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Note to Newsletter Readers:

Upon suggestion, I have reorganized the newsletter to put the
news articles and links first and detailed and general announcements
at the end. I hope you find this more helpfull....bw

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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Israel demolishes entire Bedouin village in the Negev
Press Release, Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages,
6 December 2006

2) FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
Introduction by Carole Seligman and Roland Sheppard
Cuba: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave (1991)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-cuba-land-of-the-free.html
The United States v. Cuba (1992)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-us-v.-cuba.html
Malcolm and Fidel in Harlem (1993)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-malcolm-and-fidel-in-harlem.html
Adrienne Rich, Poet of Honor (1997)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-adrienne-rich.html
Dorothy Day: A Saint? (1997)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-dorothy-day.html
If We Are United, We Cannot Lose (2001) (speech)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-if-we-are-united.html

3) Havana Journal
Hippocrates Meets Fidel, and Even U.S. Students Enroll
By MARC LACEY
NY Times, December 8, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/world/americas/08havana.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

4) It's still about oil in Iraq
A centerpiece of the Iraq Study Group's report is its advocacy
for securing foreign companies' long-term access to Iraqi oil fields.
By Antonia Juhasz
December 8, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-juhasz8dec08,0,4717508.story?track=tottext

5) 33,000 San Franciscans
Editorial by Willie Ratcliff
San Francisco Bay View

6) Protesters Jam Beirut to Urge Government’s Ouster
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
December 10, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/world/middleeast/10cnd-beirut.html?hp&ex=1165813200&en=8464694b4adc25d3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

7) Signs of Lean Times for Home Equity, the American Piggy Bank
By FLOYD NORRIS
December 9, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/business/09charts.html

8) U.S. Imprisons More People Than Any Other Nation
By James Vicini, Reuters
"The United States has 5 percent of the world's population
and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population.
We rank first in the world in locking up our fellow citizens,"
[The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people
is the highest in the world.
[But the article doesn't break down the disproporionate r
ates for Blacks and Latinos.
[U.S. incarceration rates by race, June 30, 2004:
[ http://www.prisonsucks.com/
[-Whites: 393 per 100,000
[-Latinos: 957 per 100,000
[-Blacks: 2,531 per 100,000
[-Females: 123 per 100,000
[-Males: 1,348 per 100,000...Rolandgarret@aol.com ]
December 9, 2006
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/us-imprisons-more-people-than-any-other/20061209111509990004

9) CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
“three strike and you’re out” targets Blacks and Poor
"There are more Black youth in the prison system than there are
in college (even though it now costs twice as much to send
a person to prison as it does to send a person to college.) "
By Roland Sheppard
http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret/iWeb/Site/Crime%20and%20Punishment.html

10) Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC calls on Human Rights Watch
to Re-evaluate its Criticism of the Nonviolent Action
of Palestinian Civilians in Gaza Refugee Camp
Hayward, California, December 7, 2007
For Immediate Release:

11) Cornered Military Takes to Desperate Tactics
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily
December 9, 2006
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

12) Palestinian Officer’s Sons Killed in Gaza
"Gunmen sprayed a car in Gaza City with bullets this morning, killing
three young boys, aged 3 to 9, who were sons of a senior Palestinian
security officer."
By GREG MYRE
December 11, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/world/middleeast/11cnd-mide.html?hp&ex=1165899600&en=1c87fba23c7433e1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

13) The Time Is Now
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
December 11, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/opinion/11herbert.html?hp
[Followed by: FOR THE RECORD: By Bonnie Weinstein: a commentary
to this story; along with the Murtha Ammendment that
follows...bw]

14) [Brad Will]
After an American Dies, the Case Against His Killers
Is Mired in Mexican Justice
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. and COLIN MOYNIHAN
December 11, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/world/americas/11oaxaca.html

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1) Israel demolishes entire Bedouin village in the Negev
Press Release, Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages,
6 December 2006

At 5:00am hundreds of police accompanied six bulldozers and
demolished 17 homes and three animal shacks in the village
of Twail Abu-Jarwal. The entire village is demolished. People
are sitting by the piles of tin that were their modest dwellings
and wondering what to do, where to go - even their family
cannot host them, as no one has a house standing.

This is the fourth time this year that the government demolished
in this village. This time they got it "right" - no house
is left standing.

But the villagers have nowhere to go to. They lived on the
outskirts of the Bedouin town of Laqia, the old folk paid for
plots of land to build homes in the 1970s, they still hold on the
receipt, hoping someday to receive the plots. For the last
30 years they have been living on land belonging to others,
in shacks, the housing becoming ever more crowded, until
there was no room left for another baby. They turned to the
government for a solution - the option for joining the rest
of the residents of Laqia, in a regular house, on a regular
plot of land. But the authorities had no options for them.
The owners of the land on which they were living requested
that they leave - 30 years is enough. So eventually they left
back to their own ancestral land - only a couple of miles
south of Laqia - by the old ruined school, by their old cemetery.
The adult sons built their old mother a modest brick home.
The rest built tin shacks.

A year ago the government came and destroyed several houses -
including the brick home. Some of the people of Twail Abu Jarwal
rebuilt, some moved into more crowded homes with their adult
siblings. The government came nine months later and demolished
seven more homes. Again, some rebuilt their shacks, some moved
in with family. The government came back last month and just
to harass, uprooted fences, holding the sheep. And now they
came in order to make sure the work is complete.

Israel's Minister of Interior, Roni Bar-On, two days ago was
invited to give answers to the Internal Affairs Committee in the
Knesset, as to what solutions the government is advancing
in order to solve the issue of the unrecognized Bedouin villages
in the Negev, and why the government is demolishing homes
while these people have no "legal" options for building homes.
Bar-On claimed that everything is just fine, he is doing all he
can to deal with this issue, but a criminal must be punished,
and therefore all the "illegal" Bedouin homes in the Negev must
be demolished. He claimed that as far as he is concerned, there
are not enough demolitions in the Negev. And now he has
proved that he is a man of his word - 17 homes demolished
in one foul swoop.

Of the 150,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel living in the Negev,
over 50% live in villages that the government as policy has left
"unrecognized", meaning that there are no options for building
permits, as well as running water, electricity, roads, sewer
systems and trash removal, additionally there are very minimal
education and health facilities. This policy's aim is to force the
Bedouins off their ancestral lands and to concentrate the Bedouins
in urban townships, regardless of their wishes or their culture.
However, there are also no options for living in the concentration
towns the government has built, as there are no available plots
of land for homes, as in the case of the families of the Twail abu-
Jarwal village. Therefore the government can "legally" demolish
the homes of 80,000 members of this community, while they
cannot build one "legal" home.

We need help! Both financial and political.

Please donate to help the people of the village re-build their
homes (tin shacks that stand as homes...) Checks can be sent
to RCUV - al Awna Fund (the Regional Council for the
Unrecognized Villages), POBox 10002, Beer Sheva,
zipcode 84105, ISRAEL.

Please write to your representatives! And tell of the quiet
and brutal demolitions of homes and lives in the Israeli Negev,
demand that they do something about it.

The Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages is an NGO
and was created in 1997 as the representative body for the
residents of the 45 Bedouin unrecognized villages in the Israeli
Negev. Hssein al-Rafaia is the elected head of the RCUV.
For more information, please contact Yeela Raanan, 054 7487005,
or via email at yallylivnat@ gmail.com, Civil Society Activities
Coordinator, Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages.

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2) FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
Introduction
by Carole Seligman and Roland Sheppard
First Edition. March 2005.
Cuba: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave (1991)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-cuba-land-of-the-free.html
The United States v. Cuba (1992)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-us-v.-cuba.html
Malcolm and Fidel in Harlem (1993)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-malcolm-and-fidel-in-harlem.html
Adrienne Rich, Poet of Honor (1997)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-adrienne-rich.html
Dorothy Day: A Saint? (1997)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-dorothy-day.html
If We Are United, We Cannot Lose (2001) (speech)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-if-we-are-united.html

Introduction
by Carole Seligman and Roland Sheppard
First Edition. March 2005.

You have in your hands a wonderful book. It is a complete collection
of the monthly columns written by Sylvia Weinstein for Socialist Action
newspaper from 1984 through February of 2001, and for the first
four issues of Socialist Viewpoint magazine, May through
September, 2001. She engaged in revolutionary socialist journalism
until she died at age 75 on August 14, 2001. This collection also
includes the transcript of a presentation Sylvia gave to a university
women’s rights celebration in Baltimore, Maryland in 1993, in which
she reviewed her personal history as a fighter for women’s rights.

She was born Sylvia Mae Profitt in 1926, on the outskirts of Lexington,
Kentucky. Fifty-six of those years, her entire adult life since she
was 19 years old, was spent as an active participant in the
revolutionary workers movement: 38 years in the Socialist Workers
Party, and 18 years in Socialist Action, of which she was a founding
member and full-time worker. During the last few months of her
life, she was a founder and leader of Socialist Workers Organization
and Business Manager of Socialist Viewpoint magazine.

During her 38 years in the Socialist Workers Party, she took
assignments as secretary of the New York City branch of the
party, as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement in the Brooklyn
branch of the NAACP, and as a full time worker in The Militant
newspaper office, among many others.

She was arrested for sitting in at Coney Island Hospital at an
NAACP action there to force the hiring of Black workers in the
construction of more hospital buildings. She picketed at Woolworths
in solidarity with the southern sit-ins. Like many socialists during
the McCarthy era witch-hunt she was visited at home and harassed
many times by the FBI. Of course that never stopped her. She
not only increased her activism, she even ran in socialist election
campaigns for public office in New York City and later in San Francisco.

Sylvia was a staunch defender of the Cuban Revolution and
an activist in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. When Fidel Castro
came to New York City to address the United Nations after the
victory of the Cuban revolution, Sylvia was a key organizer in the
committee that arranged a big reception for Fidel and the Cuban
delegation to meet with their U.S. supporters and Black community
leaders at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. Sylvia remained very proud
of that experience.

But it was the feminist movement of the 1970s that inspired Sylvia
to take a leadership role, especially in the struggles for abortion
rights and childcare. These issues had a deep personal meaning
for Sylvia. In those struggles, Sylvia was an organizer and activist.
She did countless mailings and handed out hundreds of thousands
of flyers. But the feminist movement also brought out Sylvia’s
tremendous leadership talents.

Sylvia made her own experiences as a young mother who was
forced to obtain illegal, terrifying, and unsafe abortions the
property of the movement as a whole. She testified at speak-outs
to legalize abortion, and later, when it was legal, she organized
to defend the clinics from the attacks of the rightwing anti-abortion
terrorists. She became a spokeswoman and teacher. In the 1970s
she was the main leader of the movement for childcare in San
Francisco. She became known throughout San Francisco as the
“childcare lady,” and as an advocate for all human rights.

She set an example of unalterable opposition to the capitalist
government which stood in the path of women’s liberation. Her
campaign for Board of Education in San Francisco was run on
a financial shoe string, but Sylvia got about 10,000 votes. She
came up against powerful politicians—representatives of the rich—
in the course of her work for women’s rights. S.F. Mayor Willie
Brown, who was then speaker of the California State Assembly,
tried to elbow her off the stage in the middle of her speech at
a Day in the Park for Women’s Rights. That was an annual
demonstration that Sylvia had helped initiate during the struggle
for childcare in San Francisco. Sylvia also found herself face
to face in opposition to Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was then
president of the Board of Supervisors of the City of San Francisco.
Feinstein tried to use the childcare issue to gain political power
for herself but not to expand childcare services for families. Sylvia
fought her on this, and fought successfully against the S.F. chapter
of the National Organization for Women endorsing Feinstein for mayor.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Sylvia was both the main spokeswoman
for the militant wing of the feminist movement and also the most
respected feminist speaker among the masses of working women
who demonstrated for women’s rights. Behind the scenes, powerful
politicians moved in to try to isolate Weinstein and her collaborators
from the NOW members by initiating a public red-baiting campaign
in the San Francisco media. To Sylvia, this campaign only showed
how effective militant independence in the feminist movement was.

Her last important political work was in founding the Socialist Workers
Organization after the demise of democracy within Socialist Action.
She continued the regular monthly column, “Fightback!” that she
had written for Socialist Action newspaper for the first three issues
of Socialist Viewpoint magazine.

Sylvia Weinstein had the unique ability to make masses of people
feel justified in their anger at their oppression and in the justness
of their cause. She also imparted a strong sense that masses
of oppressed, working together, could exert their power and
change things for the better. She believed that the working class
was fully capable of taking control over society and ruling in the
interests of themselves and all humankind. She was sure that
eventually masses of people would join with her to change things,
to make a socialist revolution. Perhaps it was because she exuded
a deep belief in the goodness of her fellow workers, that people
gravitated to her and were so affected by her.

In the women’s movement, during its ascendancy, Sylvia was able
to impart that attitude of class consciousness to thousands
of women. In the socialist movement she was able to impart
that confidence to her comrades. Her legacy is as a partisan
fighter for human rights and advocate of a socialist future
for humanity.

Sylvia’s columns are infused with revolutionary spirit, optimism,
respect for the potential of the working class, love for the working
people of the world, and hatred for the oppressor class. The
columns exhibit the very essence of Marxist political analysis—
a deep understanding that society is divided into social classes
with diametrically opposed social, political, and economic interests.
But they are in no sense dry or academic. Sylvia spoke and wrote
with a colorful style full of invective for the brutality and arrogance
of the capitalist class and the stupidity of its stooges in government.

Many of the columns also reveal the strong personal motivation
for Sylvia’s tireless revolutionary work—her personal background
of extreme rural poverty, her childhood experience in labor
organizing, her two dangerous illegal abortions, her active
participation in the working class, Civil Rights, antiwar, and
especially the women’s liberation movements. Because Sylvia
played a leadership role in the campaigns for child care, the
Equal Rights Amendment, and abortion rights, her columns
on those topics are especially fierce.

This book will be useful for all who oppose the horrors the
capitalist system is perpetrating upon the peoples of the world
today. It provides a revolutionary socialist perspective on the
last two decades of the 20th century U.S. empire. It contains
useful history on some of the most important developments
of those two decades, such as the several wars waged by the
U.S. on developing countries, on the status of women—
particularly with respect to women’s reproductive rights—
on the growth of the prison-industrial complex and
America's political prisoners, on the first Palestinian
intifada, and the major events of the end of the 20th century.

Sylvia had the gift of finding and re-telling the stories of
ordinary people that reveal great truths about our society.
She found stories in the daily newspapers, such as the story
of the Russian mother who went to Chechnya to bring her
soldier son home, and let the readers see how this strong
act of love and personal sacrifice applied to all mothers and
all working people. Through this story she showed how reactionary
wars against national liberation were not only against the
interests of workers and soldiers of the oppressed nation,
but against those of the oppressor nation as well.

The book does much more than provide a useful history of this
period. The basic politics of these columns is very relevant today.
These writings advocate policies of complete working class
independence from ruling class politics. They advocate working
class methods, strategies, and tactics, such as mass street
demonstrations to oppose war or to support important reforms
such as reproductive rights for women and the Equal Rights
Amendment. The columns are particularly useful in understanding
capitalist electoral politics. Many are scathing attacks on the
reformist policy of supporting so-called lesser-evil, pro-capitalist
candidates in elections, and the de-railing of important social
justice movements in the process. These columns are particularly
useful in understanding the present predicament of the antiwar
movement in the aftermath of U.S. wars against Afghanistan and
Iraq, current continuing occupations of both of these countries,
and a presidential election approaching with no genuine working
class political party in place to contest capitalist political power.
In this context, Sylvia Weinstein’s writings are not only interesting
but prophetic.

The series of articles in this book are indicative of her compassion
for the oppressed and her unswerving confidence in the power
of the working class to construct a socialist world humanitarian
society in harmony with nature. Sylvia was a rebel woman who
knew how to fightback. “Fightback!” was the name of her monthly
column, and therefore, it is the title of this book.

—Carole Seligman and Roland Sheppard


FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein

Socialist Viewpoint Publishing Association
ISBN: 0-9763570-0-3
360 pp.

To order your copy of FIGHTBACK!
Send a check for $25.00 plus $5.95 for shipping and handling to:

Socialist Viewpoint
333 Valencia Street, Suite 407
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-920-9323

Please be sure to include your name, address, city, state and zip code.

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3) Havana Journal
Hippocrates Meets Fidel, and Even U.S. Students Enroll
By MARC LACEY
NY Times, December 8, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/world/americas/08havana.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

HAVANA, Dec. 7 ˜ Anatomy is a part of medical education everywhere.
Biochemistry, too. But a course in Cuban history?

The Latin American School of Medical Sciences, on a sprawling former naval
base on the outskirts of this capital, teaches its students medicine Cuban
style. That means poking at cadavers, peering into aging microscopes and
discussing the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power 48 years ago.

Cuban-trained doctors must be able not only to diagnose an ulcer and treat
hypertension but also to expound on the principles put forward by „el
comandante.‰

It was President Castro himself who in the late 1990s came up with the idea
for this place, which gives potential doctors from throughout the Americas
and Africa not just the A B C‚s of medicine but also the basic philosophy
behind offering good health care to the struggling masses.

The Cuban government offers full scholarships to poor students from abroad,
and many, including 90 or so Americans, have jumped at the chance of a free
medical education, even with a bit of Communist theory thrown in.

„They are completing the dreams of our comandante,‰ said the dean, Dr. Juan
D. Carrizo Estévez. „As he said, they are true missionaries, true apostles
of health.‰

It is a strong personal desire to practice medicine that drives the
students here more than any affinity for Mr. Castro. Those from the United
States in particular insist that they want to become doctors, not
politicians. They recoil at the notion that they are propaganda tools for
Cuba, as critics suggest.

„They ask no one to be political ˜ it‚s your choice,‰ said Jamar Williams,
27, of Brooklyn, a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany.
„Many students decide to be political. They go to rallies and read
political books. But you can lie low.‰

Still, the Cuban authorities are eager to show off this school as a sign of
the country‚s compassion and its standing in the world. And some students
cannot help responding to the sympathetic portrayal of Mr. Castro, whom the
United States government tars as a dictator who suppresses his people.

„In my country many see Fidel Castro as a bad leader,‰ said Rolando
Bonilla, 23, a Panamanian who is in his second year of the six-year
program. „My view has changed. I now know what he represents for this
country. I identify with him.‰

Fátima Flores, 20, of Mexico sympathized with Mr. Castro‚s government even
before she was accepted for the program. „When we become doctors we can
spread his influence,‰ she said. „Medicine is not just something
scientific. It‚s a way of serving the public. Look at Che.‰

Che Guevara was an Argentine medical doctor before he became a
revolutionary who fought alongside Mr. Castro in the rugged reaches of
eastern Cuba and then lost his life in Bolivia while further spreading the
cause.

Tahirah Benyard, 27, a first-year student from Newark, said it was Cuba‚s
offer to send doctors to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, which was
rejected by the Bush administration, that prompted her to take a look at
medical education in Cuba.

„I saw my people dying,‰ she said. „There was no one willing to help. The
government was saying everything is going to be fine.‰

She said she had been rejected by several American medical schools but
could not have afforded their high costs anyway. Like other students from
the United States, she was screened for the Cuba program by Pastors for
Peace, a New York organization opposed to Washington‚s trade embargo
against the island.

Ms. Benyard hopes that one day she will be able to practice in poor
neighborhoods back home. Whether her education, which is decidedly low
tech, is up to American standards remains to be seen, although Cedric
Edwards, the first American student to graduate, last year, passed his
medical boards in the United States.

If she makes it, Ms. Benyard will become one of a small pool of
African-American doctors. Only about 6 percent of practicing physicians are
members of minority groups, says the Association of American Medical
Colleges, which recently began its own program to increase the number of
minority medical students.

Even before they were accepted into Cuba‚s program, most of the Americans
here said they had misgivings about the health care system in their own
country. There is too much of a focus on the bottom line, they said, and
not enough compassion for the poor.

„Democracy is a great principle,‰ said Mr. Williams, who wears long
dreadlocks pulled back behind his head. „The idea that people can speak for
themselves and govern themselves is a great concept. But people must be
educated, and in order to be educated, people need health.‰

The education the students are receiving here extends outside the classroom.

„I‚ve learned to become a minimalist,‰ Mr. Williams said. „I don‚t
necessarily need my iPod, all my gadgets and gizmos, to survive.‰

There are also fewer food options. The menu can be described as rice and
beans and more rice and beans. Living conditions are more rugged in other
respects as well. The electricity goes out frequently. Internet access is
limited. Toilet paper and soap are rationed. Sometimes the water taps are dry.

Then there is the issue of personal space.

„Being in a room with 18 girls, it teaches you patience,‰ said Ms. Benyard,
who was used to her one-bedroom apartment back home and described her
current living conditions as like a military barracks.

Other students cited the American government‚s embargo as their biggest
frustration. The blockade, which is what the Cuban government and many of
the American students call it, means no care packages, no visits from Mom
and Dad, and the threat that their government might penalize them for
coming here.

Last year Washington ordered the students home, but the decision was
reversed after protests from the Congressional Black Caucus, which supports
the program.

One topic that does not come up in classes is the specific ailment that put
Mr. Castro in the hospital, forced him to cede power to his brother Raúl
and has kept him out of the public eye since late July. His diagnosis, like
so much else in Cuba, is a state secret.

www.marxmail.org

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4) It's still about oil in Iraq
A centerpiece of the Iraq Study Group's report is its advocacy
for securing foreign companies' long-term access to Iraqi oil fields.
By Antonia Juhasz
December 8, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-juhasz8dec08,0,4717508.story?track=tottext

ANTONIA JUHASZ is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies
and author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World,
One Economy at a Time."

WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats
still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic
members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.

Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq's
importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder:
"It has the world's second-largest known oil reserves." The group
then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations
as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves.
If the proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will
be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.

The report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room:
that we are fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. It states
in plain language that the U.S. government should use every
tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and
those of its corporations are met.

It's spelled out in Recommendation No. 63, which calls on the
U.S. to "assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry
as a commercial enterprise" and to "encourage investment
in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by
international energy companies." This recommendation would
turn Iraq's nationalized oil industry into a commercial entity
that could be partly or fully privatized by foreign firms.

This is an echo of calls made before and immediately after
the invasion of Iraq.

The U.S. State Department's Oil and Energy Working Group,
meeting between December 2002 and April 2003, also said
that Iraq "should be opened to international oil companies
as quickly as possible after the war." Its preferred method
of privatization was a form of oil contract called a production-
sharing agreement. These agreements are preferred by the
oil industry but rejected by all the top oil producers in the
Middle East because they grant greater control and more
profits to the companies than the governments. The Heritage
Foundation also released a report in March 2003 calling
for the full privatization of Iraq's oil sector. One representative
of the foundation, Edwin Meese III, is a member of the Iraq
Study Group. Another, James J. Carafano, assisted in the
study group's work.

For any degree of oil privatization to take place, and for it
to apply to all the country's oil fields, Iraq has to amend its
constitution and pass a new national oil law. The constitution
is ambiguous as to whether control over future revenues from
as-yet-undeveloped oil fields should be shared among its
provinces or held and distributed by the central government.

This is a crucial issue, with trillions of dollars at stake, because
only 17 of Iraq's 80 known oil fields have been developed.
Recommendation No. 26 of the Iraq Study Group calls for
a review of the constitution to be "pursued on an urgent basis."
Recommendation No. 28 calls for putting control of Iraq's oil revenues
in the hands of the central government. Recommendation No. 63 also
calls on the U.S. government to "provide technical assistance to the
Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law."

This last step is already underway. The Bush administration hired the
consultancy firm BearingPoint more than a year ago to advise the Iraqi
Oil Ministry on drafting and passing a new national oil law.

Plans for this new law were first made public at a news conference
in late 2004 in Washington. Flanked by State Department officials,
Iraqi Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi (who is now vice president)
explained how this law would open Iraq's oil industry to private
foreign investment. This, in turn, would be "very promising to the
American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil
companies." The law would implement production-sharing
agreements.

Much to the deep frustration of the U.S. government and American
oil companies, that law has still not been passed.

In July, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced in Baghdad
that oil executives told him that their companies would not enter
Iraq without passage of the new oil law. Petroleum Economist
magazine later reported that U.S. oil companies considered
passage of the new oil law more important than increased
security when deciding whether to go into business in Iraq.

The Iraq Study Group report states that continuing military, political
and economic support is contingent upon Iraq's government
meeting certain undefined "milestones." It's apparent that these
milestones are embedded in the report itself.

Further, the Iraq Study Group would commit U.S. troops to Iraq
for several more years to, among other duties, provide security
for Iraq's oil infrastructure. Finally, the report unequivocally
declares that the 79 total recommendations "are comprehensive
and need to be implemented in a coordinated fashion. They
should not be separated or carried out in isolation."

All told, the Iraq Study Group has simply made the case for
extending the war until foreign oil companies — presumably
American ones — have guaranteed legal access to all of Iraq's
oil fields and until they are assured the best legal and financial
terms possible.

We can thank the Iraq Study Group for making its case publicly.
It is now our turn to decide if we wish to spill more blood for oil.

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5) 33,000 San Franciscans
Editorial by Willie Ratcliff
San Francisco Bay View

It’s December, and 33,000 San Francisco voters are still waiting for
justice. All summer, in every neighborhood in the city, people eagerly
signed our referendum petition to stop the Bayview Hunters Point
Redevelopment Plan. We needed 21,000 signatures; we turned in
over 33,000 – and the Elections Department verified them. We were
jubilant. We – 33,000 San Franciscans – had stopped the biggest
land grab in the city’s history.

Then in September, at the request of Mayor Gavin Newsom and
Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Sophie Maxwell, City Attorney Dennis
Herrera threw out the signatures of over 33,000 San Franciscans with
the ridiculous excuse that each petition should have been as thick
as a phone book. No matter that our petitions had been thoroughly
examined and approved by all the appropriate officials before
we circulated them.

So much for democracy in San Francisco ! The Redevelopment
Agency and its developer friends, hungry for our neighborhood,
San Francisco ’s sunniest and most scenic, began to sink its teeth
into Bayview Hunters Point, to chew us up and spit us out.

We see three ways to justice: 1) We want to sue the City but
haven’t yet found attorneys we can afford who are willing to take
the case. 2) We want at least six members of the Board of Supervisors
to reconsider and rescind their approval of the Redevelopment Plan,
and we’re encouraging them to do so. 3) We want a law passed
at the local, state or federal level to prohibit the kind of eminent
domain that seizes property from one private owner and gives
it to a richer one. That would incapacitate the Redevelopment
Agency and stop the land grab.

This week, we have a slim chance to pull off the third option. The U.S.
Senate could pass federal eminent domain reform before Congress
adjourns if we push them hard enough. H.R. 4128 passed the House
over a year ago 376-38. The identical Senate bill, S. 3873, could pass
this week if 33,000 San Franciscans and our friends all over the country
call our Senators. In California , we need to call Sen. Barbara Boxer
at (202) 224-3553 and Sen. Dianne Feinstein at (202) 224-3841,
and we need to do it TODAY!

We still need to limit eminent domain in California too. Prop 90,
which would have done that, failed because of some additional
language about “takings.” I feel vindicated to learn that in Nevada ,
where a similar measure was on the ballot this year, the courts
struck down the “takings” language, leaving only the language limiting
eminent domain, and the voters passed it. I had proposed that route
for California . Too bad we missed the opportunity.

We should demand that the California legislature limit eminent domain,
as 34 other states have done in the past year. If our legislators
refuse – as they refused last year – we’ll know they’re still in the
clutches of the big developers and their big campaign donations.
And we’ll know that they don’t give a damn about us in Bayview
Hunters Point – or about 33,000 San Franciscans seeking justice.

And why not limit eminent domain in San Francisco ? According
to www.propertyfairness.org: “On June 6, 2006 , voters in Orange
County , California , approved a countywide eminent domain
measure. The measure was approved with 75 percent of the
vote. Orange County was the first local jurisdiction in the
nation to weigh in on eminent domain restrictions at the ballot
box. The measure prohibits eminent domain for economic
development.”

If the voters can do it in Orange County , the Board of Supervisors
can do it in San Francisco . How about it, Supervisors? Do at least
six of you have the courage to give 33,000 San Franciscans
the justice they seek?

P.S. The headline “33,000 San Franciscans” was inspired by a lady
I’d never met who came by recently with a box full of 1,000 plain
white postcards printed on one side in bold black letters:
“33,000 San Franciscans.” “I don’t know what you can do with
these,” she said, “but I signed the petition and I’m so angry our
signatures were thrown out that I had to do something.”

Supervisors, your constituents are furious. They call and email
me constantly wondering what we’re going to do, what they can
do and, most of all, what you’re going to do. Your constituents,
33,000 of them, demand justice. It’s yours to give.

Contact Bay View Publisher Willie Ratcliff at
publisher@sfbayview.com or (415) 671-0789.

To reach the Bay View, email editor@sfbayview.com.
To subscribe to this list, email sfbayview-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.

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6) Protesters Jam Beirut to Urge Government’s Ouster
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
December 10, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/world/middleeast/10cnd-beirut.html?hp&ex=1165813200&en=8464694b4adc25d3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 10 — The center of Beirut was packed with
hundreds of thousands of pro-Hezbollah and allied demonstrators
today, pressing their call for the Lebanese government to resign
in a jubilant mass of protest and carnival.

The pounding of martial music, the roaring din of the excited crowd
floated up a nearby hill to pierce the thick walls of the stately
government building, the Grand Serail, as Prime Minister Fouad
Sinoria, entered a ceremonial room for a news conference. “I don’t
understand what is this great cause that is making them create
this tense political mess and stage open ended demonstrations,”
he said to a small group of reporters.

Over and over, the crowd, the speakers, the posters, offered clear
explanations. They did not want a government controlled by the
so-called March 14 coalition, an amalgam of Sunni, Christian and Druse
parties. They did not want a government aligned with Washington.
In short, a very large number of Lebanese citizens said they
did not want the present leadership.

A banner that hung down the side of a building, showing a picture
of the prime minister hugging Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“Thanks Condy,” it said just beneath another image of dead children,
referring to Lebanese civilian casualties during Israel’s war with
the militant Shiite group Hezbollah during the summer.

“There is no longer a place for America in Lebanon,” Hezbollah’s
deputy leader, Naim Qassem, said in remarks that boomed through
loudspeakers.

“Do you not recall that the weapons fired on Lebanon are American
weapons?” he added.

Prime Minister Sinoria’s somewhat surprising expression
of bewilderment seemed to capture the spirit dividing this country
of just four million people. There are government supporters
who appear afraid and threatened, and there are opponents of the
government, particularly those who support Hezbollah, who seem
empowered and confident that they stand at the threshold of victory.

In a subdued ceremony that seemed a reverse image of the boisterous
protests, several thousand people gathered to mark the anniversary
of the assassination of Gibran Tueni, the anti-Syrian newspaper
publisher killed in a car bombing last year. The front of the convention
center was filled with Range Rovers, Jaguars and Mercedes-Benzes.
Inside, the audience was dressed for a funeral, suits and ties,
and cuff links for the men.

“Everyone is afraid,” said Michel Khoury, a former governor of the
central bank as he left the memorial, a shiny new Motorola cell
phone pressed to his ear. “The Shiite community is very important.
It is the first time it is monolithic, the first time in the history
of this country you have one of the communities united.”

And in Tripoli today, tens of thousands of pro-government
demonstrators rallied.

This fight between Lebanese factions, defined primarily along
sectarian lines, is a fight for control of the government that will
help determine Lebanon’s future, whether it will eventually lean
toward Iran and Syria, as would like, or toward the United States
and Europe, as the governing alliance would like.

“We are today at the last phase of our struggle before we consolidate
our independence, freedom and sovereignty because the government
has proven to be a failure at all levels,” said the former Gen. Michel
Aoun in a live video broadcast to the demonstrators in Beirut. “They
have failed to isolate the Lebanese people from one another and
we are here today to represent unity and we are leading this struggle
together.” He has aligned his Christian party, the Free Patriotic
Movement, with Hezbollah.

He said that within a few days, the allied groups would press to
form an interim cabinet and then early parliamentary elections.
There have been rumors flying around Beirut that the next step
will be attempts to block roads, the airport, and the ports, to grind
the country to a halt. But there has so far been nothing official.

Hezbollah and its allies have managed for 10 days to control the
center of Beirut with a loud, peaceful, organized protest. In many
ways, Hezbollah has adopted a strategy that has been cheered
by the White House in the past, in places like Ukraine, and even
Lebanon itself, leaning on large, peaceful crowds to force unpopular
governments to resign and pave the way for elections. But this time
Washington and its allies have said the protest amounts to
a coup d’état, fueling charges that America supports democratic
practices only when its allies are winning.

“Does Bush want national expression in Lebanon?” Sheik Qassem
said to the crowd. “Does the West and Arabs want the voice of the
people in Lebanon? Tell them, ‘Death to America.’ Tell them,
‘Death to Israel.’ Tell them, ‘Glory to a free Lebanon.’ ”

The Hezbollah alliance took its protests to the streets after the
governing coalition refused its demands to give Hezbollah and
its allies more power, including the ability to veto all government
action. The current demonstration began on Friday, with hundreds
of thousands of people pouring into the center of the city, many
bused in from the poor, war-ravaged Shia communities of the
south. The government appeared to hope that the protesters would
grow weary and go back to the negotiating table.

But today, there was the huge crowd, a vista of humanity pressed
shoulder to shoulder, flying flags and calling for the government
to resign.

“We want a clean cabinet,” read one banner.

“Victory, change, is coming,’ read another.

The gravity of the situation was underlined by roads sealed by
soldiers and razor wire, and the many shops and restaurants
that remained closed.

But high spirits seemed dominant. “I am having fun overthrowing
the cabinet,” said Hassan Katteya, 10, as he walked with his mother,
Reema, through the crowd.

“We feel that we are the strong party,” Mrs. Katteya said. “The
government is the weak party. They are hiding up there in the
Grand Serail.”

Nada Bakri contributed reporting.

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7) Signs of Lean Times for Home Equity, the American Piggy Bank
By FLOYD NORRIS
December 9, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/business/09charts.html

MUCH of the growth of the United States in recent years has been
financed by homeowners’ rising wealth. But now the growth in that
wealth has almost vanished.

The government reported this month that it estimated the equity
of Americans in their homes — what the homes are worth less
the money owed on mortgages — rose a scant 0.1 percent
in the third quarter. At an annual rate, that was just 0.5 percent,
the smallest gain in more than a decade.

From late 2003 through the first quarter of this year, the gain
in home equity was running at more than 10 percent a year, more
than enough to keep Americans feeling richer and to provide cash —
through refinancings or home equity loans — for other uses.

The amount of money being borrowed has also begun to slow,
although not nearly as rapidly as the increase in the value
of real estate might indicate. In the third quarter, the outstanding
balances of mortgage loans rose at an annual rate of 7.9 percent.
That is less than half the pace of just two years ago, and the lowest
figure for any quarter since early 2001, when the economy
was going into recession.

That American homes face more leverage than they once did
is clear from the chart showing mortgages as a percentage
of value over the last half century.

Over all, homes are still worth more than twice what is owed
on them, which hardly sounds alarming even if relative debt
levels doubled over the 50 years.

The real issue is the spread of that debt. There is no question
that more homes now have very high loan-to-value ratios,
or that more mortgages have features that could cause monthly
payments to soar. Either could cause severe distress for some
homeowners if home prices fall or a recession threatens
incomes. Owners could find they own homes worth less
than they owe or that they cannot afford the new monthly
payment. A wave of defaults could come even when most
homeowners have ample financial flexibility.

It used to be that in eras when home values rose rapidly,
the amount of outstanding mortgages rose more slowly. That
stood to reason, because most homes were not sold in any given
year and mortgages were primarily used to buy homes. Those
who owned homes might have felt wealthier, but they did
not take on additional debt.

That stayed true even in the late 1990’s, when home prices
were rising at a good clip and mortgage balances rose more
slowly. But the relationship has vanished. For the best two
and a half years of the real estate boom — ending this past
March — the value of home equity in America rose at a very
impressive annual rate of 11.8 percent. But the total amount
of mortgages outstanding rose at a rate of 13.5 percent.

Some of that borrowing came from home buyers who needed
to borrow to pay the high prices, and some from homeowners
refinancing their homes. But a lot also came from an increased
willingness of Americans to use home equity lines of credit —
and from the expansion of the asset-backed securities market
that funds many such loans. The amount outstanding under
them rose at a compounded annual rate of 22.9 percent
over that period.

It seems like a paradox: the more homes are worth, the more
many owners owe, even if they purchased the homes many years
before for far less than they are now worth.

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8) U.S. Imprisons More People Than Any Other Nation
By James Vicini, Reuters
"The United States has 5 percent of the world's population
and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population.
We rank first in the world in locking up our fellow citizens,"
[The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people
is the highest in the world.
[But the article doesn't break down the disproporionate r
ates for Blacks and Latinos.
[U.S. incarceration rates by race, June 30, 2004:
[ http://www.prisonsucks.com/
[-Whites: 393 per 100,000
[-Latinos: 957 per 100,000
[-Blacks: 2,531 per 100,000
[-Females: 123 per 100,000
[-Males: 1,348 per 100,000...Rolandgarret@aol.com ]
December 9, 2006
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/us-imprisons-more-people-than-any-other/20061209111509990004

WASHINGTON (Dec. 9) -- Tough sentencing laws, record numbers
of drug offenders and high crime rates have contributed to the
United States having the largest prison population and the
highest rate of incarceration in the world, according to criminal
justice experts.

A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed
that a record 7 million people -- or one in every 32 American adults
-- were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last
year. Of the total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail.

According to the International Center for Prison Studies at King's
College in London, more people are behind bars in the United
States than in any other country. China ranks second with
1.5 million prisoners, followed by Russia with 870,000.

The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people is the
highest, followed by 611 in Russia and 547 for St. Kitts and
Nevis. In contrast, the incarceration rates in many Western
industrial nations range around 100 per 100,000 people.

Groups advocating reform of U.S. sentencing laws seized
on the latest U.S. prison population figures showing admissions
of inmates have been rising even faster than the numbers
of prisoners who have been released.

"The United States has 5 percent of the world's population
and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. We rank
first in the world in locking up our fellow citizens," said Ethan
Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, which supports
alternatives in the war on drugs.

"We now imprison more people for drug law violations than
all of western Europe, with a much larger population,
incarcerates for all offenses."

Ryan King, a policy analyst at The Sentencing Project, a group
advocating sentencing reform, said the United States has
a more punitive criminal justice system than other countries.

"We send more people to prison, for more different offenses,
for longer periods of time than anybody else," he said.

Drug offenders account for about 2 million of the 7 million
in prison, on probation or parole, King said, adding that
other countries often stress treatment instead of incarceration.

Commenting on what the prison figures show about U.S.
society, King said various social programs, including those
dealing with education, poverty, urban development, health
care and child care, have failed.

"There are a number of social programs we have failed
to deliver. There are systemic failures going on," he said. "
A lot of these people then end up in the criminal justice
system."

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal
Foundation in California, said the high prison numbers
represented a proper response to the crime problem in the
United States. Locking up more criminals has contributed
to lower crime rates, he said.

"The hand-wringing over the incarceration rate
is missing the mark," he said.

Scheidegger said the high prison population reflected
cultural differences, with the United States having far higher
crimes rates than European nations or Japan. "We have more
crime. More crime gets you more prisoners."

Julie Stewart, president of the group Families Against Mandatory
Minimums, cited the Justice Department report and said drug
offenders are clogging the U.S. justice system.

"Why are so many people in prison? Blame mandatory sentencing
laws and the record number of nonviolent drug offenders
subject to them," she said.

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9) CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
“three strike and you’re out” targets Blacks and Poor
"There are more Black youth in the prison system than there are
in college (even though it now costs twice as much to send
a person to prison as it does to send a person to college.) "
By Roland Sheppard
http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret/iWeb/Site/Crime%20and%20Punishment.html

1994 Fact: Due to institutionalized racism of American society,
Blacks are seven times more likely to be incarcerated than whites.
The rate for whites is 289 per 100,00; the rate for African
Americans is 1860 per 100,00

In the aftermath of the rebellion in South Central L.A. two years
ago, there has been a massive media blitz to make "violent crime"
the major issue of the day. After all the hype, polls have been
taken that show crime as the "major" issue—ahead
of unemployment, health, taxes, etc.

According to a recent survey by the Center for Media and Public
Affairs, the three major TV networks aired more than twice
as many crime stories last year than in 1992. Meanwhile the
crime rate has remained virtually the same.

President Clinton and most of the political representatives
of the rich have taken the proper cue and picked up the call
for a "three strikes and your out" solution to the problem
of crime. Both California and the state of Washington have
already passed "three strikes" legislation.

The California law stipulates that after a third conviction,
a defendant will receive 25 years to life imprisonment or
triple the usual sentence for the offense, which ever is greater.
Second-time offenders will get double the usual sentence.
Even first-time offenders will have time off for good behavior
reduced from 50 percent to 20 percent.

The California law will face challenges in court. Most controversial
are the provisions that extend the penalties to youth; many
youth have been convicted without even a jury trial.

Nevertheless, according to California Gov. Pete Wilson,
"There’s 30 other states who are watching closely to see
how this goes." "Three strikes" will be the main campaign
issue during the election year, as the Democrats and
Republicans try to outdo each other as being the hardest
on crime.

The causes of crime--ie., uneployment, lack of education,
poverty, homelessness and lack of hope--will not be addressed.
That’s because these are permanent features of capitalism
in the United States and, consequently, neither the Republicans
nor the Democrats have any solutions.

Since the middle 1970s, the established pattern at all levels
of government has been to cut public education, social services,
and welfare programs; to shift the tax burden from the capitalist
class to the working class and the poor; and to increase
the budget for police--with a consequent expansion
in prisons and length of prison terms.

With the largest prison system in the United States, California's
state funding for incarcerating people was $300 million
in 1980; by 1995 it will expand to $3 billion per year.
The prison population in California has risen 460 percent
since 1977. California’s "three strikes and you’re out" policy
is expected to add 81,000 new prisoners by the year 2000.
It will cost an estimated additional $21.8 billion for prison
construction during the next 30 years, with operating costs
increasing up to $5.7 billion per year.

These estimates are based upon the space needed for the
number of additional prisoners receiving longer sentences.
It doesn’t take into account the additional people who will
be sent to prison as a consequence of the rise in poverty
due to government cutbacks in education and social services.

The federal government has projected similar bills, which
also presume that imprisonment is the solution to crime.
Proposed legislation will increase federal prison expenditures
by $6 billion this year along.

The United States leads the world when it comes to the ratio
of imprisonment for its citizens--455 prisoners per 100,000 people.
Due to the institutionalized racism of American society, Blacks
are seven times more likely to be incarcerated than whites.
(The rate for whites is 289 per 100,000, and the rate for African
Americans is 1860 per 100,000.)

There are more Black youth in the prison system than there are
in college (even though it now costs twice as much to send
a person to prison as it does to send a person to college.)

This disparity greatly increased as the United States launched
its "war on drugs," which has accurately been called a war
on the poor in general and the Black and Hispanic communities
in particular.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, while
Blacks make up only 12 percent of those who regularly
use drugs, Black men compose 38 percent of those arrested
for drug convictions.

The victims of drug addiction have been targeted as "criminals."
As a result, 60 percent of all federal prisoners have been
convicted of drug charges. This "war" has not been waged
against those who bring drugs into the country or those
who profit the most from drug dealing.

In fact, one of the biggest drug pushers in this country
is the government. Neither the war on drugs nor the
current war on crime applies to the federal government’s
own operations.

Recent revelations about "Contragate" and the role of the
CIA in Panama and Haiti, have revealed the the CIA is one
of the largest importers of cocaine into the United States.
It has been estimated that the CIA has imported over one
ton of cocaine through Haiti in the recent period.
(One ton of cocaine would have the potential
to imprison 896,000 people, since possession of one
gram is worth a year in jail.)

The United States has carried out a "carrot and stick
(rewards followed by repression) policy toward the
Black ghettos and Hispanic barrios.

In the 1960s, government agencies used the "carrot"
of the "war on poverty" in response to the inner-city
rebellions. In the meantime, the "stick" of police repression
and brutality was kept ready. Today they do not have the
funds for the carrot; the new war on crime is the big stick
approach to set back the gains won by the civil rights movement
during the 1960s.

The "three strikes and you’re out" policy is in reality an escalation
of the repression of Blacks and the poor. In the process, a virtual
police state is being established in the ghettos and barrios
to prevent any organized resistance to the increased poverty
that is being imposed by the present economic crisis.

It is in this context that New York City Mayor Giuliani, the
newly elected "law and order" candidate, launched his war
on crime with a police attack upon the Nation of Islam's Harlem
Mosque. It was done to demonstrate that the police are trying
to establish their "right" to do as they please in violation
of the Bill of Rights.

Under the rubric of the "war on crime" America’s rulers are
out to establish a climate in which they can move against
any organization in the ghetto that opposes the real crimes
of racism, police brutality,l unemployment, homelessness,
and poverty imposed by the capitalist system.

April, 1994

Addenum:

Recently a new factor has been added to the equation --
"The Drug Trade". In his article, War on Drugs Dirty Money
Foundation of US Growth and Empire Size and Scope of Money
Laundering by US Banks
http://www.narconews.com/petras1.html
James Petras, Professor of Sociology, Binghamton
University, explains that 500 Billion to a Trillion dollars
gets added to world capitalist economy through “illegal
means.” he concludes the article with the following:

"The increasing polarization of the world is embedded
in this organized system of criminal and corrupt financial
transactions. While speculation and foreign debt payments
play a role in undermining living standards in the crisis regions,
the multi-trillion dollar money laundering and bank servicing
of corrupt officials is a much more significant factor, sustaining
Western prosperity, U.S. empire building and financial stability.
The scale, scope and time frame of transfers and money laundering,
the centrality of the biggest banking enterprises and the complicity
of the governments, strongly suggests that the dynamics of growth
and stagnation, empire and re-colonization are intimately related
to a new form of capitalism built around pillage, criminality,
corruption and complicity. 'This Goes Straight to the Top.'"

An article written in Counterpunch titled, Race and the Drug War
http://www.counterpunch.org/drugwar.html
during the last presidential election campaign, points out
another factor of the "Drug War:"

"..... Domestically, the 'drug war' has always been a pretext
for social control, going back to the racist application of drug
laws against Chinese laborers in the recession of the 1870s when
these workers we reviewed as competition for the dwindling
number of jobs available. The main users, middle-class white
men and women taking opium in liquid form as 'tonics', weren't
harassed. By 1887 the Chinese Exclusion Act allowed Chinese
opium addicts to be arrested and deported. In the 1930s the
racist head of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs,
Harry Anslinger, was renaming hemp as 'marijuana' to associate
it with Mexican laborers and claiming that marijuana 'can arouse
in blacks and Hispanics a state of menacing fury or homicidal attack.'
By the 1950s Anslinger had pushed through the first mandatory
drug sentences.

"As so often, Nixon was helpfully explicit in his private remarks.
H.R.Haldeman recorded in his diary a briefing by the president
in 1969,prior to launching of the war on drugs: '[Nixon]
emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole
problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system
that recognizes this while not appearing to.'

"So what was 'the system' duly devised? On June 19, 1986,
Maryland University basketball star Len Bias died from an overdose
of cocaine. As Dan Baum put it in his excellent Smoke and Mirrors,
The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, 'In life, Len Bias was
a terrific basketball player. In death he became the Archduke
Ferdinand of the Total War on Drugs.' It was falsely reported that
Bias had smoked crack cocaine the night before his death.
In fact he had used powder cocaine and there was no link
between this use and the failure of his heart, according t
o the coroner. Bias had signed with the Boston Celtics and
amid Boston's rage and grief Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill,
a Boston rep, rushed into action. In early July he convened
a meeting of the Democratic Party leadership: 'Write me
some goddamn legislation,' he ordered. 'All anybody in Boston
is talking about is Len Bias. They want blood. If we move fast
enough we can get out in front of the White House.' In fact the
White House was moving pretty fast. Among other things the
DEA had been instructed to allow ABC News to accompany
it on raids against crackhouses. 'Crack is the hottest combat-
reporting story to come along since the end of the Vietnam
war," the head of the New York office of the DEA exulted.

"All this fed into congressional frenzy to write tougher
laws. House Majority Leader Jim Wright called drug abuse
'a menace draining away our economy of some $230 billion
this year, slowly rotting away the fabric of our society and
seducing and killing our young.' Not to be outdone, South
Carolina Republican Thomas Arnett proclaimed that 'drugs
are a threat worse than nuclear warfare or any chemical
warfare waged on any battlefield.' The 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse
Act was duly passed. It contained 29 new minimum mandatory
sentences. Up until that time in the history of the Republic there
had been only 56 mandatory minimum sentences. The new law
had a death penalty provision for drug 'king pins' and prohibited
parole for even minor possession offenses. But the chief focus
of the bill was crack cocaine (mainly used in the inter-cities).
Congress established a 100-to-1 sentencing ratio between
possession of crack and powder cocaine (mainly used in the
suburbs). Under this provision possession of five grams
of crack carries a minimum five-year federal prison sentence.
The same mandatory minimum is not reached for any amount
of powder cocaine under 500 grams. This sentencing disproportion
was based on faulty testimony that crack was 50 times
as addictive as powdered coke. Congress then doubled
this ratio as a so-called 'violence penalty'."

This email was sent you, as a service, by Roland Sheppard
http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret/iWeb/Site/RolandSheppardsBlog.html

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10) Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC calls on Human Rights Watch
to Re-evaluate its Criticism of the Nonviolent Action
of Palestinian Civilians in Gaza Refugee Camp
Hayward, California, December 7, 2007
For Immediate Release:

[The Ecumenical Peace Institute has approved this statement in reply
to HRW's criticism of recent nonviolent actions in Gaza. I have sent
the statement to Human Rights Watch, various media outlets and
religious groups and am in the process of sending it to more peace
and justice groups and media. Please feel free to use it to send to
Human Rights Watch, your media contacts, legislators, etc. I think
it is especially important for as many people and groups as possible
to send it to HRW. I sent it by email to 10 HRW offices and faxed
it to three. I got an automatic response to one of the emails stating
that they get thousands of emails a day and can't answer all of them,
so it would probably be more effective to send faxes if you can.
I'll write here the email and faxes of three offices:
San Francisco - hrwsf@hrw.org; fax:415-362-3255
NYC - hrnyc@hrw.org; fax:212-736-1300
DC - hrwdc@hrw.org; fax:202-612-4333

Yours for nonviolent resistance,
Esther Ho]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC calls on Human Rights Watch to
Re-evaluate its Criticism of the Nonviolent Action of Palestinian
Civilians in Gaza Refugee Camp

Hayward, California, December 7, 2007 -- Ecumenical Peace
Institute/CALC concurs with the statement of the International
Solidarity Movement in response to the Human Rights Watch
criticism of the November 19 action of Palestinian civilians
in Jabalya refugee camp who were seeking to protect the homes
of two families from Israeli military attack.

We are deeply disturbed by Human Rights Watch's suggestion
that the voluntary action of citizens to protect homes with their
own bodies is a violation of international humanitarian law.
In fact, these Palestinians were following an age-old revered
practice of nonviolently resisting attack. In addition to the
examples of such actions given in the International Solidarity
Movement statement, we would call attention to a few additional
examples out of the multitude of instances of such actions:

Voices in the Wilderness and Christians Peacemaker Teams
traveled to Iraq prior to the current war in the hope of staving
off U.S. attacks on essential civilian infrastructure. A generation
ago Witness for Peace members and others accompanied various
projects in Central America and the Philippines to protect labor
leaders and others under attack by repressive governments.
During the civil rights struggle in this country numerous
civilians risked their lives to travel to the South to try to protect
those struggling for their rights. Many of them were attacked
and several were killed. Indeed, the statement by Human Rights
Watch is essentially attacking the entire tradition of nonviolent
resistance which came into world prominence under the
leadership of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson
Mandela.

We respectfully request that Human Rights Watch re-evaluate
the question of the legality under international humanitarian
law of the nonviolent intervention of unarmed civilians in deterring
military attacks in populated areas. We are convinced that nonviolent
actions such as that of the Palestinians in Jabalya Camp are key
to bringing about a reduction in the high percentage of civilians
among the casualties of war in Palestinian lands and advance
the cause of human rights in areas of conflict around the world.

###

for additional information contact: Esther Ho, 510-785-9509,
http://www.epicalc.org/

Statement of International Solidarity Movement:

From: ISM Media Group
media@palsolidarity.org wrote:
To: "International Solidarity Movement"
palsolidarity@googlegroups.com
Subject: [ISM Updates] Nonviolent Resistance is not Illegal: HRW Should
Retract Statement
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 22:32:28 -0000

On Sunday, Nov. 19, hundreds of Palestinian civilians crowded into the
building where the family of Mohammed Baroud and a number of other
families live in Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Israeli
military forces had warned that the building would be attacked. The
planned Israeli attack was deterred by this action. Two hours later,
the scene was replicated at the family home of Mohammed Nawajeh, with
the same results.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) applauds the people of
Jabalya for their courageous and effective use of nonviolent
resistance, and we express our full solidarity with their actions,
which are positive initiatives in the struggle to defend Palestinian
rights. We encourage international volunteers to participate in these
actions, as did Father Peter Dougherty and Sister Mary Ellen Gundeck of
the Michigan Peace Team.

We note with disappointment that Human Rights Watch (HRW) chose to
condemn these actions, suggesting that they could constitute a "war
crime." In a November 22, 2006 press release entitled, "OPT:
Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks"
HRW Middle East Director Sarah Leah Whitson said, "There is no excuse
for calling civilians to the scene of a planned attack. Whether or not
the home is a legitimate military target, knowingly asking civilians to
stand in harm's way is unlawful."

HRW's press release is factually, legally, and morally flawed.

HRW based its statement on contested factual information. HRW claimed
that "Palestinian armed groups" and Mohammed Baroud encouraged
civilians to gather around the homes. However, while some press
accounts mention Baroud's role, numerous other press and participant
accounts from Gaza suggest that the mobilizations resulted from calls
by civilian leaders and a groundswell of popular anger against Israeli
home demolitions.

As just one example, Eyad Bayary, a head nurse at Jabalya Hospital who
went to Baroud's home with another twenty of his neighbors, told ISM
that he did not hear a call from Baroud asking people to protect his
home. He and his neighbors went to support Baroud and his family and to
protest the shelling out of their own volition. "I live next to Mr.
Baroud's family home. If his home is shelled at best my home would be
damaged. My wife is in the six month of her pregnancy. God forbid, a
shelling of the house next door could endanger her and the child she is
carrying. All our children would be affected. We went to the Baroud
family house because we were scared and angry. No one asked us to
come."

In addition to this factual weakness, we believe that HRW's position
reflects serious errors in the interpretation and application of
international humanitarian law (IHL), in two fundamental respects: (1)
HRW's position explicitly rejects considering the legitimacy of the
target as relevant to the legal analysis; and (2) HRW's position
erroneously places the burden of protecting civilian lives on the
population being attacked instead of on the belligerents carrying out
the attack.

According to HRW, "In the case where the object of attack is not a
legitimate military target, calling civilians to the scene would still
contravene the international humanitarian law imperative for parties to
the conflict to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from
the effects of attack." IHL clearly makes target legitimacy central to
the determination of lawful vs. unlawful conduct. Protocol I of the
Geneva Convention, Article 51(7) provides that "Parties to the conflict
shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual
civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from
attacks or to shield military operations." Article 52 of the same
Protocol makes clear that a civilian home is a civilian object and not
a military objective. Even if Mohammed Baroud and Mohammed Nawajeh are
military commanders, their families, their family homes and the homes
of other families in the same buildings are not military objectives.


Therefore, the Geneva Convention's prohibition on the use of civilians
to shield military objectives does not apply to the voluntary gathering
of Palestinian civilians to protect civilian objects like the homes of
Baroud and Nawajeh from a pending Israeli attack. Rather, Israel's
targeting of these homes constitutes a violation of numerous provisions
of IHL that proscribe attacks on civilian property, and of Article 33
of the Fourth Geneva Convention, strictly prohibiting the destruction
of property for the purpose of collective punishment.

While IHL places obligations on all parties to a conflict to take "all
feasible precautions" to protect civilians from the effects of attack,
HRW does not cite support for its claim that encouraging civilians to
defend their homes from military strikes constitutes a violation of
this imperative. In fact, Protocol I, Article 57 relating to
precautions in attack, specifically places the obligation to protect
civilians on "those who plan or decide upon an attack." (Protocol I,
Art. 57(2)(a)). Furthermore, providing warning does not absolve Israel
of its responsibility not to attack civilian objects, nor does it make
the civilian objects legitimate military targets.

The error of HRW's interpretation of IHL is even more obvious when we
consider that HRW statements like "Civilians Must Not Be Used to
Shield Homes Against Military Attacks" and "knowingly asking
civilians to stand in harm's way is unlawful" would proscribe many
completely legitimate forms of nonviolent resistance in occupied
peoples' struggles. The Fourth Geneva Convention and its Additional
Protocols were never intended to permit an aggressor to choose his
targets at will, while putting the onus on the civilian victims to get
out of the way. Nor were these laws created to prevent civilians from
exercising their right to defend their property.

The condemnation of nonviolent efforts by civilians to prevent the
destruction of civilian homes also represents a failure of moral
judgment on the part of HRW. To condemn nonviolent actions in this way
is to confuse civil resistance with the forcible use of "human shields"
by military combatants, such as those documented by the Israeli human
rights organization B'Tselem in its November, 2002 report "Human
Shield". The report describes Israeli military seizures of Palestinian
civilians, forcing them to walk in front of soldiers and sometimes
placing them on the hoods of their vehicles to deter attacks against
their military personnel. These Israeli military actions are clearly
war crimes (though HRW failed to label them as such in its April, 2002
report, "In a Dark Hour: The Use of Civilians during IDF Arrest
Operations"). It is a mistake to extend this principle to the
courageous voluntary participation of unarmed individuals in mass
nonviolent actions in defense of their human rights.

By condemning nonviolent civilian resistance in this way, HRW endangers
those practicing it, and undermines the work of other human rights
groups and the credibility of HRW itself. ISM calls upon HRW to
retract its November 22 press release and to recognize the courage and
the legitimacy of the actions of the Palestinian community in Jabalya.

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11) Cornered Military Takes to Desperate Tactics
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily
December 9, 2006
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

*FALLUJAH, Dec 9 (IPS) - People living in areas where resistance to
U.S.-led occupation is mounting are facing increased levels of
collective punishment from the occupation forces, residents say.*

Siniyah town 200 km north of Baghdad with a population of 25,000 has
been under siege by the U.S. military for two weeks.

IPS had earlier reported unrest in Siniyah Jan. 20 when the U.S.
military constructed a six-mile sand wall in a failed attempt to check
resistance attacks.

Located near Beji in the volatile but oil-rich Salahedin province,
Siniyah has become a vivid example of harsh tactics used by occupation
forces, who have lost control over most of the country.

"Thirteen children died during the two-week siege due to U.S. troops'
disallowance for doctors to open their private clinics as well as
closure of the general medical centre there," a doctor from the city
reported to IPS via satellite phone.

The doctor spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals from the
U.S. military. IPS had to reach him by phone since the military blockade
has cut the city off from the outside world.

"This is not the first time U.S. troops have conducted such a siege
here, but this time it represents murder," the doctor said.

A U.S. military public relations officer in Baghdad told IPS on phone
that the military was doing "what it had to do to fight the terrorists
in and around Siniyah" and that "no medical aid is being interfered with."

When IPS told him it had received contradictory information from a
doctor in that city, he replied, "that is just not true."

The siege has generated resentment against the Shia-dominated Iraqi
government led by Prime Minister Noori al-Maliki, who has failed to
comment on the deaths. Sunnis have not missed the sharp contrast to his
order to U.S. troops to lift their checkpoints around the Shia area of
Sadr City in Baghdad.

Sectarian conflict has been rising between Shias and Sunnis, two
differing followings within Islam. Sunnis are the majority worldwide,
but Shias are said to be the majority within Iraq.

Abdul Kareem al-Samarrai'i, a leading member of the Islamic Party that
participates in the Maliki government, stated on Baghdad Space Channel
that the 13 children died in Siniyah "because of the siege and the U.S.
army orders to deprive the town of any medical care."

Duluiyah, another small town roughly 60 km north of Baghdad has been
under siege by the U.S. military for the last three weeks.

"They (U.S. military) applied the siege upon Duluiyah (close to Samarra)
many times, the last of which partially ended last week," Samir Muhammad
of the Samarra municipality council told IPS.

The Geneva Conventions forbid use of collective punishment.
International law says the occupying power in a country is responsible
for safeguarding the civilian population.

Fallujah in al-Anbar province to the west of Baghdad continues to face
attacks and harassment by the U.S. military, according to local residents.

"Why don't those people admit their failure and leave," 55-year-old
Khalaf Dawood from Fallujah told IPS. "They are being hit and their
soldiers are getting killed all over the city. All they are doing is
killing civilians and suffocating the city economically as revenge."

Electricity supply in Fallujah was recently cut off for three days after
resistance snipers launched attacks on U.S. soldiers. U.S. military
vehicles are attacked regularly around the city.

Several local people told IPS that on average one civilian a day is
killed by U.S. gunfire in Fallujah, while raids on houses have been
stepped up heavily.

The U.S. military commander in Fallujah admitted to local media last
month that at least five attacks on average were being conducted
everyday against his troops and Iraqi army units. The vast majority of
the population of Fallujah continues to demand unconditional withdrawal
of U.S. troops from their city.

Meanwhile, the situation in Ramadi, the capital city of al-Anbar
province where Fallujah is also located, has deteriorated further.
Residents told IPS that bombardment from U.S. warplanes and helicopters
has killed many civilians.

IPS reported Nov. 17 that U.S. military had shelled several houses in
Ramadi, killing 35 civilians.

A partial siege of the city continues, and residents are complaining
that a new militia formed by Maliki's government in the name of
"fighting terror" has been rounding up young men from the city.

The militia recently took control of the University of Anbar in Ramadi
and started harassing students. U.S. soldiers blocked the main road to
the university before the militia entered the campus.

"They even harassed the president (principal) of the university and
accused him of being an al-Qaeda leader," a university professor
speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS. "The principal is a
professor in chemistry and a very peaceful man who has dedicated his
life to science and supervising PHD and MSC graduates."

(c)2006 Dahr Jamail.

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12) Palestinian Officer’s Sons Killed in Gaza
"Gunmen sprayed a car in Gaza City with bullets this morning, killing
three young boys, aged 3 to 9, who were sons of a senior Palestinian
security officer."
By GREG MYRE
December 11, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/world/middleeast/11cnd-mide.html?hp&ex=1165899600&en=1c87fba23c7433e1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

JERUSALEM, Dec. 11 —Gunmen sprayed a car in Gaza City with bullets
this morning, killing three young boys, aged 3 to 9, who were sons
of a senior Palestinian security officer.

The incident further inflamed tensions among Palestinians at a time
when the confrontation between Fatah, the secular faction that has
long dominated Palestinian politics, and Hamas, the radical Islamic
group that currently heads the government, has been escalating.

Though Palestinian factions have frequently battled in recent years,
the internecine fighting has not spiraled entirely out of control.
However, the deaths of the three boys today outraged many
Palestinians, and raised fears of revenge attacks.

In a large, unruly funeral for the three boys this afternoon, Fatah
members fired their guns into the air as the procession wound
its way through the dusty streets of Gaza City. Fatah supporters
set tires ablaze to block main streets, and many stores and
schools were closed.

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas,
spoke in the West Bank city of Ramallah about the incident, called
it “an ugly and inhuman crime perpetrated by a bunch of lowlifes.”

The shooting was done by three masked gunmen who emerged
from two cars and opened fire with automatic rifles, pumping
bullets into the car where the boys were riding. Osama Balousha, 9,
and his brothers Ahmed, 6, and Salam, 3, were on their way from
their home to a private school in the Rimal neighborhood of the city.

The car, a white sedan with windows darkened to make it difficult
to tell who was inside, was pocked with dozens of bullets, and its
seats and the boys’ schoolbags were drenched with blood.

The boys’ father, Baha Balousha, who was at home at the time
of the shooting, may have been the intended target. Mr. Balousha
is a colonel in the Palestinian intelligence service and belongs
to Fatah, which is headed by Mr. Abbas. Mr. Balousha escaped
an attack by gunmen in September, Palestinians said.

Mr. Balousha’s driver and bodyguard used the car daily to take
the children to school, before returning to pick up Mr. Balousha,
family members said. The bodyguard was killed in the shooting
as well, and the driver was seriously wounded, according to Shifa
Hospital.

Mr. Balousha said that the killings were the work of parties he did
not name “that want the Palestinian presidency and its intelligence
services to fail.”

No one claimed responsibility for the attack today.

Mr. Balousha is regarded as one of the figures involved in
a Palestinian Authority crackdown against Hamas members
a decade ago, and he has been at odds with Hamas for some
time, Palestinians said.

In recent months, Palestinian gunmen have carried out several
shootings against Fatah members in the intelligence service.

On Sunday, unidentified gunmen fired on a convoy of cars carrying
the Palestinian interior minister, Siad Siam; no one was injured.
The interior minister is responsible for many of the Palestinian
security agencies, but in practice, Mr. Siam’s authority over them
is limited, because he is from Hamas while most security agencies
are led by Fatah loyalists.

Fatah members of parliament issued a statement today calling
on the president to dismiss the Hamas government, saying that
the group was “pushing us, with its policies and programs,
to civil war.”

Hamas, meanwhile, denounced the killings.

“This is a gruesome crime,” said Dr. Mahmoud Zahar, the Palestinian
foreign minister and a Hamas leader. “Those who committed this
crime have no conscience and are using it for political goals.”

Mr. Abbas says that talks between Fatah and Hamas on forming
a national-unity government are at a dead end. He is expected
to make an announcement soon on how he intends to break the
deadlock, and associates say he is leaning toward holding new
elections for both the presidency and the legislature.

Hamas argues that he has no authority to call an early parliamentary
ballot, and that doing so would amount to attempting a coup d’etat.

According to today’s issue of the Israeli newspaper Haartez,
Mr. Abbas is offering the job of national security adviser to
Muhammad Dahlan, who is a former Gaza security chief and
a prominent Fatah member with a long-running rivalry with
Hamas. Palestinian officials have not commented on the report.

When the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, the
leader of the Palestinians at the time, Yasir Arafat, created multiple
security agencies and packed them with Fatah members. Hamas
refused to take part in the Palestinian Authority then, and few
of its loyalists took government positions or joined the
security forces.

But ever since Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections
in January, the group has been feuding with Fatah over control
of the security forces.

Under the Palestinian system, the president, the prime minister
and the interior minister are supposed to share authority over
the security agencies; all three officials belong to the National
Security Council.

However, the prime minister, Ismail Haniya of Hamas, and the
interior minister, Mr. Siam, have established little control. Fatah
members still dominate the security agencies, and with Israel
and Western countries cutting off money to the Hamas-led
government, security-force members and other government
workers have been paid only sporadically this year.

Further complicating the scene, the Hamas government has
effectively created its own security agency, the Executive
Force, with several thousand members. Most either belong
to Hamas or are closely aligned with the group.

Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza.

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13) The Time Is Now
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
December 11, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/opinion/11herbert.html?hp
FOR THE RECORD: By Bonnie Weinstein: a commentary
to this story; along with the Murtha Ammendment that
follows...bw
On Wednesday, as if the release of the Iraq Study Group report needed
some form of dramatic punctuation, 11 more American G.I.’s were
killed in this misbegotten war that just about everyone, except
perhaps the president, now sees as a complete and utter debacle.

Senator Gordon Smith, a Republican from Oregon who supported
the war, delivered an emotional speech on the Senate floor Thursday
evening in which he said:

“I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting
a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the
same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day.
That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that
anymore.”

If the U.S. is ultimately going to retreat in Iraq, he said, “I would
rather do it sooner than later. I am looking for answers,
but the current course is unacceptable to this senator.”

The primary value of the Baker-Hamilton report is that
it embodies, in clear and explicit language, the consensus
that has emerged in the U.S. about the current state of the
war. It’s not so much a blueprint for action as a recognition
of reality.

“The level of violence is high and growing,” the report says.
“There is great suffering, and the daily lives of many Iraqis
show little or no improvement. Pessimism is pervasive.”

With the situation in Iraq deteriorating, and support for
the war in the U.S. having all but collapsed, the only real
question on the table is how long the U.S. is going to drag
out its inevitable pullout of combat forces. And the inevitable
moral question that is inextricably linked to that slowly
evolving set of circumstances is how to justify the lives
that will be lost between now and the final day of our
departure.

There is something agonizingly tragic about soldiers
dying in a war that has already been lost.

The scale of the debacle is breathtaking. According to the
study group: “In some parts of Iraq — notably in Baghdad
— sectarian cleansing is taking place. The United Nations
estimates that 1.6 million are displaced within Iraq,
and up to 1.8 million Iraqis have fled the country.”

Americans, including the members of the study group,
continue to insist that the key to an American withdrawal
over the next couple of years is the improvement of Iraqi
security forces to the point where they can successfully
step into the breach. That is a complete fantasy, as a reading
of the study group’s own assessment of the Iraqi forces
will attest.

The study group found that, among other things, the Iraqi
Army units “lack leadership ... lack equipment ... lack personnel
... [and] lack logistics and support.”

“Soldiers are given leave liberally and face no penalties
for absence without leave,” the report said. “Unit readiness
rates are low, often at 50 percent or less.”

The report went on: “They lack the ability to sustain their
operations, the capability to transport supplies and troops,
and the capacity to provide their own indirect fire support,
close-air support, technical intelligence and medical
evacuation.”

Other than that, they’re fine.

So what’s next? The Bush administration has lost all of its
credibility on the war. What is needed now are leaders with
the courage to insist, perhaps at the risk of their reputations
and careers, that it is wrong to continue sending fresh bodies
after those already lost, to continue asking young, healthy
American troops to head into the combat zone, perhaps
for their third or fourth tour, to fight in a war the public
no longer supports.

In a foreword to “The Best and the Brightest,” David
Halberstam’s chronicle of the Vietnam fiasco, Senator
John McCain wrote:

“It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to
persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure
the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat,
for a cause that the country wouldn’t support over time and that
our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller
cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay.

“No other national endeavor requires as much unshakable resolve
as war. If the nation and the government lack that resolve,
it is criminal to expect men in the field to carry it alone.”

The United States lacks that resolve when it comes to Iraq.
It is time to pull the troops out of harm’s way.

[FOR THE RECORD: By Bonnie Weinstein: a commentary
to this story; along with the Murtha Ammendment that
follows...bw

[The Murtha Amendment is below the following:

Notice section 1 calls for troops to be redeployed,
not brought home; and sections 2 and 3 both insure
continued U.S. presence in Iraq--both militarily and politically.
The reference to pulling U.S. troops out of harms
way to "over-the-horizon" locations means to pull them back
to surround the borders of Iraq trouble spots somehow and back
them up with more air power. And now, the latest
thing, is to "imbed U.S. troops among the Iraqi
troops" to "help them take control of the country
from the inside"--again, while pulling back American
troops to locations "outside of the danger zone"
but readily deployable and with stronger air support,
i.e., more bombing campaigns--especially with the
use of un-manned drones--to cut down on U.S. mortality
rates without the slightest regard for the Iraqi people.

And, what is meant by section 3?
"SEC. 3. The United States of America shall pursue
security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy."

What right do we have to be involved in the
internal affairs of another country? By the amendments
own admission, the Iraqi people are united
behind a single demand: U.S. out Now!

And notice the rationale given for the purpose
of the amendment in the first place--that in
order to really establish democracy in Iraq
we would need to send many more troops and,
to do that, we would need to reinstitute
the draft!

This amendment was not an antiwar amendment!
It was an amendment meant to, hopefully, reduce
U.S. casualties if we insist on maintaining the
current course of occupation of Iraq even if
it insures many more innocent Iraqi civilian
casualties through increased and relentless
U.S. bombing raids in "trouble spots."

And it is a open plea for the reinstitution of the
draft in order to achieve a strong U.S. military
victory in the region or anywhere in the world--
let alone in multiple regions of the world.

Capitalism is beating a path back to its barbarian
roots.

The U.S. war policy ignores centuries of human
history that says invaders and occupiers can't
win against an entire population without destroying
all of them and the land they occupy and that
is not victory, it's senseless and intentional
massacre!

U.S. War on Terror a war against the world

The U.S. War on Terror, against Iraq,
against Afghanistan, against the Palestinian people
by way of the U.S. puppet government of Israel,
are designed to be a threat and warning
to the rest of the world--that the bloodthirsty
U.S. government will stop at nothing to maintain
their military power and financial hegemony
over the whole world--death to those who
dare to challenge their throne!

That means we, here in the belly
of the beast, are obligated to organize massive
resistance to the war here in our own communities
and across our nation.

We must do all we can to make sure our
young people will not be used as cannon fodder
for this mass murder-threat-and-carry-out program.
We must get into our communities and organize them into
an independent force united in opposition to
the war and the U.S. war machine.

Here I must interject another fact. The Senate
recently voted on the new Pentagon budget--a budget of
trillions of dollars. Both Democrats and Republicans
cast their votes in favor of it. In fact it was 100 to 0 in favor of
the new, record, Pentagon U.S. War Machine budget.

There is only one way we can fight
back and win a peaceful world. We must unite
across the globe on March 17, 2007 on the
fourth anniversary of the War and on January 27!
We must unite at every instance and at each and every
opportunity and in every community and city
across the world in well organized and coordinated
massive peaceful protests to demand: U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND
AFGHANISTAN! STOP THE U.S. "WAR OF TERROR" UPON
THE WORLD! BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME
NOW! END ALL U.S. SUPPORT TO ISRAEL! STOP
THE MADNESS OF DESPOTIC WAR! NO BLOOD FOR OIL!
PUT THE USE OF THE WORLD'S RESOURCES TOWARDS
RATIONAL, DEMOCRATIC PLANNING FOR AND FINDING SOLUTIONS
TO THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS. AND TO PROVIDE FOR ALL BASIC HUMAN
NEEDS AND WANTS INSTEAD OF WAR!

Massive community organizing needed

First and foremost we must unite our forces to maximize our
organizing efforts.

In order to make these demands real we must involve the
community in a democratic process where they can develop
their own list of needs and come up with their own suggestions
for rational solutions to the real, daily problems they face.

The massive human and financial (ours,not theirs) and material resources
being used to maintain world U.S. hegemony is wreaking havoc
on the living standards of all working people around the
world. Humanity's only hope is to unite forces under our
common interests--for the basic human rights for all--to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness at the expense of the
private interests of the war mongers. They must be disarmed
and their coffers dispersed in the best interests of the
majority of humanity and the planet, and end its use for war, death,
incarceration, torture and world destruction for greed and profit
of the tiny few and at the expense of the lives and well-
being of the masses of humanity! ...bw]

Here's the great Murtha "Peace Ammendment":

HJ 73 IH

109th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. J. RES. 73

To redeploy U.S. forces from Iraq.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

November 17, 2005

Mr. MURTHA introduced the following joint resolution; which
was referred to the Committee on International Relations,
and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for
a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker,
in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall
within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

JOINT RESOLUTION

To redeploy U.S. forces from Iraq.

Whereas Congress and the American people have not
been shown clear, measurable progress toward establishment
of stable and improving security in Iraq or of a stable
and improving economy in Iraq, both of which are essential
to `promote the emergence of a democratic government';

Whereas additional stabilization in Iraq by U.S. military
forces cannot be achieved without the deployment
of hundreds of thousands of additional U.S. troops,
which in turn cannot be achieved without a military draft;

Whereas more than $277 billion has been appropriated
by the United States Congress to prosecute U.S. military
action in Iraq and Afghanistan;

Whereas, as of the drafting of this resolution, 2,079 U.S.
troops have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom;

Whereas U.S. forces have become the target
of the insurgency;

Whereas, according to recent polls, over 80 percent
of the Iraqi people want the U.S. forces out of Iraq;

Whereas polls also indicate that 45 percent of the Iraqi
people feel that the attacks on U.S. forces are justified; and

Whereas, due to the foregoing, Congress finds it evident
that continuing U.S. military action in Iraq is not in the best
interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq,
or the Persian Gulf Region, which were cited in Public
Law 107-243 as justification for undertaking such action:
Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That:

SECTION 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq,
by direction of Congress, is hereby te