Five Blackwater Guards Indicted for Killing 17 Iraqi Civilians

[Daniyal]

Maliki Allies Ahead in Iraqi Election; Voters See Election of Maliki’s Party as “Most Expedient Way to End the Occupation”

In Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his allies look poised for a sweeping victory in provincial polls held Saturday. We speak to two independent journalists just back from Iraq, Rick Rowley and David Enders. Rowley said, “Many Iraqis saw this, the votes they were casting in this election, as a way to end the American occupation.”



AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Iraq, where Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his allies look poised for a sweeping victory in provincial polls held Saturday. Official results will not be published for weeks. But leaders of rival Shia parties acknowledged today Maliki’s State of Law coalition appears to be heading for a strong win in some Shia areas.



Prime Minister Maliki gave a televised address after the polls closed Saturday.



PRIME MINISTER NOURI AL-MALIKI: As we conclude this national epic vote, we will be impatient to learn the results. I hope this will be a strong motivation for the continuation of the political process. Moreover, I hope that we will forget all the troubles that prevailed during the period before the election to build Iraq’s future.



AMY GOODMAN: Iraqi citizen, Abbass, lauded the government for the heavy security and relative lack of violence on Election Day.



ABBASS: The security situation was very good, and the citizens felt safe to go to the polling centers and even felt free to choose the list that they wanted. No one was feeling pressure on him, and this is a simple right of a citizen.



AMY GOODMAN: Only half of Iraq’s 14 million registered voters went to the polls Saturday, the lowest turnout in elections held since the US-led invasion.



Many Iraqi and US officials hailed the elections as a success. President Obama called them “a victory for all Iraqis.” But tens of thousands of internally displaced Iraqis were unable to cast their vote. Secular politician Mithal al-Alusi said many people who had been forced to move from their homes because of violence could not vote, because their names were not on the voter list.



MITHAL AL-ALUSI: The major crime by the independent electoral commission—and I am skeptical of this independence, as they are weak in front of the bigger parties and were appointed by these big parties—the major crime is at the expense of the refugees. Tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands in Mosul, Baghdad, Kut, Diwaniyah, Amara, Muthana, Nasiriyah, in all of the Iraqi provinces, they were unable to vote.



AMY GOODMAN: I’m joined right now here in the firehouse studio by independent journalist David Enders and Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films. They’ve reported from Iraq for the past few years. Rick just flew in from Baghdad this morning.



Welcome, both, to Democracy Now! Rick, let’s start with you. Describe what happened on Saturday. Set the scene for us.



RICK ROWLEY: Well, it was actually really surprising to us, as it has been in the last few years we’ve been there, the improvement in security. We were worried. There were threats of violence. We were worried about the curfew being really hard, so we spent the night in Sadr City with Fatah al-Sheikh, the leading Sadrist candidate there, and in the morning went out to vote.



And it felt more like a holiday than like a voting day. I mean, the traffic was shut down, so there were hundreds of soccer games on the streets, like the children were out in the streets. But traveling around the city, the turnout was remarkably low. None of the polling stations looked particularly busy. Sadr City seemed like one of the busier areas, possibly because there are fewer internally displaced people from Sadr City.



And talking to people as they were coming out, people—I mean, we met many people who said there were voting for Maliki, as the preliminary results suggest, and they were voting for him as the most expedient way to end the occupation. So I think, I mean, an important thing to remember is, the US likes to try to cast elections in Iraq as referendums on the legitimacy of the occupation, to see every election as proof that America has defeated the insurgency, but many Iraqis saw this, the votes they were casting in this election, as a way to end the American occupation.



AMY GOODMAN: The positions of all of the parties?

RICK ROWLEY: Well, yes, as I think it’s testament to the strength of—the military and political strength of especially the Shia resistance that all the parties, with the exception of ISCI, the Islamic party that was the big winner in last—the elections of 2005, all of the parties want, are calling for publicly, a rapid American withdrawal, as quick as is expedient. And al-Majlis al-Aala, the ISCI, the Islamist party that won in the last election, appears to have been swept from power, based by the preliminary results that we have right now.

[Daniyal]

AMY GOODMAN: What happened with the car bombing this weekend?



RICK ROWLEY: There was—there have been several car bombings. I mean, there has been a lot of election-related violence—I mean, less than in previous years, but still a significant amount. The other candidate that we were following closely was Sheikh Aifan, who’s the leading candidate of the Awakening militias in Fallujah. And there has been constant fighting between him and the Iraqi Islamic Party, his main opponent inside Fallujah. And there was a car bomb while we were filming with him, where two of his men were killed and two were sent to the hospital.



The Awakening militias, which have been armed and funded by the Americans—I mean, America’s main military proxies inside of Anbar have publicly said that if they do not win these elections, there will be a revolution in Anbar. Basically, what the US—US has set up, you know, a system of tribal sheikhs who control Anbar for them, who have massive military and economic power, hundreds of millions—tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in reconstruction contracts and a 100,000-member-strong militia that’s under their control. And if they don’t get political power through these elections to match their economic and military power, then they say that there’s going to be trouble.



AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of Maliki winning?



RICK ROWLEY: It is remarkable. Dawa was a minor party. Dawa—I mean, Maliki was chosen as a compromise prime minister, because all of the major Shiite factions couldn’t decide on who they wanted to have in power. He was seen by many as a puppet of ISCI, the Islamists who were the major power brokers in the last elections.



But because of pressure from the Sadrists, both political pressure inside parliament and also a constant military pressure as an armed resistance outside, he was forced to take a very strong line in negotiating with the Americans and pass—get a SOFA agreed to, status of forces agreement, that was signed in December that is remarkable, that basically appears on paper to be an end to the occupation. All of the US bases will be removed. The US can never use Iraq as a platform from which to launch attacks on other parts of the region. They don’t get the oil. They don’t get immunity for their contractors.



If the letter of this agreement is actually, you know, put in place, it will mean what the Sadrists and all of the more militant wings on the outside have called for anyway. So whereas the Americans used to say, or said in 2005, every vote is a vote in favor of the American presence and for the occupation, in this case the insurgency has managed to change the frame so much inside of internal Iraqi politics that a vote for Maliki looks like a vote against the occupation and a vote for the Americans to get out as quickly as they can.



AMY GOODMAN: David Enders, you’ve been covering Iraq for years now. What is the significance of all of this? What are the prospects now for Iraq?



DAVID ENDERS: Well, I think it’s exactly right, especially the issue of the status of forces agreement. Maliki has managed to really make himself look good, in a sense, in negotiating with the Americans, and I think people have responded to that. He’s also, at the same time, been able to use the American military to bring, behind the Iraqi army, stability to both Basra and Baghdad, and people are responding to that.



Any Iraqi on the street will say—you ask them, “What do you want?” The first thing they say is security, then electricity, then a job. And so, any sense that any of that is returning certainly helps Prime Minister al-Maliki’s case. Now, that’s Baghdad, Basra, central and southern Iraq.



Northern Iraq, the three Kurdish governorates didn’t vote. Kirkuk—there were no elections in Kirkuk, which is contested between Arab tribes and Kurdish tribes, and there’s the ongoing debate within the Iraqi government over whether Kirkuk should become part of the basically autonomous Kurdish region. And at every chance the Iraqi government has had to legislate that, they’ve been unable to do so. In 2004, with the governing council, the issue was tabled. In the constitution in 2006, the issue was tabled. And again, the issue has been tabled, and you have increased threats of violence. You’re still seeing sectarian violence—or rather, ethnic violence in Mosul, the second-largest city in the country. There’s still fighting going on there. So, even though there are some very positive aspects to what happened this weekend, there’s a lot left unresolved.

[Daniyal]

AMY GOODMAN: And overall, the power of the Kurds now?



DAVID ENDERS: I think it’s been weakened. I think their position has been considerably weakened by al-Maliki’s apparent popularity. And one thing in addition to the status of forces agreement, Maliki has presented himself as a nationalist, to some extent, and is calling for a unified Iraq. And it certainly seems that calls for dividing the country into a loose federalist state, which, according to some observers, was entirely inevitable a couple years ago and especially with the gains made by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution and the Kurdish parties in the 2005 elections, that seemed like a distinct possibility. Now it seems that forces that would keep Iraq intact are growing in power.



AMY GOODMAN: The reaction to the election of Barack Obama?



DAVID ENDERS: Was very muted. Sheikh Aifan, actually, who we followed around in Fallujah, sort of enjoys having his picture taken with American politicians, and he’s done very well for himself, becoming essentially the US point man in the city. He had a picture with Barack Obama before the election, actually, and we said, “Well, what do you think of Obama?” He said, “Foreign policy, American foreign policy doesn’t tend to change, regardless of the president.” And I think most Iraqis feel that way. I didn’t really talk to any Iraqis who seemed to think that there was going to be a significant change. I think Bush was already sort of forced into a position of negotiating this agreement that was not what the White House had set out to negotiate. And probably no matter who was elected, we’d be moving toward a pullout.



RICK ROWLEY: But still, I think it’s important to say that we need to keep pushing on this, too, because although the status of forces agreement is in place, much of it hasn’t been enacted up to the point that it’s supposed to be at this point. Bucca is supposed to be empty now, by the terms of the agreement, and there’s still—



AMY GOODMAN: Explain what Bucca is.



RICK ROWLEY: Bucca is the largest US prison inside Iraq. It’s supposed to be empty now, and everyone is supposed to be in the Iraqi system, but it still has around 8,000-10,000 people in it still.



The Iraqi government is supposed to be approving every single raid and action, military action, that the US does now. That’s not really the case. The military just picks up a couple Iraqi soldiers to ride around with them, and that passes for approval. And certainly, the Special Forces raids that continue to go on don’t have any approval by anyone discernible.



So, I mean, although it’s promising what has been agreed to on paper, there’s going to be pressure back against Obama in the opposite direction. There’s going to be military people who say we need to stay there and maintain stability. And so, we need to—people need to, both in Iraq and here, give some push back in the other direction to help support him to make the decision that needs to be made, which is to continue with this—



AMY GOODMAN: And the military contractors? I mean, Barack Obama has not said he would ban them, although the Iraqi government said that they wouldn’t give a new contract to Blackwater.



RICK ROWLEY: Absolutely. That’s an incredibly key point, yes. The Iraqi government is way ahead of Obama on this issue. They’ve withdrawn Blackwater’s license to operate in the country, and they’ve removed contractor immunity. So even if Obama wants to keep them in, I mean, you know, a government now that’s restrained—I mean, that has to appeal to the popular nationalism that demands, you know, national sovereignty and demands that these contractors be kept in check, I mean, that needs to be supported by actions here in the US, too.



AMY GOODMAN: What about Iran, Rick Rowley? This is the thirtieth anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, 1979, 2009. What about its power in Iraq?



RICK ROWLEY: That is—well, Iraqis say—I mean, many, especially Sunnis—most of the Sunnis who we interview, the people in the Awakening, the people in the Islamic party, say that there were two occupations of Iraq that happened at the same time: an Iranian and an American occupation. And it was true that ISCI, the Islamist party that the US, you know, in one way or another, put in power in the country, was formed in Iran. And the Badr Brigades, which formed the core of the security services in 1994, were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. So these parties, which were identified clearly by Iraqis with both the American occupation and with Iranian foreign influence, they’re there seeing a loss in power now.



Iran is always going to be very powerful inside Iraq. They’re neighbors. They’re incredibly close and linked culturally, religiously. But there has been a massive backlash and a reaction in Iraq against what they see as foreign meddling, both from the United States and from Iran.



AMY GOODMAN: You are both just back from Iraq. You are headed to Afghanistan, Rick, in the next few months. The level of violence we’ve seen both in Pakistan, with these attacks with the US behind them, the unmanned drones, and Afghanistan?



RICK ROWLEY: Yeah. Well, the thing that I think is important is that—I mean, there’s been lots of talk about taking the lessons from Iraq and applying them to Afghanistan. And there’s huge problems with that, especially because the lessons that people are getting from Iraq are, I think, the wrong lessons.



People look at the surge, are talking about surging into Afghanistan, copying the surge that worked in Iraq. But, you know, just a cursory examination of the facts shows that the surge wasn’t what changed the course of the war in Iraq; it was the Awakening, it was these tribes in Anbar that began to see—well, that were scared by a sectarian war that happened and began to see the Americans as, you know, less dangerous to them than the Iraqi government, which they saw as an instrument of Iran. So they were, very specifically, by the sectarian violence, forced into an alliance with the Americans. That’s not going to happen in Afghanistan.



AMY GOODMAN: Well, that does it for our show, and I want to thank you both for being with us. David Enders and Rick Rowley have been our guests. They are both just back from Iraq.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

White Phosphorous and Dense Inert Metal Explosives: Is Israel Using Banned and Experimental Munitions in Gaza?



Israel is coming under increasing criticism for its possible use of banned and experimental munitions. Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of illegally firing white phosphorous, which causes horrific burns if it comes in contact with the skin, over crowded refugee camps in Gaza. Medics and human rights groups are also reporting that they are seeing injuries distinctive of another controversial weapon, Dense Inert Metal Explosive, known as DIME, that was designed by the US Air Force in 2006. Those struck by the weapon who survive suffer severe mutilations and internal injuries. We go to the Gaza border to speak with Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch and to Norway to speak with Dr. Mads Gilbert, who just returned from the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He says Gaza is “truly a scene from Dante’s Inferno.”

AMY GOODMAN: As the assault on Gaza enters its nineteenth day, Israel is coming under increasing criticism for its possible use of banned and experimental munitions. Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of illegally firing white phosphorous over crowded refugee camps in Gaza. White phosphorous shells cause horrific burns if they come in contact with the skin. Under international law, phosphorus is allowed as a smokescreen to cover troop movements and protect soldiers or to be used for illumination, but it’s considered illegal if used against people.



In addition to white phosphorous, medics and human rights groups are reporting they are seeing injuries distinctive of another controversial weapon. The munition, called DIME, for dense inert metal explosive, was designed to create a powerful blast over a small area. It was developed by the US Air Force in 2006. Those struck by the weapon who survive suffer severe mutilations and internal injuries. The weapon causes the tissue to be torn from the flesh. Unlike traditional munitions, there is said to be no shrapnel. Instead, particles of metals can be found in the bodies of those affected. Those residues have been found on victims in Gaza.



Israel has denied it’s using either white phosphorous or DIME weapons.



Joining us now on the phone from Norway is one of the doctors who first accused Israel of using the DIME explosives: Dr. Mads Gilbert, an expert in emergency medicine. He and his colleague Erik Fosse have just returned from the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where they were volunteering through the aid organization NORWAC. Shifa Hospital is the largest hospital in Gaza.



We’re also joined by Marc Garlasco on the northern border of Gaza. He is a senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch, investigating Israel’s use of white phosphorus.



Marc Garlasco, on the border in Gaza, I want to start with you. You worked for the Pentagon. You know your weapons well. What are you seeing?



MARC GARLASCO: Well, when you stand on the border of Gaza, you watch every day as white phosphorus rounds are lobbed over with 155-millimeter artillery. We watch as Cobra and Apache gunships fly in and do strafing runs, run after run after run. You can see Heron drones overhead dropping bombs, additionally F-16s, and F-16s come in occasionally to drop aerial ordnance. It’s much quieter now than it was days ago. But still, it’s a continuous barrage, particularly lately on the refugee camps and in closer to Gaza City, which is where we’re looking at.



AMY GOODMAN: Now, you’re making a very serious accusation: the use of white phosphorus as a weapon, as opposed to illumination or a smokescreen. What evidence do you have of this?



MARC GARLASCO: Well, we have not stated that Israel is using it as a weapon. We’ve clearly stated that we’re standing on the border, observing day after day the Israeli Defense Forces firing white phosphorus into the refugee camps and Gaza City. Now, we are not there on the ground to observe any further how it’s being used. I’m about like, say, a mile away. And so, from that distance, you can see very precisely that it’s going in. Whether it’s being used as—you know, right now, we can tell it’s being used as an obscurant, but we have no further information to state whether or not they’re using it as a weapon, and we have not stated that.



AMY GOODMAN: In terms of what happens when it comes in contact with the skin?



MARC GARLASCO: Well, clearly, I would say we need to talk to Dr. Gilbert about the specifics, but from our understanding, you’re looking at third-degree burns that continue to burn until the fuel is exhausted. Fuel from white phosphorus burns for approximately five to ten minutes, as it’s creating the smoke, and if it goes onto the skin, it has to be removed. Otherwise, it will continue to burn.



And that’s clearly one of our gravest concerns. Our concern is that Israel is not taking all feasible precautions to spare the civilians from harm and that we’re going to see civilian casualties from white phosphorus use. You know, it cannot determine who is a target, who is a military target, and who’s a civilian, because it covers an area up to 250 meters in diameter, quite large. And these are densely populated refugee camps we’re talking about.



AMY GOODMAN: Let me go to Dr. Mads Gilbert, who has just returned from Gaza, the Shifa Hospital. He’s back in Norway right now. What did you see, in terms of the casualties, both when it comes to white phosphorus and also with this new weapon that you have been talking about called DIME?

[Daniyal]

White Phosphorous and Dense Inert Metal Explosives: Is Israel Using Banned and Experimental Munitions in Gaza?



DR. MADS GILBERT: I will answer that, but I think it’s important to understand that the most devastating weapon they are currently using is actually the siege of Gaza, which has been on for eighteen months, which means a lot of starvation, lack of food, water, power supplies, medicines, napkins, anything that people need to live. So it’s one-and-a-half million people who basically is now without their absolutely necessary means for living their lives, and that is, of course, illegal.



When it comes to the weaponry, we did not see clear evidence in patients that we received that they had been hit by white phosphorous, but we were told by the doctors and colleagues in Shifa that during the first days of the invasion, the ground invasion, they had seen this affecting as a side effect of the smokescreen use of the white phosphorus. And that was inhalation injuries, meaning that people have been breathing the phosphorus damp into their lungs, and burns. Also, by the end of our mission, when we left, there were fierce attacks in the south, and again the doctors in the European Hospital in South Gaza reported the same thing: burns and inhalation injuries. So it seems like my expert on the [inaudible] is right, that using such chemical means in so densely populated areas, as Gaza is, you will evidently have to affect also the civilians.



When it comes to the DIME weapons, we have seen a substantial number of amputations, where the amputees do not have shrapnel injuries. On the contrary, they have torn apart their legs, often one or two or even three limbs, their arm also. Some of them are beyond salvage, because the amputations are so high and so fierce that it also affects the lower part of the body. Some are survivable. But typical for these amputations is that there is no sign of metal fragments or shrapnel. It is only this very brutal amputations caused by some extreme power and small rice grain, rice, corn, pieces of some kind of substance, not metal, but—you know, the DIME weapon is a mixture of metals, nickel and cobalt, in a composite cast, not in a metal cast. And that’s explaining why you don’t see shrapnel.



The additional effect in animal studies on the DIME weapon is that the residuals in the muscle in mice will cause a very severe form of muscle cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma, which easily spreads to the lungs. This remains to be shown.



I underline we don’t have proof, but we have strong evidence that these amputations we’ve been seeing in Gaza for the last eleven days must come from some type of weapon that we don’t know of.



AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain more fully these kinds of amputations, Dr. Gilbert?

[Daniyal]

White Phosphorous and Dense Inert Metal Explosives: Is Israel Using Banned and Experimental Munitions in Gaza?



DR. MADS GILBERT: You know, often, if you have a grenade amputation or an amputation from any kind of metal fragment, it will be more like you had a hatch or an ax or a huge knife that cut through your bone and the muscle. What we see in these suspected DIME amputations is that the whole limb is crushed in a way that must suggest some sort of immense power that has hit the lower part of the body. And we know that these small bombs, which the DIME bombs are, explodes in a way so that it will mainly affect the lower limbs. The limbs are—you will have multiple very severe fractures. The muscles are sort of split from the bones, hanging loose. And you also have quite severe burns where this energy wave has hit.



If you look at pictures from sites where these patients have come, you don’t see fragments in the walls in the house around, maybe fifteen, twenty meters apart from the explosions. And you see only some stripes of power in the sand on the ground, and these actually are the examples that the power dissipates very quickly, maybe within five or ten meters of the explosion, so that you will not have this kind of collateral damage, as it’s called. But in Gaza, again, so densely populated, that these DIME weapons will have a devastating effect. Also, they are, by some, classified as nuclear weapons.



AMY GOODMAN: Nuclear weapons?



DR. MADS GILBERT: Well, the EU Commission on nuclear matters have stated clearly that these weapons, since they are based on a fission process, you need to investigate more the residuals, if that is radioactive. That has not been done. It was not done in Lebanon in 2006, when these weapons were first described. And it has not been done in Gaza in 2006 and now this—I saw the similar injuries in Gaza around Easter 2006—excuse me, 2008, that is, during the incursions in Jabalya, exactly the same types. And I believe there are some sixty-six cases described at Shifa Hospital before this war.



AMY GOODMAN: Marc Garlasco, you worked for the Pentagon. These DIME weapons, dense inert metal explosive, were developed by the US Air Force. Do you know about them?



MARC GARLASCO: Well, only what we’ve read about. I mean, I left the Pentagon long before these were developed. These weapons were developed in 2006, so they’re extraordinarily new. I’ve been on a number of battlefields, and one of the problems is that from what we’ve read in literature, when the DIME explodes, you’re looking at no residual pieces. And so, it becomes very problematic to go in on an investigation looking for forensic evidence, when it, in effect, eats itself up in the explosion.



And you have to remember, these weapons, interestingly, were developed to save civilians, to minimize civilian casualties, so that if the weapon explodes and kills anyone within the blast radius of, let’s say, ten meters to twenty meters, it immediately drops off in power, and so no one dies outside that area, whereas the standard bomb today, when it explodes, you have many hundreds of meters of blast and fragmentation damage. So if it is, in fact, being used, which we have no proof that it is, and civilians are dying, it’s most interesting, sadly, that it was originally developed to, in fact, spare civilians from harm.



AMY GOODMAN: Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch, if DIME isn’t yet licensed, technically still under development, would the US have to give permission to Israel to use it?



MARC GARLASCO: Well, the US has very strict requirements, as far as when a weapon finally gets through its process of acceptance, where it gets both a legal and a medical review, as well as effectiveness review. It remains to be seen how Israel has acquired the technology, whether they purchased weapons from the United States under some agreement, or if they’ve in fact licensed or developed their own type of munition.



To be honest with you, we have to remember one thing. At this point, there are a lot of rumors, and nothing has yet been substantiated. Only until we’re able to get on the ground and do the work that Israel is stopping us from doing will we really know what’s going on in Gaza.



AMY GOODMAN: Explain that further. We’re talking to you on the border. Why aren’t you in Gaza right now, Mark Garlasco?



MARC GARLASCO: Well, Israel refuses to allow the international media and human rights monitors entry into Gaza. And I have worked in Gaza numerous times, and this is the first time that we’ve been denied access. We do have one individual, who is our Palestinian worker, who’s in Gaza right now. His father was killed by the Israelis earlier this week, and his house was destroyed yesterday in an air strike. And his wife is giving birth today. So he’s got a lot going on in his life. Our thoughts are with him and all the other Palestinian civilians there, with the Israelis who are coming under fire from the Hamas rockets. And hopefully, we will see this end very soon, and we will be able to get in on the ground and do our investigations.



AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Dr. Mads Gilbert, you’ve just come back from Gaza. You worked in the hospital. We were talking about white phosphorus. We were talking about DIME. But the condition in the hospitals right now?



DR. MADS GILBERT: Well, I have to underline what my friend on the border is saying. There’s been a palpable absence of international presence. In fact, Dr. Fosse and myself were the only two Westerners in Gaza for those first ten days we stayed there. And it’s absolutely incomprehensible that we, in 2009, we do not have the press on such war ground as Gaza is. And I think also it’s urgent to have international agencies come in and exactly do the examination on the ground to find out what kind of weapons are used.



The condition in Shifa Hospital and in the other hospitals in Gaza is horrifying. I’ve been to Gaza for the last ten years, in and out, teaching and training people in the medical field. I’ve never seen anything like this. I mean, all windows in the Shifa Hospital are out, due to the bombing of the mosque across the street. They have very unstable electricity. They lack supplies, disposables, surgical equipment, trolleys, beds even. They have a fantastic staff, who are working heroically to save their patients, but we have been doing surgery with, almost regularly, two patients in each OR, on the wall, on the floor, in the corridors. The lifts are barely working. The ICU had to triple its capacity with makeshift ICUs.



It is really, truly a scene from Dante’s Inferno. It is these loads of patients coming in. We had 120, 130 patients coming a day, children, women. And I would say approximately 90 percent—I repeat, 90 percent—of the killed and injured that we have seen are civilians. Up ’til yesterday, 971 people have been killed; of them, one of three is a child below eighteen. 4,500 injuries, as of yesterday at 4:00; among them, every second is a woman or a child. So this is really targeting civilian Palestinian population. And we had a large number of pediatric cases with head injuries, with complicated fractures—



AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mads Gilbert, we’re going to have to leave it there. I thank you for being with us, Norwegian doctor, just back from Gaza. Marc Garlasco, still on the Gaza border—Israel won’t let him into Gaza—with Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch has called for Israel to stop using white phosphorus in military operations.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

In Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government has deported ten passengers aboard a Lebanese ship trying to deliver aid supplies to the Gaza Strip. The ship’s owner, Mohammed Yousseff, said Israeli forces opened fire on the passengers and assaulted them after coming aboard.

Mohammed Yousseff: “We contacted the ship, and we’ve been told by the captain what happened, that it was stopped by Israelis, and it was fired upon, and soldiers boarded the ship and attacked the captain, passengers and crew. I appeal to the United Nations and the European countries to protect the people on board the ship and the ship and also to send all the aid supplies on the ship to the people in Gaza. And we are calling on the people to help the Palestinians get rid of this blockade."

Another eighteen passengers are believed to still remain in Israeli custody. The Brotherhood ship was carrying sixty tons of supplies, including medical aid, food and books.

[Daniyal]

As Israel blocks aid ships from reaching Gaza, dock workers in South Africa are refusing to unload Israeli goods at their ports. The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union says it will no longer unload Israeli ships in solidarity with Palestinians. Last year, South African dock workers refused to unload a Zimbabwe weapons shipment in protest of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

Clinton: Obama Admin Will Follow Bush Stance on Hamas Boycott

At the State Department Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated the Obama administration commitment to follow the Bush administration policy of boycotting Hamas.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “I would only add that our conditions respecting Hamas are very clear. We will not, in any way, negotiate with or recognize Hamas until they renounce violence, recognize Israel and agree to abide by, as the Foreign Minister said, the prior agreements entered into by the PLO and the Palestinian Authority."

The US position has been criticized in part because it refuses to impose the same conditions on Israel. Israel refuses to renounce violence, recognize a Palestinian state and abide by agreements, including a pledge to freeze settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

[Daniyal]

In Iraq, an eight-year-old girl has been reportedly killed in an attack by US troops. Witnesses say several other civilians were injured when a US military convoy opened fire on a crowd of Shiite pilgrims traveling to the holy city of Karbala. The military says the shootings were accidental, following a mistaken weapons discharge.

Trial Date Set for Shoe-Throwing Iraqi Journalist

In other Iraq news, a trial date has been set for the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush during his farewell trip to Iraq last month. Muntadhar al-Zaidi will stand trial on February 19th on charges of assaulting a foreign leader. Zaidi faces fifteen years in prison. His attorney and family have alleged abusive treatment since his imprisonment.

UN Halts Gaza Aid Delivery in Hamas Dispute

In Israel and the Occupied Territories, the UN says it’s stopped aid deliveries into Gaza after Hamas forces seized a shipment for the second time. United Nations Relief and Works Agency spokesperson Christopher Gunness said Hamas seized ten trucks on Friday.

UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness: “The people of Gaza have suffered enough. They have gone through twenty-two days of conflict, and now we have a situation where their aid is jeopardized because their aid is being confiscated. This is a situation which must end immediately. The aid must be given back by the Hamas government.”

Hamas called the incident a misunderstanding and said it won’t be repeated. Much of Gaza’s 1.5 million population depends on aid for survival. Meanwhile, Israel continues sporadic military attacks in Gaza. Earlier today, a Palestinian militant was killed near the town of Beit Hanoun when an Israeli tank fired from across the border.

Israel to Hold National Elections

Israelis head to the polls tomorrow in national elections. All three leading candidates— Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Kadima, Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Labor, and front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud—support attacking and blockading Gaza and the continued takeover of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu has openly called for toppling the democratically elected Hamas government.

Khatami to Challenge Ahmadinejad in Iran Vote

In Iran, former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami has announced his candidacy in June elections. Khatami will face off against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is seeking re-election.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

US-Backed Iraqi Security Gains Forged on Mass Deaths and Heightened Sectarian Divide.

After campaigning on increasing security, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s allies appear to have won a large victory in Iraqi provincial elections. The US military strategy of allying with some Sunni militias has been widely touted as one reason for improved security in certain parts of Iraq. But at what cost? We get a report from Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films and Shane Bauer of the Center for Investigative Reporting

AMY GOODMAN: We move now to Iraq. In Iraq, preliminary results give Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s allies a clear victory in provincial elections held last month. Maliki’s State of Law coalition campaigned on a platform of increasing security in the war-torn country.



The US military strategy of allying with some Sunni militias, who came to be known as Awakening councils, or Al-Sahwa, in order to fight al-Qaeda has been widely touted as one reason for improved security in certain parts of Iraq.



Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films and Shane Bauer with the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Nation Institute and New American Media filed this report from Baghdad about the kind of security these Awakening councils are bringing to Iraq’s capital.



SHANE BAUER: In 2006, the American military and Iraqi police could hardly enter Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood without being peppered with bullets. But in 2007, United States forged an alliance with its former enemies, offering money and military support in exchange for a promise to fight al-Qaeda. When we entered Dora this week, we found American soldiers laughing with these neighborhood militias.



In November 2008, the Americans handed these so-called Awakening councils, or Sahwas, to the Iraqi government. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki promised that 20 percent of the Sahwa forces would be brought into the army or police force, and the remaining would eventually be offered civilian jobs or a pension. But Sheikh Abu Suleiman, a Sahwa member decorated with American medallions in Dora, says he had higher hopes.



SHEIKH ABU SULEIMAN: The government told us, “We are going to pull all of you into the police and army, every last one of you, without exception.” Here in our area, they haven’t incorporated a single one of us up until now. There’s a huge difference between the privileges of the national police and what we have as the Sahwa. We work together to provide security, but we don’t get the same wage.



SHANE BAUER: The wages of Sahwa members are less than half those of the Iraqi national police. At a nearby checkpoint, a former Sahwa member complained that they couldn’t survive on the wages paid by the Iraqi government.



FMR. SAHWA MEMBER: I used to get my full wage from the coalition forces. Not one month was short. Since we’ve been transferred to the Iraqi government, I haven’t been paid. I didn’t join the Sahwa for money, but people need income. Our wage isn’t enough. It’s so small. My wage, which I’m not receiving, is normally 350,000 Iraqi dinar, and my rent is 200,000 dinar. The 150,000 left over isn’t enough for me to live on.



SHANE BAUER: Abu Suleiman says, without them, the neighborhood could descend back into chaos.



SHEIKH ABU SULEIMAN: If they don’t incorporate us, something is wrong. It will hurt everyone, frankly. First, Sahwa members will quit. The area will be without the Sahwa. Secondly, unemployment will rise, problems will return. I think the situation will become very detrimental.



SHANE BAUER: Some Dora residents say despite the heavy Sahwa presence, their neighborhood still isn’t safe. Away from our police and Sahwa escorts, one woman spoke to us on condition of anonymity. She fled the area in 2006, leaving a burned house and all of her belongings behind, after people she says belonged to al-Qaeda killed her husband and son. As people trickled back, she returned to her neighborhood, now under Sahwa control. Soon after, she began receiving death threats. She’s afraid the same people responsible for the safety of her neighborhood could be involved.



ANONYMOUS DORA RESIDENT: I don’t trust the Sahwa. They are cooperating with them. The terrorists themselves became Sahwa. They’re still killing and kidnapping.



SHANE BAUER: The success of the Sahwa strategy has been largely dependent on the ability of the US military and Iraqi government to guarantee a livelihood to former militants. Sahwa members are waiting to see whether the Shia-led government will live up to its promise to incorporate them into the armed forces. Some regular Iraqis are nervous and are wondering whether the Sahwa’s allegiances will extend farther than their paychecks.



Reporting from Baghdad, this is Shane Bauer and Jacquie Soohen for Democracy Now!



AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. When we come back, Pratap Chatterjee on Halliburton’s Army.

[Daniyal]

The veteran correspondent Helen Thomas was also able to ask her first question of Obama’s presidency. In a clear reference to Israel, Thomas pressed Obama on nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Obama tried to ignore that part of her question.

President Obama: “All right. Helen? This is my inaugural moment here. I’m really excited."

Helen Thomas: "Mr. President, do you think that Pakistan and—are maintaining the safe havens in Afghanistan for these so-called terrorists? And also, do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?”

President Obama: “Well, I think that Pakistan—there is no doubt that in the FATA region of Pakistan, in the mountainous regions along the border of Afghanistan, that there are safe havens where terrorists are operating. And one of the goals of Ambassador Holbrooke, as he is traveling throughout the region, is to deliver a message to Pakistan that they are endangered as much as we are by the continuation of those operations and that we’ve got to work in a regional fashion to root out those safe havens…With respect to nuclear weapons, you know, I don’t want to speculate. What I know is this: that if we see a nuclear arms race in a region as volatile as the Middle East, everybody will be in danger. And one of my goals is to prevent nuclear proliferation generally. I think that it’s important for the United States, in concert with Russia, to lead the way on this.”

Thomas is the most senior member of the White House press corps. She has now questioned ten presidents, dating back to John F. Kennedy.

Dismissing Torture Case, Obama Continues Bush Assertion of “State Secrets”

The Obama administration has decided to continue a Bush administration policy of invoking “state secrets” to dismiss a lawsuit accusing a Boeing subsidiary of helping the CIA secretly transport prisoners to torture chambers overseas. On Monday, a San Francisco appeals court heard arguments on the American Civil Liberties Union’s attempt to reinstate the case against Jeppesen International Trip Planning on behalf of five former prisoners. The lawsuit accused Jeppesen of arranging at least seventy flights since 2001 as part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. The Bush administration successfully won the case’s dismissal on the grounds it would risk exposing “state secrets.” On Monday, Obama administration lawyers told judges the government’s stance is unchanged. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said, “The] Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of the same.”

4 US Troops Killed in Iraq

In Iraq, four US troops and an interpreter have been killed in a suicide bombing in Mosul. It was the deadliest attack on US troops in Iraq since May.

Poll: Afghan Opposition to US Grows

In Afghanistan, a new poll shows growing opposition to the US occupation. According to ABC News, a quarter of Afghans now support attacks on US troops, double the number from two years ago. 32 percent said US troops are performing well, down from 68 percent in 2005. One in five Afghans said US-led forces have killed civilians in their area in the past year.

Israel Holds National Elections

In Israel, a tight leadership race is being decided today in national elections. Polls show a close match between Kadima, headed by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and the front-running Likud, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Livni could emerge victorious if she gains enough votes to form a coalition with Labor, headed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak. All three candidates support attacking and blockading Gaza and the continued takeover of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. In Gaza, Hamas spokesperson Ayman Taha dismissed the outcome of the elections.

Ayman Taha: “We see them all as war criminals, and we do not tie our policies to the Israeli elections. We draw our policies in accordance with our national interests. Therefore, the Israeli election does not concern us at all. They were all involved in shedding our blood.”

Egyptian-German Activist Disappears Following Arrest

Meanwhile, in Egypt, a Egyptian-German student and peace activist has been arrested after taking part in a protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Friends and relatives say they haven’t heard from Philip Rizk since Egyptian security forces nabbed him Friday night. He had just completed a six-mile walk in protest of Egypt’s closure of its border with Gaza. Egyptian forces also reportedly tried to arrest Rizk’s parents but were deterred by German embassy officials.

California Ordered to Reduce Prison Overcrowding

And back in the United States, a federal court has ordered the California prison system to reduce overcrowding within the next three years. A three-judge panel says California should reduce its prison population by as many as 55,000 through measures including shortening sentences and diverting nonviolent prisoners. California Attorney General Jerry Brown says he plans to appeal.

Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

The Pakistani government has admitted for the first time that the Mumbai attacks in which 179 people died were partly planned in Pakistan. Pakistan’s interior ministry chief Rehman Malik said Pakistan has registered a criminal case against six men held in custody and two others still at large, formally paving the way for a police investigation into November’s attack. Malik said, “Some part of the conspiracy has taken place in Pakistan and according to the available information, most of are in our custody.”

Report: US Failed to Track 87,000 Arms Shipped to Afghanistan

A new federal report has revealed the US military has failed to properly track about 87,000 weapons that the Pentagon shipped to Afghan security forces, leaving the arms at risk of being stolen or sold to the Taliban. The arms include thousands of AK-47 assault rifles, as well as mortars, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The situation is similar in Iraq, where the US military lost track of some 190,000 pistols and automatic rifles supplied to security forces in 2004 and 2005.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

With 99 percent of the votes counted Wednesday morning in the Israeli election, Tzipi Livni’s centrist Kadima Party was in first place with twenty-eight seats, while Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party was a close second with twenty-seven seats. They are both claiming victory but would need coalition partners to gather the sixty-one seats needed to form a government in the 120-seat Knesset. For analysis of the election results, we are joined by two guests. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti is an independent Palestinian lawmaker and democracy activist. He joins us from Washington, D.C. And on the line from Beersheba, Israel is Neve Gordon, a professor of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University and the author of Israel’s Occupation.



Mustafa Barghouti, independent Palestinian lawmaker and democracy activist.

Neve Gordon, a professor of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University and the author of Israel’s Occupation.



AMY GOODMAN: The leaders of Israel’s two main parties have both claimed victory in an early general election. With 99 percent of the votes counted Wednesday morning, Tzipi Livni’s centrist Kadima Party was in first place with twenty-eight seats, while Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party was a close second with twenty-seven seats. Both need coalition partners to gather the sixty-one seats needed to form a government in the 120-seat Israeli Knesset.



This puts the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party led by Avigdor Lieberman in a key position, after finishing third with fifteen seats. Meanwhile, the Labor Party, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, finished in an unprecedented fourth place.



The election has been dominated by security issues, following Israel’s three-week assault on the Gaza Strip. Final results will come within days, when election officials finish counting soldiers’ votes and other absentee ballots.



Early Wednesday, Tzipi Livni appealed to BB Netanyahu to join a national unity government that she would lead.



TZIPI LIVNI: In this evening, I’m turning to Benjamin Netanyahu. Before the election date was scheduled, I offered you to join a unity government under my leadership to handle the same challenges that are facing the state of Israel. You refused then. You refused and said that the people will decide, that the people should determine. The people have decided today: Kadima.



AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports Netanyahu has a better chance of forging a coalition because of gains by right-wing parties, who are his natural allies. Netanyahu claimed victory Wednesday morning, saying a Likud-led coalition would lead Israel.



BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I will turn firstly to our natural partners in the nationalist camp to form a coalition government, as I promised. I’ve spoken with the parties’ heads already this evening, and we scheduled to begin discussions tomorrow morning about founding a new government in the state of Israel.



AMY GOODMAN: Once the final results are in, President Shimon Peres will consult with party leaders to determine who among them stands the best chance of forming a coalition government. He does not have to choose the leader of the largest party. The chosen party leader then has up to forty-two days to form a coalition. If the attempt fails, Peres can ask another leader to assume the task.



Elections were called early, after Livni failed to form a new government following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s decision to step down last year amidst a corruption probe against him. Olmert will stay on as caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed.



For analysis on the election results, we’re joined by two guests. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti is an independent Palestinian lawmaker and democracy activist. He happens to be in the United States now. He is joining us from Washington, D.C. We’re also joined on the telephone from Beersheba, Israel, Neve Gordon, professor of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University and the author of Israel’s Occupation.



We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let us start in Israel first. Professor Gordon, what is your response to what is happening right now?



NEVE GORDON: I think the Israeli political system has been for several years in a crisis mode, and we’ve seen that none of the governments in the past, I think, decade or even more, lasted their full term, because there’s a crisis of representation and so forth.



And when a country is in a crisis, there can be change in basically two directions. There can be a renewal of politics for a more moral, a more accepting politics. And there can be another way, which is more a xenophobic, neo-fascist tendency, is a turn to the right, a blaming of the other for all your faults.



I think what we see in these elections is that the whole political map has turned even further right than it was. We have to remember that Kadima, which basically won the elections by one point, most of its members were Likud members. And so, we have the Likud, and then we have the Likud II, and then we have Yisrael Beiteinu. Together, they form probably close to 80 percent of the electorate. And so, we have an extremely right-wing Knesset now. Some of the parties are with actually neo-fascist tendencies.



And I think the implications internally will be detrimental and even devastating. And I think the implications with Israel’s relations with its neighbors, and particularly the Palestinians, are going to be extremely harsh. And the likelihood that the Israeli government will lead any kind of peace initiative or agree to any kind of peace initiative is slim without external pressure.



AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, your first response?



DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: I totally agree with what Neve has just said. This is a very serious shift, but not only to the right; this is a shift to racism. In my opinion, in these elections, Israel has completed the transformation into an apartheid state with an apartheid racist political system.



And this is the outcome of two processes. One is the implantation of fear and hatred in the Israeli society by the Israeli establishment. The army is a big part of that establishment, and the military-industrial complex is a second big part. And the second factor has been the complicity of the international community. The United States administration, previous administration, the European governments, the whole official international community has been complicit with Israeli crimes, war crimes in Gaza and in other places, and silent about forty-one years of occupation. So, basically, people in Israel think they can do what they want. If they violate human rights in such a terrible manner and nobody is objecting, I think they think they can move forward towards racism and an apartheid system, and that is unfortunately the case today.



In addition to what was said about practically the Likud racist approach dominating the whole scene, with Livni and Netanyahu—and here I would agree that there aren’t much differences between the two. Maybe you can say that both of them are racist. Only, Netanyahu is a blunt racist, and Livni is a racist with some makeup. But they both represent the same.



Barak, on the other hand, who was supposed to represent what you call left-centrist party, shocked everybody, in my opinion, by being even more extreme and more racist. When he described Lieberman, who’s clearly a neo-fascist and a very dangerous element, he said—he accused him not of being a fascist, not of being an extreme, but he criticized him for not being tough enough. He said, “This is a lamb in hawk’s clothing. And when did he ever shoot anybody by himself?” So Barak was competing with Lieberman by saying, “I am the man who shot Palestinians. I am the man who executed Palestinians with my own hands.”



And that gives you a very, very simple picture of how tragic the situation is in Israel today. And it puts us all, as Palestinians, in front of a very clear task: we have to struggle against this apartheid system, we have to break this apartheid system. But the challenge now is on the side of the whole international community, which has been either silent or complicit or trying to avoid the issue, when it is very clear.

[Daniyal]

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to break and then come back to this discussion. I want to ask you, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, as you sit not far from the Capitol right now in Washington, D.C., if you are meeting with US government officials. And, Neve Gordon, I want to ask you about the rise of Avigdor Lieberman and exact what he represents, for example, calling for loyalty oaths for Israeli Arabs to take if they want to stay in Israel. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.



[break]



AMY GOODMAN: As we talk about the Israeli elections, this is Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the extreme right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu, which means “Israel, Our Home,” speaking last week.



AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN: Israel is under combined terror attack from inside and outside the country. Internal terror is more dangerous than the external one, and we should understand that and react accordingly.



AMY GOODMAN: This is an excerpt of a commercial from the Yisrael Beiteinu party.



YISRAEL BEITEINU AD: Ahmad Tibi said that Hezbollah captures soldiers because of the Israeli foolishness. His salary is 35,000 shekels. Shame and disgrace. No loyalty, no citizenship.



AMY GOODMAN: And this is Hanin Zoubi, the first Palestinian Israeli woman to stand for election. She spoke out against the politics represented by Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday. Zoubi is running on the Balad ticket, an Arab party in Israel.



HANIN ZOUBI: Indeed, Lieberman is a natural result of the racist policies in this country for sixty years. Lieberman didn’t bring anything new. All the parties demand loyalty from the Arabs. The right, what’s called the center, what’s called by mistake left or center-left, they all demand loyalty from the Arabs. The new thing by Lieberman is only giving the punishment. The punishment for no loyalty is pulling the citizenship.



AMY GOODMAN: I want to go now to Neve Gordon, who’s head of the Politics Department at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev. He’s author of the book Israel’s Occupation. In fact, his home was under fire from the Hamas rockets, his kids in a bomb shelter. Professor Gordon, your response to Avigdor Lieberman? His rise, were you surprised by it? And exactly what are the policies he represents?



NEVE GORDON: Let me begin by noting that this morning I taught my political theory class, and we were teaching John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. And what I think John Stuart Mill would say is that Lieberman is more dangerous to Israel than, say, Hamas, because Lieberman can destroy the Israeli political realm more easily than Hamas, because Lieberman does not want to allow any view that is other than his own, any criticism of the government, to enter the Israeli political realm, and that is an anti-democratic and an anti-political message that he’s giving the Israeli citizenship. So I think Lieberman is extremely dangerous. As I mentioned before, I think his party has strong neo-fascist tendencies, and I think that their rise is a manifestation of the direction Israel is going. And I would say it’s an anti-Israeli stance.



I do partially agree with the representative from Balad that we cannot understand this as an island, as something totally new, but rather something that has been building up. What we see in—before the elections, that in all the high schools in Israel, Lieberman was the leading party in [inaudible] votes. So we see that the younger generation is supporting these neo-fascist tendencies. And we cannot blame the schools from it, but we have to blame the whole atmosphere in Israel, which is indeed a racist atmosphere, an anti-Arab atmosphere, anti-Palestinian Arab atmosphere. And Lieberman, what he has learned to do well is to feed on the hatred and the fear of the Arabs, to use a xenophobic method. And this is extremely dangerous. And to tell you the truth, I fear for Israel. I fear for the citizenry in Israel. And I think we are in a watershed moment in Israeli politics.



AMY GOODMAN: But this issue of loyalty oaths, explain what that is.



NEVE GORDON: It’s unclear exactly what it is. And that’s part of its power, is the—it’s whoever is not loyal to the state, according to what Lieberman and his friends believe is loyal, their citizenship can be stripped. What people are saying is that he’s talking about Arabs that are supporting the Palestinian cause for a state and supporting maybe even Hezbollah. They’re not loyal, and therefore their citizenship should be stripped.



Now, history teaches us how these things go. You begin by stripping the loyalty of an Arab that supported the Hezbollah, and then you strip the citizenship of an Arab that supported the Palestinian Authority, and then you start stripping the citizens of certain lefty Jews, and that’s how things go.



So—and what is interesting about all of this is that Netanyahu, the leader of Likud, said that he supports the motion of stripping citizenship to those who are unloyal to the state. But he said the only—“My only problem with Lieberman’s proposal is that Lieberman doesn’t tell us exactly how to enforce it, and it’s very difficult to enforce.” So, conceptually, ideologically, it’s a much broader political spectrum that’s supporting this connection between loyalty and citizenship, and that is extremely dangerous, I think.



AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, you heard the interview with former President Jimmy Carter. Do you think a two-state solution is still possible in the aftermath of the assault on Gaza? And what is the extent of the settlements now in the West Bank?



DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: First of all, let me please comment a little bit about Lieberman. I think when he speaks about loyalty, he’s practically speaking about ethnic cleansing, to repeat some acts of ethnic cleansing that took place in Palestine in 1948. But it’s about getting rid of the Arabs who live in Israel and who have Israeli citizenship and who represent 20 percent of the population.



And more than that, when he speaks about loyalty, just to make it clear, it would be anybody who is against war, for instance, that is conducted by Israel, on Gaza or anywhere else, would be considered as an illoyal or unloyal citizen. Anybody who is not supporting occupation would become not loyal to Israel. This is why it’s very dangerous and risky. It is putting the oppressed, which are the Palestinians and the Arabs, who are oppressed from racism and discrimination, in a situation where either they approve of their own oppression by the Israeli government or they become disloyal to the Israeli government and then entitled to losing their citizenship. That is the risk, and that’s why it looks like a very clear neo-fascist approach.



Now, on the issue of settlements, I want to say that since 1967 there hasn’t been any period where there was a real freeze of settlement activities. On the contrary, they have been growing at a much faster rate, especially during the times of the so-called peace process. During Annapolis period, the rate at which settlement continued to expand was forty times more than before Annapolis. And now we are witnessing the creation of even new—whole new settlements. That was under Kadima. That was under the coalition of Labor and Kadima, Livni and Barak, and without Netanyahu. So you can imagine what would be the case.



In my opinion, we have reached a very critical moment, and that’s why these elections are of great importance, because the bringing in of racist tendency in Israel and this whole extreme coalition into the Israeli government, which would be the case, is happening exactly at a moment when we are about to lose the last opportunity of two-state solution, because of the growth of settlements, because of the fragmentation of the West Bank, because of the consolidation of a situation where Palestinians practically live now in bantustans and ghettos. And they’re in a situation where, after fifteen years of the creation of the Palestinian Authority, the only road open for it by Israel is to become only a security sub-agent for occupation and something like Vichy government in a bantustan entity. That is the risk. And that’s why this is dangerous, not only because it is against peace, but also it is like the last hit in the direction of killing the final or the last opportunity of two-day solution.



And this has been a subject that I’ve been discussing here with many people in the United States administration. At the Senate yesterday, I had a very, very good meeting with John Kerry, the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And I hope. I hope. The only thing that can stop this wave of extremism, this wave against peace, is only a strong United States stance. I don’t know if it will happen. But I can tell you, this is the time of challenge. If the United States does not immediately take steps to stop settlement expansion and if the United States does not immediately take steps to tell Israel enough is enough, I think the two-states option will be lost forever.



AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, as you come here to Washington—you’ve come here many times—that you’ve come into a new era, a new government? Do you think President Obama represents something different? And what are your thoughts on George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy?



DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Absolutely. It is early to say still, because, you know, many appointments have not been filled yet, but so far, from what I have seen from the people I have met with, you can feel the breeze of change in Washington. You can feel it’s a totally different Washington from what we had, for instance, three months ago or two months ago.



And I would like to emphasize here that I believe that the last war on Gaza, plus other things that the Israeli government did jointly with the Bush administration, was nothing but an effort to create a preemptive strike against the Barack Obama administration. That was clear in the Resolution 1850, which tried to restrict the peace process only to the failing Annapolis process. And that was clear in the war and intensification of tension in the region, to prevent, in my opinion, peaceful dialogue with Syria and Iran that Barack Obama wants to have and to obstruct a fast and quick withdrawal from Iraq. But finally, that agreement that was concluded between Livni and Rice, in the very last hours before Rice left her position, was also a preemptive strike against this administration. But I tell you, I feel change. We looked forward to—



AMY GOODMAN: Explain what that—explain what that agreement was.



DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: That agreement was that the United States and NATO will be providing guarantees to Israel and provide protection to the occupying force, being Israel, and to prevent the resistance of the Palestinian people who are under occupation. So this is the first time in human history where, from one side, the people under occupation in West Bank are supposed, through this huge security apparatus, which is consuming 34 percent of our budget, depriving us from healthcare and education—the Palestinian Authority is supposed to provide protection to its occupiers, and the world community has to provide protection to the occupying force of Gaza, in this case the Israeli occupying force. That is the essence of the—



AMY GOODMAN: And George Mitchell?



DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: About Mitchell, I think that is a positive—I think the appointment of Senator Mitchell was perceived in the Middle East as a very positive step. I consider it very positive. I know Mitchell. We’ve met before. I know that his stand on settlements was very clear.



And now is the change. I think after coming to the area one or two—two or three times more, it will be clear whether he—that the only recommendation can—he should make immediately is to stop settlement activities. And if that does not happen, then, unfortunately, I think the whole area would go into a complete collapse of the peace process.



I think I feel here in Washington some new trends. First of all, there is more sensitivity to the issue of settlements. I think there is more inclination to accept our view, our point of view, that Palestinians are—should be allowed to have a national unity government, and thirdly, that we should allow Palestinian democracy to be revived. You know that Israel has slaughtered the democratic transformation in Palestine by arresting our members of parliament. And if Israel is entitled to democratic elections, then I think we, as Palestinians, are entitled to that.



I believe this is just a beginning. I hope we will go in the right direction. And maybe these results of elections in Israel will show everybody the time has come for a real change in the American policy. Every value that President Obama spoke about—values of respect of human rights, of democracy, of respect for Geneva Convention, avoiding torture, justice, equality, equal opportunity—every value of those are violated by Israel.



AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, independent Palestinian lawmaker and democracy activist, ran for president of the Palestinian Authority. Neve Gordon teaches politics, head of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev. He is author of Israel’s Occupation.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

A pair of US missile strikes over the past three days have killed sixty-one people in Pakistan. On Saturday, a remote-controlled US drone bombed three compounds in South Waziristan, killing thirty. Earlier today, another US drone struck the Kumman tribal region, killing thirty-one people. The US has now struck Pakistan at least three times since President Obama took office.

Sen. Feinstein: US Using Pakistani Base for Drone Attacks

The attacks come days after Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, became the first US politician to publicly state that the US is using a Pakistani base to carry out the strikes. During a congressional hearing, Feinstein said, “As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base.” Until now, the Pakistani government has attempted to distance itself from the US air strikes.

Pakistan to Allow Sharia Law in Malakand Region

The Pakistani government and Taliban militants appear close to reaching a ceasefire in the Malakand region of northern Pakistan. Under the deal, the government said it would allow the region to be ruled under Islamic or sharia law. The deal was announced on the same day Pakistani President Asif Zardari said the Taliban was trying to take over the state of Pakistan.

Venezuela’s Chavez Wins Vote on Re-Election

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won a referendum vote on Sunday to remove term limits, paving the way for him to run again in 2013. Electoral authorities said 54 percent of voters approved the constitutional amendment to remove term limits for all politicians. Chavez held a victory celebration in Caracas last night.

Hugo Chavez: “The Venezuelan people today radiate their light and democratic, revolutionary virtues to the entire world. Let the world see this light and the people of Simon Bolivar."

British and French Nuclear Subs Collide in Atlantic Ocean

The British and French governments are being accused of covering up a recent collision between two nuclear-armed submarines in the Atlantic Ocean. The accident occurred on February 3rd or 4th but wasn’t publicly known until today. The British sub, the HMS Vanguard, was armed with sixteen nuclear ballistic missiles. The French sub was carrying a similar load. It is unknown whether the collision caused a radioactive leak. Kate Hudson of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament said, “This is a nuclear nightmare of the highest order. The collision of two submarines, both with nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons on board, could have released vast amounts of radiation and scattered scores of nuclear warheads across the seabed.”



Democracy Now.Org

[Daniyal]

The private military contractor firm Blackwater Worldwide has decided to change its name in attempt to rebrand the company’s image. Blackwater will now operate under the name Xe, pronounced like the letter “z.” Blackwater’s decision comes less than a month after the Iraqi government announced it will refuse to renew Blackwater’s operating license. In 2007, Blackwater guards killed seventeen Iraqi civilians in an unprovoked massacre in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

A federal judge has refused to dismiss charges against five Blackwater mercenaries accused in the mass killing of fourteen Iraqis in September 2007. Defense attorneys had contended the US government doesn’t have jurisdiction to bring charges, because the guards were granted immunity. Judge Ricardo Urbina refused to drop the charges but said he thinks the defense argument is “strong” and should be decided by the trial judge or jury. Blackwater recently renamed itself “Xe” in an attempt to repair its image.



Obama Orders 17,000 Troops to Afghanistan

In his most significant military decision to date, President Obama has ordered an additional 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan. The move fulfills a campaign pledge to increase the size of the US occupation. The new deployments will take effect in May, increasing the US occupation force to 55,000—a 50 percent rise. Another 32,000 non-US NATO troops are also in Afghanistan. The news came as the UN said Afghan civilian casualties jumped by nearly 40 percent last year. US-led forces were responsible for nearly 40 percent of the deaths, killing 828 people out of a reported 2,100 casualties.

Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

Five Blackwater security guards were charged on Monday with killing fourteen unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding twenty others in the 2007 Nisoor Square massacre in Baghdad. The federal prosecutors accused the Blackwater guards of opening machine gun fire on innocent Iraqis and launching a grenade into a girls’ school. The five guards have been charged with fourteen counts of manslaughter and twenty counts of attempted manslaughter. They are also charged with using a machine gun to commit a crime of violence, a charge that carries a thirty-year minimum prison sentence.

Assistant Attorney General Pat Rowan: “The government alleges today that at least thirty-four unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, were killed or injured without justification or provocation by these security guards in the shooting at Nisoor Square. Today’s indictment and guilty plea should serve as a reminder that those who engaged in unprovoked and illegal attacks on civilians, whether during times of conflict or times of peace, will be held accountable.”



Blackwater Guards Indicted for Role in Nisoor Square Massacre



Five Blackwater security guards were charged on Monday for their role in the 2007 Nisoor Square massacre in Baghdad that left seventeen Iraqis dead and more than twenty wounded. The federal prosecutors accused the Blackwater guards of opening machine gun fire on innocent Iraqis and launching a grenade into a girls’ school. We speak with Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.



AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from Stockholm, Sweden, but back home in the United States, well, five guards working for the private military contractor Blackwater have turned themselves in to authorities in Salt Lake City, Utah, after being indicted on fourteen manslaughter charges and allegations they used automatic weapons in the commission of a crime.



The indictment stems from the operatives’ role in the Nisoor Square massacre in September of 2007 that left seventeen Iraqis dead and more than twenty wounded. The thirty-five-count indictment was unsealed in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.



This is US attorney Jeffrey Taylor.



JEFFREY TAYLOR: We take no pleasure in charging individuals whose job it was to protect the men and women of our country, but when individuals are alleged to have violated the law while carrying out those duties, we are duty-bound to hold them accountable, as no one is above the law, even when our country is engaged in a war.



AMY GOODMAN: The indictment is built largely around the testimony of a sixth Blackwater operative who has already pleaded guilty to two charges as part of an agreement to testify against his colleagues. The guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, described how he and the other Blackwater operatives used automatic rifles and grenade launchers to fire on cars, on houses, a traffic officer and a girls’ school.



The indictments represent the first time in more than five years of the Iraq occupation that the Justice Department has brought criminal charges against armed private contractors for crimes committed against Iraqis. Blackwater, as a company, faces no charges in the case.



We’re joined now by Jeremy Scahill. He is author of the international bestseller, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, also a Democracy Now! correspondent. He’s joining us back in New York in the firehouse studio.



Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jeremy. Talk about the significance of these indictments.



JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean, this is very significant. As you said, the fact is that no armed contractors have ever been prosecuted under any legal system, not under Iraqi law, not under US military law and not under civilian law. And the case that we’re talking about here, the Nisoor Square massacre, was the single greatest massacre committed by private US government forces in Iraq during five years of the occupation. So the fact that these men who are alleged to be responsible for that are being criminally prosecuted and could potentially face a mandatory minimum of thirty years in jail, if they’re convicted, is significant.



However, Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater; Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State; George Bush, the President—they’re not being held responsible for this. And the fact is that, once again, the US government is rolling out this “bad apples” narrative to describe the actions of Blackwater and saying that the company as a whole is a good company, a responsible company, but just these few guys did some bad things. And the fact is that this is a five-year pattern of misconduct and this kind of activity by Blackwater forces. And so, I’m concerned that what we’re going to see is a token prosecution of a handful of Blackwater guys, when it’s the system of the radical privatization of war that needs to be taken on forcefully.



AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, can you talk about Jeremy Ridgeway, this sixth figure who has agreed to testify against the others? Who is he?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. Well, I actually was just reading a statement that Blackwater, the company, put out today, essentially calling Jeremy Ridgeway a rat. They didn’t use that exact term, but they’re basically saying that they were outraged and disturbed that he had turned state’s evidence and that the—and the actions that he describes. And they continued to defend the other Blackwater men, saying that they committed no crime and that they were working on official US government business at the time.



This is going to be a very, very devastating blow, I think, to the other five individuals, because he not only is backing up much of what the US military investigation found when they arrived on the ground at Nisoor Square, but also things that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi witnesses had said. I mean, his description of Blackwater forces shooting a man in the middle of the street who had his arms up and clearly was unarmed, the use of these grenades and other automatic weapons, that seems to be how the US prosecutors are able to bring this charge of using a machine gun in the commission of a violent crime, which is actually a law that goes back to the Reagan era. It was an anti-drug law, and it provides for a mandatory minimum sentence of thirty years.



So he clearly pled guilty to charges that are lesser than that, and it seems as though he now is going to be testifying against the others. He’s the oldest of them, probably the most experienced of them. And it’s interesting that he now is the one who has taken this plea deal. These guys are young people. I think almost all of them are under the age of thirty. And they, for the most part, were not elite forces, the top guys that Blackwater is known for having, the Navy Seals and others. Though they did have decorated military careers, these guys weren’t the cream of the crop of Blackwater’s forces that committed the killings that day.



AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s pretty significant, Jeremy Scahill, that Ridgeway said that the episode, the massacre, started when the guards opened fire on a white Kia sedan, as the Times put it today,—



JEREMY SCAHILL: Right.



AMY GOODMAN: —that posed no threat to the convoy.



JEREMY SCAHILL: This is extraordinarily significant. And as you know, because we’ve reported on this a lot on Democracy Now!, and you were the first—this was the first program to air the testimony of witnesses and survivors of the Nisoor Square massacre.



But let’s just remind people here, the first victims that day, shortly after noon on September 16th, 2007, were a young Iraqi medical student named Ahmed Haitham al-Rubaye and his mother Mehasin. And the Blackwater guys have said that they believed that their car posed some kind of a threat or was potentially a suicide bomber, and they shot Ahmed Haitham al-Rubaye in his head as he drove that car and then launched some kind of a projectile at the vehicle, blowing it up and killing his mother Mehasin inside. Blackwater forces have said that it was a defensive measure. Now, Ridgeway is backing up the version put out by the witnesses that we’ve heard their testimony on this show, as well as the Iraqi government, that it was an unprovoked attack, and, moreover, that the car hadn’t come close enough to them to even warrant thinking that it was some kind of a threat. This is devastating to Blackwater’s narrative that they’ve been putting out that the company was a victim of an armed ambush.



One other thing that I think is interesting, Amy, and this hasn’t come up in the media coverage, and we’re not certain that Ridgeway is this individual, but there were reports that one Blackwater guy was yelling “ceasefire” and trying to stop the others from firing and gunning down people in the square that day. We had that both from leaks of US government officials, as well as Iraqi witnesses at the scene. So whether or not Ridgeway was that individual, we don’t know. But there are people, clearly, that were on the Blackwater detail that day that I think were themselves shocked by the conduct of their colleagues.



But the bottom line here, Amy, is that the company is not going to be held accountable, except lawsuits like that brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, where they are suing Blackwater as a company, Erik Prince as an individual, trying to hold them accountable for the conduct of the men on the ground. These guys, like at Abu Ghraib, will take the fall for an entire system, and the reality is that they are five bad actors in a filthy, rotten system that needs to be confronted head on.



AMY GOODMAN: What about Robert Gates staying on as Secretary of Defense under Barack Obama?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean, I think there’s no greater symbol of the lack of true change in US foreign policy than Barack Obama retaining the man that George W. Bush chose to be the Defense Secretary at the Pentagon. I mean, this is—I’ve called it a kettle of hawks that have been assembled in the White House to run US foreign policy. You’ve written, of course, about Jim Jones and his connections to Chevron and Boeing. Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice—I mean, it’s a very hawkish cabinet.



On the Blackwater issue, though, Gates, well, obviously has been much, much better than Donald Rumsfeld, in the sense that he has realized that these contractors are out of control and pose, well, a threat to US troops and Iraqi civilians alike. And the issue that Gates has zeroed in on is the fact that these Blackwater forces are paid much more than regular US soldiers and that they’re not held accountable under the same legal system.



But let’s be clear here. Barack Obama does not have a great position on Blackwater and other private forces. In fact, he says that he cannot and will not rule out using them in Iraq. He has also said that there’s going to be a continued role for contractors in the private war industry, in the US national security apparatus.



Interestingly, Amy—and this is the last thing I’ll say on this—Hillary Clinton was only the second person to sign onto legislation to ban Blackwater. As Secretary of State, that would technically be her area of operations. So it’s going to be interesting to see if Hillary Clinton follows through and actually tries to implement some kind of a ban, which she’s on paper supporting.



AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, thanks very much for being with us. Jeremy, who has written the international bestseller, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, talking to us from New York. We’re here in Sweden.



As Hurricane Gustav Approaches, Blackwater Seeks Personnel to Deploy to Gulf Coast



The private military firm Blackwater Worldwide is seeking personnel that could possibly be deployed into areas affected by Hurricane Gustav. We speak with Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, who first broke the story of armed guards working for the private security firm Blackwater being deployed in the streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.





AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Jeremy Scahill, who covered, of course, Hurricane Katrina in the aftermath, Democracy Now! correspondent, wrote Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Jeremy, what’s happening today?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, last Friday, Blackwater sent out an email. This, of course, is the famous mercenary company that not only has operated in Iraq and Afghanistan, but was actually in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and beyond, in 2005 made $70 million in federal money just off of its Hurricane Katrina contracts. Last Friday, Blackwater sent out an email to its network of independent contractors. The company boasts of having some 20,000-plus individuals that it can call out at a moment’s notice. And the contract was looking for personnel that would be interested in deploying in, what the email said, areas affected by Hurricane Gustav.



And the kinds of individuals that Blackwater was looking to hire for operations potentially in the hurricane zone were law enforcement officers who were sworn, currently sworn, and wanted the specification of their arms status, if they were allowed to use semi or auto, automatic weapons; individuals with arrest powers; armed security officers. And it said that all of the applicants must be US citizens. And so, Blackwater, as of last week, was already starting for this—toward this mobilization.



What we know from experience with Blackwater in the hurricane zone is that this is not a company that believes it needs orders from any government agency to deploy, armed, on the streets of an American city. Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater—I had this confirmed to me by a senior Blackwater executive—Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince simply decided in Hurricane Katrina to send over 180 men, armed, onto the streets of an American city. And when I interviewed them in New Orleans, they told me that they were there to confront criminals and stop looters.



Now, a week after Blackwater arrived in Hurricane Katrina on the streets of New Orleans, they were hired by the Bush administration through the Department of Homeland Security Federal Protective Service, and Blackwater billed the United States government $950—nine-five-zero—$950 per man per day for its operations in the hurricane zone. At one point they had 600 men stretching from Texas through Mississippi and the Gulf. And Blackwater made, as I said, over $70 million just in its federal contracts. That’s doesn’t count the work that Blackwater picked up with wealthy individuals, private businesses, etc.



And finally, what I would say is that several of the men that I talked to were veterans of the Iraq occupation, had just been there two weeks earlier. Some of them were complaining that in New Orleans there wasn’t enough action for them. This is a company that is under multiple investigations, whose operatives are accused of killing civilians. The idea that they would once again be invited to deploy or allowed to deploy, armed on the streets of an American city, I think should be disturbing not just to residents of the Gulf but to all people in this country who are concerned about the fate of those residents of the Gulf right now.



AMY GOODMAN: Are they the only mercenary company in New Orleans?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Oh, absolutely not. In fact, what we saw last time with Hurricane Katrina—and this remained true after the flooding of the city and remains true to this day—is that you had a tremendous number of these private security companies that just descended on the Gulf. And it wasn’t just security. It was also the major war profiteers that have been operating in Iraq, like Bechtel, KBR, Fluor—the list went on and on and on. In the case of the Gulf, Dyncorp, which is another massive mercenary company, has had its operations there. A British company called ArmorGroup, one of the largest mercenary companies in the world, has deployed in the Gulf and had a sustained presence there. They really turn it into Baghdad on the Bayou. They go from war profiteering to disaster profiteering, and I fear that that’s what we’re seeing once again.



AMY GOODMAN: And the National Guard?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, the National Guard, they say that there are 1,500 to 2,000 National Guard’s people that are now just in the New Orleans area alone—7,000 National Guard in the state of Louisiana—which is more than there were for Hurricane Katrina. And the reason that the National Guard was not there is because Bush had them somehow defending the state of Louisiana by occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. And so, now Mayor Nagin and others are saying that they’re better prepared than they were last time.



But what we’re seeing here in St. Paul, Amy—and you and I went to that press conference; we heard you asking those questions before—is that these individuals who are now saying, expressing their dire concern for the people of the Gulf, who are talking about “We’re going to encourage our corporate sponsors to raise money, and we want people to open their wallets,” these are the people that were responsible for systematically failing to do anything effective to rescue or help the people of the Gulf, that ignored them. George Bush flies around in his plane and doesn’t hit the ground. These were the people that did the—



AMY GOODMAN: Last time.



JEREMY SCAHILL: Last time in Hurricane Katrina. And now, all of a sudden, they seem to be making this hurricane a major part of their political campaign here in St. Paul. This isn’t just they learned a lesson. There’s a crass nature to this, I think, that’s playing out, where they’re actually using it in an attempt to gain political advantage right now.



AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to leave it there, and I want to thank you very much, Jeremy Scahill, for being with us, Democracy Now! correspondent, bestselling author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. And we are certainly going to continue to cover what is unfolding as we speak right now. Hurricane Gustav, expected to make landfall today, it’s being called, at least at this point, a Category 3 storm. That’s what Katrina was.

[Daniyal]

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney cited Cofer Black, the former head of Counterterrorism at the CIA, as his advisor on issues involving prisoner interrogation during a recent presidential debate. Black is now the vice chairman on private military firm, Blackwater. We speak with Jeremy Scahill, author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army,” about Romney and Black, as well as State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard and his brother’s ties to the company ..



Jeremy Scahill, independent journalist, Democracy Now correspondent, author of “Blackwater: the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.”

Scott Horton, New York attorney specializing in international law and human rights. He is a contributor to Harper"s Magazine where he writes the blog No Comment. He served as chair of the International Law Committee at the New York Bar Association.



AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the latest in the unfolding controversy surrounding the private military contractor Blackwater. On Friday, the State Department’s top investigator was forced to resign, following the disclosure his brother sat on Blackwater’s advisory board. Inspector General Howard Krongard had initially denied his brother’s ties to the company. Current and former State Department officials have previously accused Krongard of thwarting probes into contracting waste and crimes in Iraq, including alleged arms smuggling by Blackwater guards.



Meanwhile, after initially indicating it would let Blackwater’s contract expire in May, State Department officials are now raising the likelihood of a renewal. The acting head of US diplomatic security, Gregory Starr, has reportedly told Blackwater it will be judged on its actions “from here on out.” That would preclude from consideration the September shooting deaths of seventeen Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards in Baghdad.



In his latest piece in The Nation magazine, independent journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill writes that Blackwater isn’t taking any chances on keeping its lucrative deals. Scahill says Blackwater has launched a major rebranding campaign aimed at winning new government contracts far beyond Iraq. And it’s also playing a role in the presidential race, establishing deep ties to Republican hopeful Mitt Romney.



Jeremy Scahill joins me now in the firehouse studio, author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Welcome, Jeremy.



JEREMY SCAHILL: Thanks, Amy.



AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s take these one by one. First, Krongard resigning—how significant is this, and who was he?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, this is very significant. I mean, Cookie Krongard, as his nickname was, Howard Krongard, was the top official at the State Department responsible for investigating waste, fraud and abuse. And he was directly responsible for investigating Blackwater, because Blackwater works for the US State Department.



One of the original scandals that erupted with Krongard was when Henry Waxman raised the prospect that Krongard had been stifling a Justice Department criminal investigation into allegations that Blackwater involved in some kind of an arms smuggling operation in Iraq. Krongard, instead of assigning a seasoned liaison to work with the Justice Department from the State Department, actually assigned his congressional liaison and media person. And Waxman says that that ultimately caused a delay of about two weeks in the investigation. So he was already under fire at the time.



Now, I have to say, before Cookie Krongard appeared before Waxman’s committee a couple of weeks ago, where it was revealed that his brother Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard was in fact a paid consultant to Blackwater, had been—had accepted a position as a paid consultant to Blackwater on the company’s advisory board, the Krongards were familiar to me. I, in fact, had written in my book about Buzzy Krongard. He wasn’t just a guy who joined Blackwater’s advisory board as a paid consultant in the midst of this scandal. He was one of the central people at the Central Intelligence Agency responsible for getting Erik Prince’s men from Blackwater into the mercenary business. Buzzy Krongard, at the time that Blackwater jumped into the mercenary business in 2002, shortly after 9/11, he was the number three man at the CIA, the executive director. He was a hunting buddy of Erik Prince. And he was the one who got Blackwater—was central to getting Blackwater its first mercenary contract that we know of, which was a $5 million black contract to go into Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11. Erik Prince went over with that initial team. So, there was a prolonged five-plus-year relationship between Blackwater and the brother of the man who then would ultimately be responsible for investigating potential crimes or allegations of misconduct on the part of Blackwater.



Now, an interesting side note to this is that apparently the Krongard brothers hate each other, and they actually have tried to wheel that out as a defense in this case. But it would be an extraordinary coincidence that the man responsible at the CIA for getting Blackwater into the mercenary business with the US government, his brother just happens to be the guy investigating the company or supposed to be investigating the company and accused of failing to do so at the very moment when a cornucopia of scandals present themselves.



AMY GOODMAN: Now, after initially indicating that it would let Blackwater’s contract expire in May, the State Department is now saying, acting head of US diplomatic security, Gregory Starr, that Blackwater will be judged on its actions “from here on out”?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, then that probably means that a lot of Blackwater people will be going to jail. I mean, the reality is that on—and that’s not going to happen—the reality is that on December 3, Blackwater released a job posting seeking snipers and more protective security specialists because of an extension of its State Department contract. So apparently Blackwater knows something that has not been revealed publicly, because they’re hiring new guards under their WPPS contract, their State Department contract, which is how they work in Iraq.



AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to the campaign. I want to play Mitt Romney’s comments at the Republican CNN/YouTube debate last month. In an exchange with Senator John McCain, Romney refused to say whether he thinks waterboarding is torture.



MITT ROMNEY: I did not say and I do not say that I’m in favor of torture. I am not. I’m not going to specify the specific means of what is and what is not torture so that the people that we capture will know what things we’re able to do and what things we’re not able to do. And I get that advice from Cofer Black, who is a person who was responsible for counterterrorism in the CIA for some thirty-five years. I get that advice by talking to former generals in our military. And I don’t believe—



ANDERSON COOPER: Time.



MITT ROMNEY: I don’t believe it’s appropriate for me, as a presidential candidate, to lay out all of the issues one by one—



ANDERSON COOPER: Time.



MITT ROMNEY: —get questioned one by one: Is this torture? Is that torture?



AMY GOODMAN: Mitt Romney. Jeremy Scahill?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. Well, it’s interesting that Mitt Romney brings up Cofer Black and wheels him out in his defense of his refusal to label waterboarding torture and says we’re not going to tell the enemies what we’re going to do to them when I’m president. Anyone who knows anything about the career of Cofer Black, who’s the number two man at Blackwater, the head of their new private intelligence company called Total Intelligence Solutions, none of the things that Mitt Romney is saying will come as a surprise. For much of the past year, Cofer Black, who currently remains the number two man, the vice chairman of Blackwater Worldwide, he has been Mitt Romney’s senior advisor on counterterrorism. And so, when you hear Mitt Romney refuse to call waterboarding torture and say things like, we’re not going to talk about the tactics we’re going to use, and call for a doubling of Guantanamo, you have to understand that the man who’s telling him to say these things, who’s advising him on these policies, is one of the biggest thugs to serve in US government.



I mean—and the other thing is that Cofer Black, what Mitt Romney said about him was a dramatic exaggeration. He said he ran—he was responsible for counterterrorism at the CIA for thirty-five years. Well, first of all, Black was only in the CIA for twenty-eight years, and he only ran the counterterrorism program for three of those. But nonetheless, Cofer Black was in charge of counterterrorism at one of the most crucial times in recent history. On 9/11, it was Cofer Black who was head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. This is a man who was seemingly obsessed with corporal mutilation. He would talk about having flies crawling across the eyeballs of America’s enemies, putting skulls on pikes, whacking off heads with machetes, bringing heads, severed heads, back in cardboard boxes on dry ice of bin Laden to present to President Bush. He was the man responsible for escalating the use of Bill Clinton’s extraordinary rendition program, the US government-sanctioned kidnapping and torture program.



And now he apparently is one of the key people in the Romney campaign. I mean , if Mitt Romney became president, it raises the prospect of Blackwater’s lucrative business under Bush looking like a church bake sale.



AMY GOODMAN: How significant is Cofer Black to Mitt Romney’s campaign?



JEREMY SCAHILL: I think he’s incredibly significant. And the fact is that when John McCain goes after Mitt Romney on this issue, which McCain has been pretty forceful on, having been tortured himself, and one of the only Republicans who really is speaking out against it in a clear way, the fact that he tries to wheel out Cofer Black in response to McCain saying, “Well, you should talk to people like Colin Powell,” indicates that not only does Romney get his advice from Cofer Black, but he seems to want to use him as a propaganda tool, as well. And let’s be clear here, Cofer Black, while working with the Romney campaign, also is running a private intelligence company, Total Intelligence Solutions, is one of the key people behind the scenes at Blackwater and one of the major figures in this world of private security and private intelligence, one the dons of the industry.



AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, talk about the re-branding of Blackwater.



JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah. Well, I mean, the industry itself, the mercenary industry, has been engaged in a re-branding campaign to take this old dirty profession of soldiers, you know, for hire and remake it as a peacekeeping operation. Blackwater has undergone a major overhaul of its website. It’s no longer called Blackwater USA; it’s called Blackwater Worldwide. Their logo, which used to be a bear paw in a sniper scope, is now a bear paw surrounded by two half-ovals. It almost looks reminiscent of the United Nations logo. No longer are Blackwater mercenaries referred to even as “personal security operatives” or “personal security details;” they are “global stabilization professionals.” And so, the terms that are being wheeled out—on the Blackwater website, you can purchase a teddy bear with a Blackwater t-shirt on it, a onesie for your infant. It comes in both blue and pink.



And recently, Blackwater paratroopers staged a dramatic aerial landing not in Baghdad or Kabul, but in San Diego at halftime of the San Diego State-BYU football game, where they came down in parachutes with the Blackwater flag. They actually at one point inadvertently dragged the American flag on the ground, which has gotten the attention of some bloggers. And it’s interesting that Blackwater did this in San Diego, their paratroopers landing on the field, because they’re fighting back major fierce local resistance to their attempt to open an 824-acre mercenary camp based right on the US/Mexico border.



But Blackwater’s business, in many ways, Amy, has never been better. They’re being considered for part of a $15 billion contract with the Pentagon to operate in the so-called war on drugs. They recently got a $92 million contract to operate flights for the Pentagon in Central Asia. The intelligence company is growing. They have a maritime division with a 184-foot vessel that has been fitted for paramilitary use. They recently test-flew their unmanned airship, called the Polar 400, which they’re marketing to the Department of Homeland Security. And also, they’re making—



AMY GOODMAN: Along the border, to be used?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Yes, to monitor the US/Mexico border. But they’re also saying it could be used by government and non-government entities alike. They also are making an armored vehicle called the Grizzly, which they’re sort of portraying as the most versatile armored vehicle in history, combining the durability of an armored vehicle with the versatility of an SUV. And Erik Prince intends to have that vehicle modified so that it would be legal for use on US highways and roads.



AMY GOODMAN: Potrero, where this controversy is taking place, whether they’ll set up a base there, used—Blackwater used the fires in California, helped some people out there?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. Well, Amy, look, Blackwater really jumped into the domestic operations component of its business in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They started a whole new division of the company for domestic operations. I think Blackwater sees disaster response as a gateway, one of the gateways, into a massive Homeland Security budget and that the Department of Homeland Security, like all agencies of the federal government, is being radically privatized. 70% of the US national intelligence budget—sixteen intelligence agencies—70% of that budget is in the hands of private contractors. The Border Patrol is—it faces the prospect of being privatized. DynCorp, one of Blackwater’s competitors, has said it wants to put boots on the ground as privatized border patrol.



Blackwater is a very innovative, cutting-edge company, and they are sticking their fingers into every pot that they can get them into, and Homeland Security is a major one. And one of the gateways into it, like Darfur for international peacekeeping, is to say, “We can be the first responders. We can respond to the hurricanes, the floods, the fires.” It’s a gateway.



AMY GOODMAN: And what is the problem you see with that?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, there’s a number of problems. I mean, first of all, it raises serious constitutional questions about, are the civil liberties of individuals being protected that Blackwater comes in contact with? But on a deeper level, it has to do with how we distribute resources in this country. If the poor are left to drown and starve and the rich can then hire their private fire departments or have private utilities, that means that in this country you have to be a person of means to be entitled to services that the government normally provides. And so, this radical privatization agenda ultimately is a pulling out of the rug from the most needy people in the society.



AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Jeremy Scahill, author of the book Blackwater. Scott Horton also joins us. He teaches law at Columbia Law School. He participates in the blog “No Comment” at Harper’s Magazine and was the chair of the International Law Committee at the New York Bar Association. What do you see as the issue of Blackwater here, the problem of Blackwater here?



SCOTT HORTON: Well, I think Jeremy puts his finger right on it. It really is—it’s a massive privatization of national security operation, including intelligence operations. But we have a major aspect of it that’s now in focus in Congress, and that’s the accountability problem. If we look at the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq today, we see that US men and women in uniform, if they do something wrong, there’s a proper accountability process for it, including discipline and court-martial. If it’s Blackwater or if it’s another contractor, nothing happens. It’s effective impunity. And, in fact, we have thousands of recorded incidents out there that have gone without punishment of any kind. At most, the employee who’s involved gets fired and sent back to the States. But then, frequently enough, they’re back on another plane, back working for a different contractor in Iraq or Afghanistan within a matter of weeks.



AMY GOODMAN: And, Jeremy, the status of the September 16th killings that took place in Baghdad?



JEREMY SCAHILL: Where seventeen Iraqis were killed, twenty-four others wounded. And actually those—some of the victims’ families and survivors are suing Blackwater, not just for wrongful death, but for war crimes under the Alien Tort Statute. And what’s interesting now is that there is the federal grand jury that’s been convened, and we understand it’s looking at a number of cases, not just at this case. But some witnesses and potentially people who were involved with the shooting in Nisour Square have testified in front of the grand jury.



And we understand from media reports—this is a grand jury that was convened in Washington, D.C.—we understand from media reports—and maybe Scott can add to this—that there potentially could be an attempt to prosecute as many as three of the Blackwater individuals involved at Nisour Square. And the way that they would most likely be prosecuted is under US civilian law, called the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, essentially saying that contractors commit a crime abroad, they can be prosecuted criminally for that at home. The problem is, is that the law was written in a way that it applies only to contractors accompanying the Armed Forces or working directly for the Armed Forces. Blackwater works for the State Department. And so, some legal observers say it’s like trying to cram a square into a circle, and if they go forward with this prosecution under a law that doesn’t exactly appear to apply to Blackwater, that it ultimately could be a step backwards. Now, Congress is trying to amend that so that it would apply to Blackwater, but it can’t be applied retroactively. And many of the legal experts I’ve talked to say there almost literally is no law that could be applied to Blackwater, except war crimes. And, I mean, that’s something that Scott has been looking at.



AMY GOODMAN: Scott Horton?



SCOTT HORTON: Well, that’s exactly correct. I’ll just say, first, if they go forward with this prosecution, this will be the first time ever that the Department of Justice has prosecuted a security contractor in Iraq with respect to a crime involving violence against locals. That’s never happened before, notwithstanding thousands of incidents. If they do it and they go forward with the prosecution on the basis of the MEJA alone, then I think there is—you know, there’s a serious question as to whether or not it’s going to apply. I’m not quite sure I come out exactly where Jeremy does. I think there is a basis for saying that it’ll cover them. The question is not whether they’re DOD contractors, but whether or not they’re involved in the contingency operation. And there, of course, they’re going to say that their function is just to provide security for Department of State personnel. I think you could look at it fairly and say, no, they’re really a part of this overall operation in Iraq. But the bottom line is, really, it’s a war crime question. There clearly is jurisdiction and a basis to act against them under the War Crimes Act. But the Bush administration doesn’t want to go there, doesn’t want to touch that. I think they’ve made that point clear.



AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to leave it here. I want to thank you very much, Jeremy Scahill, for joining us, author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Scott Horton, I’d like to stay after break, as we talk about the CIA tapes that the CIA has destroyed of interrogations.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

US Military Suicides at Record High; Report Finds Most Deaths at Single Colorado Base Were Preventable.

As many as 143 soldiers took their own lives last year, the highest rate of suicides among US troops ever. We speak with Salon.com correspondent Mark Benjamin, co-author of an in-depth investigation of suicides at an army base in Colorado.

Mark Benjamin, National correspondent for Salon.com. Along with Michael de Yoanna, he’s written an investigative series examining why returning US combat soldiers are committing suicide and murder in alarming numbers. It’s called “Coming Home” and was published on Salon.com last week.

JUAN GONZALEZ: We turn now to the sharp spike in the number of military suicides. The Pentagon reported last month that the rate of suicides among US troops has reached an all-time high, since record-keeping began three decades ago. At least 128, and possibly as many as 143, soldiers reportedly took their own lives last year. This January, the number of military suicides spiked to twenty-four, surpassing the total number of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined in the same period. Army Secretary Pete Geren announced the number of suicides at a press conference last month.



PETE GEREN: This is a challenge of the highest order for us as an army, and we are doing everything we can to address—every one of us takes every one of these deaths personally. And our commitment is, we’re going to do everything we can. We’re not going to stop until we don’t have any suicides in our army. And our resolve that we feel to attack this problem would be the same if it’s 120 or 110 or a hundred or ninety or eighty. We take every one personally.



JUAN GONZALEZ: The Army will reportedly begin a suicide prevention program next month to tackle the steadily increasing rates of military suicides over the past four years. But Army Secretary Geren said he had no explanation for why the numbers keep rising.



AMY GOODMAN: Well, the news website Salon.com just completed an in-depth investigation into a rash of suicides and murders since 2004 at one army base, the Fort Carson base in Colorado. They found most of the deaths were preventable and could have been avoided, but for the neglect and inadequate care returning combat veterans got from the Army.



Salon correspondents Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna wrote, “The soldiers seemed to be suffering classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder: explosions of anger, suicidal and homicidal ideation, flashbacks, nightmares and insomnia. The Army was responding, for the most part, with disciplinary action rather than treatment, evincing little concern for possible underlying problems. The soldiers self-medicated further. Predictable outcomes followed,” they wrote.



Their investigative series on preventable deaths at Fort Carson is called “Coming Home,” published at Salon.com last week. Mark Benjamin, Salon’s national correspondent and co-author of the “Coming Home” series joins us now from Washington.



Mark, welcome to Democracy Now! Congratulations on this very extensive investigation into this unprecedented number of deaths.



MARK BENJAMIN: Thank you so much, Amy.



AMY GOODMAN: Talk about how the military is dealing with this, and begin with one case. Begin with Adam Lieberman.



MARK BENJAMIN: You know, Adam Lieberman is a young soldier who served over a war in Iraq—over a year, excuse me, in Iraq and under extreme combat situations, returned to Fort Carson and was really somewhat typical of what we saw at Fort Carson. What we did is, of course, we took twenty-five deaths, you know, murders, suicides, and whittled it down to ten that we could get access to. We really studied ten of them intensely. One of them was Adam Lieberman.



When he got back from Iraq, he basically was at Fort Carson for two years suffering from symptoms that are pretty typical of post-traumatic stress disorder or combat stress: you know, these anger flashes, suicidal ideation, homicidal ideation, thinking about suicide or thinking about murder, extreme depression. And what happened was the military seemed to resist identifying his symptoms as related to combat. Instead, he was labeled with a personality disorder or just an anxiety disorder—in other words, his own problems, not the war. This is somebody who, like a lot of other folks we looked at, didn’t seem to have any mental problems before he went to war.



Also, when he didn’t get help, you know, Adam did what a lot of the soldiers at Fort Carson did: he turned to alcohol—there’s a lot of drinking out there, a lot of abuse of prescription drugs, really terrifying, actually—and ultimately became so depressed he acted out. You know, when you get drunk, you get in fights, so on and so forth. The Army responded by stripping his rank, punishing him. Ultimately, Adam, in October last year, basically didn’t feel like he had any other way out and made a suicide attempt by taking a tremendous number of prescription drugs. He survived.



An interesting twist, and I think this is unfortunately indicative of some of the attitude at Fort Carson, before Adam died, he painted on the wall his suicide note in big black letters, black paint, where he blamed the Army for his death. He blamed the mistreatment for his death, in this suicide note. “The Army took my life,” he wrote. And his mother flew out there soon after the suicide attempt and found that the Army was responding to the suicide attempt in part by charging Adam with destruction of government property. When his mother found out, she was so angry she half-jokingly offered to paint over the suicide note if they would drop the charges. The Army took her up on it, gave her a can of paint. She painted over her own son’s suicide note, and the Army still charged Adam anyways.



AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s amazing, and I want to let our radio listeners know we’re showing the images, the photographs, for example, of his mother painting over what he wrote: “I faced the enemy and lived. It was the Death Dealers that took my life.”



MARK BENJAMIN: That’s right. And the Death Dealers were his unit. That was the name for his unit, the Death Dealers. That’s right.



JUAN GONZALEZ: And Mark, what kind of investigation does the Army conduct, from what you were able to tell about these suicides? Do they try to get to the bottom of what caused them? Do they issue any reports about them at all?



MARK BENJAMIN: The Army says that they investigate every suicide that occurs in the Army so that they can prevent future suicides. Certainly, the Army investigation unit, which is called the Criminal Investigation Command, does do sort of a post-mortem, if you will, of each suicide. It’s a little bit difficult—when I look at those investigations, they look more to me like sort of just fact-finding. In other words, what did the person do? Did they slash their wrists? Did they take too many prescription drugs? Rather than, you know, looking at whether or not they could prevent future deaths.



What’s interesting is that when we looked at these deaths—and again, there’s a lot of focus on the suicides in the Army because, as you may have mentioned, there were more suicides, more soldiers died of suicide in the month of January 2009 than died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there’s also these murders going on, as well. When we talked to the Army, basically what they did is they gave us a list of initiatives that they are undertaking to prevent suicide: you know, hiring more counselors, putting together hotlines, putting out memos that are so that people get better diagnosed. But when you go to a place like Fort Carson and you hang out on the base and you meet with the soldiers and you walk the barracks and you go to the hospital and so on and so forth, they just don’t seem to be happening. I mean, these—they look good on paper. You know, when I interviewed the Army, the initiatives that they list sound terrific. They’re just not happening out in the field. And as a result, you know, an unknown number of soldiers are involved in violence, are not getting treatment, they’re self-medicating, and they’re acting out against themselves and against innocent people.



JUAN GONZALEZ: Tell us about the case of Ryan Alderman, another person that you profiled.



MARK BENJAMIN: Well, Ryan Alderman, the reason why I’ve spent a lot of time on Ryan’s case is because he was very similar to Adam Lieberman, Adam Lieberman, the soldier who wrote on his wall. The difference was that Alderman did not survive. He passed on just a few days before Adam made his suicide attempt. Ryan was also very typical of what we saw, excuse me, at Fort Carson. He also returned from Iraq, very similar tour to Adam Lieberman. He also suffered what looked like sort of the same symptoms: flashes of anger, suicidal ideation. He also—his medical records—his family turned over his full medical records to us, which was very helpful. And we also got to interview a bunch of his buddies. He had the same problem. It looks, by his medical records, that the Army did not want to admit that his problems seemed to be related to combat. Alderman also turned to alcohol to sort of take care, to try to keep his symptoms under control. He did some typical things that people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder sometimes do, including self-mutilation, which he was slicing himself. That’s what some people do with PTSD, because they feel so numb; it gives them at least some sensation.



The other thing that happened to Ryan Alderman is, his medical records show him—and this we found a lot at Fort Carson—as opposed to the Army addressing the underlying symptoms, he was given an incredible number of medications, you know, psychotropic medications, depressants—antidepressants, excuse me, and so on and so forth. And in fact, the day he was released from the hospital—this was actually in October also, a few days before Adam Lieberman’s suicide attempt—the records show he couldn’t even talk. He was slurring his words. He was obsessed with getting more Percocet or whatever drugs they had him on at the time. And he was still released from the hospital, despite this extremely high drug load in his body. And he went back to his barracks and took a Xanax, which he was not supposed to have, and overdosed and died. We don’t know whether—the Army says it was a suicide attempt, but the evidence that he actually meant to die is somewhat thin. He may have just been given too many drugs.



AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Mark Benjamin, why this one base in Colorado did you focus on?



MARK BENJAMIN: Well, you know, Fort Carson—our reporting suggests that Fort Carson is not an unusual situation, in part because the same people who provide medical care at Fort Carson provide medical are—that’s the Army Medical Command—provide medical care to all Army bases. And we certainly have, since we’ve done the series, have anecdotal reports from all over the country that this is going on everywhere. I picked Fort Carson almost completely by chance. I was there in the summer and in the fall working on a different investigation. It was about an alleged friendly fire incident that soldiers believed had been covered up.



And, you know, I flew out to Fort Carson. The very first soldier I met with, we went to a restaurant. We sat down, and he was obviously intoxicated, very, very nervous, paranoid. And we sat down at a restaurant, and he, of course, sat against the wall so he could scan the whole room. He was obviously under extreme anxiety and suffering from what looked like a lot of stress. And he freaked out because he had forgotten his gun. And we had to go and get in the car and drive to his house so he could be near his gun, because he wouldn’t go anywhere without his gun. And he seemed to be—I asked him whether he was getting any treatment. He didn’t seem to be getting any treatment. And then I met another one of his buddies and another one of his buddies, and a pattern soon began to emerge.



AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Mark Benjamin has done this incredible series on the unprecedented number of suicides of soldiers returning home.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

The New York Times reports more than seventy US military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The Americans are mostly Army Special Forces soldiers who are training Pakistani army and paramilitary troops, providing them with intelligence and advising on combat tactics. The CIA is also providing intelligence to a new Pakistani commando unit that has been used to kill and capture wanted militants. This comes as Pakistan has announced new plans to arm villagers in the North West Frontier province to fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the CIA inside Pakistan. Last week, a CIA drone targeted Baitullah Mehsud for the first time. Mehsud was identified last year as the man who had orchestrated the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.



Democracy Now .org

[Daniyal]

President Obama is speaking before a joint session of Congress Tuesday night in what is being described as the first State of the Union address of his presidency. While the economy is expected to dominate the agenda, Obama will also talk about his top foreign policy initiative: the war in Afghanistan. Last week, Obama ordered an additional 17,000 US combat troops to Afghanistan. The new deployments will begin in May and increase the US occupation force to 55,000. Today, we spend the hour looking at US involvement in Afghanistan with five guests: Anand Gopal, Afghanistan correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor; Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, authors of Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story; Gilles Dorronsoro, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and documentary filmmaker Kathleen Foster

Anand Gopal, Afghanistan correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. His reports are archived at AnandGopal.com

Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, first American journalists allowed access to Afghanistan in 1981, following the Soviet invasion and the expulsion of the entire Western press. They did an exclusive news story for CBS Evening News and produced a documentary for PBS called Afghanistan Between Three Worlds. Now they’re out with a book about US involvement in Afghanistan. It’s called Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story.

Kathleen Foster, Photojournalist and documentary filmmaker. Her latest film is called Afghan Women: A History of Struggle.

Gilles Dorronsoro, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. Previously, Dorronsoro was a professor of political science at the Sorbonne, Paris, and is the author of the book Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present and the new report “Focus and Exit: An Alternative Strategy for the Afghan War”



ANJALI KAMAT: President Obama is speaking before a joint session of Congress Tuesday night in what is being described as the first State of the Union address of his presidency. While the economy is expected to dominate the agenda, Obama will also talk about his top foreign policy initiative: the war in Afghanistan.



Last week, Obama ordered an additional 17,000 US combat troops to Afghanistan. The new deployments will begin in May and increase the US occupation force to 55,000. Another 32,000 non-US NATO troops are also in Afghanistan, although at a meeting in Poland last week NATO allies seemed reluctant to contribute more than a few hundred new combat troops to Afghanistan.



The top US commander, General David McKiernan, in Afghanistan welcomed Obama’s announcement.



GEN. DAVID McKIERNAN: I am very delighted with the President’s decision yesterday to send additional US forces to reinforce our efforts in Afghanistan. I will use most of those forces in the southern part of Afghanistan, an area where we do not have sufficient security presence, an area that has deteriorated somewhat, an area where we need persistent security presence in order to fight a counterinsurgency and to shape, clear, hold and build in support of a rapidly developing Afghan capacity.



ANJALI KAMAT: General McKiernan added later that at least another 10,000 troops will be needed beyond the President’s call for 17,000 more troops. He said 60,000 US troops would have to remain in Afghanistan for the next three to four years.



Meanwhile, the US military admitted on Saturday that a recent missile strike in western Afghanistan killed a majority of civilians. Last Tuesday’s bombs hit the tents of nomads where about a hundred families lived. This is Karim Khan, a resident of the area.



KARIM KHAN: It was 4:00 in the morning when the aircrafts started bombing, and people were asleep. Thirteen people from the tents and three other visitors were killed.



ANJALI KAMAT: The US had originally said the strikes had killed fifteen insurgents but conducted an investigation following Afghan outrage over the attack. The US military now admits that thirteen of the sixteen killed in the strike were civilians.



AMY GOODMAN: News of the strike came as the UN said Afghan civilian casualties jumped by nearly 40 percent last year. US-led forces were responsible for nearly 40 percent of the deaths, killing 828 people out of a reported 2,100 casualties.



Last week also marked the twentieth anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, after an occupation that lasted ten years, and was followed shortly thereafter by the collapse of the Soviet Union.



Today, nearly seven-and-a-half years into the US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, we host a discussion on the US role there, past, present and future.



We’re joined by several guests throughout the hour. We’re going to start, though, with Anand Gopal, the Afghanistan correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. He joins us on the line from Kabul.



Welcome to Democracy Now!, Anand. Tomorrow, President Obama will address a joint session of Congress. He’ll be talking about the economy. He’ll also be talking about Afghanistan. Can you talk about the significance of the surge in Afghanistan?



ANAND GOPAL: Well, as you mentioned in the opening, the violence has been increasing here every year for the last two years. And so, a lot of people here in Afghanistan feel that we’re at a critical juncture. We’re at a point where large parts of the countryside are not under the control of the Afghan government or the international forces, and without a drastic policy change, that things might tip over the edge. So the surge is something that’s being debated widely here.



ANJALI KAMAT: Anand Gopal, what’s been the reaction inside Afghanistan to the rising civilian casualties?



ANAND GOPAL: This is something that’s weighing heavily on the minds of Afghans everywhere and especially in those areas where the fighting is happening. This is really bringing a lot of villagers to question whether they want more troops in the area. So, a lot of Afghans that I speak to in these southern areas where the fighting has been happening say that to bring more troops, that’s going to mean more civilian casualties. It’ll mean more of these night raids, which have been deeply unpopular amongst Afghans. And also, there’s a problem where whenever American soldiers go into a village and then leave, the Taliban comes and attacks the village. So a lot of villagers feel that they’re sort of being attacked on all sides here and don’t view the injection of more troops as necessarily a solution to that.



ANJALI KAMAT: Anand Gopal, can you explain how much of Afghanistan is under control of the Afghan government and how the Taliban, after being routed in 2001, is once again a powerful force in the country?

[Daniyal]

ANAND GOPAL: The latest US National Intelligence Estimate about Afghanistan that covered this question estimated that about ten percent of the country is under the control of the Afghan government. And this was about eight months ago, and I would suspect that that number has gone even less since then.



And the way it’s worked is, most of the small towns and urban areas are under the control of the Afghan government, but most of the rural areas, which is where the majority of people live here, are not under the control of the government. They’re either under the control of the Taliban or under the control of various warlords and militias. And the Afghan countryside has been extremely chaotic and lawless for many years. And so, the Taliban kind of rode back into power by—on a platform of law and order, saying that the Afghan government is not doing its job of keeping out criminals and then providing security, so we’re going to come in here and install sharia law and make this place safe from criminals and bandits.



AMY GOODMAN: Anand Gopal, Vice President Biden recently met with President Hamid Karzai. There has been a clear shift of pulling support from Karzai by the US government. I believe they were in the middle of a meal, and Biden just got up and left. Can you talk about Hamid Karzai’s power right now; elections that are supposed to be coming up; his brother, Hamid Karzai’s brother, the allegation that he is a drug dealer, a drug runner in Afghanistan; and what future there is for the man who’s been the US representative in Afghanistan for quite a long time now?



ANAND GOPAL: Karzai’s popularity here is at an all-time low. He’s associated with a government that’s viewed as anywhere between predatory and ineffective. And he—the Afghan government has not been able to deliver on the many promises over the last few years, and so Afghans are holding Karzai responsible for this. And as his power started eroding here, he’s lashed out against the Americans and has been very vocal in his criticism of the civilian casualties. And I think this is one of the reasons why the US administration is kind of thinking about cutting him loose, because you have his pretty open and demonstrated criticisms of US policy here.



With that being said, there is an election coming up in the next few months, and there isn’t a clear-cut alternative to Karzai. Karzai has been able to build a sort of network, patronage network, over the course of the last few years, with important tribal leaders and other such people. And there’s nobody else in Afghanistan at the moment who has a sort of national name that Karzai does. So he’s in an interesting bind, where he’s very unpopular, but at the same time isn’t really opposed by any significance either.



ANJALI KAMAT: And, Anand Gopal, the last question I want to ask you is about—what are the different groups that sort of generally are thought to make up the Taliban? In this country, when we talk about forces fighting the US and NATO occupation in Afghanistan, they’re all generally called the Taliban. Can you give us a sense of who are the different insurgent groups in this country?



ANAND GOPAL: Yeah, the Taliban are sort of a catchall phrase for three or four different groups. The one is the group that’s led by Mullah Omar. These are the people that were in power back before 2001, sort of the old guard Taliban, and they make up the core of the insurgency. But they’re also flanked by various other groups. And one group is called the Haqqani network. This is run by a warlord by the name of Jalaluddin Haqqani, who’s based in Pakistan. He was a former American ally, who’s since—he’s then turned his guns on the Americans. And he’s closely aligned with al-Qaeda and has been behind a lot of the suicide attacks in Kabul and other places. There’s also another insurgent group led by a warlord by the name of Hekmatyar. He’s also somebody who was a US ally back in the ’80s during the Soviet war and has since turned against the Americans.



And these three groups are not the same, and they sort of have differing visions. Hekmatyar is—I’m sorry, Haqqani is more closely aligned to al-Qaeda, and they have more of a vision of global jihad, whereas the Mullah Omar’s Taliban usually restrict their fight and their ideology to within the borders of Afghanistan.



AMY GOODMAN: And would you say they have been strengthened by the US occupation, by the US troops? Do you think their power would shift if the US troops were out?



ANAND GOPAL: Well, certainly, most of these groups—or none of these groups had any power at all six or seven years ago, and they’ve been able to—they’ve been able to take advantage of the widespread disillusionment and [inaudible] with the US forces and with the Afghan government. And you have to remember, the US has come in and made a series of promises to the Afghans, and most of those promises, such as reconstruction and jobs, development, haven’t been met. And so, the Taliban and these other groups haven’t made that many promises, but they’ve been able to point out to the Afghans, say, “Look, these Americans have come here and have not delivered, so you should put your allegiance to us.” So—and they have certainly been able to capitalize on this.



AMY GOODMAN: Anand Gopal, thank you very much for being us, Afghanistan correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, speaking to us from Kabul. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. We’ll continue our discussion on Afghanistan, past, present and future, in a minute.



[break]



AMY GOODMAN: We’re looking at Afghanistan, past, present and future, on this eve of President Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress. He’s expected to address the economy and Afghanistan. We’re focusing on Afghanistan today, as we’re joined in Boston by Paul Gould and Elizabeth Fitzgerald [sic.], the first American journalists allowed access to Afghanistan in 1981, following the Soviet invasion and expulsion of the entire Western press. They did an exclusive news story for CBS Evening News and produced a documentary for PBS called Afghanistan Between Three Worlds. Now they’re out with a book about US involvement in Afghanistan. It’s called Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story.



We welcome you both to Democracy Now!, Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould. Why don’t you start by telling us what you think is most misunderstood about Afghanistan?



PAUL FITZGERALD: Liz?

[Daniyal]

ELIZABETH GOULD: Well, I think the whole origin of Afghanistan’s conflict really rests in Washington. I think that is the most misunderstood issue. And when we focus on the results of what happened coming out of Washington that really affected the ability of Afghanistan to develop what really had been historically, throughout a good part of the twentieth century, a very moderate form of Islam, a government, you know, that back in the 1920s was establishing women’s rights in the form of giving women the right to vote—so you can see that in terms of these effects on the way in which a country is actually forming and its own evolution, and then, suddenly, the impact of a policy that’s determined in Washington beginning to affect what’s going on in Afghanistan. And that really goes back really to the Eisenhower administration. So I’d say that, for me, is the most misunderstood element.



PAUL FITZGERALD: And one of the things that we’ve noticed recently—and it’s the most disturbing—is just that we’ve been listening to this stuff for thirty years now, and we’re beginning to hear a lot of the same kind of misinformation and, quite frankly, disinformation, from the same people who were putting that out in the late 1970s, early 1980s, about Afghanistan and its importance to the United States. And it’s really very frustrating to hear that coming from some people, at this point, who really should know better.



ANJALI KAMAT: On that note, I want to go to former National Security Adviser under President Carter. Zbigniew Brzezinski was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe last week discussing Afghanistan.



ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: If you go back to our initial engagement in Afghanistan, the objective has been to create a democratic, modern Afghanistan. That’s our words for an objective that, for a decade earlier, the Soviets sought with slightly different words: a socialist, advanced Afghanistan. Both goals are unattainable, because the Afghans don’t want foreigners with guns telling them how to suck eggs, how to organize themselves.



I think we have to define our objective more narrowly. That is to say, we don’t want Afghanistan—[inaudible] it also to Pakistan this way—nor Pakistan to be the basis for international terrorist activity directed particularly to us but also to our friends.



Now, is Taliban a terrorist organization, or is it an ugly medieval-type throwback of a purely local character? I tend to think that it is, that’s what it is. The Taliban does terrible things. I was talking to someone about this last night at dinner, and this person said, “Yeah, but what about the horrible things they do to women and so forth?” That’s the painful part. But the same things happen in some other parts of the world. Are we going to go everywhere?



ANJALI KAMAT: Paul Fitzgerald, can you talk about what happened in 1979, just before the Soviet invasion, and Zbigniew Brzezinski’s role in that?



PAUL FITZGERALD: Well, one of the big problems that I have with what Mr. Brzezinski said was the fact that he was the one who was very much instrumental in bringing back the anti-modernist element in Afghan society, which had come to terms pretty much with the Afghan government, with fifty, sixty years’ worth of Afghan governments trying to slowly modernize their society after the devastation of both Russian and British colonialism in that part of the world.



So, you know, to focus on that one area—one of the things specifically that we looked at, in terms of the documents, the documentation, which is all now available, in terms of what the Soviets were up to and in terms of what the United States was up to, the Soviets specifically tried to get a non-aligned, non-Marxist government. And they actually, before they invaded, tried to get the Marxists to step down and to hold elections and to establish a Loya Jirga, that would actually bring in a lot of the other elements. The KGB station in Kabul was not happy about the Marxists taking over. They knew full well that they did not have broad support of the people, regardless of what their political outlook was. And the Russians were telling them that, and the Russians were also telling the Carter administration exactly what their plans were and what they were going to do. In fact, Secretary of Defense, who is now the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, states in his book, “If ever there was something that the United States knew ahead of time was going happen, it was the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan.”



AMY GOODMAN: Wasn’t it Brzezinski himself who, when interviewed some ten years ago by the French newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur, said—and, of course, this is before 2001, the September 11th attacks—he said, “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”—talking about the US support for the Mujahideen. Paul Fitzgerald?



PAUL FITZGERALD: That’s exactly it. As I said, you know, one of the things about—we’ve been hearing a lot of very strange talk about what goes on in Afghanistan, and that’s what motivated us to go there in 1981. We were saying, “Well, we’re getting a story from the Russian side of the coin; we’re getting a story from the American side of the coin. What is going on in Afghanistan?”



When we went there, what we saw was a country that was struggling to be independent, struggling to be democratic. And the Soviet Union, for whatever their faults are, and we know they had plenty, what they were doing was they were supporting the progressive, the more progressive elements in Afghan society. The United States had been doing that in a certain period of time, during their so-called experiment in democracy during the 1960s and the 1970s. But unfortunately, after 1973, the United States turned its back on advancing the cause of Afghan democracy and started supporting the—not the Taliban, the Mujahideen movement, which was being run by the ISI in Pakistan, the intelligence arm of the Pakistani army. And this is where things began to go terribly wrong.



And as a result of that, we wound up in the 1980s with this kind of good-versus-evil mantra, which was almost a kind of Hollywoodized version of this very complex situation, in which the Afghan government and the progressives in Afghanistan were trying to give women their rights. They were dealing—and the men were doing this, as well; it wasn’t just women’s organizations. The men were trying to do this, as well. And they were up against some very, very conservative, medieval fundamentalists who were over the border in Pakistan or up in the mountains. But this was no different than primitive groups anywhere that are anti-modernist. They did not want modernism of any stripe brought to Afghanistan. But they certainly were not the progressive movement that was actually active in the country at the time.



ANJALI KAMAT: Elizabeth Gould, I want to come back to this country and how the narrative about what happened in Afghanistan was talked about and created in this country. Dan Rather—you write extensively about Dan Rather in your book, former news anchor for CBS Evening News and now managing editor and anchor of Dan Rather Reports on HDNet. He was on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show last month discussing Afghanistan.



DAN RATHER: The ancient Greeks, the British and the Soviets tried to do a version of what we’re doing. But I do feel obliged to say, because it’s true, that they all tried to colonize Afghanistan. We are not seeking to colonize Afghanistan. The Soviets made no bones about it. They were coming in to take over the country. They wanted to run the country, wanted to be there a hundred or thousand years from now. That is not the case with what we’re trying to do.



ANJALI KAMAT: Elizabeth Gould, your response?



ELIZABETH GOULD: First of all, we have to go back and really look at Dan Rather’s contribution to the way in which the story was framed originally back in the early 1980s. After the Soviets crossed the border, Dan Rather was really the first person—the first journalist who really established the idea that this war should be viewed through superpower confrontation between, you know, basically the evil empire and the freedom fighters. And this was actually documented by Jay Peterzell, who wrote an article in the Columbia Journalism Review that was out in the—I think it was in the spring of 1981, which actually analyzed the way the reporting was happening in our country about Afghanistan and how it suddenly changed after Dan Rather had this report on 60 Minutes. This is when he had gone into the mountains in Afghanistan through Pakistan, and he had gone in to basically talk with the Mujahideen. And Peterzell’s comments, in his review, highlighted the fact that it was a very—he was very skeptical of how serious Rather was at really probing into the deeper implications of where the financing was coming from, and the fact at the time was the financing was coming from the United States. But suddenly the reporting changed after Dan Rather’s report. So he became the sort of the tone of the storytelling.



And we did our first story for CBS News, and we experienced that tone. It was very interesting to see the way they looked at the material, where we brought back a story that indicated there was a more complex story, that there was an Afghan civil war going on, that there was an issue that had to focus on the Afghan part of it. There was no interest. The only interest they had was in focusing on the amount of Russians in the street and the American viewpoint that this was a holy war against the evil empire. And then, once that was established throughout the 1980s, it continued.



And then we experienced again, in 1983, when we took Roger Fisher from the Harvard Negotiation Project to Afghanistan to assess the possibility that the Soviets could be negotiated out, and Roger’s assessment did show that that possibility exists. We brought that back to Nightline. And instead of really making it clear, the presentation really left a confusion in any viewer who would have seen that Nightline that that possibility existed. So, at the point when there was really a possibility, that’s when a lot of the increased funding really started flowing in to increase the insurgency, which actually was one of the major reasons that the Soviets claim that they couldn’t withdraw.

[Daniyal]

AMY GOODMAN: And the notion of blowback, what that means, the CIA term? You fund—you fund organizations, you fund groups, that then set their sights back on the very people that funded them, in this case, the United States. The term “blowback”?



ELIZABETH GOULD: There’s no question that there is definitely a line of connection leading up to 9/11 that is clearly connected to the original financing of what was referred to at the time as the holy warriors, the Mujahideen freedom fighters, who now have turned into international terrorists. And, of course, when we do talk about the Taliban, we do have to remember that as the ultimate expression of the financing that had started in the early—certainly very actively in the early 1980s and that really ended up producing the Taliban, which really became active in the early 1990s through to their taking Kabul in 1994. So this actually was really a direct result of financing through Pakistan’s ISI.



And once again, when we talk about the Taliban, in delineating between Pakistani Taliban, Afghan Taliban, these are very important delineations that are very rarely talked about. We have to remember that in terms of President Zia, there was no doubt that the goal of the Taliban, the idea of the Taliban, which was articulated by Zia in the 1980s, when he was running the entire Afghan operation—all the money was flowing to Zia—Zia’s goal was to really—to create an Islamic effect on the area that he would control through Pakistan and that the desire to control Afghanistan was a part of it. So we have to be very concerned about the Pakistani aspect to the control of Afghanistan through Talibanization.



ANJALI KAMAT: I want to turn to a clip about the impact of US support for the Mujahideen on Afghan women’s rights. This is from Kathleen Foster’s documentary film Afghan Women: A History of Struggle. And we’ll be joined now by Kathleen Foster here in New York.



PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: The Soviet Union must pay a concrete price for their aggression.



ALIA ZARIF: From ’79 to ’89, Afghanistan was at war. The war was not of Afghan against Russian; the war was a war of American and Russian, but with the blood of Afghan people. It was a war fought mostly in the rural areas. On one side was the army of the Afghan government and the Soviet Union, and on the other side was the Mujahideen or jihadis backed by the US government. Every day, the Mujahideen was getting stronger, getting more weapons.



NASEEMA: The Mujahideen would come and kill people—small children, women, young men, boys. There were so many dead bodies. Eighteen members of my family were killed.



FAHIMA VORGETTS: They would burn villages, burn crops, spill acid on women’s face, rape women, one way or the other force the villagers to get out of their village. The women of Afghanistan did not lose their rights under the Taliban. They lost their rights before the Taliban, when the fundamentalist Mujahideen in 1992, when they came to power. That’s when they lost their rights.



I always say that the difference between the Mujahideen and the fundamentalist Taliban is the length of their beard. All of them were raised and supported and trained in Pakistan in those madrasas and by the US, by the CIA, by the Pentagon, and by the Saudis and by the ISI of Pakistan. They are the same people.



ANJALI KAMAT: That was Fahima Vorgetts from Afghan Women’s Fund, excerpt from the documentary A History of Afghan Women’s Struggle by Kathleen Foster. The first voice you heard in the beginning of the clip was President Carter in 1979. We’re joined now by Kathleen Foster here in the firehouse studio.



Welcome to Democracy Now!



KATHLEEN FOSTER: Thank you. It’s good to be here.



ANJALI KAMAT: Your reaction? Can you explain what some of the Afghan women were talking about, in terms of how their rights—Fahima Vorgetts said, you know, Afghan women’s rights started retracting not just with the Taliban, but with the Mujahideen.



KATHLEEN FOSTER: Yes. I think she’s talking about the ’80s, the beginning of the ’80s, and she lived through the—as an activist through the ’70s, when Afghanistan was really—had a very progressive movement. There was a big movement of communist people, various Marxists, socialists, and eventually a takeover by the communists. And women’s rights at that point were one of the major—one of the major thrusts. And women were becoming—were getting educated. They were deciding their own destiny, no more forced marriages, and so on and so forth.



And as the Mujahideen, as the US funded these—what were a very small group of fundamentalists, who were also allied with the wealthy landowners, so that it was a sort of class struggle going on in Afghanistan—as the US funded these people in the countryside, where they were most—where they were really the strongest, women started to lose their rights totally. Schools were bombed. People who had any contact with the government, like government officials, like teachers, and so on and so forth, were killed. Women were raped. And so, Fahima—and then, in ’94, the Mujahideen actually took over the country, and that’s when Fahima is saying the women’s rights throughout the whole country were lost at that point, not when the Taliban took over, which is what, you know, we usually hear in the press, that the Taliban were responsible for the women losing their rights. But it was really before that.



AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to talk about what needs to happen now. We’re going to go to break first, though. Kathleen Foster, photojournalist and documentary filmmaker, her latest film is called Afghan Women: A History of Struggle. She was in Afghanistan in the ’70s and then returned in 2003.



This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. Back in a minute.



[break]



AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined by a roundtable of people around the country. Right now in Washington, D.C., Gilles Dorronsoro. He’s a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, previously a professor of political science at the Sorbonne in Paris. He’s written the book Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present.



Welcome to Democracy Now! Let’s take that chronologically backwards: Afghanistan today and what you think of President Obama picking up from President Bush and actually announcing a surge. He’ll be giving a major speech tomorrow before a joint session of Congress, Gilles.



GILLES DORRONSORO: Well, maybe, two things here. The first thing is that Obama decided to send more troops, reinforcement, in Afghanistan. But at the same time, there is no new strategy. That may be the most interesting thing. There is a strategic review going on, but it’s not finished. Maybe it will be finished in one month, two months. We don’t know, actually. And at the same time, it seems that the military thinks that the situation is so bad in the south that they need to send 17,000 men more. So that’s the first point, that the disconnection between the reinforcement and the strategy.



The second point, maybe, is that it’s probably a very wrong idea to send troops south. Why? Because south and east has been the place where most of the troops have been sent—the international coalition, I mean—and where the result is extremely weak. There is no Afghan state there. The population is rejecting the international coalition. And I think it’s not going to produce real results there. So, most probably, the situation is not going to improve very much in the south, and it’s going to be more and more difficult to send reinforcements like that, because it’s an open-ending process.



More Information Go To Democracy Now .org

[Daniyal]

In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai is coming under intense criticism from opponents for trying to move the Afghan presidential election to next month, four months earlier than an election date set by the country’s Independent Election Commission. Karzai’s move is seen as an attempt to guarantee his re-election. One presidential candidate, former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, said, “A very dangerous first step has been taken that, if it’s not checked, could lead us to the very unfortunate situation of Kenya or Zimbabwe. This is a very perilous position that we have to avoid.” UN officials said it would be impossible to have even paper ballots in time for an election for next month.

Ex-US Official Predicts US Will Be in Afghanistan Until 2025

Meanwhile, the former top US commander in Afghanistan has projected that US troops will remain in Afghanistan for another sixteen years. Retired Lieutenant General David Barno told a Senate panel last week that it will take until 2025 for the US to hand over control fully to Afghan institutions.

CIA Strike in Pakistan Kills Eight

The CIA is continuing to carry out missile strikes in Pakistan. At least eight people died on Sunday when an unmanned drone attacked a compound in northwest Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. US officials said the target was a Taliban sanctuary.

US Pledges $900 Million in Palestinian Aid

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Egypt in her first trip to the Middle East since taking office. Clinton is attending an international conference in Sharm El-Sheikh to raise money for the Gaza Strip. The US plans to pledge $300 million in humanitarian relief for the people of Gaza in addition to $600 million for the Palestinian Authority. The additional money not aimed at Gaza comprises $200 million in budget support to pay wages, much of which was previously announced, and $400 million to support reform and development in the West Bank. Secretary of State Clinton praised the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “Through his commitment to negotiations with neighbors, President Abbas has shown the hallmarks of leadership, as has Prime Minister Fayyad, who has bolstered the credibility of his government by instituting a national budget process that is transparent and serves the needs of the Palestinian people. They are offering their people the option of a peaceful, independent and more prosperous future, not the violence and false choices of extremists whose tactics, including rocket attacks that continue to this day, only will lead to more hardship and suffering. These attacks must stop.”

The Washington Post reports the US aid package underscores how little the Obama administration’s policy toward the Palestinian issue has thus far differed from the Bush administration’s approach.

Aid Groups Calls for Israel to Lift Gaza Blockade

International aid groups are calling on Israel to lift the blockade of Gaza, because they say it is preventing the Palestinians from rebuilding the Gaza Strip. Israel has banned the importation of cement, steel rods and other material necessary for construction. Over the past month, Israel has also arbitrarily refused entry to items like chickpeas, macaroni, wheat flour, notebooks for students, freezer appliances, generators and water pumps, and cooking gas.

Israel Considers Vastly Expanding West Bank Settlement

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports an Israeli government agency is quietly promoting plans to vastly expand a settlement in the occupied West Bank that currently houses just twelve Israeli families. The Israeli Civil Administration has proposed the initial construction of 550 apartments in the settlement of Gva’ot, located near Alon Shvut, followed by the construction of another 4,450 units at a later stage. Another 2,000 apartments are planned for a neighboring settlement.

Obama Administration to Boycott UN Racism Conference

The Obama administration has announced that the United States will boycott the World Conference Against Racism in Geneva next month, unless its final document drops all references to Israel and reparations for slavery. Israel and Canada have already announced plans to boycott the UN conference. In 2001, Bush administration diplomats walked out of the conference in Durban, South Africa after delegates proposed a resolution likening Zionism to racism. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, praised President Obama’s decision. The group said, “The event, which has again proven to be a celebration of racism and vile anti-Semitic activity, is further evidence of the U.N.’s inability to demonstrate any semblance of fairness or objectivity on these issues when it comes to the Jewish State.”

Mullen: Iran Has Enough Uranium to Build Atomic Bomb

The chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen declared Sunday that the US now believes Iran has amassed enough uranium that, with further purification, could be used to build an atomic bomb. Mullen’s statement on CNN went further than previous official judgments of the Iranian nuclear threat. But in a separate interview, Defense Secretary Robert Gates downplayed the immediate threat posed by Iran. During an interview on Meet the Press, Gates said, “They are not close to a stockpile; they are not close to a weapon at this point. So there is some time.”

US Journalist Jailed in Iran

In other news on Iran, the Iranian government has admitted it has been holding an American journalist in jail since late January. Thirty-one-year-old Roxana Saberi is a freelance reporter for the BBC, National Public Radio and Fox News. Iran accused her of gathering news illegally.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush has been sentenced to three years in prison. A reporter for Al-Baghdadiya Television, Muntadhar al-Zaidi drew worldwide attention when he hurled his shoes at Bush during a news conference in December. Zaidi was convicted of assaulting a foreign leader. His attorney and family have claimed prison guards have abused Zaidi since his jailing. Earlier today, Zaidi’s brother, Uday al-Zaidi, rejected the verdict.

Uday al-Zaidi: “They told us of the verdict when we entered the court. Unfortunately, the court is politicized.”

Reporter: “Will you appeal the verdict?”

Uday al-Zaidi: “We have already appealed the verdict, but the verdict was taken before session. Iraqi justice is not independent, and it is not honest, and I scorn those who say Iraqi justice is independent. Iraqi justice is not independent, and it is politicized. This court was set up according to Paul Bremer decisions, and the verdict of the court was issued according to Bush decisions.”

[Daniyal]

In other Iraq news, two top officials under the Saddam Hussein regime have been sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Former foreign minister Tariq Aziz and presidential adviser Ali Hassan al-Majid were convicted of a crime against humanity for their alleged roles in the 1992 killings of forty-two merchants. Fluent in English, Aziz was known as the international face of Hussein’s government prior to the US invasion. He is widely believed to have wielded little influence in Hussein’s government.

2 Journalists Among Dead in Baghdad Suicide Attack

The death toll from Tuesday’s suicide bombing west of Baghdad has risen to thirty-three people. The dead included two Iraqi journalists with the Cairo-based Baghdadiya TV. Another television reporter was also critically injured.

Pakistan Arrests Activists, Bans Gathering Ahead of Anti-Gov. Protest

In Pakistan, hundreds of activists have been jailed ahead of today’s massive protest march by opponents of President Asif Ali Zardari. The Pakistani government has also banned public gatherings in two key provinces. The march was initially organized to demand the reinstatement of the deposed Supreme Court chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

[Daniyal]

In Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Obama administration has announced it will withdraw its entire $900 million aid pledge if the pending Palestinian unity government doesn’t recognize Israel’s “right to exist.” The warning was reportedly delivered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last week. Clinton told Abbas the US Congress won’t approve Palestinian aid unless the Palestinian government also renounces violence. No such conditions have been imposed on Israel. The Israeli government refuses to renounce violence and has never recognized the right of Palestine to exist. Palestinians have also criticized the demand they recognize Israel’s “right to exist” because it forces them to go beyond recognizing Israel within secure borders, but in fact affirm the legitimacy of their dispossession and ongoing occupation..



Democracy Now .org

[Daniyal]

In an attempt to defuse a growing political crisis, the Pakistani government has announced the reinstatement of Iftikhar Chaudhry, the deposed chief justice. The move comes as Pakistan was facing mass streets protests against the rule of President Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto. On Friday, Zardari ordered Pakistan’s main opposition leader, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to be placed under house arrest. Sharif defied the order and held a large protest in Lahore on Sunday. Sharif was threatening to march to Islamabad, but the protest was called off after the government announced the reinstatement of Chaudhry. Chaudhry and sixty other judges were dismissed in 2007 by former president General Pervez Musharraf.

Israeli Troops Shoot US Activist in West Bank

An American activist from Oakland, California was critically injured Friday when Israeli soldiers fired a tear gas canister directly at his head during a weekly nonviolent protest against the wall in the West Bank village of N’alin. Thirty-seven-year-old Tristan Anderson is the fourth member of the International Solidarity Movement to be critically injured or killed by the Israeli military since 2003.

Jonathan Pollack of the ISM: “He was shot at directly with a tear gas projectile, with an extended range tear gas projectile from about fifty to sixty meters. And the impact caused several condensed fractures to his skull and collapsation of his eye socket. He was operated on in the hospital a few hours later in critical condition, and large portions of his frontal lobe had to be removed, because it was splattered with bone fragments as a result of the impact of the tear gas canister.”

During their weekly demonstrations since last April, four unarmed N’alin residents have been killed and over 400 injured by the Israeli Defense Forces.

Red Cross Report: US Committed Torture at CIA Black Sites

The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report two years ago that the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners “constituted torture” in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The findings were based on interviews with prisoners once held in the CIA’s secret black sites. The Red Cross said the fourteen prisoners held in the CIA prisons gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding. The author Mark Danner published parts of the secret Red Cross report in the New York Review of Books. Danner said the Red Cross’s use of the word "torture” has important legal implications. Danner said, “It could not be more important that the ICRC explicitly uses the words ‘torture’ and ‘cruel and degrading.’ The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, and when it uses those words, they have the force of law.”

Cheney: Obama Policies Are Making US Less Safe

Hours after excerpts of the Red Cross report were published, former Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on CNN. He was asked whether he believed President Obama was making Americans less safe by abandoning some of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism techniques.

Dick Cheney: “I do. I think those programs were absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11. I think that’s a great success story. It was done legally. It was done in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles. President Obama campaigned against it all across the country. And now he’s making some choices that, in my mind, will in fact raise the risk to the American people of another attack.”

Obama: US Can Detain Prisoners Indefinitely Without Charge

Dick Cheney’s comments came days after the Obama administration said it will no longer consider prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to be enemy combatants. Despite abandoning the label, the administration claims it still has the right to hold prisoners indefinitely without charge even if the individual is captured far from any battlefield and has not directly participated in hostilities.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

On Saturday, a European delegation met with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus in the first announced visit of a European delegation to meet with Hamas leaders. Members of the delegation included British Parliamentarian Clare Short.

Clare Short: “We’re very clear that to make progress we need to talk to Hamas, because they represent a big proportion of the Palestinian people. So we’re trying, by our visit, to bring more and more parliamentarians to open up discussion with Hamas in order to move things forward in the hope that we can, in the end, get a just peace.”

Two Israeli Police Officers Shot Dead in West Bank

Two Israeli police officers were shot dead on Sunday near the settlement of Masu’a in the northern West Bank. An organization calling itself the “Imad Mughniyeh Group” claimed responsibility for the attack.

Taliban Bomb Kills Four US Soldiers

In Afghanistan, the Taliban has claimed responsibility for setting a roadside bomb that killed four US soldiers on Sunday. Meanwhile, the mayor of Kandahar survived an assassination attempt Sunday when a remote-controlled bomb was place on a wheelbarrow near his office. The bombing killed one person and injured six others.

US Missile Strike Kills Four in Pakistan

The US has carried out another missile strike inside Pakistan. A US Predator drone fired two hellfire missiles at a home near the Afghan border. The strike reportedly killed four militants.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

Hospital officials in Israel say the American activist Tristan Anderson is now semi-conscious after days under full anesthesia. Anderson was critically injured Friday when Israeli soldiers fired a tear gas canister directly at his head during a weekly nonviolent protest against the separation wall in the West Bank village of N’alin. Anderson underwent brain surgery in an Israeli hospital near Tel Aviv on Saturday. Parts of his right frontal lobe were removed. Anderson is now able to lift fingers on one hand in response to a voice command.

Protesters Condemn Israeli Military for Shooting US Activist

Friends and supporters of Tristan Anderson held a series of protests on Monday. In San Francisco, hundreds of people marched to the the Israeli consulate. Police arrested five activists at the scene. Three protesters were arrested at a demonstration outside the Israeli consulate in Miami, Florida.

UN Urged to Investigate War Crimes Committed in Gaza

A group of sixteen of the world’s leading war crimes investigators and judges have sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling for the United Nations to launch a full inquiry into war crimes committed during Israel’s attack on Gaza. The letter’s signatories include Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 1,434 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli assault, including 960 civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the war, including three civilians killed by Hamas rockets.

Netanyahu Offers Foreign Ministry Post to Far-Right Politician

In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has formed a pact with far-right politician Avigdor Lieberman in an attempt to a forge a right-wing government in which Lieberman would become Israel’s foreign minister. Lieberman has called for laws to require Palestinians living in Israel to swear loyalty to the Jewish state or lose their citizenship. Lieberman has been condemned by many moderate Israeli and Jewish leaders. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, recently described Lieberman’s run for president as an “outrageous, abominable, hate-filled campaign, brimming with incitement that, if left unchecked, could lead Israel to the gates of hell.”

Ahmed Tibi, one of the few Palestinians in the Israeli Knesset: “This is the compatible of Le Pen and Joerg Haider. When those were elected, the Austrian government was isolated and boycotted mainly by Israel. It is time to call for boycotting the government and mainly boycotting Lieberman himself.”



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

The Pentagon has announced it will all but end the controversial “stop loss” policy forcing soldiers to serve extended tours of duty. More than 13,000 troops are currently involuntarily serving in the military under a policy imposed in 2004. Some have described the stop-loss practice as a backdoor draft. On Wednesday, Gates admitted the military has forced soldiers to serve “against their will.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “As of the end of January, there were 13,200 soldiers in stop loss. I am pleased to announce that I have approved a plan to eliminate the use of stop loss for deploying soldiers. Effective this August, the US Army Reserve will no longer mobilize units under stop loss. The Army National Guard will stop doing so in September. And active Army units will cease deploying with stop loss starting next January. When somebody’s end date of service comes up, to hold them against their will, if you will, is just not the right thing to do.”

Gates says the Pentagon intends to end “stop loss” across the entire armed forces by March of 2011. But he left open the right to continue it under what he called “extraordinary circumstances.” Soldiers under “stop loss” will also now be paid an additional $500 per month, retroactive to last October.

Czech Government Forced to Drop Vote on US Missile System

In the Czech Republic, overwhelming opposition has forced the Czech government to drop attempts for parliamentary approval of a US missile radar site. The Czech government had agreed with the Bush administration on hosting part of the so-called “missile defense” system along with a missile site in Poland. But on Wednesday, the government withdrew a planned vote, fearing it would be defeated. Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek vowed to seek another vote.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek: “The government decided in tonight’s negotiations that it will take back the treaty instruments, both of the treaties from the United States about the placement of radar units in the territory of the Czech Republic. That doesn’t mean that we’ve entirely resigned from the process of missile defense, because we can return this back to parliament at any time.”

According to the anti-radar group Campaign for Peace and Democracy, two-thirds of Czechs have consistently opposed the radar plans. Czech peace activists have led calls for a national referendum and have been credited with pressuring lawmakers to oppose the US missile program.

Minister: Iraq Considers Increased Stake for Oil Companies

The Iraqi government has hinted at further concessions for international oil corporations operating in Iraq. On Wednesday, Iraq’s oil minister told an OPEC gathering in Vienna that Iraq will consider granting foreign companies a share in oil production profits, rather than the current system of receiving fixed fees. Earlier this year, Iraq raised the amount foreign companies can recoup from oil projects from 49 percent to 75 percent.

Judge Orders Continued al-Marri Jailing

A federal judge has ordered the continued imprisonment of Ali al-Marri, who has been the only so-called “enemy combatant” jailed in the United States. Marri has been held in isolation at a naval brig in South Carolina for more than five years. He has never stood trial or been convicted of any crime. The Obama administration charged him last month to avoid a Supreme Court hearing challenging his indefinite jailing. Marri will be transferred to Peoria, Illinois for an arraignment hearing on Monday.

Senators Back Increased IMF Aid

Back on Capitol Hill, a bipartisan group of senators is voicing support for an Obama administration plan to increase US contributions to the International Monetary Fund. Obama has asked Congress to grant the IMF $100 billion to aid struggling nations hurt by the economic crisis. Senator John Kerry backed the proposal after meeting IMF and World Bank officials.

Senator John Kerry: “We are convinced that the IMF needs to have additional funding. Secretary Geithner has made a proposal for additional funding. I speak for myself and say that I support that. I think it is an essential ingredient of our ability to send a message regarding stability and regarding our preparedness to help countries face the banking challenges and the consumer and food challenges that we face across the globe.”

It’s unclear what kind of conditions recipient nations would face for accepting the new IMF aid.

African Leaders: Economic Crisis Could Reignite Regional Conflicts

African leaders are warning of renewed conflict on their continent if they’re not aided during the global economic meltdown. Meeting ahead of next month’s G20 summit, several African officials issued stark warnings on the consequences of price drops in African goods, loss of tourists and a sharp reduction in foreign remittances. The head of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, said the potential fallout from the global economic crisis is an “emergency” in Africa.

US to End Raids on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

The Justice Department has confirmed plans to end the Bush administration’s policy of raiding distributors of medical marijuana. On Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said drug law enforcement would be restricted to traffickers falsely posing as medical dispensaries. Under Bush, medical dispensaries accused of violating federal law were raided even if they complied with state law.

Rep. Waters Introduces Bill to End Minimum Drug Sentencing

Meanwhile, Democratic Congress member Maxine Waters has introduced a bill to end mandatory minimum sentencing in drug-related cases. The Major Drug Trafficking Prosecution Act would repeal mandatory minimum sentences and grant judges discretion to determine sentences.

New Mexico Abolishes Death Penalty

New Mexico has become the fifteenth state to outlaw the death penalty. On Wednesday, Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill barring capital punishment, following its approval in the state legislature. New Mexico is the second state to end the death penalty since the Supreme Court restored it in 1976.

Study: Latinos Largest Ethnic Group in US Prisons

A new study says Latinos now constitute the largest ethnic group in federal prisons. Mark Hugo Lopez of the Pew Hispanic Center says Latinos account for 40 percent of prisoners nationwide.

Mark Hugo Lopez: “Between 1991 and 2007, the share of all sentenced federal offenders who are Hispanic has risen from about 24 percent in 1991 to 40 percent in 2007. So they’ve really almost doubled their share of all sentenced federal offenders. Also, Hispanics represent the single largest group of all sentenced federal offenders. The 40 percent share Hispanic is larger than the white share at 27 percent and the black share at 23 percent in 2007.”

Nearly half of the Latin prison population has been jailed on immigration charges, followed closely by drug charges.

Reparations, Israel Dropped from UN Racism Text

Negotiators drafting the declaration for next month’s UN Conference Against Racism have acceded to US and European Union demands and dropped references to Israel and reparations for slavery. The Obama administration has vowed to boycott the conference unless the two issues are dropped from conference text.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

On Trip to Gaza, Parents of Slain Peace Activist Rachel Corrie Remember Their Daughter Six Years After Her Death

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the killing of American peace activist Rachel Corrie by an Israeli military bulldozer in Rafah. She had been trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home near the border with Egypt when she was killed. Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films traveled to Gaza last week with a women’s peace delegation and Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie. They remember their daughter and talk about the plight of the Palestinian people.



AMY GOODMAN: Today marks the sixth anniversary of the killing of the American peace activist Rachel Corrie. She was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in Rafah on March 16, 2003, a few days before the United States attacked Iraq. The twenty-three-year-old student from Olympia, Washington went to Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement. She was crushed to death by a US Caterpillar bulldozer that was run by the Israeli military. She had been trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home near the border with Egypt when she was killed. Eyewitnesses say she was wearing a fluorescent orange vest and in full view of the bulldozer’s driver.



In June 2003, the Israeli Defense Forces concluded her death was, quote, “an accident.” Human rights groups criticized the Israeli military investigation as a, quote, “sham.” A year later, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff, told Rachel Corrie’s parents he did not consider the Israeli investigation to be, quote, “credible, thorough, and transparent.”



Rachel’s parents initiated lawsuits against the State of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces, and the Caterpillar Corporation in 2005. A federal appeals court ruled in 2007 they can’t sue the Illinois-based company, because that would force the judiciary to rule on a foreign policy issue decided by the White House. In their ruling, the three-judge panel said the case can’t go to court without implicitly questioning, and even condemning, United States foreign policy towards Israel.



Well, Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films traveled to Gaza last week with the CODEPINK delegation and Rachel’s parents. They visited some of the families Rachel had stayed with and whose homes she had tried to protect. Most of those homes were destroyed by Israeli bulldozers in 2004. Some of the new homes people had moved into were attacked during and since Israel’s latest twenty-two-day military operation.



Anjali and Jacquie asked Rachel’s friends Naima Shayer and Abu Jameel about their memories of Rachel.



NAIMA SHAYER: On that last day, she didn’t want to leave our house. She’d get to the door and then rush back to hold and kiss us goodbye again. I asked her, “What’s wrong? Do you think you’re going to die today?” She did this a few times, as if she didn’t want to leave us.



That evening, my niece told me that Rachel Corrie had been killed by an Israeli bulldozer and had watched it on television. I didn’t believe her at first and thought she must have been lying.



All of us in the house were crying. She had stayed with us for over twenty days. I remember, whenever she was late, she’d call and apologize. If she got later than 7:00, she’d let us know. Once she got stuck at a checkpoint and called so we wouldn’t worry. She was just like one of us, a member of our family. She was so good to us.



ABU JAMEEL: Very few people live up to Rachel’s example. Honestly, even today, I remember her. I can see her: slender, fair, beautiful, wearing a kafia. She was graceful and so courageous, never afraid.



My house was near an Israeli watchtower near the wall. She’d be there with her megaphone, shouting, “Please, don’t fire. There are children here.” She had an open spirit, a pure spirit. She was a great person, irreplaceable. Rachel’s life should be recorded in history.



AMY GOODMAN: Abu Jameel from Rafah, recounting his memories of Rachel Corrie.



Well, Anjali Kamat spoke with Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, at the end of their trip last week, as they waited on the Rafah border for Egypt to open the crossing.



CINDY CORRIE: You asked about Rachel and how people respond to her here, and I—most everybody, at least if they—you know, they know her name when they hear it, most all of them. If somebody points out that we’re Rachel Corrie’s parents, you know, they’re very kind, and they want to talk to us.



I think I can only explain that because, you know, this—it is a prison here, and when someone comes from the outside, as Rachel did and as others do, other ISMers, other internationals come to Gaza and the West Bank, and then pay the ultimate price, which is what they feel Rachel has done, I think it gives them some hope. I think it probably strengthens their resolve, you know, to know that there are people on the outside that care as much as Rachel did. And I think that also it means a lot to them to see that we continue, in a way, continue some of her journey, not doing the same kinds of work, but that we haven’t forgotten them, that we’re back again, and that we’re doing what we can in the United States.



Rachel brought us to the issue. We, certainly—if we had an allegiance before that, it was really to the Jewish Israeli story and narrative. That’s what we knew about. And we learned—she was very good about bringing us material, pointing us to websites and so forth, and she really tried to bring us along, even before she came here. She didn’t just abruptly one day get up and go. She did some planning and preparation for it, and she tried to include us in that process. But, of course, we learned much more as she was there, particularly when she wrote the emails to us. It was eye-opening, because we knew about her as a writer and as an observer. So, it’s one thing to read about things on a website or in a newspaper article or a book, not knowing the people who are doing that; it’s another thing to hear about it from someone that you know and trust. And so, immediately we started to learn things, and so did our entire extended family and Rachel’s friends, because the things that she was writing about were being shared.



When we came here after she was killed, you know, our knowledge, you know, just developed more and more. And there really is no better way to learn about a situation than to come and see it for yourself.



But I guess a few weeks after Rachel was killed, we met someone named Linda Biehl, whose daughter was killed in South Africa when she was registering voters for the first election in which everyone could vote. And her family has carried on her work in different ways, Amy’s work, Amy Biehl’s work. And I remember looking at Linda Biehl and saying, “Were you ever able to retrieve any part of your previous life?” And she thought for a moment and she said, “Not really.” My daughter, Sarah, said she knew that that was “game over,” that we were—you know, we had work to do. So, a good part of what we do is trying to educate people within government. And we’ve found that most of those people haven’t ever been to Gaza, so we have something to offer in the way of information.



Certainly, in the last couple months, with the support of many people in Washington state, we’ve been really bringing a lot of—as much information as we can to our members, our entire congressional delegation, people meeting with the different congressional offices throughout the state. And it’s a difficult process, but I feel like we’re having some impact. And Rachel’s congressman came to Gaza, Brian Baird, our congressman, as well. We didn’t know before he made the trip that he was going to do it, but we were so thrilled when we heard that he was here. And we’re really happy to hear, I think, very honest, heartfelt statements from him about what he witnessed here, as well.



CRAIG CORRIE: You know, the people here are just folks. And you’ve got to understand people as people. And that’s the sort of first thing. And this one person here says, “We’re certainly not animals to be kept in a zoo, and somebody throws food over the wall to us every time.” But trying to bring the humanity of the issue to people, I think, is an important message.



The first thing people here need is hope, probably. Anybody, to survive, you need hope. And the second thing is respect, respect for their humanity. And I have vast respect for these people. And then we have to get to work, of course, on some humanitarian aid and rebuilding aid, but again, that has to come in a political context which gives them a hope for a real future.



You look at the children here that we’ve seen throughout this day and the previous days and, of course, on other trips, and they’re beautiful. They’re just beautiful, smiling. Somehow they manage still to smile. How can you be shaking for twenty-five minutes and then—children are resilient in a lot ways and run around smiling later, but they deserve a future, just like our kids have. And we won’t have the kind of future that we want unless these children have that, a chance at that future. You know, they need to be able to get that way.



So I think that’s part of it: trying to tie what is a real connection that we see between people of Palestine and our own existence in the United States. We’re wedded together, whether we like it or not. And so, we need to figure out how to make that, I guess, a happy marriage. And it can be. The people here will somehow have the capacity to, first of all, make a distinction between Americans coming here and our foreign policy, which for them is atrocious.



This—you know, United States largely paid to build some of these factories here, to build—for instance, you look at the electrical plant that was destroyed or partially destroyed a few years ago, and the United States built it, the United States insured it, and the United States bombed it. And with this—it’s largely true for the whole Strip, that through US aid money and some other of things—a lot of this was built with US money. It was certainly bombed with US ammunition. The United States paid and actually transported the fuel for this somewhat during the summer. While we were paying $4 a gallon for gas, we were also shipping gas to Israel for use here. And now we’re talking about rebuilding it again with US dollars. You know, enough is enough. I absolutely think we need to rebuild the Gaza Strip, but it has to be rebuilt with the standards of—political standards that need to go around that, so that it’s not going to be bombed apart again.



CINDY CORRIE: I think we need to insist on accountability for what has happened here. I know that there have been calls for investigation into specific incidents. I don’t know exactly the form that that’s going to take. I was really happy to hear before we left the United States that Senator Leahy, I believe, had called for investigation of one incident where two young men were killed when they were traveling with their father. We visited the father, heard his story. It was during—they were out traveling during the time when there was a three-hour kind of ceasefire each day, when people could go out into their neighborhoods and so forth.



I’m glad that Senator Leahy called for that, but I noted that he called for an Israeli investigation. And I am here as witness to the fact that I think it’s impossible for the Israelis to investigate themselves properly in this situation. It didn’t happen—it hasn’t happened yet in Rachel’s case. That’s according to the US government. The position of the US government is that her case has not been thoroughly, credibly and transparently investigated. I have no confidence that that can happen with all that has happened here in the Gaza Strip. So, somehow, through other resources, through the international community, but also in the US, by finding some way that we make determinations about how our weapons were used here—Craig and I saw the evidence of white phosphorus yesterday.



CRAIG CORRIE: We saw the white phosphorus.



CINDY CORRIE: We saw the white phosphorus yesterday in homes that were destroyed. And so, we need to find ways to document, to have an adequate investigation about what’s happened, and then have accountability according to our own laws, the Arms Export Control Act, our financing of foreign military aid and so forth, the Leahy amendment. There are different avenues for doing that. But I hope that as American citizens, we’ll start to say, “No matter what Israel does, we draw the line,” because there are supposed to be consequences if our weapons are misused. And I think most Americans, if they saw this, they would want those laws enforced. They would not want to see the continuation of our spending on this kind of activity.



CRAIG CORRIE: I’m a Vietnam vet, and so I lived under threat for over eleven months of the year. And you grow close to the people around you. You survive because of the people around you, and you become incredibly attached to the people around you. And I know I worried so much when Rachel was here, not just about her health while she was here and surviving being here, but then what it would be like to go home, because I knew she was staying with family, she was staying with children, she was staying with people that won’t be able to leave when she was able to leave. And I feel a little, you know, more than a little bit of that now. We’re able to leave. And as Rachel wrote, “You can’t really understand this place until you come, and even then you don’t really understand it.” She said, “I don’t understand it, because I had the money to buy water, and I have food and can leave. These people don’t.”



CINDY CORRIE: I think this trip I was able to take in, in some ways, more. The other—we’ve been here twice before, and, for different reasons, those were both really emotional and kind of traumatic visits, at times. Pieces, parts of it, were.



But I was struck again, struck, kind of surprised, even as we were coming in from the crossing in Rafah, about the land, the farmland, how much farmland I was seeing, and the sheep. And there’s a way of life here. People live here, even though they are under just unbelievable pressures and such terrible things happening day to day to day, people killed every day, nearly every day. But people live here, and I was struck by that much more—the women out taking care of the fields, the people herding the sheep and the goats. And there’s, in the rural areas, the families who are—family life is very important, and people get together, and they enjoy each other, and they sustain each other. So, through the hardship, there’s a great deal of life happening here.



And I think I heard John Ging say, “This is a civilized people.” And I don’t remember the end of his comment, but something about “in a prison,” I believe “in a prison.” And for me, this is a civilized people with tremendous forces working against them to really, as Rachel said, to erase them. And I believe that if we can shift that so that there are more forces working to—in solidarity with the people of Palestine to build the lives that they want, there’s all the potential for that to happen.



AMY GOODMAN: Cindy and Craig Corrie, speaking on the Rafah border with Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat. Their daughter, Rachel Corrie, was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer that was manufactured by the Illinois-based company Caterpillar. Rachel was killed on March 16, 2003, six years ago today.



Special thanks to Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films. We’ll be bringing you more of their coverage in the coming days.



Also, last month, Israel paid around $2 million in damages to the family of a British cameraman who was shot by an Israeli soldier a few weeks after Rachel in 2003. The family of James Miller accepted the payment, saying it was as close to admission of guilt from Israel as they were ever likely to get. Miller was in Gaza working on a documentary about Palestinian children caught up in the conflict. The documentary, Death in Gaza, later aired on HBO and won three Emmys.



Democracy Now.org

[Clodhopper]

Your nasty attitude guarantees no-one reads your posts. I didn't. So if you had any good points no-one here will know about them because you are such a revolting little man.

[Daniyal]

In Israel and the Occupied Territories, several Israeli soldiers have provided new accounts of human rights violations during Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published testimony from soldiers recounting the firing on unarmed Palestinian civilians and the intentional destruction of their property. The Israeli military says it will investigate. We’ll have more on this story after headlines.

UN Human Rights Investigator Accuses Israel of War Crimes

The allegations come as a top UN human rights investigator has accused Israel of committing war crimes during the Gaza attack. In an annual report, Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said Israel appeared to violate the Geneva Conventions code requiring forces to distinguish between civilians and armed combatants. Falk is calling on the Security Council to establish an ad hoc criminal tribunal to investigate alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Israel Arrests 10 Hamas Officials in West Bank

Meanwhile, Israel has arrested ten Hamas officials in the occupied West Bank. Hamas is calling the move a blackmail attempt to pressure it for the release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Talks on a prisoner exchange broke down this week in part over an Israeli demand that hundreds of the freed prisoners be arrested or deported upon their release. Israel has seized and jailed some forty elected Hamas lawmakers since Shalit’s capture in June 2006.

Bush Admin Aide: US Knowingly Jailed Innocents Seized in Afghanistan

A former Bush administration official says the US has continued to jail many Guantanamo Bay prisoners seized in Afghanistan despite knowing of their innocence. In an interview with the Associated Press, Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, said the US held onto the innocent prisoners in the hopes they could one day provide helpful intelligence. Describing the Bush administration mentality, Wilkerson said, “It did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance.” Wilkerson continued, “We need to put those people in a high-security prison like the one in Colorado, forget them and throw away the key. We can’t try them because we tortured them and didn’t keep an evidence trail.” Wilkerson says former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney fought efforts to improve vetting of Afghan prisoners.

Judge Rejects Dismissal of CACI Torture Suit

The Pentagon contractor CACI has lost a bid to dismiss a torture lawsuit brought by four former Abu Ghraib prisoners. On Thursday, a federal judge made public a ruling rejecting CACI’s claim to be immune from prosecution. The case also names the company L-3 Services, as well three individual contractors. One of the plaintiffs, an Iraqi farmer, alleges he was caged, beaten, threatened with dogs and given electric shocks during more than four years in US detention.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

Clodhopper;1160322 wrote: Your nasty attitude guarantees no-one reads your posts. I didn't. So if you had any good points no-one here will know about them because you are such a revolting little man.


What Nasty Is When Your Mom Gave Birth The Dr, Throw Away The Baby And Kept The After-Birth Which Is You !

[Clodhopper]

teehee.

[Clodhopper]

I notice your posts are getting shorter. Well done! Glad to see you taking my advice. Shows even a deranged muppet like you CAN learn - if you try hard enough.

:-6

[Daniyal]

Israel Promises Internal Probe After Soldiers Describe Civilian Killings, Lax Rules of Engagement in Gaza Attack..

The Israeli Military Advocate General has for the first time called for criminal inquiries into the conduct of Israeli troops in Gaza. The request came in response to soldiers’ testimonies that described loose rules of engagement, troops firing on unarmed civilians, and troops intentionally vandalizing property during the three-week assault on Gaza. We speak to Gaza-based journalist Amira Hass of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz .

JUAN GONZALEZ: The Israeli Military Advocate General has for the first time called for criminal inquiries into the conduct of Israeli troops in Gaza. The request came in response to soldiers’ testimonies that described loose rules of engagement, troops firing on unarmed civilians, and troops intentionally vandalizing property during the three-week assault on Gaza. The soldiers’ accounts are published in the Israeli daily Haaretz and based on statements made a month ago by graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory course.



Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio that the incidents would be examined and added, quote, “We have the most moral army in the world.”



AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now on the line from Gaza by Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass.



Amira, welcome to Democracy Now! The Haaretz newspaper describing this as a several day exposé, Israeli soldiers in their own words, talk about its significance.



AMIRA HASS: Its significance, of course, is that the soldiers actually confirm what Palestinians have been telling for the past three months, and journalists who listen to Palestinians and believe Palestinians and know their work of taking affidavits and testimonies from Palestinians have done so during the last three months. This is the main importance, because it’s—we don’t know the exact locations of this.



And it’s not the only—it’s not the only incident. Some Israelis might get the impression that the soldiers who spoke spoke about the only incident of killing civilians and of very lenient—lenient rules of engagement, and this is not true. The whole attack—the three weeks of attack were characterized by these attacks on—almost indiscriminate attacks on civilians, attacks on people who carried white flags, attacks on rescue teams, not to mention the attacks from the air at whole civilian neighborhoods.



So I would say that—of course, it was not my report. Haaretz did a great job at putting a lot of emphasis to this testimonies of soldiers. It drew attention to what many Israelis managed to ignore during the last three months.



JUAN GONZALEZ: And some of the specific incidents that were described? I understand one in which an elderly Palestinian woman was walking along the road, was ordered to be shot by some soldiers in a house?



AMIRA HASS: Yeah, if I know—look, there are several such cases. I, myself, have run into—I didn’t manage to write about it all, but I know about specific—one specific old woman who walked in a certain neighborhood. I don’t know if they talk about the same woman or another one. They talk about a woman who was killed with her two children. Now, I got a phone call by the field worker of B’Tselem, the field worker who is here in Gaza, and he told me, “I found a family, only that it’s not two people who were killed. It’s five people or four people. And the mother was not killed; she was wounded.” So it doesn’t mean that everything that the soldiers—it doesn’t mean that everything was exactly as it is described, or that there are many other incidents that we don’t—we haven’t reached yet.



AMY GOODMAN: Amira Hass, you’re back in Gaza. We’re about to go to the well-known story—Anjali Kamat saw you in Gaza, Democracy Now! producer—of the Palestinian gynecologist whose voice shocked, stunned Israel, as he wailed on television—



AMIRA HASS: Yeah.



AMY GOODMAN: —that his daughters and his niece had been killed. He was a well-known voice on Israeli television. Could you just introduce it for us, the significance of that moment?



AMIRA HASS: This is just another incident that—it happened by accident to a guy who used to—who works in Israel, who speaks Hebrew, who knows many Israeli big shots and many journalists. So he could call a friend of his who works on Israeli TV and tell him live what was happening. So, for the first time, Israelis believed what was said during the previous two weeks or three weeks of these attacks.



So, again, the—I mean, then he went to—then he was allowed to go with his wounded daughter to a hospital in Israel. This is luxury that not everybody got or most of the people could not get. He could be rescued very quickly. This is—many other Palestinians could not be rescued at all, not even to a Palestinian hospital. And there, he could talk to people and to journalists. So, again, the significance is that his case managed to break a wall, an Israeli wall of unwillingness to know. But the problem is that then people take it as an exceptional case, as an exceptional that tells about the rule. But we know this exceptional case is not exceptional at all.



AMY GOODMAN: And in just the brief amount of time we have left, the situation in Gaza today?



AMIRA HASS: Look, it’s—now it’s back to being the huge prison that it was before. It is a huge prison. People cannot leave, cannot—people cannot come. There is a great need of reconstruction, and they’re leaving the political problems aside. People leave [inaudible] and staying with friends. They have—they don’t have glass in the wall—in their windows; they have nylon, because there is no glass getting into Gaza, nor any construction materials.



And the people who were—all people still remember the fear, the terrible fear, in which they lived. This is a common experience of one million and a half. And tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands who encountered direct shooting are still affected. Either it’s the bereaved families or the wounded or people whose houses were destroyed. It’s not gone. It’s not something which belongs to the past.



AMY GOODMAN: Amira Hass, I want to thank you for being with us. She is an Israeli journalist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. She lives in Gaza. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, you’ll hear the words, the wailing, of the Palestinian doctor on Israeli television, and then Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat visits him two months later, this past week in Gaza. Stay with us.

[Daniyal]

Palestinian Doctor, Peace Advocate Recounts Israeli Attack on Home that Killed 3 Daughters, Niece .

Palestinian gynecologist and peace advocate Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish speaks to Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films in his home in Jabaliya, Gaza, where Israeli shells killed three of his daughters and a niece two months ago. Walking through his daughters’ room, he points out the remnants from the attack: blood-stained walls, books, clothes, hand-drawn pictures, gaping holes that were once windows, burned-out bits of computers, twisted pieces of metal, destroyed cupboards, shattered glass, and shrapnel.

Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, Palestinian gynecologist and peace advocate, speaking to Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films in his home in Jabaliya, Gaza, where Israeli shells killed three of his daughters and a niece two months ago.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to one of the better known tragedies from Israel’s attack on Gaza, a tragedy that partly unfolded live on Israeli television. Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish is a well-known Gazan gynecologist, peace advocate, who has worked in Israeli hospitals for several years. He speaks fluent Hebrew, and during the war he was a rare Palestinian voice on Israeli television and radio, giving daily accounts of life and death inside Gaza.



Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat narrates the exchange that took place live on Israeli television a day and a half before the official end of what the Israelis called Operation Cast Lead.



ANJALI KAMAT: On January 16th, when Dr. Abu al-Aish called Shlomi Eldar of Israel’s Channel 10 TV News, Israeli tank shells had just struck his home. They killed his family, he says. “I think I’m a bit overwhelmed, too.”



He explains that Dr. Abu al-Aish is a physician at Tel Hashomer Hospital. He always feared his family would be hurt. His daughters were injured. “I want to save them, but they died on the spot, Shlomi. They were hit in the head.”



A visibly emotional Eldar explains that the doctor had unsuccessfully tried to get out for many days and was afraid to even raise a white flag. “A shell hit his home,” Eldar says. “And I have to tell you, I do not know how to hang up this phone. I will not hang up this phone call.”



The anchor calls on the Israeli Defense Forces to allow ambulances to get to the doctor’s family. Shlomi Eldar then excused himself from the show, took off his earpiece and rushed off the set to get help to Dr. Abu al-Aish.



AMY GOODMAN: But the ambulances never reached the doctor’s home, which was surrounded by Israeli tanks. It was too late to save his three daughters—twenty-one-year-old Bessan, fifteen-year-old Mayar, and thirteen-year-old Aya—as well as his niece Nour, who was age fourteen. They were all killed instantly by the shells.



JUAN GONZALEZ: The family says they walked a quarter of a mile carrying the dead and wounded through the streets, until they found an ambulance that took them to the closest hospital and then to the Erez crossing with Israel. Emergency vehicles organized by Israeli TV correspondent Shlomi Eldar awaited them at the border and took the doctor and his badly wounded sixteen-year-old daughter Shada to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv.



AMY GOODMAN: Two months after the tragedy, Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films visited Dr. Abu al-Aish at his home in Jabaliya, Gaza. He pointed out the remnants from that fateful day: blood-stained walls, books, clothes, and hand-drawn pictures, gaping holes that were once windows, burned-out bits of computers, twisted pieces of metal, destroyed cupboards, shattered glass, and shrapnel. He told his story late Monday night to Anjali Kamat, as he walked through his daughter’s room.



DR. EZZELDEEN ABU AL-AISH: We are standing in the scene of the tragedy, in the place where four lovely girls were sitting, building their dreams and their hopes, and in seconds, these dreams were killed. These flowers were dead. Three of my daughters and one niece were killed in one second on the 16th of January at a quarter to five p.m. Just a few seconds, I left them, and they stayed in the room—two daughters here, one daughter here, one daughter here, and my niece with them.



The first shell came from the tank space, which is there, came to shell two daughters who were sitting here on their chairs. And when I heard this shell, I came inside the room to find, to look. I can’t recognize my daughters. Their heads were cut off their bodies. They were separated from their bodies, and I can’t recognize whose body is this. They were drowning in a pool of blood. This is the pool of blood. Even look here. This is their brain. These are parts of their brain. Aya was lying on the ground. Shada was injured, and her eye is coming out. Her fingers were torn, just attached by a tag of skin. I felt disloved, out of space, screaming, “What can I do?”



They were not satisfied by the first shell and to leave my eldest daughter. But the second shell soon came to kill Aya, to injure my niece, who came down from the third floor, and to kill my eldest daughter Bessan, who was in the kitchen and came at that moment, screaming and jumping, “Dad! Dad! Aya is injured!”



The second shell, it penetrated the wall between this room to enter the other room. Look. This is the room with the weapons, where this room was fully equipped with weapons. These are the weapons which were in this room. These are the weapons. These are the weapons: the books and their clothes. These were the science handouts. There, you see, these are her handouts for the courses that she studies, which is stained with her blood. It’s mixed with her blood. These are the books. These are the weapons that I equipped my daughters with: with education, with knowledge, with dreams, with hopes, with loves.



I am a gynecologist who practiced most of my time in Israel. I was trained in Israel. And I devoted my life and my work for the benefit of humanity and well-being, to serve patients, not as someone else that you are delivering or helping choose. I am dealing with patients and human beings. We treat patients equally, with respect, with dignity, with privacy. Politicians and leaders should learn from doctors these values and these norms and to adopt them.



ANJALI KAMAT: Have you received an official response from Israel about why your home was targeted, about why your daughters were killed?



DR. EZZELDEEN ABU AL-AISH: What I received, that they admitted their responsibility about shelling my house and killing my daughters and my niece. That’s what I received. But other—the reasons behind that, you can’t ask them. They justified something which is not convincing, and it has many criticisms.



ANJALI KAMAT: What did they say?



DR. EZZELDEEN ABU AL-AISH: You know, they said there were—they think there were snipers on the roof of my building. It’s important to say the truth, and the truth lies here: only innocent civilian girls were in this room and this building and this surrounding. Nothing else.



ANJALI KAMAT: Doctor, you’re going to be traveling to the United States in a few weeks. What’s your message to the government of the United States, to the people of the United States?



DR. EZZELDEEN ABU AL-AISH: To judge things by two eyes and that the coin has two sides, and that there is a nation, a Palestinian people in Gaza, who are waiting to get their rights and their chances of living equally, as every nation in the world. And it’s important for the Obama’s administration to take the Israeli Arab file seriously and to deal with it seriously as soon as possible, because it’s a matter of saving lives. There is no need for delay. It’s important to start solving with the minimum justice that what are we looking for: respect human rights, equality, dignity and justice. And what they like for themselves, I want Mr. Obama to put himself in the position of the Palestinians and to defend the rights of the Palestinians, as he is in the position of the Israelis.



This is Mayar’s book. This is the math book. Mayar, who was fifteen years old in grade nine, who was dreaming to be a doctor and was happy that she will follow the same path as me. Mayar, she was the chairman of the students’ parliament at the school. She was elected. She was brilliant in mathematics, so genius. Even when I went to the school to see her friends, still they are remembering Mayar.



Yes, this is Aya. This is Aya’s notebook. Look. Read what it’s saying: “Excellent. God bless you. Well-organized.” This is what was written by her teacher. It was her dream to be a journalist. She was outspoken. She was a very lovely, very beautiful girl.



Bessan is a special girl, not [only] for me, for her uncles, for everyone who knew Bessan. She was twenty-one years old. She was about to graduate and get her BA from the Islamic University. She was a special girl. So humble, so wise, so beautiful.



What can I say about my daughters? It’s living with me. It’s part of me. I smell them. I taste them. I speak with them. When I’m speaking with you, I am speaking with my daughters. These are the good memories of my daughters, and it will follow me the whole of my life. And I will do my best, this memory, to be changed into positive actions, to establish a foundation under their name for only girls, to empower girls and women, who will achieve and seal, these girls, the dreams of my daughters.



You know, this invasion, from the beginning, I said it’s useless. It’s futile. No one is winning. The innocent civilians, the Gazans, civilians, paid the price of this invasion, no one else. And even the IDF, when they came here, the Israeli government, they said, “We want to teach the Gazans a lesson,” as if the Gazans are lacking teaching or education. Really, they succeeded in that, in educating the Palestinians, the Gazans especially, a lesson about strengthening animosity, hatredness, a bloodshed, and widening the gap between the two people in both sides. This is the only lesson. This is the only outcome of this invasion, nothing else. Anyone who is saying anything else apart from that, he is lying.



Military ways proved its failure. We should look for other ways to give each other its rights. We don’t want to speak about peace. Peace is—you know, this word lost its meaning. We should find something else: respect, equality, justice and partnership. That’s what we should look for.



AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Abu al-Aish, Palestinian gynecologist and peace advocate. He was speaking with Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films, who both visited him in his home in Jabaliya, Gaza, where Israeli shells killed three of his daughters and a niece two months ago.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

The Guardian of London reports the Obama administration and European allies are preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Afghan government in a direct challenge to Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan. The US is considering creating a new chief executive or prime ministerial position in an attempt to bypass Karzai, who has has fallen out of favor in Washington. In a further dilution of Karzai’s power, the US is proposing to divert money from the Kabul government to the provinces. Last week, Karzai accused an unnamed foreign government of trying to weaken the central government in Kabul. Karzai said, “That is not their job. Afghanistan will never be a puppet state.”

Obama: Exit Strategy Needed for Afghanistan

On Sunday, President Barack Obama appeared on 60 Minutes and discussed the situation in Afghanistan.

President Obama: “But we can’t lose sight of what our central mission is: the same mission that we had when we went in after 9/11. And that is, these folks can project violence against United States citizens, and that is something that we cannot tolerate. But what we can’t do is think that just a military approach in Afghanistan is going to be able to solve our problems. So what we’re looking for is a comprehensive strategy. And there’s got to be an exit strategy. There’s got to be a sense that this is not perpetual drift.”

Last month, President Obama ordered 17,000 more US troops to fight in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, US Special Forces are being accused of killing five Afghan civilians inside the home of a local mayor. The US disputes the report and says the dead were all militants.

Obama: Bush-Cheney Policies Haven’t Made Us Safer

During the same interview on 60 Minutes, President Obama was asked about former Vice President Dick Cheney’s comment that the new administration’s counterterrorism policies were making the US more vulnerable to attack.

President Obama: “I think he is—that attitude, that philosophy, has done incredible damage to our image and position in the world. I mean, the fact of the matter is, after all these years, how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many—how many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn’t made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment, which means that there is constant effective recruitment of Arab fighters and Muslim fighters against US interests all around the world.”



Iran’s Supreme Leader Responds to Obama’s Message

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Saturday President Barack Obama’s offer of better ties was just a “slogan,” but pledged Tehran would respond to any real policy shift by Washington. Khamenei’s comment came one day after President Obama released a videotaped appeal to the people of Iran.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “They (Americans) give the slogan of change, but in practice no change is seen. We haven’t seen any change. Even their literature has not changed. Since the first moment the new United States president officially took office and delivered speech, he insulted Iran and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s government.”

Israel Accused of Targeting Medical Personnel in Gaza

Physicians for Human Rights has accused Israeli soldiers of failing to give medical teams special protection during the attack on Gaza. Sixteen Palestinian medical personnel were killed by Israeli fire; another twenty-five were wounded. Israel attacked thirty-four medical facilities, including eight hospitals.

IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot at Gaza Rescuers

Documents have also been found that suggest Israeli troops were given orders to shoot at rescue teams during the war. One document found in a Palestinian home taken over by the Israeli military reads, “Rules of Engagement: Open fire also upon rescue.” The note was handwritten in Hebrew.

Soldier: Israeli Rabbis Turned Gaza Invasion into Religious War

The McClatchy News Service reports rabbis affiliated with the Israeli army urged troops heading into Gaza to reclaim what they said was God-given land and to ‘’get rid of the gentiles.’’ This according to the testimony of a soldier who fought in Gaza. The soldier said the message from the rabbis effectively turned the twenty-two-day Israeli attack into a religious war.

Israeli Activist Calls for Assassination of Mahmoud Abbas

A prominent right-wing Israeli activist has publicly called for the assassination of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Nadia Matar of the group Women in Green made the call last week during a speech in New York organized by Americans for a Safe Israel.

Nadia Matar: “And don’t you understand that in order to bring peace to Europe, one has to first destroy the Nazi beast? Today we must destroy all the terrorist organizations. We must kill all the terrorist leaders, starting with Mahmoud Abbas and all others.”

Nadia Matar was speaking at the Safra Synagogue in New York. The synagogue’s rabbi, Elie Abadie, condemned Matar’s remarks, saying he was “horrified at such hateful statements."

Antiwar British MP Barred from Canada

The Canadian government has barred British antiwar lawmaker George Galloway entry into the country on the grounds that he is a threat to national security. Galloway was scheduled to start a four-city speaking tour next week. Galloway has been a vocal critic of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Israeli government. Canadian officials accused Galloway of giving financial support to Hamas and offering sympathy to the Taliban.

Family of Slain Iraqi Guard Sues Blackwater

The private military firm formerly known as Blackwater is facing another lawsuit over its work in Iraq. The family of a slain Iraqi security guard sued the company last week, saying a Blackwater contractor shot the man without provocation on Christmas Eve of 2006. At the time of the shooting, the Iraqi guard was on duty protecting Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. According to the lawsuit, Blackwater promised to compensate the widow of the Iraqi guard in a series of payments but stopped after an initial payment of $20,000.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

President Obama is expected to unveil today a major expansion of US military efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Following a two-month review, Obama will reportedly order an additional 4,000 troops to Afghanistan on top of the 17,000 new combat troops authorized last month. The Washington Post reports Obama’s plan will require a 60 percent increase to the $2 billion in monthly US military costs in Afghanistan. Administration officials also say they’ll impose new “benchmarks” on their allies in the Afghan and Pakistani governments. The plan will also reportedly include reconciliation efforts aimed at low-level Taliban fighters while shunning top leaders. On Thursday, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair estimated some two-thirds of pro-Taliban groups are motivated by basic concerns such as inadequate water supplies or access to education.

48 Killed in Suicide Attack on Pakistan Mosque

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, at least forty-eight people were killed and dozens more wounded in a suicide attack on a mosque earlier today. The bombing came in the town of Jamrud near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

16 Die in Iraq Car Bombing Attack

In Iraq, sixteen people were killed and another forty-five wounded Thursday in a car bombing in northeast Baghdad. It was the fifth major bombing attack to hit Iraq this month.

US Says Israel Carried Out Sudan Bombing

US officials have confirmed that Israel was behind a deadly air strike that killed dozens of people in Sudan this past January. The US says Israel attacked a convoy of seventeen trucks suspected of carrying weapons intended for smuggling into the Gaza Strip. Estimates of the death toll range from thirty-nine to more than 100. In Israel, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declined to comment on the specific attack but said Israel can “operate near and far.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: “We are taking action wherever we can strike terror infrastructure, in places that are nearby and not that close. We are hitting them, and in a way that strengthens deterrence and the image of deterrence.”

US officials say they believe the alleged weapons could have come from Iran but haven’t offered evidence. Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, senior Hamas official Osama al-Muzaini denied receiving outside weaponry.

Osama al-Muzaini: “Hamas does not receive weapons from any country or any other side. To have convoys driving weapons to Hamas is a false statement and comes under the mockery and censorship which Israel always tries to execute. We affirm that Hamas has their own means, which are far from the official and international means, to get weapons.”

Supporters of Palestinian rights have long criticized Israeli and US indignation at Palestinian efforts to arm themselves, when most of Israel’s military arsenal is funded and supplied by the United States.

Israel Minimizes Civilian Toll in Gaza Attack

The Israeli government has released an investigation downplaying the number of civilian deaths in its attack on the Gaza Strip. On Thursday, the Israeli military gave a death toll of 1,166 and said most of the dead were combatants. In Gaza, Khalil Abu Shammala of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights dismissed the Israeli claims.

Khalil Abu Shammala: “All of the international human rights organizations emphasized that Israel committed war crimes against the Palestinians. Israel will try to deceive the people, will try to deceive the international public opinion, in order to show that they did not kill this huge number of the civilians during the last aggression on the Gaza Strip.”

Palestinians say Israel killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

A Spanish court has launched a criminal investigation into whether six Bush administration lawyers, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the Bush administration’s use of torture at Guantanamo. Spain’s law allows it to claim jurisdiction in the case because five Spanish citizens or residents who were prisoners at Guantanamo Bay say they were tortured there. The case was sent to the Spanish prosecutor’s office for review by Baltasar Garzon, the Spanish judge who ordered the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998. The other former Bush administration officials facing investigation are former Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay Bybee, Pentagon official Douglas Feith, Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington, and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes. Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights praised the Spanish court’s decision and said arrest warrants might have already been issued.

Michael Ratner, author of The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: “If you’re any of those six at this point, you don’t want to go to the twenty-five countries that make up the European Union, because you may be subject to immediate arrest. What will happen next is this investigation will most likely continue in a very vigorous form. It will look at those six, and it also has the possibility of going up the chain of command, not just to Rumsfeld, but all the way up to Cheney and Bush. So it’s a serious investigation. It’s one that the Obama administration has to take very seriously. And it means, for them, that the pressure is increasing really in this country to open its own criminal investigation.”

[Daniyal]

Waterboarding, Torture of Abu Zubaydah Produced False Leads

Meanwhile, former senior government officials have told the Washington Post that the CIA’s decision to waterboard and torture their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaydah, produced little intelligence. The officials said not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaydah’s tortured confessions. Most of the useful information gained from him was obtained before waterboarding was introduced.

Dozens Killed in Pakistan as Militants Seize Police Academy

In Pakistan, gunmen seized a police training academy in Lahore and killed as many as forty police officers before Pakistani officials were able to retake the building after an eight-hour siege. As many as eighty officers were injured. The Pakistani newspaper Daw said militants attacked the police academy with machine guns and grenades. 850 young cadets were inside the building when the assault began.



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Friday at a crowd of Palestinians protesting the construction of the separation wall in the town of Bilin. Reuters video showed an Israeli soldier shooting a Palestinian demonstrator with a rubber-coated bullet at point-blank range, injuring his leg. Palestinian legislator Mustafa Barghouti attended the demonstration and said the new Israeli government will further damage the lives of the Palestinians.

Mustafa Barghouti: “The only thing that the new Israeli government is bringing is more settlement, more land confiscation, more discrimination, more apartheid and more building of this wall that is killing the lives of the Palestinians and destroying the option of peace based on two-state solution.”



Democracy Now.org

[Daniyal]

Pakistan, at least twelve people have been killed in a suspected US missile attack near the Afghan border. The strike comes one day after Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for killing at least twelve people in an attack on a police academy in Lahore. Mehsud called the bombing a response to the US attacks. More than 340 people have been killed in US strikes inside Pakistan since last August.

Netanyahu Sworn In as Israeli PM

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been sworn in following his formal approval by the Israeli parliament. On Tuesday, Netanyahu vowed to seek peace with Palestinians but effectively ruled out negotiating the borders of a future Palestinian state. Israel seeks to retain control of vast swaths of the occupied West Bank for Jewish-only settlements.

7 Killed as British Troops Begin Iraq Withdrawal

In Iraq, at least seven people were killed and thirty-eight wounded in a suicide bombing in the city of Mosul. The attack came as British forces formally began their withdrawal from Iraq and handed formal control of Basra province to the United States. Most of Britain’s 4,100 troops are expected to withdraw by the end of May.

US, Iran Officials Hold Informal Exchange

At the Hague, a summit on Afghanistan has yielded the first contact between the Obama administration and the Iranian government. On Tuesday, the US envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, had a brief, unplanned meeting with Iran’s deputy foreign minister. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed the exchange.

[Daniyal]

It did not focus on anything substantive. It was cordial. It was unplanned. And they agreed to stay in touch. Separately, at my direction, a letter was delivered to the Iranians focusing on three US citizens currently unable to return to the United States from Iran. The fact that they came today, that they intervened today, is a promising sign that there will be future cooperation.”

Iranian leaders have called on the US to apologize for previous actions, including the 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government.

Clinton: Truce with Low-Level Taliban Possible

Also at the Hague conference, Clinton expressed willingness to reach a truce with low-level Taliban fighters, saying those who abandon the Taliban should be granted an “honorable form of reconciliation.”

Afghan Law Legalizes Rape Within Marriage

The Afghan government, meanwhile, is coming under international pressure to drop a law that effectively legalizes rape within marriage and further restricts women’s rights. According to The Guardian of London, the law bans women from refusing to have sex with their husbands and says they can only seek work, education or medical care with their husbands’ permission. Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed the measure into law last month.

[Daniyal]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is calling for the indictment of President Bush and Israeli leaders on charges of war crimes. Addressing the Arab League summit in Doha, Chavez criticized the International Criminal Court indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in light of US-Israeli actions.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez: “This genocide that was governed by the United States for eight years after Bush ordered the bombing of Iraq, where thousands and thousands of children were killed and entire families, innocent men and women. Why don’t they go after Bush—he truly committed genocide—or the Israeli government, which also commits genocide?”

Bashir is currently in Saudi Arabia in defiance of an international warrant for his arrest. In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, the former Jordanian Queen, Queen Noor, criticized Sudan’s actions in Darfur but said the US is guilty of double standards in supporting Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Queen Noor: “Were there not so many cases where Western pressure has been brought to bear on Arabs, but Israel’s, for example, disproportionate killing of civilians in Gaza during the recent and also in Lebanon in 2006, during the crisis there, if those cases had not taken place with relatively little Western outcry, you would find a very different attitude, I think, towards what’s taken place in Sudan.”



Democracy Now.org