirkuk and that, if it wasn't, international
observers should take over. Sky News observes,
"It now also threatens to draw a new wedge between Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, and Kurdish leaders in Iraq's north who refuse to
hand over al-Hashemi for trial."
In December, after
multiple photo-ops with US President Barack Obama, Nouri returned to
Iraq and quickly ordered the homes of his political rivals circled by
tanks -- a detail the US press 'forgot' to report for at least 24 hours
(most estimates are 48 hours). The bulk of US forces had left Iraq when
Nouri made his move (a detail international observers are stressing). He
began calling for Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq to be stripped
of his office. Like al-Hashemi, al-Mutlaq is also Sunni and also a
member of Iraqiya. In October, Nouri had begun ordering the mass arrests
of Sunnis on the pretext that he had information of an impending coup
attempt. There was no attempted coup and none planned. Those inside
Nouri's Cabinet have been loudly whispering to the press about that. Sunday
December 18th, Tareq al-Hashemi and Saleh al-Mutlaq, along with
bodyguards, attempted to leave out of Baghdad International Airport for
the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government -- three semi-autonomous
provinces in Iraq). Nouri's forces pulled all off the plane and detained
them for approximately an hour before allowing some bodyguards and
al-Hashemi and al-Mutlaq to reboard. The next day, December 19th, Nouri
issued an arrest warrant for al-Hashemi whom he charged with
'terrorism.' al-Hashemi did not 'flee' to the KRG. He went there
on business and could have been stopped if Nouri wanted tos top him. A
day after he arrived, an arrest warrant was issued and he elected to
remain in the KRG. He has been the guest of Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani and KRG President Massoud Barzani. He has noted that many
believe Nouri controls the Baghdad judiciary and first asked that the
case be moved to the KRG (refused) and then that it be moved to Kirkuk.
He's also been stating that international observers were needed. And
despite the inept reporting today of a lazy and uninformed press, that
call didn't initiate today -- as this February 10th Alsumaria TV report indicates. Thursday the 'independent' Supreme Court in Baghdad issued a finding of guilt against Tareq al-Hashemi.
Was a trial held? Because Article 19 of Iraq's Constitution is very
clear that the accused will be guilty until convicted in a court of law.
No. There was no trial held. But members of the judiciary -- who should
damn well know the Constitution -- took it upon themselves not only to
form an investigative panel -- extra-judicial -- but also to hold a
press conference and issue their findings. At
the press conference, a judge who is a well known Sunni hater, one with
prominent family members who have demonized all Sunnis as Ba'athists,
one who is currently demanding that a member of Iraqiya in Parliament be
stripped of his immunity so that the judge can sue him, felt the need
to go to the microphone and insist he was receiving threats and this was
because of Tareq al-Hashemi, that al-Hashemi was a threat to his family. Having
already demonstrated that they will NOT obey the Constitution, the
judiciary then indicated -- via the judge's statement -- a personal
dislike of Tareq al-Hashemi. What they did Thursday was demonstrate that
Tareq al-Hashemi had always been correct in his fear that he would not
receive a fair trial in Baghdad.
Pakistan's Daily Times noted the speech was a half-hour and that he called on "all honest Iraqi people" to join him in rejecting the charges. Yara Bayoumy, Ashmed Rasheed, Patrick Markey and Alastair Macdonald (Reuters) quote
al-Hashemi declaring, "All of these accusations against members of my
protection detail are a black comedy." He repeated his belief that a
trial should be held in Kirkuk and stated if that did not happen the his
next move would be to "turn immediately to the international
community." He also spoke of forced confessions. Al Jazeera quotes him stating, "We have pictures of bruises on their faces and bodies." AFP gives
the full quote as, "All the arrested people from my bodyguards and the
employees of my office are being held in secret prisons over which the
ministry of justice has no authority, and confessions are being taken
from them through torture. We have pictures and evidence proving that
the bodyguards were tortured, physically and psychologically." CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq reports: Al-Hashimi
criticized the investigation, saying, "How come they finished
investigating 150 cases against me and my bodyguards within a few days?"Where did my bodyguards plan for these 150 attacks? On the surface of the moon?" he asked.Aswat al-Iraq notes that the Baghdad judiciary is making noises about trying the vice president in abstentia and Lara Jakes and Yahya Barzanji (AP) offer,
"Al-Maliki and Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani have had a
rocky relationship for years over how to share disputed land, oil
revenues and federal funding. Barzani has shown no indication that he
plans on handing over al-Hashemi to Baghdad, and officials in Irbil say
doing so could worsen sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites."
Michael
Smith: The National Defense Authorization Act was signed by President
Obama on December 31st of last year and takes effect this coming March.
The act authorizes the military to begin domestic policing. The
military can detain indefinitely without trial any US citizen deemed to
be a terrorist or an accessory to terrorism. Vague language in the bill
such as "substantially supported" or "directly supported" or
"associated forces" is used. We're joined today by returning guest Chris
Hedges in his capacity as a plantiff in a lawsuit that he's just filed
against President Barack Obama with respect to the National Defense
Authorization Act and its language about rounding up even American
citizens and salting them away forever.
Heidi Boghosian: Chris, welcome to Law and Disorder.
Chris Hedges: Thank you.
Heidi
Boghosian: Can you talk about the significance of codifying the NDAA
into law essentially several over-reaching practices that the
executive has been implementing for awhile now?
Chris
Hedges: That's correct but it's been implementing those practices
through a radical interpretation of the 2001 law, The Authorization to
Use Military Force Act. You remember old John Yoo was Bush's legal
advisor. It was under the auspices of this act that Jose Padilla who is
a US citizen was held for three and a half years in a military brig.
Remember, he was supposedly one of the other hijackers that never made
it to a plane. Stripped of due process. And it's under that old act
that the executive branch, Barack Obama, permits himself to serve as
judge, jury and executioner and order the assassination of a US citizen,
the Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
Michael Smith: Two weeks later his 16-year-old son.
Chris
Hedges: Yes, exactly. So what this does is it essentially codfies this
kind of behavior into law. It overturns over 200 years of legal
precedent so that the military is allowed to engage in domestic policing
and there are a couple of very disturbing aspects in the creation of
this legislation. One of them is that [US Senator] Dianne Feinstein had
proposed that US citiens be exempt from this piece of legislation and
both the Obama White House and the Democratic Party rejected that. Now
Obama issued a signing statement saying that this will not be used
against American citizens but the fact is legally it can be used against
American citizens. There was an opportunity for them to protect
American citizens and to protect due process and they chose not to do
that.
Michael Smith: Well he also announced that he was going to close Guantanamo.
Chris Hedges: Right, so it's very disingenous.
Heidi Boghosian: And signing statements really carry no legal force.
Chris
Hedges. Right. And if they wanted to protect basic civil liberties,
they certainly had a chance to do so and it was there decision not to do
that. I mean, the other thing that's disturbing is that it expands
this endless war on terror. So the 2001 act is targeted towards groups
that are affiliated or part of al Qaeda. Now it's groups that didn't
even exist in 2001. There are all sorts of nebulous terms like
"associated forces," "substantially supported." When you look at the
criteria by which Americans can be investigated by our security and
surveillance state, it's amorphus and frightening: People who have lost
fingers on the hand, people who hoard more than seven days worth of food
in their house, people who have water-proof ammunition. I mean, I
always say I come from rural parts of Maine. That's probably most of my
family.
[Laughter.]
Chris Hedges: It's a very short step to adding the obstructionist tactics of the Occupy movement.
Michael
Smith: Well that's what we've wanted to ask you because we've thought
all along with the beginning of this war on terrorism that ultimately
these laws stripping us of our Constitutional rights would be used
against the social protest movements at home and the latest development
is absolutely chilling and we wanted to ask you about that.
Chris
Hedges: We don't know what the motives are. We do know that all the
intelligence agencies as well as the Pentagon opposed this legislation.
Robert Muller, the head of the FBI, actually went before Congress and
said that if it was passed it would make the FBI's work in terms of
investigating terrorism harder because it would make it harder to get
people to cooperate once you hand the military that power. So I think
it's interesting, to say the very least, that the various agencies that
are being pulled into domestic policing -- especially the Pentagon --
didn't push for the bill. I don't know what the motives are but I know
what the consequences are and that is that it hands to the corporate
state weapons, the capacity to use the armed forces internally in ways
that we have not seen for over two centuries. That is the consequence
of the bill. What are the motives? You know I haven't gone down and
reported it in Washington.
Heidi Boghosian: Chris, you know I'm thinking of the Supreme Court Case Humanitarian Law Project and the notion "providing material support." [Center for Constitutional Rights analysis here
-- text and video.] And in that case it was also very vague and things
that seemed benign could be construed as providing support but it
strikes me that under this piece of legislation also the notion of
associating with others that the government may deem terrorists becomes
possibly vague.
Chris
Hedges: Well it is vague. And that's what's so frightening. And the
lawsuit was proposed by Civil Rights attorneys Carl Mayer and Bruce
Afran who approached me and said that I needed a credible plantiff. Now
because I had been the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times
and because I was in the Middle East for seven years I spent
considerable time with both individuals and organizations that are
considered by the US State Dept to be either terrorists or terrorist
groups. That would include Hamas, Islamic Jihad in Gaza, the
Kurdistan Workers Party -- or the PKK as it's known in southeastern
Turkey, northern Iraq. All of these organizations -- I mean, I used to
go to Tunis and have dinner with Yasser Arafat [President of the
Palestinian National Authority from 1996 until his death in 2004] and
Abu Jihad [the PLO's Khalil al-Wair] when they were branded as
international terrorists. And there are no exemptions in this piece of
legislation for journalists. And the attorneys felt that I was a
credible plantiff because of that. We have already seen under the 2001
law, a persecution of not only Muslim Americans in this country but
Muslim American organiations -- in particular charity organizations and
mostly charity organizations that support the Palestinians. And under
this legislation, it is certainly conceivable that not only -- many of
these organizations have been shut down, their bank accounts have been
frozen, their organizers have been persecuted -- but under this
legislation they're essentially able to be branded as terrorists,
stripped of due process, thrown into a military brig and held, in the
language of the legislation, until the end of hostilities -- whenever
that is.
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