Saturday, October 05, 2013

I Hate The War

What gets noted here?

What I have time for. 

That refers to some of what's gone up tonight before this.

It also refers to an e-mail about the illegal spying and why didn't it make any snapshots this week?


This week, spying was noted here in two entries and in Isaiah's comic:


  • The illegal spying (and the lying) continue

  • Barbara Mikulski, what's in your closet?

  • Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Destroying The...


  • Could it have been covered more?

    Sure.  And other things would have had to wait.


    deck the halls
    i'm young again
    i'm you again
    racing turtles
    the grapefruit is winning
    seems i keep getting this story twisted
    so where’s neil when you need him
    deck the halls
    it's you again
    it's you again
    somewhere someone must know the ending
    is she still pissing in the river now
    heard she’d gone
    moved into a trailer park


    so sure we were on something
    your feet finally on the ground he said
    so sure we were on something
    you feet just on the ground girl
    so sure we were on something
    your feet finally on the ground he said
    so sure we were on something
    your feet are just on the ground

    -- "Space Dog," written by Tori Amos, first appears on her Under the Pink


    I was at two Congressional hearings this week that didn't even get a mention in the snapshot.

    If things weren't so busy in Iraq, we would have covered the hearings in the snapshot.

    I don't understand it myself.  Fewer and fewer western outlets cover Iraq.  But that doesn't mean things have gone silent in the country. I also promised myself that the KRG elections would get mentioned in every snapshot until the election results were announced.

    I know the media rushed off everywhere but I still can't believe how little attention the KRG elections got.

    There are a ton of important stories that fall within our scope but we didn't have time for.   Sorry, I'm one person doing as much as I can. 

    Of what didn't get covered or barely got covered?  I wish I'd had time for more on the executions.  One snapshot briefly noted the news that 23 people were executed in Iraq on two days last month.  That was it.  (90 is the number executed for the year so far -- at least 90.)

    On the executions, Jamie Taraby (Al Jazeera) reports today:


    When she called on the Iraqi government to issue an immediate moratorium on the death penalty last year, United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said she was stunned at the number of offenses for which people can be put to death. There are around 48 crimes that are eligible, including, under certain circumstances, damage to public property.

    Following the execution of 34 people, including two women, on Jan. 19, 2012, Navi said in a news release, “Given the lack of transparency in court proceedings, major concerns about due process and fairness of trials, and the very wide range of offenses for which the death penalty can be imposed in Iraq, it is a truly shocking figure.”

    “Most disturbingly, we do not have a single report of anyone on death row being pardoned, despite the fact that there are well documented cases of confessions being extracted under duress.”

    Responding to Navi Pillay’s condemnation, Iraqi parliamentarian Izzat al-Shabandar said, “This statement means nothing to us. The people that have been executed are criminals. The timing of the executions is up to the judiciary and the government authorities, and they [the U.N.] don’t have the right to interfere in our internal issues.”


    It's an important issue.  It's also one that's shameful in the US as well where executions continue.  There's no high ground for an American, an honest one, to stand on when this topic's discussed.  Although I do notice a lot of US outlets, when they do cover the executions in Iraq, refrain from noting the US. 

    In 2012, refer to this Amnesty International chart/graph, Iraq had at least 129 executions.  It came in third for executions (behind Iran which was behind China).  Saudi Arabia followed Iraq.  But fifth place was the United States.

    The United States is the only western nation to make the list (there are 21 countries on the list).  The only other industrialized nation?  Japan at number ten.

    (China has massive pollution from factories but it is not put on the list of industrialized countries.  For an example of a list of industrialized countries, you can refer to this Medicare for All page.)






    It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
    There's a war going on
    So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
    And I'm writing a song about war
    And it goes
    Na na na na na na na
    I hate the war
    Na na na na na na na
    I hate the war
    Na na na na na na na
    I hate the war
    Oh oh oh oh
    -- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)


    The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4489.



    The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.











    Defiant voices at the UN (Workers World)

    Repost from Workers World:

    Defiant voices at the U.N.


    By on October 3, 2013

    U.S. military threats against Syriadominated the opening of the United Nations General Assembly debates on Sept. 24, but voices from Latin America and the Caribbean answered them, loud and clear.


    Bolivian President Evo Morales put the responsibility for war and devastation squarely on U.S. imperialism. He called for a “court of the people, of major defenders of human rights” to file a case against the U.S. government for crimes against humanity.


    “Who did the oil in Libya belong to before and who does it belong to now? At least the people of Libya profited from its oil. Now who is? What happened in Iraq?asked Morales.


    “Capitalism wants to emerge from its crisis through war and armed intervention. We must ask ourselves, who benefits from the wars? Who distributes the natural resources after the interventions? Whose hands do they end up in?”


    He went to the heart of the class question: “Who is really governing the United States? … Those who finance political campaigns, election campaigns are bankers and big businessmen. They are the ones
    setting policy. … Who has the greatest nuclear arsenal in their hands? Who invented chemical weapons? Who industrialized these weapons that put an end to human life? …



    “I’d like to ask the people of the United States — how is it possible when there are so many unemployed, for your government, for your president, to spend $700 billion on the military? … [T]here are so many brothers and sisters in the United States without homes, without jobs, without schooling. … I simply cannot understand how they can spend so much money to interfere in other countries while leaving their own unprovided for.”



    In July, Washington’s European allies refused to allow the Bolivian presidential plane, which was carrying Morales back home from a meeting in Moscow, to land and refuel. U.S. “intelligence” thought that Edward Snowden, the former contract worker turned international whistleblowing hero, was on the plane. He wasn’t.



    Puncturing U.S. professions of democracy



    Morales asked how the U.S. could talk of democracy “when the espionage services of the United States violate human rights, privacy and security of others using private companies. Not only do they spy on democratic governments, but even on their own allies, their own citizens and the United Nations itself. … Not only do they spy, they hatch coup d’etats.”



    Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff also expressed outrage at the spying, which she said included sensitive corporate and economic information that could be used by capitalist competitors.
    Morales called this a “new moment in geopolitical imperial distribution. And now once again [the imperialists] want to split it all up with military intervention and putting in military bases.”
    Morales later told Russian Television: “At the General Assembly Obama said that the U.S. ‘is prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure these core interests’ in the Middle East. Among the core interests, he mentioned ‘the free flow of energy from the region to the world.’”


    Morales said that Obama’s statement should worry any country possessing natural resources, like the oil-producing countries of Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador, which have formed a solidarity trading partnership called the Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas, or ALBA.


    The U.S. has yet to recognize the election of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after the death of Hugo Chavez. In September the U.S. denied permission for the Venezuelan president’s plane to fly over the U.S. colony of Puerto Rico en route to a state visit in China. Afterward they “blamed the victim” for not making the request properly. When serious defects in the plane were found, Maduro had switched to an ALBA plane from Cubana Airlines for the trip.



    Just as racism is not imaginary for oppressed people, imperialist hostility to the independence of Latin America and the Caribbean is a reality.The U.S. even requires some heads of state to apply for visas to attend U.N. meetings. It then lets them stay only a few days and does not guarantee their security — a fact that contributed to Maduro canceling a recent New York trip.



    In 2006 Maduro, then foreign minister of Venezuela, had been threatened with a strip search at Kennedy airport and was not allowed to board his return flight to Venezuela, even after showing his diplomatic credentials.



    The United Nations General Assembly is but another arena of struggle — one where the U.S. is increasingly opposed. On Oct. 29 a resolution to end the blockade of Cuba will once again be on the GA agenda. For more than 20 years it has passed with overwhelming support, with only the U.S., Israel and one or two very small, dependent countries voting against it. However, the General Assembly is only a forum. It has no power compared to the more exclusive Security Council, which since the 1950s has served as a tool for aggression by the imperialists. So who will enforce the General Assembly resolution?


    Articles copyright 1995-2013 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.




    Norman Rush, Eric Schlosser, Kiese Laymon, Alissa Qart

    The Bat Segundo Show is an online radio show that's interviewed everyone:  Nora Ephron, Tao Lin,  Sarah Polley, David Lynch, Joyce Carol Oates, Julia Delpy, Amy Sedaris, Ken Auletta, Octavia Butler, Candace Bushnell, former US Senator Mike Gravel, Sue Miller, Norman Solomon, Liu Ye, Juan Jose Campanella,  Paula Kamen, Patricia Cornwell, Erica Jong,  Danica McKellar, Heidi Julavits, Bonnie Tyler, William Kennedy, Nicholas Meyer, Liv Ulmann, Roger Corman, Katha Pollitt, Errol Morris, Chazz Palminteri, Tobias Woolf, Amanda Filipacchi, Ming Doyle, Daniel Okrent,  James Ellroy, Joe Eszterhas, Richard Price, David Rakoff,  Tommy Chong, Marjorie Rosen, Ngui wa Thiongo,  Joe Dante, Carl Wilson,  Allegra Goodman, David Denby, Jiao Xu, Dave Barry, Stephen Fry, Dick Cavett, Richard Dawkins, Atom Egoyan,  Sue Grafton,  and many more.


    In 2012, it looked like the show was over.  Nope.



     
     




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    Rush, Nukes, and True Culture

    The Bat Segundo Show, the long-running cultural radio program devoted to informed, in-person, and in-depth conversations with today's authors and idiosyncratic thinkers, has four new shows that you can listen to for free!


    This latest quartet includes a rare 70 minute conversation with acclaimed writer Norman Rush that covers his entire career, an eye-popping overview of reckless nuclear military policy with investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, and two related conversations devoted to the epidemic of Americans gravitating to mainstream culture in an age of limitless choice.
     

    Kiese Laymon's essays (along with his novel, Long Division) have made great efforts to respond to the problem of blinkered culture.  We spend an hour with Kiese discussing hip-hop, the rich Mississippi tradition of storytelling, the "worst of white folks," and why America is terrified of variegated cultural engagement.
     

    We also approach the problem from the iconoclast position with Republic of Outsiders author Alissa Quart. Why are we becoming more hostile to original voices?  And how do cosplay, transphobia, animal rights, and Mad Pride fit into all tihs?  (We can also report that, with the inclusion of Alissa Quart, we have now interviewed every letter of the alphabet. We apologize to all authors whose last names begin with Q for the delay. The full A-Z list is here.)
     

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    Norman Rush

    In this wide-ranging conversation, we talk with acclaimed novelist Norman Rush (author of Mating, Mortals, and Subtle Bodies) about revolution, James Joyce, Botswana, his friendship with Thomas Disch, why his characters are seduced by quacks, and countless other subjects. (70 mins.)




    Eric Schlosser

    In the mid-20th century, nuclear missiles were maintained with flimsy safeguards and rapidly failing technology. How close were we to Dr. Strangelove? And how safe are we today? We talk with investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, the author of Command and Control, about our remarkably reckless military history, which culminated in several close disasters, and what this means in an age driven by terrorism and religious fundamentalism.. (56 mins.)




    Kiese Laymon

    In the first of two related programs devoted to the American epidemic of gravitating to mainstream culture in an age of limitless choice, we talk with Kiese Laymon about how his novel, Long Division, and his essays have responded to this problem. We discuss hip-hop, the rich Mississippi tradition of storytelling, “the worst of white folks,” and why America is terrified of rich and variegated cultural engagement.  (54 mins.)





    Alissa Quart

    Republic of Outsiders author Alissa Quart discusses about how outsiders and iconoclasts have been appropriated by institutional forces. Why have we shifted to a culture hostile to original voices? Why is it all about being liked? And how do cosplay, transphobia, animal rights, and Mad Pride fit into this great conundrum? (54 mins.)




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    House Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Jeff Miller on shutdown and veterans

    The House Veterans Affairs Committee issued a press release on Thursday:

    Chairman Miller Applauds House Passage of Bill to Fund VA Despite Govt. Shutdown

    Oct 3, 2013


    WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Honoring our Promise to America’s Veterans Act. The bill now awaits consideration by the Senate.
    The bill would ensure that veterans in receipt of VA disability compensation, pension, GI Bill, and other critical benefits will continue to receive those benefits in the event of a prolonged government shutdown. The bill would also fund the Veterans Benefits Administration at President Obama’s fiscal year 2014 requested operational level, ensuring VA claims processing efforts could continue at normal rates.


    “Until Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama decide to engage in a good-faith negotiation with House leaders on the continuing resolution, November payments to veterans and their survivors for a variety of earned VA benefits may be in jeopardy. For the sake of our veterans and their loved ones, this must never be allowed to happen. America’s veterans have already gone above and beyond for our country. The last thing they need is for the nation they courageously defended to abandon them. This bill would immediately remove any doubt from the minds of America’s heroes that the dysfunction in Washington would jeopardize their earned benefits. I urge my colleagues in the Senate and President Obama to join me in supporting this legislation or, better yet, the full 2014 VA appropriations bill, which has been gathering dust on Harry Reid’s desk since the House passed it on June 4, 2013.” – Rep. Jeff Miller, Chairman, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs



    Related



    Watch Chairman Miller’s Floor Speech Regarding the Honoring our Promise to America’s Veterans Act



    Text of the Honoring our Promise to America’s Veterans Act



    H.R.2216 - Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014


    Senate Bill: Protecting Those Who Protected Us Act of 2013 








    veterans

    Friday, October 04, 2013

    Iraq snapshot

    Friday, October 4, 2013.  Chaos and violence continue, the election law is still not passed, the white wash of the birth defects in Iraq is called out, American professor Noam Chomsky offers some truth about Iraq, US House Rep Tim Ryan drives his BMW to Congress (Bitch, Moan and Whine), a new rumor about Iraqi Christians (which comes from an Iraqi Christian), and more.

    Yesterday, things really got shrill on the floor of Congress as US House Rep Tim Ryan screeched:


    I was against the Iraq War!  The Iraq War was unaffordable! The Iraq War was unpopular! 58% of the American people were against the Iraq War!  Democrats didn't shut down the government! Use the political process!  Which we did and won the House back in '06 and won the presidency in '08 and we wound down the Iraqi War!

    KPFA played Little Coward Tim Ryan shrieking over and over yesterday and today.

    Tim Ryan is offended that some against ObamaCare are willing to stand up for their beliefs.


    If Little Coward Tim Ryan isn't a liar, he's just a little coward who can't take a stand, he's confessed to how worthless and useless he is:

     
    I was against the Iraq War!  The Iraq War was unaffordable! The Iraq War was unpopular! 58% of the American people were against the Iraq War!  Democrats didn't shut down the government!


    Unaffordable?

    Try criminal.  It was criminal.

    And notice how he can't speak of the human costs of that war.  His own guilt shames him into silence on that.  He has blood on his hands and wants to attack Republicans for doing now what he was too damn cowardly to do?


    As the American people are seeing right now, with ObamaCare, what you could have done to stop the Iraq War but refused to do.  Because Tim Ryan was a coward.


    How many people died -- and continue to die -- because of the cowardly, worthless Tim Ryan?


    He threw a shrill tantrum on the floor of Congress yesterday that basically confesses to his own worthlessness and cowardice.  If he had the same convictions the ObamaCare opponents do, the Iraq War could have cost a lot less lives.  (Maybe even been averted. He started serving in Congress in January 2013.)


    Tim Ryan:  Democrats didn't shut down the government! Use the political process!  Which we did and won the House back in '06 and won the presidency in '08 and we wound down the Iraqi War!


    No, they didn't shut down the government.  Nor did they end the illegal war as they promised they would if they got even one house of Congress in the 2006 mid-terms.  They did nothing.  They threatened.  They got the White House benchmarks -- and then refused to use them.  (US House Rep Lloyd Doggett was the only one in 2008 raising those benchmarks in hearings.) They betrayed the people of America.  And, as Tim Ryan's shrill act should have gotten across, they could have stopped it in 2007 or 2008.  But they chose not to.


    Tim Ryan's proud moment is really just another example of the spineless and cowardly behavior Congressional Democrats displayed throughout the Bully Boy Bush years.  In the Barack years?  They can't show strength now either.  They can only whine and bitch.




    Today Noam Chomsky Tweets:




    1. Invading Iraq was the kind of crime for which Nazi war criminals were hanged at Nuremberg.



    The Tweet comes on the same day The Lancet publishes Paul C. Webster's article questioning the ridiculous report the World Health Organization and and the Iraqi Ministry of Interior 'published' (released in nonsense form) last month on the birth defects in Iraq.  Excerpt:


    Researchers in Iraq, the UK, and the USA who have probed congenital birth defects and have published recent peer-reviewed studies also express concerns about the methodology employed by the Iraqi MOH and WHO.
    Although WHO says that “at this point no effort to neither substantiate nor negate the findings of other studies can be employed because the study is not aiming to establish cause-effect associations between [congenital birth defects] prevalence and environmental risk factors”, the study issued by the Iraqi Government states that “in recent years there have been several anecdotal reports of geographical regions with an unusually high prevalence of congenital birth defects in Iraq. Most of the reports did not meet the norms for an objective study of birth defects, and a review of the published literature could find no clear evidence to support their findings.”
    Samira Alaani, a paediatrician in Fallujah, Iraq, who copublished a 2011 study utilising hospital records to conclude that congenital malformations accounted for 15% of all births in Fallujah since 2003, says the new study cofunded by WHO and the Iraqi Government should have employed hospital records more comprehensively.
    Muhsin Al-Sabbak of the Basrah Medical School in Basrah, Iraq, who copublished a 2012 study reporting a 17-fold increase in birth defects in the Al Basrah Maternity Hospital since 1994, warns that the data from Basrah in the new study does not match local hospital records.
    Alison Alborz is a specialist on learning disabilities in children at the University of Manchester, UK, who published a 2013 study presenting data from a 2010 survey of 6032 households in four Iraqi governates including data for more than 10 000 children and young people showing a prevalence of congenital birth defects more than 2·5 times higher than reported in the Iraqi Government study. She says the new report gives little information about sampling and does not offer any discussion of whether the districts chosen for analysis “reflect the characteristics of the governorate as a whole”.


    The War Criminals are trying to cover their crimes.  The US government put heavy pressure on WHO over this report.  Bully Boy Bush isn't in the White House anymore.  Meaning, the War Crimes continue.  And, in the US, you have to pin the continuation on someone other than Bully Boy Bush.  Can you do the math on your own?  Every day children are born in areas of Iraq with birth defects that are a direct result of the illegal war, covering up a report, hiding it, delaying it, will not change that fact.  As Michel Chossudovsky (Global Research) noted last month, "Furthermore, recent revelations by Hans von Sponeck, the former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, suggest that WHO may be susceptible to pressure from its member states. Mr. von Sponeck said that 'The US government sought to prevent WHO from surveying areas in southern Iraq where DU had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers'."



    People covering for a War Lord in the White House currently are not people who are helping the children of Iraq. As the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk Christopher Busby (RT) pointed out last week, "Since the outcome is intended to exonerate the US and UK military from what are effectively war crimes, and since the result will be employed to defend the continued use of uranium weapons, all concerned in this chicanery should be put before a criminal court and tried for what they have done.  Their actions are responsible for human suffering and death and cannot be forgiven. This is a human rights issue." The Center for Constitutional Rights' Jeena Shah notes at Huffington Post:



    This week, one of the world's most renowned and respected medical journals, The Lancet, joined the chorus of epidemiologists challenging the credibility of a recently-released report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Iraqi Health Ministry. The report contradicts consistent reporting of high rates of birth defects in Iraq following the U.S. invasion in 2003. The WHO's defense of the study despite the critiques from many corners raises questions as to the independence of the international body tasked with monitoring and addressing public health crises around the globe.
    Doctors across Iraq report that cancer rates, birth defects, and other environmental health problems have skyrocketed since 2003. In the words of Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist based in Michigan who has been studying the rise in congenital birth defects in Iraq since the 2003 U.S. invasion, "Iraq is poisoned."
    Among the toxic munitions used by the U.S. military, depleted uranium, also known as "DU," is known to lead to cancer and genetic defects from exposure to its radiation and carcinogenic chemical properties. Scientific studies also strongly suggest that DU can interfere with the pre-natal development of a fetus.


    Please note that US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have recently developed an interest in chemical weapons.  As the Iraq Solidarity Association in Stockholm has pointed out:

    Weapons with depleted uranium were previously used during the first Gulf War in 1991. The city of Basra suffered harshly. In 2004 the US carried out two big attacks against the city of Fallujah. Uranium weapons as well as white phosphorus were used against the civilian population. Many deformed children have been born in Fallujah at the General Hospital since then. In Fallujah, Basra, Najaf, Bagdad, Hawija and other cities children suffer from deformities, cancer and other illnesses.

    We have previously encouraged the Swedish government to both nationally and internationally support independent, international investigations about the children and the causes of their serious genetic disorders and the increasing frequency of illnesses. You now have an excellent opportunity to encourage President Obama to reveal the systems and quantities of weapons the US used in Fallujah. This would be of enormous assistance to the research.

    President Obama´s Secretary of State John Kerry has said that the US condemns the use of chemical weapons. In order for this statement to be able to be taken seriously President Obama must account in detail for the US use of chemical weapons and demand legal responsibility for the crimes committed. Instead President Obama´s Justice Department has demanded immunity for his predecessor George W Bush and five of his close conspirators for war crimes. No responsible person on a high level in the US administration may be charged with war crimes!


    Iraq War veteran Ross Caputi was in Falluja during the second US assault (November 2004).  In a 2011 column at the Guardian, he noted:


    I do not see any contradiction in feeling sympathy for the dead US Marines and soldiers and at the same time feeling sympathy for the Fallujans who fell to their guns. The contradiction lies in believing that we were liberators, when in fact we oppressed the freedoms and wishes of Fallujans. The contradiction lies in believing that we were heroes, when the definition of "hero" bares no relation to our actions in Fallujah.
    What we did to Fallujah cannot be undone, and I see no point in attacking the people in my former unit. What I want to attack are the lies and false beliefs. I want to destroy the prejudices that prevented us from putting ourselves in the other's shoes and asking ourselves what we would have done if a foreign army invaded our country and laid siege to our city.
    I understand the psychology that causes the aggressors to blame their victims. I understand the justifications and defence mechanisms. I understand the emotional urge to want to hate the people who killed someone dear to you. But to describe the psychology that preserves such false beliefs is not to ignore the objective moral truth that no attacker can ever justly blame their victims for defending themselves.
    The same distorted morality has been used to justify attacks against the native Americans, the Vietnamese, El Salvadorans, and the Afghans. It is the same story over and over again. These people have been dehumanised, their God-given right to self-defence has been delegitimised, their resistance has been reframed as terrorism, and US soldiers have been sent to kill them.
    History has preserved these lies, normalised them, and socialised them into our culture: so much so that legitimate resistance against US aggression is incomprehensible to most, and to even raise this question is seen as un-American.

    He has made a documentary entitled Fear Not the Path of TruthHis organization, The Justice For Fallujah Project, notes:



    Events
    November 18th
    Premier screening of Fear Not the Path of Truth
    At the
    Paulist Center
    5 Park St. Boston, MA
    6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
    The screening will be followed by a reception with free food and drinks (no alcohol allowed).

    November 19th
    Screening of Fear Not the Path of Truth
    At the
    Old Oak Dojo
    14 Chestnut Place, Boston MA



    In June,  Alsumaria reported that congenital malformations and rates of cancer are extremely high as a result of the uranium munitions the US military used.  It's no longer unusual for a child to be born with two heads or with just one eye, the report explains, and the health statistics are much worse than in Japan in the aftermath of the US using the atomic bombs.  In Falluja, children born with deformities account for 14.7% of all births.   The report notes that although Iraq has a population estimated at 31 million, there are only 20,000 medical doctors and just over 100 psychotherapists in the country.   Dr. Mozhgan Savabiesfahani also penned a column for Al Jazeera last March:

    Our study in two Iraqi cities, Fallujah and Basrah, focused on congenital birth defects. In both cities, the study revealed increasing numbers of congenital birth defects, especially neural tube defects and congenital heart defects. It also revealed public contamination with two major neurotoxic metals, lead and mercury. The Iraq birth defects epidemic is, however, surfacing in the context of many more public health problems in bombarded cities. Childhood leukemia, and other types of cancers are increasing in Iraq. Childhood leukemia rates in Basra more than doubled between 1993 and 2007. In 1993, the annual rate of childhood leukemia was 2.6 per 100,000 individuals and by 2006 it had reached 12.2 per 100,000.
    Multiple cancers in patients (patients with simultaneous tumors on both kidneys and in the stomach, for example), an extremely rare occurrence, have also been reported. Dr Jawad al-Ali, a cancer specialist at the Sadr Teaching Hospital in Basra, discussed the issue of multiple cancers with Der Spiegel last December. Familial cancer clusters, described as the occurrence of multiple cancers throughout an entire family, were also disclosed in that Spiegel report.  
    These observations collectively suggest an extraordinary public health emergency in Iraq. Such a crisis requires urgent multifaceted international action to prevent further damage to public health.


    She's right, this is a crisis.  It needs to addressed immediately -- not denied, not covered up.  Cleaned up?  Yeah, as much as it can be, the toxic areas need to be cleaned up and the US government is the one who should be footing the costs.  Former United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator  Denis Halliday (Global Research) observes, "This tragedy in Iraq reminds one of US Chemical Weapons used in Vietnam. And that the US has failed to acknowledge or pay compensation or provide medical assistance to thousands of deformed children born and still being born due to American military use of Agent Orange throughout the country. The millions of gallons of this chemical dumped on rural Vietnam were eagerly manufactured and sold to the Pentagon by companies Dupont, Monsanto and others greedy for huge profits.’

    "The US Has Left Iraq With An Epidemic Of Cancers and Birth Defects."  That's the number 12 censored story in Project Censored's Top 25 Censored Stories From 2012 - 2013 which is released (in print and digital formats) this coming Tuesday. (Mickey Huff and Peter  Phillipsdiscussed the book today on The Morning Mix on KPFA -- each Friday Project Censored hosts The Morning Mix -- eight am to nine am PST).


    Censor is what Nouri al-Maliki tries to do to the Iraq media.  Ali Musa (Al Mada) reports that Nouri's forces shut down the local radio in Balad -- the last station -- accusing it of being a mouthpiece for the poor.  (Yes, the police really said that and, yes, they seem to think there can be no greater horror than giving a voice to the poor.)  For this 'crime,' the radio station was surrounded after the sun went down by the police who quickly took over the station and shut it down.  This is the country, Ali Musa reminds, where over 360 journalists have been killed since 2003.  The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi journalist organization, noted in this year's report that 2012 was the worst year for Iraqi journalists since Saddam Hussein was overthrown (by foreign invaders).


    Protests took place today.   Iraqi Spring MC notes protests took place in Baghdad, in TikritNajafRamadi, FallujaSamarra, Baquba, Balad RuzJalawla, among other sites.   Protests have been taking place non-stop since December 21st.   Of today's protests, NINA notes:


    Preachers of Friday-prayers called on the sit-inner in their sermons to continue the sit-ins as are the only way to get rid of injustice and abuse policy.
    They said in the common prayer which held in six regions of Diyala province : " Iraqi government must not deal with the demands of the protestors in a double standard . Urging worshipers to unify their stand until getting the demands, release innocent prisoners and detainees from prisons.




    Kitabat reports that Sheikh Mohammed al-Dulaimi spoke at the Falluja protest and accused the government of supporting militias who target and kill Sunnis.  The Sheikh said that instead of implementing the demands of the protesters, the government would rather target or ignore the protesters.  National Iraqi News offers the Sheikh said, ""The Iraqi government rather than implement the demands of the protesters and adopt genuine reconciliation with people, it tracking and embarrassing the protest leaders, since 9 Months ago claimants the usurped legal rights."


    Sheikh Mohammed al-Dulaimi is correct in his accusation:  Nouri al-Maliki (prime minister and chief thug of Iraq) is supporting Shi'ite militias.  Tim Arango (New York Times) broke that story last week -- but somehow the US Congress and the rest of the media missed it.  (The media may be playing dumb.  Members of Congress actually missed it, I spoke with several yesterday about Tim Arango's report.)   Arango noted:



    In supporting Asaib al-Haq, Mr. Maliki has apparently made the risky calculation that by backing some Shiite militias, even in secret, he can maintain control over the country’s restive Shiite population and, ultimately, retain power after the next national elections, which are scheduled for next year. Militiamen and residents of Shiite areas say members of Asaib al-Haq are given government badges and weapons and allowed freedom of movement by the security forces.


    And the protesters were targeted today.  NINA notes both the Falluja and the Ramadi sit-ins were targeted with sound bombs.


    That wasn't the only violence.  NINA notes a Tikrit bombing claimed 2 lives and left seven people injured, a Falluja sticky bombing killed 1 person and left another injured,  an Anbar Province bombing ("on the road between Hadeetha and Rutba") claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier and left two more injured, and "One officer and one soldier killed and six police and military men wounded in a suicide attack on Friday, Oct. 4, in a suicide attack against joint military and police checkpoint at the entrance of Heet district, western Anbar province."

    The Associated Press reports the targeting of a Sunni mosque in Umm al-Adham with a bombing ("hidden inside an air conditioner) which has left at least 33 people dead and at least forty-five injured.


    The Iraq Times reports that Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi declared Nouri al-Maliki must be stopped from wasting the Iraqi people's money.  Chalabi is complaining that Nouri has earmarked $15 million for Somolia.  Chalabi demands to know what gave Nouri the right to give these funds?  Chalabi points out that, in Iraq, many families currently go without food and poverty is widespread.  What does it mean?  Every four years, Chalabi offers criticism of Nouri.  Campaign season is beginning in Iraq.  Musrafa al-Kadhimi (Al-Monitor) reports today:



    Iraqi politicians are obviously unwilling and probably incapable of offering any consensual solutions to the exacerbating Iraqi crisis before the Iraqi parliamentary elections likely to be held in the middle of next year.
    The main reason for this conviction is that the various parties are still hoping the elections will solve the crisis. This is not based on a firm conviction that elections are a democratic means for changing power, but rather on the hope that elections will change the current political map in favor of one party or another, allowing it to impose its vision of the solution.
    The truth is, while elections represent a suitable track for venting political tensions, they are not sufficient as an end goal to a crisis, such as the one currently faced by Iraq. This is a country that remains unable to overcome its transitional phase, and is embroiled in conflicts over the foundations of its political processes and the dispute over the method of the state administration, in addition to major security collapses.
     
    For an election to be held, the Parliament must pass a law.  NINA reports:

    Rapporter of the parliament MP, for IS coalition , Muhammad Al-Khalidi said " adjorning of today's parliament session to next Monday represent the last chance to vote on the election law.

    Khalidi pointed out at a press conference today that "differences on the paragraphs of the election law are still ongoing between the political blocs," adding that "the Presidency of the House of Representatives has given the political blocs the final chance to reach an agree on the electoral law on next Monday.



    al-Khalidi is with Iraqiya (IS stands for "Iraqiya Slate).


    Thursday at the State Dept press briefing, spokesperson Marie Harf was asked about the visa program for Iraqis who helped the US military.


    QUESTION: The other question is related to the mention that the Congress approved the program --


    MS. HARF: Mm-hmm.


    QUESTION: -- or the funding of the program for the Iraqi visas or those Iraqis who work for U.S.


    MS. HARF: Mm-hmm.


    QUESTION: In the same time, I mean, the other budget allocation is not done for the other activities. I mean, how you can explain that? I mean, it’s like you can spend money for that program but you cannot spend other money for some essential activities?


    MS. HARF: Well, to be clear, they voted yesterday to extend the program. I’m not sure about where the funding for it exactly lies, what bucket of money that comes out of. We thought it was an important step that they did come together to vote to extend it. But clearly, we believe that all of our programs are important, and we believe that we shouldn’t have to make difficult choices between competing priorities that are very important to our foreign policy. So I was giving, as an example, of a way Congress has been able to work together on an important priority for us.


    Al Bawaba adds:


    When the five year old visa plan ended on September 30, it threatened to halt the visa processing for thousands of Iraqis who had helped the American military during the near decade long war. The 2,500 odd interpreters whose visas are awaiting approval are often at risk from extremists who consider them traitors for having helped American forces.
    “These are the interpreters, the guides, drivers, people who performed a myriad of functions that were essential for American operations,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who introduced the first legislation on the program six years ago. “Last night, the United States sent a signal that we are not going to leave them behind.”


    The program gets re-instated as Iraq's own visas are called out.  Alsumaria reports:


    Iraq ranked second in the world’s worst passports list due to the problems its carriers face to acquire visas, according to Henley & Partners’ Visa Restrictions Index 2013.
    Afghanistan came first, followed by Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, Occupied Palestine, Eretria, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Lebanon.




    However, one Iraqi politician feels that visas are being given out too easily -- to one segment of the population -- by the US.  Alsumaria reports

    Member of Parliament Imad Youkhana, affiliated with Al Rafidayn Bloc, accused the American Embassy in Iraq of working on making all the Christians leave Iraq, urging it to cease giving them visas. He also urged the Iraqi Government to intervene quickly and solve this problem.

    “The American Embassy in Baghdad and Arbil are working on making all the Iraqi Christians leave by offering them facilitation and visas to the United States under different pretenses”, said Youkhana in a press release of which Alsumaria got a copy. He warned against the dangers of allowing Christian Iraqi families to travel away, namely voiding Iraq of one of its most important component. This is a negative and inacceptable phenomenon.

    “Giving visa to entire families is considered a masked ethnic cleansing that uses the pretext of protecting minorities from terrorism”, he revealed, pointing out that “this aims to hide their political failure in Iraqi after they couldn’t take the moral blame of the instability in Iraq post-occupation”.


    These charges, true or false, are coming from a Christian MP.  Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) identified him as such last year (last paragraph of article).


    Joan Wile, the author of Grandmothers Against the War: Getting Off Our Fannies and Standing Up for Peace and one of the Raging Grannies, will be among those taking part in the following action on October 7th:



    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    CONTACT:  Lionelle Hamanaka, 212-662-5011; Vicki McFadyen,646-8245506; Joan Wile, 917-441-0651 

    CAN WE GO HOME NOW?
    PROTESTERS TO ASK ON 12TH ANNIVERSARY OF AFGHANISTAN WAR

    On Oct. 7, 2013, a number of NYC peace groups will mark the 12th year of our invasion of Afghanistan by rallying at Union Square to demand an end to the war, to ask the question, "Can We Go Home Now?"

    Names of the 2,272 fallen U.S, military killed in Afghanistan will be read.

    The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to capture Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist group Al Qaeda. 

    Mission accomplished!

    ·     Osama bin Laden is dead

    ·   There are fewer than 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan.  

    The protesters believe there is nothing more to be gained by remaining in Afghanistan.  
    • The government we installed after overthrowing the Taliban is  hopelessly corrupt;
    •  It is clear that some in the current Afghanistan government are in cahoots with the Taliban and are undermining NATO efforts ;
    • Prolonged occupation inevitably creates anti-U.S. resentment, just as we would resent a foreign occupation force within our borders;  Our attempts to "nation-build" a country we don't understand has cost U.S. thousands of casualties and tens of thousands of Afghan civilian deaths, which has only served to radicalize more of the population;
    • The cost of the war is now $120 billion per year, money that should fund new priorities reflecting urgent human needs.
    "We are holding this important action so that people will realize the terrible human cost of war," said Vicki McFadyen, Treasurer of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO).

    DATE:     Monday, Oct. 7
    TIME:       4:30  - 7 p.m.
    LOCATION:  60 E. 14th St., opposite Union Square


    SPONSORED BY (partial list):  Military Families Speak Out (Metro), War Resisters League NY, Code Pink NY, Granny Peace Brigade, Brooklyn For Peace, Grandmothers Against the War, Manhattan Peace Action, Peace Action NYS 



    Added.  Community bloggers participating in a theme post on snacks did the following:  Rebecca's "pudding," Kat's "Fudge," Ruth's "Graham crackers," Betty's "Popcorn," Mike's "Cold pizza," Isaiah's  "Heck Of A Job (Snow Cones)," Elaine's "Sea Salt and Vinegar," Trina's "Junior Mints and nachos," Marcia's "Cracker Jacks," Stan's "Pickles" and Ann's "Marshmallows."














    Protesters call out Nouri's support of Shi'ite militias (death squads)

    ism



    As the photo above (Baghdad) by Iraqi Spring MC demonstrates, protests continued in Iraq.  Protests also took place in TikritNajafRamadi, FallujaSamarra, Baquba, Balad RuzJalawla, among other sites.   Protests have been taking place non-stop since December 21st.   Of today's protests, NINA notes:

    Preachers of Friday-prayers called on the sit-inner in their sermons to continue the sit-ins as are the only way to get rid of injustice and abuse policy.
    They said in the common prayer which held in six regions of Diyala province : " Iraqi government must not deal with the demands of the protestors in a double standard . Urging worshipers to unify their stand until getting the demands, release innocent prisoners and detainees from prisons.




    Kitabat reports that Sheikh Mohammed al-Dulaimi spoke at the Falluja protest and accused the government of supporting militias who target and kill Sunnis.  The Sheikh said that instead of implementing the demands of the protesters, the government would rather target or ignore the protesters.  National Iraqi News offers the Sheikh said, ""The Iraqi government rather than implement the demands of the protesters and adopt genuine reconciliation with people, it tracking and embarrassing the protest leaders,since 9 Months ago claimants the usurped legal rights."


    Sheikh Mohammed al-Dulaimi is correct in his accusation:  Nouri al-Maliki (prime minister and chief thug of Iraq) is supporting Shi'ite militias.  Tim Arango (New York Times) broke that story last week -- but somehow the US Congress and the rest of the media missed it.  (The media may be playing dumb.  Members of Congress actually missed it, I spoke with several yesterday about Tim Arango's report.)   Arango noted:


    In supporting Asaib al-Haq, Mr. Maliki has apparently made the risky calculation that by backing some Shiite militias, even in secret, he can maintain control over the country’s restive Shiite population and, ultimately, retain power after the next national elections, which are scheduled for next year. Militiamen and residents of Shiite areas say members of Asaib al-Haq are given government badges and weapons and allowed freedom of movement by the security forces.


    And the protesters were targeted today.  NINA notes both the Falluja and the Ramadi sit-ins were targeted with sound bombs.


    NINA notes a Tikrit bombing claimed 2 lives and left seven people injured, a Falluja sticky bombing killed 1 person and left another injured,  an Anbar Province bombing ("on the road between Hadeetha and Rutba") claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier and left two more injured, and "One officer and one soldier killed and six police and military men wounded in a suicide attack on Friday, Oct. 4, in a suicide attack against joint military and police checkpoint at the entrance of Heet district, western Anbar province."

    The Associated Press reports the targeting of a Sunni mosque in Umm al-Adham with a bombing ("hidden inside an air conditioner) which has left at least 33 people dead and at least forty-five injured.



    The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.















     

















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    Over-medication of veterans and suicide

    Before dawn, a government van picked up paratrooper Jeffrey Waggoner for the five-hour drive to a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in southern Oregon. His orders: detox from a brutal addiction to painkillers.
    He had only the clothes on his back, his watch, an MP3 player and a two-page pain contract the Army made him sign, a promise to get clean.
    But instead of keeping Waggoner away from his vice, medical records show the VA hospital in Roseburg kept him so doped up that he could barely stay awake. Then, inexplicably, the VA released him for the weekend with a cocktail of 19 prescription medications, including 12 tablets of highly addictive oxycodone.
    Three hours later, Waggoner, 32, was dead of a drug overdose, slumped in a heap in front of his room at the Sleep Inn motel.
    “As a parent, you’d want to know how this happened to your child,” said his father, Greg Waggoner. “You send your child to a hospital to get well, not to die.”

    That's the opening of Aaron Glantz's latest report for Center for Investigative Reporting.  The topic of the VA's over-reliance on prescription pain killers is the topic of a hearing scheduled for next Thursday.  This is a sweeping program and it has a huge impact.  Until recently, the VA did very little to track suicides.  That happened only because Senator Patty Murray relentlessly pursued the VA to the get them to start tracking suicides.  If they'd done their job on their own or if they'd immediately responded to Murray's request, there might have been a sense of whether the high rate of veteran suicides was influenced in any way by prescribed drugs. Molly O'Toole (Huffington Post) reports on one veteran's experience:


    Promethazine, zolpidem, nortriptyline, morphine, divalproex, metoprolol, prazosin, ibuprofen, diazepam, quetiapine, meperidine, trazodone, mirtazapine, hydromorphone.
    For Boone Cutler, this was a "combat cocktail" -– just one month's worth of the medications he was given at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington while being treated for traumatic brain injury after a mortar attack in Sadr City, Iraq, in 2005.
    "I'll tell you, at one point in time I was on every drug that killed Anna Nicole Smith, plus some," said Cutler, who was an Army sergeant at the time of the attack.

    Meanwhile Keith Rogers (Las Vegas Review-Journal) reports:

    Concerned Veterans for America will launch a nationwide bus tour from Las Vegas today to heighten awareness about the Department of Veterans Affairs foot-dragging in its effort to reduce a staggering backlog of 500,000 benefits claims.
    The non-profit, nonpartisan organization will also call attention to the nation’s security problems spawned by what the group’s CEO Pete Hegseth described when he arrived Thursday in Las Vegas as the unresolved national debt coupled with a bad policy of automatic budget cuts mandated by the sequester law.
    “There are literally billions of dollars unaccounted for in the Pentagon budget. So before we go cutting and slashing combat brigades, let’s find out where the money is and a get a good accounting, especially while we’re drawing down in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Hegseth, an Army veteran of both those wars who currently serves in Minnesota’s National Guard.

    Concerned Veterans for America's website is here, their Facebook page is here.  And you can follow them on Twitter:









  • The following community sites -- plus Cindy Sheehan, the Guardian, Antiwar.com, the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Jane Fonda, and Pacifica Evening News updated since yesterday morning:






  • 9 hours ago















  • Not showing up above is Elaine's "Sea Salt and Vinegar" -- part of the theme posts on favorite snacks.

    The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.















     

















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