Monthly Archive for September, 2003

ACORN MEMBERS ROLL WITH IMMIGRANT WORKERS FREEDOM RIDES

As the Immigrant Workers Freedom Rides travel across the country, ACORN
members are taking a stand for immigrant rights. Fifteen ACORN members from
Seattle, WA, San Jose, CA, Los Angeles, CA, St. Paul, MN, Chicago, IL, Orlando, FL and Phoenix, AZ, are riding on Freedom Ride buses, while ACORN members in Phoenix, Chicago, Columbus, OH, New York, Minneapolis, Orlando, FL, New Orleans, and other cities are participating in kick-off and welcoming events. In Little Rock, Arkansas, on Saturday, September 27th ACORN organized a moving event to welcome riders. Bus riders, ACORN members, and community leaders gathered on the steps of the historic Central High School – the site of the pivotal 1957 school integration showdown where nine black students known as the Little Rock 9 faced down the governor of Arkansas and the national guard in order to attend the then-all-white high school. 250 people, including over 85 bus riders, rallied at the school to listen to speeches by Little Rock City Director and ACORN State Chair Johnnie Pugh, State President of the AFL-CIO Alan Hughes, Central Arkansas Labor Council President Lindsay Brown, President of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus Jorge Garcia, one of the original Little Rock 9 Minnie Jean Brown, her daughter, Spirit Tricky, and other union, community and faith leaders. Following a tour of the Central High School museum, City Director and ACORN leader Genevieve Stewart read an official proclamation from the city supporting the freedom rides. Despite community support, over a dozen nazis and white supremacists gathered to protest the event and espouse anti-immigrant arguments. Freedom riders and supporters took the protesters in stride, however, and following the rally attended a Hispanic festival concert and dinner organized by Catholic Churches and Latino community groups.

For more information contact Rachel Burrows at rburrows@acorn.org or 202-547-2500.

Prometheus 6 has all the links you need to get both sides of the Plame story.

There are two petitions that I know of calling for an independent investigation.

PFAW

Democrats.com

Additional notable post from Juan Cole.

From my e-mail:

WHITE HOUSE LEAK CONTROVERSY BUILDS

“The President and I place deterring, detecting, and punishing unauthorized disclosures of U.S. national security secrets among our highest priorities, at all times, but especially in this time of war against terrorism of global reach,” Attorney General John Ashcroft wrote in an October 2002 report to Congress.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dojleaks.html

That unequivocal assertion is now being put to the test in the face of renewed allegations that Bush Administration officials improperly disclosed the identity of a CIA officer serving under cover who happened to be the wife of an Administration critic, Amb. Joseph Wilson.

Detecting and punishing the leaker didn’t exactly sound like one of the “highest priorities” of the White House at a rather evasive press briefing on the subject on September 29.

“My understanding is that if something like this happened and it was referred to the Department of Justice, then the Department of Justice would look to see whether or not there is enough information to pursue it further,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. “But those are questions you need to ask the Department of Justice.” See:

http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2003/09/wh092903.html

The Justice Department has reportedly opened an investigation into the matter.

Leaks, including intelligence-related leaks, are commonplace. But identification of leakers, let alone prosecution or other punishment, is rare.

“We file crimes reports with the attorney general every week about leaks,” said DCI George Tenet at his confirmation hearing on May 6, 1997, “and we’re never successful in litigating one.”

Although no one has ever been prosecuted for disclosing the name of a CIA officer under cover, such disclosures happen from time to time.

In 1998, an article in The New Republic named the CIA station chief in Tel Aviv, to the dismay of Agency officials and congressional overseers. See “CIA Station Chief in Israel Unmasked,” Secrecy and Government Bulletin, November 1998:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/bulletin/sec75.html

The text of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which prohibits the identification of “covert agents,” is available here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/laws/iipa.html

Other reading:

Ashcroft’s Efforts to Prosecute Americans for Leaking Non-Classified Information: It’s Okay to Commit Treason in the White House, Though. A BuzzFlash Interview with John Dean.

White House Denies a Top Aide Identified an Officer of the C.I.A.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and RICHARD W. STEVENSON
The White House also rejected growing calls from Democrats for the appointment of a special outside counsel to investigate the matter.

Update 10/1:

PAST PROSECUTIONS UNDER THE INTEL IDENTITIES ACT

Speaking of errors, Secrecy News mistakenly advanced the notion that there has never been a prosecution involving the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of the identities of “covert
agents.”

In fact, there has been at least one prosecution under the Act, in the course of an espionage proceeding.

It was the 1985 prosecution of Sharon M. Scranage, a CIA employee who was charged with disclosing agent identities to Ghanaian intelligence officials and who pled guilty to two counts under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. (Thanks to Paul Wolf for pointing this out.) See (scroll down to middle of the
page):

http://www.dss.mil/training/espionage/cia.htm

The home building/rebuilding boom and the rebuilding of Iraq are not complementary and putting a strain on the lumber industry according to Timothy Terrel in this article appearing today on Mises.org.

Low interest loans fueling the high rate of remodeling and new home construction here in the states, the latter not seen in 17 years, have certainly contributed to shortages and record high costs of lumber.

The DoD ordering supplies for Iraq made matters worse since it occurred during a peak buying season.

Terrel also cites what he describes as deliberate actions to artifically inflate the costs of lumber in order to ‘soak’ the consumer such as using environmental measures to ‘cordone off protected areas’ and imposition of Canadian tariffs.

Temporary problem or crisis looming? Whichever it might be I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bushies call for the repealing of environmental protections in order to fight the war on terror.

…US forces west of the northern city of Kirkuk killed a 10-year-old child and wounded a 25-year-old man when they opened fire on hundreds of demonstrators who pelted them with stones, hospital director Abdullah Jiburi claimed.

An AFP correspondent on the scene said the casualties occurred when around 500 protestors carrying portraits of Saddam took to the streets of Hawija and began pelting US soldiers with stones.

Isn’t democracy a beautiful thing…

Like cool kids angered that their favorite cult band had signed on with a major label and started churning out pop drivel, some former members of the Draft Clark movement are already charging the onetime general with selling out. His nascent campaign, they say, has been taken over by mainstream political operatives who are minimizing the influence of the draft movement, dismantling the draft sites and slowly destroying the Internet community that, for the past six months, served as an incubator for Clark’s then-hypothetical presidential bid. Even more disturbingly, others charge, the professional operatives may have been planning this all along.

I would be surprised if ‘professional operatives’ weren’t involved in some capacity in internet campaigns promoting a serious alternate. I am dismayed to hear of the extent certain groups misrepresented the strength of their efforts while understanding it is the nature of politics. But finally I’m puzzled that the Clarkies would be in such a hurry to organise their campaign they would take any actions that might cause them to appear ungrateful to loyal followers, no matter the number, as this article reports.

Tribute to Edward Said
Mustafa Barghouthi, The Electronic Intifada, 25 September 2003

It is with heart-breaking sorrow that the Palestinian National Initiative announces the tragic death of Edward Said who passed away today after eleven years fighting leukemia. At this time our thoughts and love are with his family.

We wish them strength and courage and assurance that Edward will be a man forever remembered not only for his incredible achievements but for his remarkable qualities as a friend. Though words may do little at such a time to assuage the pain and grief something must be said to pay homage to a man and a life we should truly celebrate.

A man with great courage and clear conviction, Edward Said was a shining light in a confused world. As a true intellectual giant, Said inspired all fields with his accomplishments. The passion which infused his intellectual abilities presented him as a man with clear visions to be greatly admired, trusted and respected.

Though his beliefs and commitments presented him with many challenges his statements and many testimonies of outrage at the hypocrisies, contradictions, and indignities so rife in the world gave him the integrity and honesty for which he was renowned.

A prolific writer, Said addressed all issues of culture, colonialism, imperialism, language and literature. As a Palestinian exile, much of his political writing came from personal memories yet he remained objective and grounded, not only affirming the Palestinian presence but also pointing toward a future where peace is possible. Among spokespeople for the Palestinian cause surely there was none so articulate, so inspiring, so admired.

For the Palestinian National Initiative, a movement striving for democracy in Palestine itself, co-founded by Dr. Said, the death of this unique and most prominent leader, a man of values and integrity who truly believed in freedom and justice is a great loss. The Mubardara remain determined to follow in his foot steps, and remain committed to his vision, conveying all his hopes and values not just of a free Palestine, and free Palestinians but of freedom for all, the world over.

The sense of loss felt by the death of such a great intellect, gentleman and friend is immeasurable. His eminent work of decades and all that he stood for will remain forever a monument for justice, and human rights. As a man of courage, graciousness, hope and dedication, his memory will remain forever in our hearts.

Mustafa Barghouthi is secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative.

Edward Said: A lighthouse that navigated us
Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 25 September 2003

We, who supported the Palestinian cause, have been orphaned with the untimely death of Edward Said. For Israeli Jews, like myself, he was the lighthouse that navigated us out of the darkness and confusion of growing in a Zionist state onto a safer coast of reason, morality and consciousness.

I am sorry I only met Edward in 1988, but I feel fortunate for the time we did spend together. His insights of, and inputs on, the global reality in general and the Palestine one in particular will guide us all for many years to come. But above all, we shall miss Edward’s unique ability of articulating in the public sphere the evil inflicted upon the Palestinians in the past against the continued effort in the Western media of sidelining, if not altogether eliminating, the plight and tragedy of Palestine. There is no one who could easily feel his place on that stage — no one who could in few sentences associate so clearly the wrongs of the past with the tragedy of the present in the land of Palestine.

The academic and intellectual world would equally be disorientated without his original thoughts and conceptualization on the West’s relationship with the world. We should be grateful, nonetheless, that so many of our colleagues went in his footsteps as he so brilliantly deconstructed the power bases and more sinister interests behind the knowledge production in West on the Orient in general and the Middle East in particular.

For those of us who knew him more personally, we have all lost a dear and genuine friend, with whom one could talk about the most abstract philosophical issues and with the same ease move to more mundane problems in life — which usually paled in comparison with his endless and brave struggle against his fatal illness.

Something of this mixture and balance was also in his books. He will be remembered, and justly so, for “Orientalism” and the works that followed shaping and contributing to the post-Colonialist and Cultural Studies. But I will also cherish the “The Politics of Dispossession” — these short and lucid interventions, quite often immediate reactions to a recent crisis or juncture in the life of Palestine and the Palestinians, but always contextualizing the event and Said’s thoughts within the much more broader view on the march of history.

A few weeks ago we had our last meaningful conversation — on the phone — in which he beseeched me, as he did others I am sure, not to give up the struggle for relocating the Palestinians’ refugee issue at the heart of the public and global agenda. He stressed the need to continue the effort of changing the American public opinion on Palestine and he was very hopeful and encouraged by he what recognized as a significant change in European public opinion.

Edward probably left more than one spiritual and moral will to us. The one I am taking is the one above. In his memory and out of respect to his intellectual genius as well as to his moral courage, we should regroup our energies and reorganize our efforts to impress on the world that there will be no justice and no peace in Palestine, no stability in the Middle East and no tranquility in the US relationship with the Muslim world, without the return of Palestinian refugees to their home, the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the building of a state in Palestine that would respect human and civil rights, as did Edward all his life.

May his soul rest in peace.

Ilan Pappe is a senior Israeli academic at the Department of Political Science and M.A, University of Haifa and the author of many books relating to the conflict.