Volume 2, Issue 4
In his efforts to portray how we are winning the "War on Terror," President Bush and his advisors are continuing to miss the boat on what is really happening with Iraqi resistance groups. A detailed and revealing account by Mathieu Guidère and Peter Harling in the France-based newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique explains quite convincingly that our military strategies to fight resistance factions in Iraq have actually helped stabilize and unify them, rather than weaken and divide them. Here are some of the highlights from the article:
Guidère and Harling write: "At first the opposition was multi-confessional and represented a cross-section of Iraqi society as a whole. But it has grown more focused as the political landscape has polarised, and it is now almost exclusively Sunni Arab. . . .
"The unity between the opposition groups may be little more than a front, but it is a front that no group has yet wanted to breach in any of its official statements. No group has publicly criticised any other. On the contrary, they all appear to subscribe to a single, clear, and apparently universally accepted strategy. . . . Its guiding principle is that, given the superior firepower of the U.S., there is no point in trying to mount a sustained resistance in any one place. Instead, opposition groups should constantly be moving into the gaps left by coalition and Iraqi forces as they move around, which they must, since no one can cover the whole country. This fluidity blocks any lasting progress on reconstruction. . . . Insurgent groups are all the more inclined to hang together when they perceive their enemy as an enemy within. They see Iraq's government as Shi'a, sectarian, and in cahoots with, or subservient to, Iran."
• Read the full article
DEPLETED URANIUM: WHAT IS IT DOING TO OUR SOLDIERS?
After years of speeches, interviews, news conferences, working with groups like Physicians for Social Responsibility, and even appearing on a punk rock album by Anti-Flag, I have finally convinced Congress to pass an amendment calling for a comprehensive study on possible health effects of depleted uranium (DU) on U.S. soldiers and their children.
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process. Because it is very dense, DU is used by the U.S. military for munitions like armor-piercing bullets and tank shells, and as a protective shield around tanks. When used in munitions, DU pulverizes into a fine dust upon impact; it can hang in the air, be inhaled, or seep into the soil.
If DU poses no danger, we need to prove it with statistically valid and independent scientific studies. If DU harms our soldiers, we all need to know it and act quickly, as any doctor would, to use all of our power to heal the sick. We owe our soldiers a full measure of the truth, wherever that leads us.
• Read or watch my DU speech
• Learn more about depleted uranium
• Listen to my appearance on a punk rock song by Anti-Flag
Vice President Cheney's recent saber-rattling about Russia's lack of progress on democratic reforms sent a chilling blast of Cold War air around the world. Despite the "oil-bidness" posturing that lay behind his comments, Cheney did help bring to light Russia's reversion to some repressive practices from its past.
According to Amnesty International, "Since coming into office in 1996, President Vladimir Putin has consolidated executive power, eliminating the election of regional governors, squashing freedom of press, harassing human-rights defenders, and continually abusing civilians in the guise of a war on terror in the North Caucasus. In addition, the harsh economic and social transition has given rise to increasing domestic violence and racial hate crimes."
A recent interview in The Nation shed additional light on this Putin's repressive ways. The Q&A is with Gregory Shvedov, news director for Memorial, a nongovernmental organization that commemorates victims of Soviet-era repression and catalogs human-rights violations that continue to occur throughout the Russian Federation.
When asked to compare U.S. human-rights abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, Shvedov said, "Guantánamo, for me, was a very important example of a crime that was made by the state. What's different is that, in Russia, such a crime causes a climate of impunity. . . . There is far more accountability [in the United States] than in Russia. This doesn't mean that the U.S. is a paradise. There are crimes and people are responsible for them, but I have the sense that most of those who commit them will go to prison. We completely lack this accountability in Russia. No one from the federal or regional administrations has been indicted for the incompetent security system at Beslan, for example. No one, Putin included, has been held responsible, and there's no independent media coverage to discuss this situation."
• Read the full Q&A article in The Nation
• Urge President Putin to Stop Violence Against Women in Chechnya
• Learn how the Russian government targets human rights activists in Chechnya
• Find news updates on Russia
Big Oil is winning a multimillion-dollar lottery every day of the week, every day of the year, because the game has been rigged by a Republican congress and president. Big Oil does not deserve the multibillion-dollar tax subsidy, but Republicans gave it to them, anyway.
The fix for Big Oil came within the 2004 corporate tax bill that Republicans sold as the JOBS Act. Republicans did a job in that bill alright—of diverting the attention of the American people by bold-facing the name and boldly rewarding Big Oil, instead.
To stop the needless flow of U.S. taxpayer money out of the U.S. Treasury, I have introduced the Restore a Rational Tax Rate on Petroleum Production Act of 2006. And Senator John Kerry (D–MA) has introduced a companion bill with the same name in the Senate. As long as our executive branch governs by serving its personal business interests, we will work to expose them and redouble our efforts to fight on behalf of the American people's interests.
• Read my condemnation of "Big Oil's Big Take"
• Read the text of my bill
Here are just a couple of the Web sites I rely on to get the facts:
• WashPIRG (Washington State Public Interest Research Group): http://www.washpirg.org/
• Sierra Club Cascade Chapter: http://cascade.sierraclub.org/
• The Clinton Foundation: http://www.clintonfoundation.org/
Munich
Directed by Steven Spielberg (Universal Studios; 2005)
Occasionally I stretch the meaning of "book" in this section by including a movie that really catches my attention. This time it's Munich. (Well, it was actually a book first, called Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas (Simon & Schuster; reprint 2005).) It recounts how the Israeli government assigned five assassins to strike back at the masterminds behind the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Spielberg expertly captures the mixed emotions of vengeance and guilt the lead assassin feels in the course of his work. Spielberg offers no neat and tidy conclusion. Instead, a glimpse of the still-standing Twin Towers in the background of the final scene leaves viewers with some serious food for thought about the complexities of the good-vs.-evil response by our own country to a shocking act of terrorism.
• Get more details
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