Get the Facts Newsletter, July 2006
Volume 2, Issue 7
MEDICAL OATHS BETRAYED What could be more disturbing than the recurring accounts we read about American troops abusing prisoners in the so-called "war on terror"? To me an even more horrifying aspect is the compliance in that abuse by armed forces physicians, nurses, and medics.
In a recent article in The Washington Post, University of Maryland professor of medicine Steven H. Miles details numerous accounts of military medical personnel either taking part in or looking the other way as abuse occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. As a physician myself I wonder how individuals can forget their medical oaths in such situations, and who if not physicians will ever stand up to inhumane treatment of prisoners.
-- Read the full Washington Post article
U.S. STAYS THE COURSE ON DETAINEES
It sure sounded like good news when the Supreme Court ruled against President Bush's military tribunals last month. But now the president's press secretary is claiming that nothing much will change, because detainees have always been treated humanely. Just what does the Bush Administration consider "humanely"? Apparently sexual humiliation, exposure to extreme temperatures, and near drowning all fall under the definition. "The problem is, they have hijacked the term 'humane' and pumped it full of meaning that no one else in the world shares," says an international law professor quoted in this article.
-- Read the full Asia Times article
WHAT CAN WE SUBSTITUTE FOR CRUMBLING NATION STATES?
Are many of today's nation states fundamentally hampered in their efforts to overcome internal religious and ethnic rivalries? Writing from the Balkans, Beirut commentator Rami G. Khouri observes that socioeconomic stress often exacerbates such rivalries, and wonders how the concept of single national identities can be squared against the existence of ancient tribal and other identities. It's a discussion of increasing concern as conditions continue to deteriorate in Iraq and elsewhere.
-- Read the full Beirut Daily Star article
When you see a "Made in the USA" label on a piece of clothing, you probably assume that the worker who made the garment was paid more than $3.15 an hour and that they weren't forced to work more than 16 hours a day. Right? Not necessarily. The product could have come from the U.S. territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Businesses there have been shielded from U.S. minimum wage requirements and most provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act by the likes of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and indicted former Congressman Tom DeLay, who has called the Marianas "a perfect petri dish of capitalism. It's like my Galapagos Island."
How bad are worker conditions on the Marianas? According to investigations by Ms. magazine and other groups, the most atrocious working conditions involve some 30,000 "guest workers," mostly women from China, the Philippines, and Thailand. "Reduced to little more than indentured servants due to the high recruitment fees and the low minimum wage," Ms. reports, "many of these women have been subjected to long working hours (some up to 20 hours a day or even off the clock), and poor living conditions."
It's not like these conditions have been a huge secret. In fact some 29 bills regarding labor and immigration issues on the islands have been introduced in Congress since 1995. But with powerful friends like DeLay and Abramoff, companies operating in the Marianas have never had to work up a sweat about the U.S. government placing restrictions on their sweatshops. That may be about to change. Colleagues of mine including Rep. George Miller of California introduced a new bill last month that stands more of a chance of making it into law, especially since DeLay and Abramoff are now out of the picture. I'll be supporting that bill, and I hope you will too.
-- Learn more about the proposed labor bill to confront human rights violations in the Mariana Islands
-- Read numerous blog entries on this topic in the Daily Kos
-- Read Mark Shield's 2005 article "The real scandal of Tom DeLay"
How will future generations view our actions today? Will we be seen as a people who helped the world move forward in terms of decency and respect for human rights, or will this era be seen as a time when we let the world slide back, allowing torture and denying prisoners of war basic human rights and dignities?
That is a challenge I don't believe the Democratic Party focuses on enough these days. While there is no denying the importance of global warming and other environmental issues where the party is clearly fighting the good fight, I believe we need to take a much stronger stance against the abuses at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere in our "war on terror." The Bush Administration has taken advantage of secrecy and fear to ride roughshod over hard-fought standards of human decency in the treatment of defenseless prisoners.
We cannot look the other way and let the Bush Administration define our generation and the values that we leave to our children. It's time for all of us to demand better of ourselves as Americans.
Here are just a couple of the Web sites I rely on to get the facts:
-- Better Donkey: http://www.betterdonkey.org/
-- Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog: http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/
AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service - and How It Hurts Our Country
By Kathy Roth-Douquet and Frank Schaeffer (Collins; 2006)
The composition of the U.S. military has changed dramatically in recent decades. In 1956, 400 of Princeton's 750 graduates served in uniform. By 2004, only nine members of the university's graduating class entered the military. Is it a problem that America's upper classes are staying away from military service? The authors of this book certainly think so. "When those who benefit most from living in a country contribute the least to its defense and those who benefit least are asked to pay the ultimate price, something happens to the soul of that country," they write. While few Americans want a return to the draft, all should be concerned about the issues raised here.
-- Get more details
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Revision date: August 3, 2006
