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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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