U.S. Army Sgt. Pedro Rodriguez-Ortiz provides security in Khowst province, Afghanistan, Feb. 27, 2010. Rodriguez-Ortiz is assigned to Charlie Troop, 1st Squadron, 33rd Cavalry Regiment. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jeffrey Alexander

The stated goal of the US-led War in Afghanistan, according to the Obama Administration, is to defeat the Taliban and establish a stable democratic government over the entire country. Critical to that goal is establishing a professional Afghan army and police force that is not corrupt, and that has the respect of the Afghan people.

But reports out of Canada suggest that far from creating such a military and police force, the so-called International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) is turning a blind eye to the thuggish criminality of those organizations, both to avoid growing opposition in ISAF member countries, and to avoid offending those organizations in Afghanistan.

The issue in question is routine rape and sodomy of children by Afghan soldiers and police operating on Canadian-run bases in the Kandahar region.

As reported last fall in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, Canadian military chaplains and some soldiers have been complaining as far back as 2006 that Afghan security forces have been sodomizing young boys on their base. These military whistle-blowers charge that the military brass has been ignoring or burying their complaints, fearing the bad publicity they could generate.

The paper reports that Canadian military police have also complained, as reported by Brig.-Gen. J.C. Collin, commander of Land Force Central Area, that they were being told “not to interfere in incidents in which Afghan forces were having sex with children.”

According to the paper, the Canadian military command has argued that, even though sex with children is against the law in Afghanistan, the practice is culturally accepted and that the Canadian forces “should not get involved in what should be seen as a ‘cultural’ issue.”

Makes you wonder what other “cultural” issues involving Afghan security forces that the Western occupiers might not want to get involved in. Perhaps the oppression of women? That’s certainly part of the culture. How about bribery and extortion? Based on the evidence–that the police in Afghanistan are a wholly corrupt entity, and that the army is not much better–arguing that corruption is “culturally acceptable” would be easy to do. How about drug dealing? Again, that appears to be quite the culture in Afghanistan.

Kudos to the Canadian grunts, MPs and chaplins who found the sexual abuse of children more than they could stomach, and who brought their concerns to public attention at home in Canada when their own commanders sought to cover it up.

It makes me wonder, though, why here in the hyper-moralizing US, we haven’t heard a peep from our troops about similar behavior by Afghan forces on US-run bases.

It’s hard to believe that a practice so common on a Canadian base that it provoked such outrage among Canadian soldiers is not also occurring elsewhere.

This leaves us with two possibilities:

US soldiers and marines are just not as willing to go outside the chain of command and go public with their complaints, or

The US media are not interested in investigating this kind of story. It involves only Afghans, and who cares about Afghans? What American journalism covers is Americans. (Remember the big spate of stories about the sex escapades of guards at the US embassy in Kabul?)

I’d say it’s probably a combination of the two.

At any rate, the picture painted of Afghanistan’s army and police in the Ottawa Citizen article does not bode well for any plan that hinges on their taking over from US and ISAF troops any time soon…or for the fate of young children of Afghanistan, if and when they do.

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist. He is author of Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Common Courage Press, 2003) and The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available at thiscantbehappening.net

Sơn Mỹ village, Sơn Tịnh district of South Vietnam, March 16, 1968. Photo/Wikicommons.

When Charlie Company’s Lt. William Calley ordered and encouraged his men to rape, maim and slaughter over 400 men, women and children in My Lai in Vietnam back in 1968, there were at least four heroes who tried to stop him or bring him and higher officers to justice.

One was helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson Jr., who evacuated some of the wounded victims, and who set his chopper down between a group of Vietnamese and Calley’s men, ordering his door gunner to open fire on the US soldiers if they shot any more people. One was Ron Ridenhour, a soldier who learned of the massacre, and began a private investigation, ultimately reporting the crime to the Pentagon and Congress. One was Michael Bernhardt, a soldier in Charlie Company who witnessed the whole thing, and reported it all to Ridenhour. And one was journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the story in the US media.

Today’s war in Afghanistan also has its My Lai massacres. It has them almost weekly, as US warplanes bomb wedding parties, or homes “suspected” of housing terrorists that turn out to house nothing but civilians. But these My Lais are all conveniently labeled accidents. They get filed away and forgotten as the inevitable “collateral damage” of war. There was, however, a massacre recently that was not a mistake–a massacre which, while it only involved fewer than a dozen innocent people, bears the same stench as My Lai. It was the execution-style slaying of eight handcuffed students, aged 11-18, and a 12-year-old neighboring shepherd boy who had been visiting the others, in Kunar Province, on Dec. 26.

Sadly, no principled soldier with a conscience like pilot Hugh Thompson tried to save these children. No observer had the guts of a Michael Brernhardt to report what he had seen. No Ron Ridenhour among the other serving US troops in Afghanistan has investigated this atrocity or reported it to Congress. And no American reporter has investigated this war crime the way Seymour Hersh investigated My Lai.

There is a Seymour Hersh for the Kunar massacre, but he’s a Brit. While American reporters like the anonymous journalistic drones who wrote CNN’s Dec. 29 report on the incident, took the Pentagon’s initial cover story–that the dead were part of a secret bomb-squad–at face value, Jerome Starkey, a dogged reporter in Afghanistan working for the Times of London and the Scotsman, talked to other sources–the dead boys’ headmaster, other townspeople, and Afghan government officials–and found out the real truth about a gruesome war crime–the execution of handcuffed children.

And while a few news outlets in the US like the New York Times did mention that there were some claims that the dead were children, not bomb-makers, none, including CNN, which had bought and run the Pentagon’s lies unquestioningly, bothered to print the news update when, on Feb. 24, the US military admitted that in fact the dead were innocent students. Nor has any US corporate news organization mentioned that the dead had been handcuffed when they were shot.

Starkey reported the US government’s damning admission. Yet still the US media remain silent as the grave.

Under the Geneva Conventions, it is a war crime to execute a captive. Yet in Kunar on December 26, US-led forces, or perhaps US soldiers or contract mercenaries, cold-bloodedly executed eight hand-cuffed prisoners. It is a war crime to kill children under the age of 15, yet in this incident a boy of 11 and a boy of 12 were handcuffed as captured combatants and executed. Two others of the dead were 12 and a third was 15.

I called the Secretary of Defense’s office to ask if any investigation was underway into this crime or if one was planned, and was told I had to send a written request, which I did. To date, I have heard nothing. The Pentagon PR machine pretended to me on the phone that they didn’t even know what incident I was talking about, but without their “help” I have learned that what the US military has done–no surprise–is to pass the buck by leaving any investigation to the International Security Assistance Force–a fancy name for the US-led NATO force fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It’s a clever ruse. The ISAF is no more a genuine coalition entity than was George Bush’s Iraq War Coalition of the Willing, but this dodge makes legislative investigation of the event impossible, since Congress has no authority to compel testimony from NATO or the ISAF as it would the Pentagon. A source at the Senate Armed Services Committee confirms that the ISAF is investigating, and that the committee has asked for a “briefing”–that means nothing would be under oath–once that investigation is complete, but don’t hold your breath or expect anything dramatic.

I also contacted the press office of the House Armed Services Committee to see if any hearings into this crime have been planned. The answer is no, though the press officer asked me to send her details of the incident (Not a good sign that House members and staff are paying much attention–the killings led to country-wide student demonstrations in Afghanistan, to a formal protest by the office of President Hamid Karzai, and to an investigation by the Afghan government, which concluded that innocent students had been handcuffed and executed, and no doubt contributed to a call by the Afghan government for prosecution and execution of American soldiers who kill Afghan civilians.)

There is still time for real heroes to stand up in the midst of this imperial adventure that may now appropriately be called Obama’s War in Afghanistan. Plenty of men and women in uniform in Afghanistan know that nine innocent Afghan children were captured and murdered at America’s hands last December in Kunar. There are also probably people who were involved in the planning or carrying out of this criminal operation who are sickened by what happened.

But these people are so far holding their tongues, whether out of fear, or out of simply not knowing where to turn (Note: If you have information you may contact me). There are also plenty of reporters in Afghanistan and in Washington who could be investigating this story. They are not. Don’t ask me why. They certainly should not be able to call themselves journalists–at least with a straight face.

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist. He is author of Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Common Courage Press, 2003) and The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available at thiscantbehappening.net

As is universally recognized, Kuwait is a close and faithful ally of the United States. The United States liberated Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion of 1990. More recently, Kuwait provided critical support as a staging area for the U.S. military during the Iraq War.

To be fair, the Emir of Kuwait has sought the return of the Kuwaiti detainees in face-to-face meetings with both President Bush and President Obama. The Emir has also sent a letter to the U.S. government requesting that all Kuwaiti citizens detained at Guantanamo be returned. Other Kuwaiti officials have repeated that request to their counterparts in the U.S. government.

The Government of Kuwait has also fulfilled all of the conditions the U.S. government established for the return of the Kuwaiti detainees. Perhaps most significantly, Kuwait established a state-of-the-art rehabilitation center that provides access to education, medical care, group discussions, and physical exercise to help detainees recover from their long ordeal in Guantanamo.

But while Kuwait has clearly made an effort to secure the return of its citizens, these efforts have not been strong enough. Contrast Kuwait’s quiet, diplomatic approach with that of Saudi Arabia, which openly criticized the U.S. government and demanded its citizens back. As a result, more than 100 Saudi detainees were transferred from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia.

Despite the close ties between the United States and Kuwait, the United States does not appear eager to send Kuwaitis home. For example, on September 17, 2009, a U.S. federal judge ordered the immediate release of Fouad Al Rabiah, an innocent Kuwaiti who was interrogated in “enhanced” ways at the hands of his U.S. captors. Rather than immediately returning him to Kuwait, the U.S. government delayed and stalled Mr. Al Rabiah’s transfer, forcing his attorneys to ask that U.S. officials be held in contempt of court.

It was not until December 9, 2009, almost three months after the judge’s order, that Mr. Al Rabiah was finally released from Guantanamo and returned to Kuwait. Still, even with a Federal judge’s opinion that the United States had no authority to detain Mr Al Rabiah, the Kuwaiti government refused to demand his return.

If the United States was reluctant to release a demonstrably innocent man, it most certainly will be in no rush to repatriate my client, Fayiz Al Kandari, whose habeas case is still pending despite Fayiz having spent more than eight years in Guantanamo.

At this critical time, the United States is turning its back on its faithful ally. The United States may be legitimately reluctant to return detainees to countries such as Tunisia or Libya where former prisoners may face further torture or persecution. But there are no such concerns about Kuwait. To the contrary, Kuwait treats its returned detainees humanely and helps reintegrate them into society with a rehabilitation program modeled after the successful Saudi program.

No one likes to tell their friends they are wrong. But there comes a time in every relationship when a little push back is necessary. And the friendship survives. Now is the time for the Government of Kuwait to take a stand. It might be outside its comfort zone, but it is the right thing to do for its two citizens still imprisoned at Guantanamo.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard represents Fayiz al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti who has spent seven and a half years in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay without trial.

I have been covering the Fourth Congress Against the Death Penalty sponsored by the United Nations and the international abolition movement, which brought together anti-death penalty groups from all over the world, and featured talks and workshops with a number of people, several from the US, who had spent years and even decades on death rows before being found innocent of the crimes that had put them there.

In view of their agonies and torments, my own little injury seems rather pathetic, but it did give me a chance, as the debate over how to deal with America’s health care crisis drags on in Washington, to see in person the workings of a non-socialist model of health care–but one that controls prices and also mandates (that word that strikes terror into every Republican heart) that everyone buy insurance.

The answer is, it works pretty damned well!

When I got up from my sprawled position on the sidewalk and stood, there were gasps of horror from my companions as they looked at my gaping wound. Blood began pouring from it and refused to be stanched. I was walked back the block or so to the International Center where someone got out an emergency medical kit and cleaned me up a bit. Then an ambulance was called.

The three EMT guys in the ambulance competently and professionally checked me our for signs of a concussion, found none, and let me climb in back and sit. On the way to the hospital we discussed their work. The big difference between them and drivers in cities like New York, Los Angeles, or Philadelphia, where I’ve lived, is that they said they had almost never had to transport a gunshot victim. “We have a lot of knifings in the summer for some reason–usually drug related,” said one EMT. “But no gunshot wounds.”

But the big difference came when we got to the big public University of Geneva teaching hospital that they chose for my treatment.  Exiting the ambulance, the men led me without stopping right past the intake and billing office, into the emergency room, where they brought me to the doctor in charge. She checked me out and, determining that I was not a serious case, dispatched me to the waiting room adjacent to the ER. It was equipped with free internet service, so I was able to contact my family back in the US while I waited.

Having been triaged into a low priority category, I sat for about an hour in what proved to be a clean, well-appointed ER operation. Unlike urban ERs I’ve visited over the years in the US, which tend to be controlled chaos, this place was calm and smooth-running. Maybe it’s because there weren’t police rushing in every so often delivering serious injured arrestees or victims. (Traffic here seems more orderly than what I’m used to too, plus there is a paucity of over-weight “muscle cars” and SUVs, so there may be fewer crash victims coming into the ER also.)

In any case my turn for treatment came soon enough. The doctor and a nurse did a careful job of sewing me up, pulling the wound together with two layers of stitches. Then they sent me on my way, with a letter of instructions to my American doctor about what they’d done, and when he should plan on pulling out the stitches.

On the way out, I passed through the billing room, where the nurse introduced me to a billing office clerk.  My bill for the ER visit: $200.

Now that is probably between 400 percent and 900 percent less than what the same injury would have cost in an American hospital ER–and in an American ER, I might not have even been stitched up by a doctor. (A friend in Philadelphia from Puerto Rico who went to Temple University’s public teaching hospital emergency room with a nasty case of the flu was given some aspirin and sent home a few years ago with a bill for $2000).  Clearly the highly regulated private insurance plans that every Swiss person (including any non-citizen resident staying longer than three months) is mandated to buy (low-income people and the unemployed get subsidized), are keeping the hospital and doctor charges low.

One big difference between what is being offered up as insurance “reform” by House, Senate and President Obama, and what the Swiss have, is that every Swiss person buys a basic health insurance plan on which the Swiss insurance companies are barred from making a penny of profit. The insurance firms can offer highly profitable supplemental plans that cover amenities like private rooms, but they must also offer the basic plans at competitive rates. There is no “managed care”–the euphemistic term for the common American insurance plans that actually manage no care for enrollees. Patients can choose their own doctors and hospitals and don’t go through medical gatekeepers to get authorized for treatment. They do have co-pays for treatment, but the total deductible outlay per person ranges from 300-2500 Swiss Franks per year (about $275-$2300) depending upon the plan chosen by the enrollee.

“Our insurance is not cheap, and it keeps getting more expensive,” Evelyne Giordani, the coordinator of Lifespark, a Swiss-based anti-death penalty organization, told me. “But it is still a lot better than what you have to pay in the US.”

Well,  of course, many Americans have some of their insurance premium paid for by their employer–an arrangement which American businesses actually like and have lobbied to keep, knowing that they are just paying for it with money that they aren’t paying in higher wages. (Workers only think they are not paying when the premiums are covered as a benefit, all or in part, by the employer.) American employers actually like being the health insurance provider because where the Swiss, like their fellow Europeans with more socialist-style or single-payer style health systems, aren’t tethered to their jobs by the serf-like bonds of health insurance, most Americans have to worry that if they quit, get fired, or go out on strike, they and their families are then left at the mercy of the health care industry. That in fact is a major reason American workers are so much more docile and cowed by management than are their European counterparts.

So all in all, the Swiss have it pretty good. They’ve got excellent health care, available to all. They aren’t being held for ransom by employers. They have complete freedom of choice of physician, hospital and course of treatment. The have reasonable costs for their care. And they are still only collectively spending just over 10 percent of GDP per year on health care. That’s more than the next most costly country, Canada, which devotes 9 percent of GDP to health care with its single-payer Medicare-for-all type system. But it’s still a far cry from the staggering 17.5 percent of GDP that gets pumped into the medical industrial complex in the US, where nonetheless 40 million Americans remain left out of the system, with no ready access to medical care at all.

The one place where Swiss health care and American health care have something in common is ambulance service. While my care in the hospital was incredibly cheap, my bill for the ambulance ride was $730, which is about what I expect it would have cost me in the US (maybe a little less).  One difference though–most of that bill would be covered in Switzerland. I’m less confident about getting reimbursed by my Blue Cross plan, though. They’ll probably figure out some way to weasel out of paying for it.

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist. He is author of Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Common Courage Press, 2003) and The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available at thiscantbehappening.net

Guantanamo detainee Fayiz al-Kandari

As evidenced by the recent outpouring of generous support for the people of Haiti, America remains a caring and compassionate nation. But when it comes to human rights and the rule of law, the United States falls woefully short, trailing behind the rest of the civilized world. Case in point, the U.S. government is seriously considering indefinite detentions for some Guantanamo detainees.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said last weekend that the White House may support a new law that would allow the indefinite detention of some terrorism suspects. Meanwhile, last month the Guantanamo Detainee Review Panel finally recommended which detainees should be released and which ones should face trials. It came as little surprise that more than 100 detainees were cleared for release while about 35 will be tried either by federal court or military commission. Yet surprisingly, approximately 50 detainees have been recommended for indefinite detention without trial. The administration claims they are considered too dangerous to be released but too difficult to prosecute even in the conviction-friendly Commission System.

These 50 detainees present a perplexing situation for the United States. The United States prides itself on being a world leader on human rights and the rule of law, and has been consistently outspoken in its criticism of human rights abuses by other nations. But in its zeal to demonstrate a “tough on terrorism” stance, the United States has failed to live up to these values.

One of the hallmarks of the American judicial system is the presumption of innocence. If arrested for an alleged crime, we have the right to a trial, to confront our accusers, and to present evidence in our defense. Indefinite detention bypasses these rights, short circuits due process, and turns the presumption of innocence on its head. In short, it presumes guilt and offers no remedy to challenge that presumption.

It is tempting to assume the decision to hold detainees indefinitely is based on a review of credible evidence. But if the evidence is so persuasive, why not introduce it in a court of law and secure a legitimate conviction? Time and again, federal courts have proven fully capable of handling terrorism cases. In fact, the Bush administration successfully prosecuted at least 319 terrorism or terrorism-related cases in civilian courts.

If the evidence is not reviewed by a court of law, who does review the evidence and determine the fates of individual suspects? The evidence is classified and the identities of those making the determinations are closely guarded. This process is entirely secret and inherently un-American. A system that authorizes indefinite detention based on secret evidence can only result in distrust and suspicion.

I represent Fayiz al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti citizen who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for more than eight years without a trial. In my July 2009 letter to the Washington Post, I explained how every time I visit my client he asks whether I have news of justice for him. Each time, I am forced to answer “I have no justice today.” Assuming Fayiz would someday have his “day in court,” I prepared him for the probability that “justice” would come in the form of a military commission – a second-rate judicial system largely designed to permit rumor as evidence. Unfortunately, I am now left to wonder whether Fayiz will ever be afforded any semblance of justice.

Admittedly, under the laws and customs of war, a nation may detain “enemy combatants” for the duration of an armed conflict. But in an “armed conflict” as ambiguous as the War on Terrorism, can this same standard possibly apply? If so, when can we expect the armed conflict to end? Terrorism dates back to the 14th century or earlier and has been employed throughout history. If the “War on Terrorism” will not end until terrorism no longer exists on Earth, Fayiz will never breathe free.

We are at a key juncture in our nation’s history. We can give in to political expediency and fear, or we can restore the rule of law and uphold our country’s founding principles. Let’s not go down the slippery slope of indefinite detentions.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard represents Fayiz al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti who has spent seven and a half years in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay without trial.

Marines from India Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment and soldiers from the Afghan National Army take part in a firefight while an explosion occurs outside of Marjah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan on February 13th, 2010. The Marines from 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment and ANA soldiers have been conducting Operation Moshtarak to eliminate Taliban presence and intimidation in the city of Marjah, Afghanistan. (USMC photo by Lance Cpl. Tommy Bellegarde)

The fighting is still underway in the town of Marjah, in what is being described as the first battle in Obama’s War in Afghanistan, or alternatively as the biggest battle of the US War in Afghanistan. But already, the US has lost that battle.

It lost it from day one, when troops fired missiles in to a Marjah house, killing 12 civilian occupants–half of them children. And it lost it further when another three more civilians were blown away by US-led forces. Finally, it lost the battle as much of the town has been simply destroyed by the fighting.

The supposed goal of the assault on Marjah was to demonstrate that the US would bring the wonders of good government and peace to the Pashtun tribal people who have endured a generation or more of war, and who have been living under the “cruel tyranny” of the Taliban in recent years. The new strategy of President Barack Obama and his hand-picked military leader in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was to show that the US military could fight the Taliban without causing civilian deaths and casualties. Protecting civilian lives would be a priority, they claimed.

The problem with such a strategy is that the whole reason American forces have been able to crush resistance, as they did in the lighting invasion of Iraq in 2003, or the overthrow of the Taliban government of Afghanistan in late 2001, has been their callous disregard for civilian lives, which have been coldly labelled “collateral damage.”

In the war in Iraq, and in Afghanistan until recently at least, the American war-fighting style has been for troops to go into an area, seeking to draw enemy fire, and then to call in long-range artillery or air support, and simply blow up the area with heavy explosives, devastating anti-personnel bombs that shower an area in flesh-shredding flechettes, burning white phosphorus projectiles, and a brutal rain of machine-gun fire from fixed-wing and helicopter gunships. Inevitably with such tactics, countless innocent men, women and children get killed and maimed.

In Iraq, US forces ended up killing far, far more civilians than actual enemy fighters thanks to this approach. While information about deaths in the Afghan War is harder to come by, it is likely that the same holds true there also. In addition to the well-known incidents, where air strikes have been called in which ended up butchering entire wedding parties in both Iraq and Afghanistan, or where farm families engaged in routine activties have been blown away thinking they were terrorists, US forces have for years thought nothing about assaulting compounds and killing the inhabitants, innocent civilians or not, children or adults, if it was thought that even one “terrorist” was in the building at the time.

Such tactics, reminiscent of what years ago used to be attributed to vicious military regimes like the German Nazis or the Imperial Japanese, have become the norm for US forces, as has the tactic of “spray and pray,” under which US forces, if they take fire or feel threatened, simply unload all their weapons in every direction, killing every living thing within range, including people who might be seeking shelter behind mud walls of their homes.

These tactics, while criminal in the extreme under the Geneva Conventions, which require that civilians in any conflict be protected, do work in the short term, which is why American forces have prevailed in their initial assaults. But long-term, they inevitably become self-defeating, since they only turn a population into bitter enemies, many with an understandable desire for vengeance.

Thus, the “new” strategy of trying to minimize civilian casualties.

But once US troops are denied their air support, and are barred by commanders from simply blowing away buildings from which they are taking enemy fire, because of fears that there may be civilians in those buildings, US forces lose any advantage they may have had over local enemy fighters. It becomes a battle of guns vs. guns and person vs. person, and becomes more of a case of who is more willing to die.

Clearly the Taliban then gains an edge. Its fighters, or at least many of them, believe they are fighting for Allah, or for their country’s survival and independence, or for both, and they are willing to die for those causes. What are American forces fighting for in Afghanistan? Hard to say. I suspect many, if asked, would say they have no idea. Some, I’m sure, would say they are “defending America” if asked thanks to their indoctrination, but I also suspect that as they survey the primitive society in which they are fighting, and see the poverty of the people, they will have a hard time perceiving Afghanistan as any kind of threat to their own country or families.

Some may say they’re avenging the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon “by Al Qaeda” in 2001, but then, even the US government admits that the foreign fighters of Al Qaeda have long ago left Afghanistan, and no Taliban were involved in the 9-11 attacks. So it’s hard to see American troops being willing to die for these trumped up “causes.” I suspect, again, that most US troops are understandably trying really hard mainly to make sure they don’t get hurt or killed.

And that’s why, in the end, the US is losing this war. It’s why those deadly Himars rockets were fired and why air assaults are being called in after all in Marjah, and why civilians are again being slaughtered by American forces in this battle.

It’s why, despite promises to the contrary from Gen. McChrystal and Commander in Chief Obama, the town is being wrecked.

And in the end, it will be all for naught, since the US is supporting a wholly corrupt and criminal regime in Kabul which will not follow up the ultimate “victory” in Marjah with some kind of honest and well-functioning government in the destroyed city.

We will no doubt see some photogenic reconstruction in Marjah when the fighting subsides. We’ll see some demonstration projects which will be dutifully praised by the journalistic shills flown in by Pentagon flaks. But the people of Marjah will remember the destruction of their town, and will remember their neighbors and relatives who were killed. And when the Taliban return to the town, as they inevitably will after the Americans withdraw or draw down, they will probably be welcomed, or at least tolerated.

The reality is that America cannot prevail in Afghanistan except by applying the massive, oppressive power of its military killing machine, with its robotic rocket-firing drone aircraft, its bombers and attack aircraft, its fixed-wing and helicopter gunships, its indiscriminate anti-personnel weapons, and its massive bombs. It cannot prevail, in other words, without terrorizing the population.

And even then, in the end, it cannot succeed.

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist. He is author of Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Common Courage Press, 2003) and The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available at thiscantbehappening.net

I’d rather have a party that “supported” wars but didn’t fund them, if that option were available. I’d rather have a brand new party, if that were possible. But, given the dominance of the Democratic Party, passing progressive resolutions and working to someday elect progressive representatives looks like an admirable project, and — at least from afar — one imagines that it must be having an impact in Sacramento if not yet in Washington.

Brad Parker is a California Democratic Party (CDP) Progressive who has published a book about his intra-party struggles called Left Turn Only and I recommend it for a number of reasons. For one thing, Parker is a fabulous writer. His critiques of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are wonderful. His vision of a progressive political platform is strong and pointed. His use of details and historical references enriches his writing. Much of the book reads like rally speeches and some of it is. It’s a collection of blog posts, speeches, articles, and resolutions dating from 2005 through 2009.

Absent from the book is any argument for working within the Democratic Party. Good arguments can be made for it, but Parker doesn’t attempt one, he just assumes it. Instead he provides repeated accounts of the behavior of Democratic insiders as so loathsome that he writes of his need to “take many showers to get the foul stench of this process off me.” And yet, ever the cheerful optimist, Parker jumps right back into the foul stench time and again, with the best intentions of disinfecting it at close range. This book seems as likely to drive people out of the Democratic Party as to pull them in, but what might pull them in is the example of Parker and his colleagues, their vision, their dedication, and their marginal successes.

I know a lot of the people Parker mentions and others he doesn’t who have been involved in building the Progressive Caucus in the CDP, and they are all well-intentioned and inspiring. And so is Parker’s book if one focuses on his vision and hopefulness. His recounting of party platform and resolution fights, on the other hand, doesn’t do a lot for me. “California is the conscience of the nation,” Parker said in April 2005 in successfully urging the CDP to pass a resolution against the Iraq War, and other state parties did follow. But California Democratic congress members went right on funding war.

Parker’s next chapter heading reads “Progressives Embraced by the CDP,” but were they embraced or mugged or groped? Their positions were adopted and their candidates brutally rejected. Parties are very disciplined institutions, but they enforce the will of the leaders of the party who control the purse strings, not the will of the positions articulated in party platforms or resolutions. Following an unsuccessful effort in 2006 to move the CDP to endorse Marcy Winograd’s electoral challenge to Congresswoman Jane Harman, Parker swore he would have nothing to do with endorsements again, a strange and clearly untenable conclusion. But by the next chapter Parker is arguing with all his might for an endorsement of Howard Dean’s candidacy for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, fully aware of Dean’s flaws.

Then it’s back to more resolutions, including one to censure Senator Dianne Feinstein, who of course continues to perform her duties as atrociously as ever. And eventually it’s on to the struggle to insert some semi-progressive platitudes into the 2008 national Democratic Party Platform, none of which are guiding decisions in Washington now.

It’s easy to suggest that if Parker and his allies all abandoned ship and began a new party it would be a force to reckon with. But it’s just as easy to recognize that if everyone already overboard climbed onto Parker’s ship they could steer it in a much more progressive direction. What I think would help motivate more people to get involved within the CDP would be a focus on candidates over resolutions.

And I want to be clear what I mean by that. I want issues to be front and center. I want endorsements to be based on hard policy positions, not personalities or cronyism, height, looks, or fundraising prowess. But I’d like to see more activism focused on electing the people who make the right policy commitments, and even more on rewarding and punishing elected officials once they are in office. This need not be at the expense of passing resolutions, but I think it should be far-and-away the top priority.

I suspect Parker might agree with me at the moment, given the candidacy of Marcy Winograd again this year working to knock Jane Harman out of her seat in Congress. That the progressives in the CDP have come this close to replacing someone like Harman with one of their own is the example they can hold up to the rest of us. And if passing resolutions within the state party against everything the party works for nationally has helped to inspire and engage the people now knocking on doors for Marcy, then it has been well worth all the effort.

David Swanson is co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org and author of the new book Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when tour will be in your town by visiting davidswanson.org/book.

After Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, aided by a compliant Congress and a nation largely afraid to stand up for their rights, abused the Constitution for almost eight years, what the United States needs is a leader who understands constitutional law and who is unafraid of making sure all Americans understand that the fabric that became America should not be torn apart for political convenience.

Dick Cheney and George W. Bush established policies which violated:

• The First Amendment (freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances)
• The Fourth Amendment (freedom from unreasonable searches)
• The Fifth Amendment (right of due process and to protect against self-incrimination)
• The Sixth Amendment (due process, the right to counsel, a speedy trial, and the right to a fair and public trial by an impartial jury)
• The Eighth Amendment (reasonable bail and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment), and
• The Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection guarantee for both citizens and non-citizens)

Bush–Cheney Administration actions also violated provisions of Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution which guarantees the right to petition the courts to issue a writ of habeas corpus to require the government to produce a prisoner or suspect in order to determine the legality of the detention. Only Congress may order a suspension of habeas corpus, and then only in “Cases of Rebellion or Invasion.” Congress did not suspend this right; nothing during or subsequent to the 9/11 attack indicated either a rebellion or invasion under terms of the Constitution.

It wasn’t just liberals who argued about Constitutional violations. Many leading conservatives argued that the Bush–Cheney Administration overreached in its lame attempt to “keep America safe.” Among those conservatives who objected were Bob Barr, Grover Norquist, Alan Caruba, and William F. Buckley, the founder of modern conservative thought. Also objecting to the wide-reaching policies of the Bush–Cheney Administration were federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, which leans to the right.

In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who had been nominated for the Court by Ronald Reagan, was forceful in her majority opinion, which attacked Bush–Cheney Administration policies. According to O’Connor:

It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation’s commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad. . . . (The imperative necessity for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit government action.) . . . (It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties, which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.)

A large population of misinformed citizens—including leading politicians, pundits, and blowhards—claim even if everything else was true about protecting rights during times of war, the Constitution protects only American citizens and not foreigners. The Supreme Court has several times ruled otherwise. In 1886, the Supreme Court, in its Yick Wo v. Hopkins decision, reaffirmed the principle that the Constitution protects all persons, even foreigners, in U.S. jurisdiction. More than a century later, in Boumediene v. Bush (2008), the Supreme Court ruled that the right of habeas corpus applies to all persons, even terrorists confined in Guantanamo Bay. Not one of the nine justices, or even the Bush–Cheney Administration itself, disagreed with that principle. The only dissent was that such prisoners were on foreign soil and outside the jurisdiction of the Constitution; the Supreme Court ruled that the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base was on U.S., not Cuban, soil.

And now in an interesting twist of logic come the Teabaggers, who continue to claim that not only doesn’t the Constitution apply to foreigners but that they want to impeach President Obama because he violated Constitutional rights. Alas, they can’t provide specific instances that will hold up in any federal court. But, like much of what the Tea Party zealots say, it makes good rhetoric, and the mainstream media, often without challenge, publish and air their views to a mass audience.

But Sarah Palin and the party who loves her demand that this nation get rid of its professor of constitutional law and replace him with a man who is a true blue, 100 percent all-American commander-in-chief. You know, the kind who sends American forces into Iraq to chase mythical weapons that don’t exist, and then claims at least his invasion got rid of a dictator. The kind who costs more than 4,000 American deaths and more than 30,000 injuries, many of them permanent. The kind who doesn’t give the troops the armament and protection they need while in battle, and then the rehabilitation they need when they can no longer fight.

In case Sarah Palin didn’t read the Constitution, President Barack Obama is the president of the United States and the commander-in-chief of the nation’s military. The biggest difference is that this president and commander-in-chief is just as aggressive in protecting the principles of the Constitution as he is in protecting the safety of the American people.

Walter Brasch is a professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. His most recent book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush. He can be reached at brasch@bloomu.edu.

There was all kinds of high-minded talk about the protecting the dignity of the dead, and about how it was not appropriate to show such images without the permission of the deceased’s close relatives.

But then how to explain the spectacle of poor Notar Kumaritashvili, the 21-year-old luge rider from the Georgian Olympic team. Kumaritashvili had the misfortune of hitting the edge of the luge shute he was on during a training run in British Columbia, and, at a speed of 89 mph, he was thrown from his sled and over the safety wall into the air, where he hit a steel pole, which killed him.

NBC, which was taping the run, rushed to air the grisly death. No attempt was made to seek permission from Kumaritashvili’s family. Hey, this was good TV. Why risk ruining it by giving the family a veto over the tape?

Well, NBC, when criticized, claimed it was all in the interest of public safety. They had a legitimate need to show the public that riding a luge is dangerous, the network said. Never mind that almost nobody rides a luge, and that all of those who do are keenly aware that it is a life-risking sport.

The word for this kind of nonsense is hypocrisy. Another word is capitalism. Blood and gore sell, and this tape meant great ratings for NBC.

On the other hand, you’d think that showing what the war in Afghanistan, or the war in Iraq, look like would be good for ratings too. And shouldn’t there be a journalistic responsibility to show Americans what is going on in our name and with our tax dollars, in our country’s wars, not to mention that if it’s important for potential sledders to know how dangerous a luge shute is, shouldn’t potential military recruits be shown how dangerous wearing a uniform can be? Anyhow, we should be able to take the real ugliness and the blood: We Americans pay good money to see the fake gore of military slaughter–even of Americans–in movies like Avatar, or Saving Private Ryan, or Apocalypse Now.

But when it comes to war, politics intervenes. The military and its political handmaidens in Congress and the White House, don’t think that showing the authentic gore of American casualties that occur daily in the course of our bloody imperial adventures is a good idea. It might get Americans to thinking too hard about those wars, and about whether we ought to be fighting them. And so NBC, and most of the rest of the US media, politely keep those images safely abroad.

Seriously. They have the footage, and the photos. They just don’t let Americans see them. I was stunned, for example, when I lived in Taiwan in 2004 for five months, to see that CNN International, which is viewed all around the world, but not seen in the US, had plenty of film footage of dead American soldiers. They have to air that stuff if they want to compete commercially overseas with such other international news programs as the BBC and Al Jazeera. But those scenes get censored out in Atlanta, so we don’t see them here.

We get to see dead Haitians. We get to see dead Sri-Lankans. We get to see dead Taliban fighters. We get to see dead Olympians–especially if they’re foreigners like poor Kumaritashvili. They don’t get shown any “respect for their dignity.”

But we don’t get to see dead or dying American soldiers. That would be a shameful thing to do.

ave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist. He is author of Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Common Courage Press, 2003) and The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available at thiscantbehappening.net

I guess I may as well get out front of things here. I’m about to fly to Switzerland to lead a panel on how to change pro-capital punishment attitudes in a country at the Fourth Congress Against the Death Penalty, being sponsored by the United Nations in Geneva. And judging from the stories I’ve been reading about the Transportation Security Administration, or at least its Philadelphia International Airport operation, and the Philadelphia Police who backstop the TSA here, I’m afraid I’m liable to be hauled away as a suspected terrorist before I can get on my flight.

Why? Because I will be carrying copies of one of my books, which has the title Killing Time (It’s an investigation into the death penalty case of Philadelphia journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, and was published in 2003 by Common Courage Press), and more importantly, because I just got a haircut.

Ask the TSA: Terrorist or just a diligent student?

A haircut, you may well ask? Well you see, we just learned that the TSA last fall handcuffed, arrested and held for five hours young Nick George, a 21-year-old Pomona College student on his way back to campus in California, because they found 200 Arab/English language flashcards on his person, and despite his protestation that he is a Middle Eastern Studies major, they decided that he must be a terrorist.

The reason they stopped him in the first place, though, according to Philadelphia Police, who were called in to take him into detention, is that the TSA and police were suspicious that George’s hair was shorter than it appeared in the photo on his Pennsylvania driver’s license. “That,” as Polict Lt. Louis Liberati told the Inquirer, is “an indication sometimes that someone may have gone through a radicalization.”

Damn. Just last week, I decided that my shaggy grey locks and Santa-like beard were becoming too unruly, so I got out the old electric hair-clipper and gave myself a very short buzzcut. It hasn’t changed my politics, but I sure look radically different–and I must say that my hair and beard are shorter than they appear on either my driver’s license or my passport.

Now, if the bright bulbs on the TSA at Philly’s airport security checkpoint decide that my haircut means I look “radicalized” and need closer inspection, and if they then decide to check through my carry-on luggage, they will inevitably stumble upon the copies of my second book, which I’m bring to Geneva to sell to interested participants at the Congress. As soon as they see the title, “Killing Time,” I figure they’ll freak. And if they read the subtitle, which says, “An investigation into the death row case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” they will see that name and immediately flash “Arab! Arab! Arab!” although of course Mumia, aka Wesley Cook, is an African American native of Philadelphia.

That won’t help me, though, if the TSA cuffs me and turns me over to the tender mercies of Philly’s Finest, because Mumia Abu-Jamal is public enemy number one for the police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, whose members are dedicated to ensuring this man’s execution. They will not be kindly disposed to a writer whose book argues that Abu-Jamal’s trial was a kangaroo court sham rife with racism, prosecutorial misconduct and perjured testimony, that his appeals were subverted by blatant judicial prejudice, and that he may not even have been guilty at all of the crime of killing a white police officer.

Of course, it could get worse for me. Early last month, another local student flying home from the holidays to college, 22-year-old Rebecca Solomon, had a Philadelphia Airport TSA worker, “as a joke,” slip a plastic bag of some unidentified white powder into her carry-on bag, which he was inspecting after pulling her, allegedly at random, from the security line for a special inspection. “Where did you get it?” he asked her, causing the young woman to totally freak out. At that point, after letting her sweat and telling her things would be all right if she just answered “honestly,” the TSA goon reportedly smiled and said, “just kidding.”

Holy crap! Bad enough that someone in that kind of position of authority would think of that as a joke, but what if it hadn’t been? What if it had been coke, and he’d decided to claim he actually found something that he had really planted in the bag himself? How easy it would be in this mad, terror-crazed America, to get a jury to send someone like Solomon up for 10 years on a faked drug charge (the Philly Police were caught doing just this on a wide scale in a 1990s scandal prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office)? Or, had the bag contained some explosive powder, how easy to send her packing to Guantanamo on a faked terrorism charge?

Luckily, the jerk who pulled that last stunt was fired by the TSA, but not, apparently, the guy who cuffed a young Middle Eastern Studies scholar and kept him from making his flight.

And then there’s Nadine Peligrino, a 57-year-old Baton-Rouge businesswoman and Philadelphia native, who was at the Philly airport preparing to fly home with her husband from a visit to family and friends. Back in July 2006, she was, for some unknown reason, selected for special attention by the alert agents of the TSA. As they started picking through her bag, the fastidious woman, who used to teach public speaking and semantics at Penn State and Trenton College, asked that the the TSA inspectors put on new surgical gloves.

The over-enthusiastic TSA inspectors were at the time pawing through her make-up, sniffing at her lipstick and fingering her undergarments (ahead of the game there apparently, they were already looking for explosive underpants!), and she didn’t want any unwanted germs. She claims the agents got irritated at her, especially when she asked them to put her things back in the bag the way they found them.

They didn’t–tossing everything together in a pile. When she stormed out of the private room where the screening had been conducted, the agents claim she hit them with her purse. She was charged with assault, was arrested by Philly police, and spent 17 hours in the can. Her case was recently tossed by a Philadelphia court because even though her attorneys had requested the security tapes of the incident from the TSA, the TSA destroyed them.

The judge, Municipal Judge Thomas Gehret, didn’t take kindly to the TSA lawyer’s explanation that they allowed the routine destruction of the recording after 30 days “because most of the incident took place outside of the camera’s view” and because the city of Philadelphia “couldn’t afford” the cost of storing such records. As the judge said, “With all the stuff that is happening, I would think you’d want to keep it – you could keep that forever.”

He scoffed at the TSA’s lame expense excuse, noting correctly that such digital records can fit on one DVD.

So there you have it. Cut your hair in Philadelphia and to the alert agents of the TSA and the equally alert Philadelphia Police you are a potentially radicalized terrorist. (Geez, and I already went through that garbage back in the ‘60s, when my long hair used to routinely get me harassed by police. So I guess it’s “long hair and beard = Commie” and “short hair and beard = Jihadi”). Carry language flash cards, or perhaps a book with an incindiary title, and you’re a potential terrorist. Get the wrong TSA agent, and you may even end up having some terribly incriminating substance planted in your bag. And try to prove misbehavior or worse by the TSA and they’ll casually destroy the evidence.

Ahead of this flight, I have memorized the number of the Philadelphia ACLU.

Wish me luck!

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist. He is author of Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Common Courage Press, 2003) and The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available at thiscantbehappening.net