Iran: Israel Must be Destroyed
October 26, 2005 | Leave a Comment
The State of Israel should be wiped off the map, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday, underscoring Teheran’s extreme attitude towards the Jewish State.
“The establishment of the State of Israel was an offensive move. The Islamic nation will not let its historic enemy live in its midst,” he said.
Meanwhile senior American officials associated with President George W. Bush issued stern warnings to Iran in an interview published Wednesday in the London-based Arabic daily al-Sharq al-Awsat saying that “Washington is working diligently to find ways to force Iran to comply with demands by the international community that it abandons its nuclear program.”
According to the report, the U.S. plans to pressure Iran through accusations of involvement in several terror activities around the world that killed American citizens. One of the most likely files to be reopened in Washington is the bombing of the U.S. Marines compound in Beirut in 1983. The U.S. will also hit on the assassination of Iranian opposition figures by Iranian secret agents operating abroad.
Jane’s Defense Weekly magazine reported yesterday that Iran is assisting Syria, Israel’s neighbor and arch enemy, with acquiring the know-how to produce advanced chemical weapons.
According to al-Sharq al-Awsat, a few months ago Syria and Iran signed a mutual assistance agreement by which Syria will provide Iran with advanced military technologies in return for assistance in producing banned weapons.
Under a multi-million dollar project Iran will help Syria set up missile-launching sites, perform test launches of ballistic missiles and acquiring chemical weapons like mustard gas and nerve gas, the magazine reported.
Meanwhile, Iran’s nuclear program is raising significant concerns among international experts. John Chapman, a British international strategy expert, warned that the development of Iranian nuclear weapons could change the stance of other Middle Eastern countries and also push them to produce such arms.
Speaking at a press conference attended by other experts, Chapman estimated Iran was still far from acquiring nuclear capabilities and said the international community should focus on diplomatic efforts to resolve the problem.
Chapman said great importance should be attached to curbing Teheran’s nuclear ambitions, particularly because other countries in the region, such as Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, may also be interested in developing such capabilities, in order not to fall behind in the regional arms race.
White House Spokesman Scott McClellan said Washington took Iran’s recent statement that “Israel should be wiped off the map” seriously.”It underscores the concerns we have about Iran’s nuclear intentions,” he told reporters.
France’s Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy slammed the Iranian threat. He said he has invited the Iranian ambassador in his country for talks following the statements by Iranian President.
“If the reports are true, this is unfathomable. I completely condemn the statements,” said Douste-Blazy.
Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos also summoned Iran’s ambassador to protest the comments.
In a statement, Moratinos said he rejected the remarks in the strongest possible terms and had called for an urgent meeting with Iran’s ambassador in Madrid.
Rosa Parks Takes Her Seat…
October 25, 2005 | Leave a Comment
When Rosa Parks refused to get up, an entire race of people began to stand up for their rights as human beings.
It was a simple act that took extraordinary courage in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955. It was a place where black people had no rights white people had to respect. It was a time when racial discrimination was so common, many blacks never questioned it.
At least not out loud.
But then came Rosa Parks.
This mild-mannered black woman refused to give up her seat on a city bus so a white man could sit down.
Jim Crow laws had met their match.
Parks’ refusal infused 50,000 blacks in Montgomery with the will to walk rather than risk daily humiliation on the city’s buses.
This gentle giant, whose quietness belied her toughness, became the catalyst for a movement that broke the back of legalized segregation in the United States, gave rise to the astounding leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and inspired fighters for freedom and justice throughout the world.
Parks, the beloved mother of the civil rights movement, is dead, a family member confirmed late Monday.
But already it’s evident that her spirit lives in hundreds of thousands of people inspired by her unwavering commitment to work for a better world – a commitment that continued even after age and failing health slowed her in the 1990s.
In death as in life, she touched the well known and the little known people of the world.
‘Freedom is for all human beings’
Parks’ health had been declining since the late 1990s. She had stopped giving interviews by then and rarely appeared in public. When she did, she only smiled or spoke short, barely audible responses.
In one of her last lengthy interviews with the Detroit Free Press in 1995, she spoke of what she would like people to say about her after she passed away.
“I’d like people to say I’m a person who always wanted to be free and wanted it not only for myself; freedom is for all human beings,” she said during an interview from the pastor’s study of St. Matthew African Methodist Episcopal Church, a small congregation she joined upon moving to Detroit in 1957.
While it’s known worldwide that her refusal to give up her bus seat sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, it’s less well known that Parks had a long history of trying to make life better for black people.
It was a desire embedded in her from childhood by her grandfather – her mother’s father with whom she lived when she was growing up. He taught his children and grandchildren not to put up with mistreatment. “It was passed down almost in our genes,” Parks wrote in her 1992 autobiography, “My Story.” (Puffin, $5.99)
She recalled that when her grandfather was home, he kept a shotgun by his side in case the Ku Klux Klan dropped by.
Of her grandfather, Sylvester Edwards, she wrote: “I remember that sometimes he would call white men by their first names, or their whole names, and not say, ‘Mister.’ How he survived doing all those kinds of things, and being so outspoken, talking that big talk, I don’t know, unless it was because he was so white and so close to being one of them.”
Her grandfather’s father was a white plantation owner; his mother a slave housekeeper and seamstress.
In recent years, Parks has relied heavily on a wheelchair and, according to court documents, suffers from dementia.
The dementia was revealed as a result of two lawsuits filed on her behalf against the record company for the hip hop duo Outkast. The 1999 lawsuit claims the record label BMG Entertainment violated her publicity and trademark rights for the 1998 song “Rosa Parks,’ by using her name without her permission for commercial purposes.
But some of her family members claim Parks was incapable of filing such a suit of her own accord. They say it was an attempt by one of her attorneys, Gregory Reed and her longtime friend, Elaine Steele, to get money.
Meanwhile, in October of this year a federal judge appointed former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer as her guardian ad litem-a temporary, court-appointed attorney to assure her interests in the lawsuits are fairly represented.
Steele has had durable power of attorney over Parks and serves as her patient advocate, meaning she will make medical decisions upon incapacitating illness since 1998, according to documents obtained by the Free Press.
Moved in with grandparents
Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Ala., to James and Leona McCauley. As a toddler she moved with her mother to her grandparents’ home in Pine Level, Ala., a rural community outside of Montgomery, where she was raised.
Her mother was a teacher at a church school in a rural town nearby. Her father was a carpenter who left the family in search of work.
She was raised among a large extended family in Pine Level.
Rosa McCauley attended the school where her mother taught for a few years. She moved to Montgomery at age 11 because there were no schools for blacks beyond sixth grade in the rural towns surrounding Pine Level.
She attended the Montgomery Industrial School. Called simply Miss White’s School, for the cofounder and principal Alice White, it was a highly regarded school started and staffed by white women from the North who were dedicated to educating black girls. The school emphasized domestic sciences such as cooking, sewing, care of the sick, the occupations most open to black women at the time.
Still, the school emphasized the lessons of self-respect and dignity she’d been taught at home. “We were taught to be ambitious and to believe that we could do what we wanted in life,” she said. It was there also that she perfected the sewing skills that would become a source of pride and income for many years.
Johnnie Carr, who still lives in Montgomery, was a longtime friend who met Parks at Miss White’s School.
The nonagenarian said her friend’s decision on the Montgomery bus was meant to be: “It was ordained by God.” For many years, Carr was a leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association, a group formed to end segregation on the buses.
In 1932, Rosa McCauley married Raymond Parks, a barber, who had at least two traits in common with her grandfather. He was so light he could pass for white – which initially made him unattractive to her. But, like her grandfather, he was a fearless and proud black man.
In her autobiography, she said he was the first real activist she had ever met. He was a longtime member of the NAACP at a time when simply being a member of a group working for the advancement of colored people was dangerous. He also worked secretly for the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men pulled off a train, falsely accused and found guilty of raping two white women in 1931.
“He was the first, aside from my grandfather and Mr. Gus Vaughn, who was never actually afraid of white people,” Parks wrote in her autobiography. “So many African Americans felt that you just had to be under Mr. Charlie’s heel – that’s what we called the white man, Mr. Charlie – and couldn’t do anything to cross him. In other words, Parks believed in being a man and expected to be treated as a man.”
Rosa Parks joined her husband in working for the defense of the Scottsboro Boys.
Attempt to register to vote
In 1943, she became one of the first women to join Montgomery’s branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She served as its secretary and as youth director for several years.
The same year – 1943 – she made her first attempt to register to vote. Twice her attempts failed. She was told she didn’t pass the literacy test – a test blacks had to pass in order to register.
She was so sure she’d passed, that on her third attempt in 1945, she made a copy of her answers, planning to take some kind of action if she was denied again. But she was informed she passed.
As youth adviser to the NAACP, she helped young people organize protests at the city’s main public library. There were separate libraries for black and white people. The one for blacks had far fewer books.
She organized black youths to go to the main library to ask for service. By Jim Crow rules, blacks could order and pick up books from the library, but they couldn’t browse the stacks or study there.
Despite several attempts, they were unsuccessful in changing the policy.
In the summer of 1955, Parks attended a 10-day workshop on implementing integration at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. A white friend and activist, the late Virginia Durr, recommended her to the program. The integrated school focused on labor relations and race relations.
“One of my greatest pleasures there was enjoying the smell of bacon frying and coffee brewing and knowing that white folks were doing the preparing instead of me,” she wrote in her autobiography. “I was 42 years old, and it was one of the few times in my life up to that point when I did not feel any hostility from white people.”
Her attendance at the school and her activism with the NAACP is what led some people to believe she was planted on that bus that cloudy day on Dec. 1, 1955.
But there is evidence to the contrary. She did not sit in the white section in the front of the bus. She sat in the first row of what was then called the colored section. But the rule was when the white section filled up, blacks had to move back.
Montgomery’s civil rights activists, led by the late E.D. Nixon who was a good friend of Parks, were actively seeking a case to pursue in the courts. Two previous arrests of other women had been considered. The activists didn’t think those women could live up to public scrutiny. Parks’ reputation was sterling.
To pursue a case, the leaders needed someone about whom nothing negative could be said so that nothing could detract from their cause.
Parks denied boarding that bus with that mission in mind. She said that had she been paying closer attention she never would have boarded that particular bus. The driver had put her off the bus 12 years earlier and she always tried to avoid riding his bus. Her offense then: she failed to follow the custom of paying at the front of the bus, getting off and boarding at the rear. She had deposited her money at the front and boarded the bus at the front.
Parks wrote that that time she didn’t go to the back door because the steps there were crowded.
For years it has been erroneously reported that Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955 because she was tired from working all day.
Although it is true that she was heading home from her work as a seamstress in a downtown Montgomery department store, it was not tired feet that made her remain seated on the bus.
“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day.- … No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
Her arrest led to an unprecedented display of black unity in the United States that has not been witnessed since. Black people stayed off Montgomery’s city buses for a year, until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the segregated busing policy was illegal.
They were inspired to stay off the buses at weekly and sometimes twice-weekly church services where their aching souls were soothed by freedom songs, and their aching feet swayed by stirring sermons.
It helped, too, that news coverage attracted worldwide attention, including enough money to finance a separate transportation system made up of a fleet of station wagons assigned to various churches and augmented by black cab drivers, black car owners and whites who either supported their cause or simply needed to get their black help to and from work.
The yearlong boycott stands as the nation’s premier model of nonviolent social resistance.
But the end of the boycott didn’t end the harassment. Parks and her husband lost their jobs, although an official at the department store where she worked said she was terminated because business was down, not because her action sparked the boycott.
In 1957, the couple moved to Detroit because Rosa Parks’ only sibling, the late Sylvester McCauley, who was named for her beloved grandfather, had settled in the city after serving in World War II.
Parks continued her civil rights work, and worked for several years as a seamstress at the Stockton Sewing Co., a small factory in downtown Detroit where she sewed aprons and skirts for 75 cents apiece.
It was during those years that she first met Elaine Steele, who became a friend and confidante. Steele eventually became the director of the Raymond and Rosa Parks Institute for Self-Development which Parks founded in 1987. Raymond Parks had died 10 years earlier at age 74 following a 5-year bout with cancer.
From 1965 until she retired in 1988, Rosa Parks worked as a receptionist and assistant in the Detroit office of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.
In August 1994, an incident involving Parks attracted worldwide attention again. This time the incident shamed black America, in particular, and the United States, in general.
Parks, then 81 and living alone, was assaulted by a man who broke into her home.
Civic and religious leaders, led by her longtime friend U.S. Appeals Court Judge Damon Keith, arranged for Parks to move into the considerably more secure Riverfront Apartments in downtown Detroit.
She lived there until her death, although she frequently spent the cold months living with friends and family in California.
Numerous universities, organizations and individuals honored Parks, including the NAACP, which bestowed her with its highest award, the Springarn Medal, in 1979. She was also awarded an international peace prize for efforts toward world peace in 1994 – given during her first trip to Europe – and the Medal of Freedom, the highest award the U.S. government can bestow on a civilian, awarded in 1999, by former President William J. Clinton.
Despite her notoriety, Parks remained the humble, modest person she had been since childhood. Even her choice of a church after moving to Detroit – St. Matthew AME Church – reflected that. She could have chosen to join one of Detroit’s large, prestigious congregations, any of which count a long list of the city’s who’s-who among its membership, said the Rev. Eddie Robinson. A close friend of Parks, he was a longtime pastor at St. Matthew. He now serves Community AME in Jackson.
“She’d be a reigning celebrity in that environment,” Robinson said in a 1995 interview. “But she doesn’t want that. She is still the humble, gracious lady she’s always been. I’ll tell you, knowing her has certainly turned me around in terms of my own aspirations about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. You grow where you’re planted.”
Parks was active in the African Methodist Episcopal denomination since childhood. A chapel at her former church, St. Paul AME in Montgomery, is named for her, as are many streets and schools throughout the United States.
At Detroit’s St. Matthew AME, she was active as a missionary, stewardess and deaconess, the highest position a laywoman can attain in the AME church.
In 2000, the AME denomination made her name an official part of its worldwide rituals. Women are consecrated as deaconess in the name of Parks and other holy women.
Recognition for Parks never ceased:
During her last public appearance on February 14 The Three Mo Tenors and a packed auditorium at the Detroit Opera House sang Happy Birthday to her. Parks, who was wheelchair-bound, did not stay for the duration of the tenors’ concert that doubled as a 90th birthday celebration for her.
Earlier that evening, at a private reception, she was inducted as an honorary member of The Links Inc., an international service group of black women.
Parks’ relatives held a family reunion that coincided with her 90th birthday celebration. She appeared briefly at a banquet at the downtown Marriott to be photographed with family members on Saturday, February 16.
Prior to that her last public appearance was at an 89th birthday celebration and premiere of a CBS made-for-TV movie, called “The Rosa Parks Story.” A bevy of celebrity well-wishers and others attended the world premiere of the movie, including Stevie Wonder who sang a jazzed-up rendition of “Happy Birthday” to her, a version similar to the one he wrote in support of making King’s birthday a national holiday.
Those in attendance at the Detroit Institute of Arts included Angela Bassett, who played Parks in the movie, and Cicely Tyson, who portrayed her mother.
Bassett said she was honored to play Parks, who she said was an incredibly courageous woman, especially given the climate in Alabama at the time of her historic 1955 action.
She also said Parks proves a single person can make a big difference and one doesn’t have to be a person with a big voice to have a big impact.
“If you have a big voice, so be it. But if you do things quietly, so be it. It can be done,” Bassett said. “I think it was a destiny for her life.”
Just months before the movie premiere, metro Detroit celebrated the 46th anniversary of the boycott at a gala reception at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, which now houses the bus on which Parks was arrested.
In 2000, Parks joined dignitaries from around the nation in celebrating the anniversary of the bus boycott with the opening of a grand library and museum named for her and built on the very site where police arrested her 45 years earlier. The museum features an interactive display about the boycott. Walking through it is like experiencing the boycott from beginning to end. The upper floor of the facility serves as a resource center for Troy State University Montgomery which built and owns it.
In 1999, Judge Keith helped organize a benefit concert at Orchestra Hall to honor Parks and raise money for the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute. Aretha Franklin sang at the concert and then-Vice President Al Gore presented her with her gold medal.
Keith has called Parks a gentle warrior for justice.
“Mother Parks is special to me personally and to the world,” he said. “She symbolizes what freedom is about and what a difference one person can make.”
When South African freedom icon Nelson Mandela came to Detroit in 1990, the person he was most honored to meet was Parks. When he got off the plane, a line of dignitaries waited to greet him. Mandela simply stood in awe when he saw Parks. “He chanted, ‘Rosa, Rosa, Rosa Parks!’.” recalled Keith, who had escorted her to the airport to meet Mandela.
“He recognized her before he recognized anyone,” Keith said.
Mandela later told Keith that Parks was his inspiration while he was jailed and her example inspired South African freedom fighters.
Mandela called Parks “the David who challenged Goliath” in a 1993 speech at the NAACP convention in Indianapolis.
The best-selling poet and writer Maya Angelou said of her, “Mrs. Parks is for me probably what the Statute of Liberty was for immigrants. She stood for the future, and the better future.”
Angelou recalled the pleasure of having Parks as a guest at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C., several years ago.
“She was as tender as a rose and she was as strong as steel.”
U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., said Parks was her role model all her adult life.
Kilpatrick recalled first meeting her in the early 1980s as a state legislator.
“I remember thinking how dare I not do all I can after seeing this little, strong woman who took a stand to make life better for me, for all of us, how dare any of us to shirk from any injustice.”
During the 1995 Free Press interview, Parks spoke of the bus boycott’s enduring legacy.
“I hope it will remind people how we struggled and what we had to go through, and that they’ll be willing to continue to work for our freedom because we still have quite a long way to go,” she said.
Task Force Quake
October 17, 2005 | Leave a Comment
They were wearing the woodland camouflage pattern BDU’s instead of the desert DCUs, but otherwise, there didn’t seem to be anything overtly different about the troops that arrived at Bagram on Sunday than any other soldier you might find in Afghanistan. Like every other soldier before them, they stepped off the C-17, shook off the stiffness of the long flight from Rota, Spain, and tried to familiarize themselves with their new surroundings. Like all their predecessors, they would face tedious welcoming briefings from the Personnel, Finance, and Base Operations, before being shown to their temporary housing. The difference is that these 17 soldiers of B Co 2/227 Avn Bn. accompanying a disassembled CH-47 Chinook helicopter are not staying in Bagram, or even Afghanistan. These troops are the vanguard of what has been dubbed Task Force Quake, an emergency response to the earthquake that has devastated large portions of Pakistan.
Now it’s been 9 days since the earthquake struck, and most of you have already seen U.S. helicopters providing humanitarian relief there. These are all helicopters that were already in Afghanistan and are now stretching their legs a bit. They are people that you may have read about here before, Task Force Griffin, Sabre, and of course the ever present Big Windy. I can’t tell you what kind of mindset it takes to put the war on hold, fly to another country over hostile terrain, and begin working relief efforts with nothing to look forward to but returning to the war. Over the next few days, more than 20 flights like the one that arrived Sunday with 20 more Chinooks and more than 80 more personnel, will drop into Bagram and one by one, the helicopters will be reassembled and test flown while their crews are familiarizing themselves with the intricacies of flying in the dusty high altitude conditions that prevail in this region. Within a week, these crews will have their Chinooks in the air and they will be on their way to Pakistan to begin relieving our guys there.
The most remarkable thing about these people is not that they left their families and homes in Texas with less than 3 days notice, but that they did it for the 3rd time in 4 months. These people are all fresh off the relief efforts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Now they get the added joy of flying through a combat zone to get to their next humanitarian effort. I never thought that I would get the better deal by going to war. At least I know when I’m going home.
Picketing Military Hospitals
October 10, 2005 | Leave a Comment
The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read “Maimed for a Lie” and “Enlist here to die for Halliburton.”
The anti-war demonstrators, who obtain their protest permits from the Washington, D.C., police department, position themselves directly in front of the main entrance to the Army Medical Center, which is located in northwest D.C., about five miles from the White House.
Among the props used by the protesters are mock caskets, lined up on the sidewalk to represent the death toll in Iraq.
Code Pink Women for Peace, one of the groups backing anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan’s vigil outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, organizes the protests at Walter Reed as well.
Some conservative supporters of the war call the protests, which have been ignored by the establishment media, “shameless” and have taken to conducting counter-demonstrations at Walter Reed. “[The anti-war protesters] should not be demonstrating at a hospital. A hospital is not a suitable location for an anti-war demonstration,” said Bill Floyd of the D.C. chapter of FreeRepublic.com, who stood across the street from the anti-war demonstrators on Aug. 19.
“I believe they are tormenting our wounded soldiers and they should just leave them alone,” Floyd added.
According to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, nearly 4,000 individuals involved in the Iraq war were treated at the facility as of March of this year, 1,050 of whom were wounded in battle.
One anti-war protester, who would only identify himself as “Luke,” told Cybercast News Service that “the price of George Bush’s foreign policy can be seen right here at Walter Reed — young men who returned from Iraq with their bodies shattered after George Bush sent them to war for a lie.”
Luke accused President Bush of “exploiting American soldiers” while “oppressing the other nations of earth.” The president “has killed far too many people,” he added.
On Aug. 19, as the anti-war protesters chanted slogans such as “George Bush kills American soldiers,” Cybercast News Service observed several wounded war veterans entering and departing the gates of Walter Reed, some with prosthetic limbs. Most of the demonstrations have been held on Friday evenings, a popular time for the family members of wounded soldiers to visit the hospital.
But the anti-war activists were unapologetic when asked whether they considered such signs as “Maimed for a Lie” offensive to wounded war veterans and their families.
“I am more offended by the fact that many were maimed for life. I am more offended by the fact that they (wounded veterans) have been kept out of the news,” said Kevin McCarron, a member of the anti-war group Veterans for Peace.
Kevin Pannell, who was recently treated at Walter Reed and had both legs amputated after an ambush grenade attack near Baghdad in 2004, considers the presence of the anti-war protesters in front of the hospital “distasteful.”
When he was a patient at the hospital, Pannell said he initially tried to ignore the anti-war activists camped out in front of Walter Reed, until witnessing something that enraged him.
“We went by there one day and I drove by and [the anti-war protesters] had a bunch of flag-draped coffins laid out on the sidewalk. That, I thought, was probably the most distasteful thing I had ever seen. Ever,” Pannell, a member of the Army’s First Cavalry Division, told Cybercast News Service.
“You know that 95 percent of the guys in the hospital bed lost guys whenever they got hurt and survivors’ guilt is the worst thing you can deal with,” Pannell said, adding that other veterans recovering from wounds at Walter Reed share his resentment for the anti-war protesters.
“We don’t like them and we don’t like the fact that they can hang their signs and stuff on the fence at Walter Reed,” he said. “[The wounded veterans] are there to recuperate. Once they get out in the real world, then they can start seeing that stuff (anti-war protests). I mean Walter Reed is a sheltered environment and it needs to stay that way.”
McCarron said he dislikes having to resort to such controversial tactics, “but this stuff can’t be hidden,” he insisted. “The real cost of this war cannot be kept from the American public.”
The anti-war protesters claim their presence at the hospital is necessary to publicize the arrivals of newly wounded soldiers from Iraq, who the protesters allege are being smuggled in at night by the Pentagon to avoid media scrutiny. The protesters also argue that the military hospital is the most appropriate place for the demonstrations and that the vigils are designed to ultimately help the wounded veterans.
“If I went to war and lost a leg and then found out from my hospital bed that I had been lied to, that the weapons I was sent to search for never existed, that the person who sent me to war had no plan but to exploit me, exploit the country I was sent to, I would be pretty angry,” Luke told Cybercast News Service.
“I would want people to do something about it and if I couldn’t get out of my bed and protest myself, I would want someone else to do it in my name,” he added.
The conservative counter-demonstrators carry signs reading “Troops out when the job’s done,” “Thank you U.S. Armed Forces” and “Shameless Pinkos go home.” Many wear the orange T-shirts reading “Club G’itmo” that are marketed by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
“[The anti-war protesters] have no business here. If they want to protest policy, they should be at the Capitol, they should be at the White House,” said Nina Burke. “The only reason for being here is to talk to [the] wounded and [anti-war protests are] just completely inappropriate.”
Albion Wilde concurred, arguing that “it’s very easy to pick on the families of the wounded. They are very vulnerable … I feel disgusted.
“[The anti-war protesters] are really showing an enormous lack of respect for just everything that America has always stood for. They lost the election and now they are really, really angry and so they are picking on the wrong people,” Wilde added.
At least one anti-war demonstrator conceded that standing out in front of a military hospital where wounded soldiers and their families are entering and exiting, might not be appropriate.
“Maybe there is a better place to have a protest. I am not sure,” said a man holding a sign reading “Stop the War,” who declined to be identified.
But Luke and the other anti-war protesters dismissed the message of the counter demonstrators. “We know most of the George Bush supporters have never spent a day in uniform, have never been closer to a battlefield than seeing it through the television screen,” Luke said.
Code Pink, the group organizing the anti-war demonstrations in front of the Walter Reed hospital, has a controversial leader and affiliations. As Cybercast News Service previously reported, Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin has expressed support for the Communist Viet Cong in Vietnam and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas.
In 2001, Benjamin was asked about anti-war protesters sympathizing with nations considered to be enemies of U.S. foreign policy, including the Viet Cong and the Sandinistas. “There’s no one who will talk about how the other side is good,” she reportedly told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Benjamin has also reportedly praised the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro. Benjamin told the San Francisco Chronicle that her visit to Cuba in the 1980s revealed to her a great country. “It seem[ed] like I died and went to heaven,” she reportedly said.
DeLay Indicted
September 28, 2005 | Leave a Comment
A Texas grand jury indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) yesterday on a charge of criminally conspiring with two political associates to inject illegal corporate contributions into 2002 state elections that helped the Republican Party reorder the congressional map in Texas and cement its control of the House in Washington.
The indictment forced DeLay, one of the Republicans’ most powerful leaders and fundraisers, to step aside under House rules barring such posts to those accused of criminal conduct. House Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the third-ranking leader, was elected by Republican House members yesterday afternoon to fill the spot temporarily after conservatives threatened a revolt against another candidate considered by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).
Although the indictment had been rumored for weeks among top Republicans, based on what several described as a difficult meeting in August between DeLay and the Texas prosecutor behind the case, it shook the GOP political establishment and posed new problems for the party as it heads into the midterm elections next year.
DeLay bitterly denounced the charge as baseless and defiantly called the prosecutor, Ronnie Earle, “an unabashed partisan zealot” engaging in “personal revenge” because DeLay helped elect a Republican majority to the Texas House in 2002. “I have the facts, the law and the truth on my side,” DeLay said, reading from a statement, before declining to answer questions.
But the indictment, which comes after three rebukes of DeLay in 2004 by the House ethics committee on unrelated matters, poses a major political problem for the 58-year-old Bush administration loyalist, 11-term congressman, and self-described champion of free enterprise and deregulation. DeLay is also likely to face an inquiry by the ethics committee into a series of foreign trips he took that were initially partly paid for by lobbyists.
The indictment specifically alleges that DeLay, who helped organize the Texas political committee at the heart of the charge, participated in a conspiracy to funnel corporate money into the 2002 state election “with the intent that a felony be committed.”
Using corporate funds for state election purposes has long been illegal in Texas, as it is in 17 other states. Earle’s probe of the contributions began after 17 Republicans who received the committee’s funds were elected, giving the party control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years. One year later, following a road map that DeLay and his political aides drafted from Washington, the Texas House approved a sweeping reorganization of the state’s congressional district map meant to favor Republicans.
Then, in 2004, five more Texas Republicans were elected to Congress, enlarging the Republican majority in the House .
The facts of one of the central transactions at issue in the case have never been in dispute — the transfer in September 2002 to an arm of the Republican National Committee in Washington of $190,000 in corporate funds collected by the committee in Texas and the subsequent donation by the RNC arm of $190,000 to seven Texas House candidates on Oct. 4, 2002.
Earle has long alleged that this transfer was intended to circumvent the Texas law. A copy of the relevant check from the Texas committee has been in his hands for more than a year, and he has repeatedly said the committee supplied the RNC with a list showing which Texas candidates should eventually be paid the funds.
Some evidence collected in a related civil case has pointed to heavy involvement by DeLay in the operations of the Texas committee. Its start-up was financed by a transfer of corporate funds from his leadership fund. He was a member of the Texas committee’s advisory board in 2001 and 2002, participated in its strategizing, appeared at its fundraisers, and signed its solicitations. He also attended dinners with corporate donors that agreed to contribute tens of thousands of dollars to it; his fundraisers recorded the favors that donors sought.
But DeLay has long denied participating in its day-to-day operations and said that its activities were vetted by lawyers. As a result, the key question in Washington and Austin has been whether DeLay knew about the $190,000 transactions — an allegation that lawyers say could be proved only by documentary evidence, such as an e-mail, or in grand jury testimony by one of those involved.
Infiltrating Camp Casey
August 29, 2005 | Leave a Comment
I quickly made friends, stressing “cocktail” conversation, not political discussion. My goal was not confrontation, but a desire to understand what was actually happening here in Crawford…and being incognito was the only way this would happen.
After bonding with several nice ladies from the central coast of California, I drove with these new buddies to the larger, tented camp where Ms. Sheehan and Company was to be found. There I found a well funded, well orchestrated public relations campaign, run by media professionals complete with the highest quality electronic equipment available. From Satellite trucks and cell phone to wireless computer access, every modern convenience to enhance the “message” was there…and being used by left wing, socialist and Marxist (self-described) media representatives and Bloggers.
The environment was collegial, and everyone had a purpose. There were rules such as no drinking, no bad behavior and the like that were ruthlessly enforced. Everyone had to be on message, and the message was the point of everything…stray from the message and you are out. Even the protesters’ signs were monitored less they distract from the message.
Most of the Sheehan protesters were either professional (paid staff of Fenton Communications or the radical organization Code Pink or the like), or were long time protesters, some admitting to beginning vigils against the government as early as 1965. I had conversations with approximately 50 of these people over 48 hours, and all seemed like interesting and engaging people. We talked sports, and cars and how wonderful California is, and just about everything that could be discussed without my divulging that I am a conservative. But when “scratched” just a little with some mild political talk, they all responded the same way…”it is Americas fault”. No matter what the issue, each and every one of them had the same default…”bad things are America’s fault”.
Toward the end of my time there, I decided to innocently toss into the conversation different issues just too illicit a response. One issue I politely deposited into our talks was of the peasant unrest in rural China, and the brutality shown to the peasants by the government and their hired thugs. There response to this problem was…”well, look how we treated the blacks in America”, or, “gays are being beaten everyday in America”.
So the cliché of the “hate America” crowd is indeed true. It is as if the protesters were intellectually bulimic, and having ingested all of the hate America bile, they looked forward to regurgitating it as a show of their steadfastness to their cause of peace and love.
Cindy Sheehan spent most of her time huddled with VIPS in and air-conditioned trailer. When she ventured out it was for a scripted and often televised moment. She was always trailed by her media people, and they were quick to keep her on point. During one conversation I had with her I tried to ask her a pointed question about how much time she would actually be on the bus tour to Washington (I had discovered she would only be on the tour for two days, and would be away giving speeches during the rest of the trip…and I wondered if she were being paid for these speeches) Her media person grabbed her arm and led her back to the trailer, and away from me. The message was protected. I was left standing there…alone, and feeling a little less secure about my status at Camp Casey.
But just a few minutes later, she emerged from the trailer, smiling, and performing for the cameras. Like the chicken at the local carnival that plays tic tac toe, she eagerly performs for any microphone. She is relentless, and professional, well financed and on message.
And the message is “All things bad are America’s fault”.
Race Hustlers and Big Radio
August 3, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Michelle Malkin makes news and waves with a unique combination of investigative journalism and incisive commentary. Michelle Malkin is not afraid to expose hypocritical environmentalists, needle pork-loving politicians or criticize the MTV generation’s morally deprived icons. Most of all, Michelle Malkin is not afraid to hold up the Immigration and Naturalization Service to the relentless scrutiny it deserves post-Sept. 11. Michelle Malkin’s ground-breaking research and reporting led to her first book, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores (Regnery 2002), in which Michelle Malkin argues “immigration must be treated as a national-security issue.” The book debuted on The New York Times’ nonfiction best-seller list at No. 14 (week of Nov. 17, 2002).
Michelle Malkin’s second book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for “Racial Profiling” in World War II and the War on Terror, was released in August 2004. Michelle Malkin is releasing her third book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, this fall.
Michelle Malkin began her career in newspaper journalism with the Los Angeles Daily News, where she worked as an editorial writer and weekly columnist from 1992-94. In 1995, Michelle Malkin was named Warren Brookes Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. In 1996, Michelle Malkin joined the editorial board of the Seattle Times, where Michelle Malkin penned editorials and weekly columns for three and a half years. Today, Michelle Malkin’s syndicated column appears in over 100 papers nationwide. Michelle Malkin’s work has been cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Reader’s Digest and U.S. News and World Report. Michelle Malkin’s freelance work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard and Reason magazine. Michelle Malkin has appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Hannity and Colmes,” “The McLaughlin Group” and “20/20,” and is currently a Fox News commentator.
Michelle Malkin’s hard-hitting — and news-breaking — commentary has been honored by several national organizations. Among the journalism awards Michelle Malkin has received:
The 1998 Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL) national award, for outstanding service for the cause of governmental ethics and leadership, for investigative columns that exposed campaign finance abuses by Washington state Democrats, Republicans and political organizations.
The 1998 Second Amendment Foundation’s James Madison Award, for excellence in journalism “promoting the individual right to keep and bear arms.”
The 1997 National Society of Newspaper Columnists writing award, for general interest columnists in newspapers with a circulation of at least 100,000 (2nd place).
The 1997 Evert Clark Science Award for journalists under the age of 30, for commentary and analysis of environmental regulations and science policy (honorable mention). Michelle Malkin, the daughter of Filipino immigrants, was born in Philadelphia and raised in southern New Jersey. Michelle Malkin has worked as a press inserter, tax preparation aide and network news librarian;Michelle Malkin is also a lapsed classical pianist. Michelle Malkin hobbies include crocheting and pier fishing with her dad.
A graduate of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, Malkin currently lives with her husband and daughter in Maryland.
U.S. Military Evicted from Uzbekistan
July 30, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Uzbekistan formally evicted the United States yesterday from a military base that has served as a hub for combat and humanitarian missions to Afghanistan since shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pentagon and State Department officials said yesterday.
In a highly unusual move, the notice of eviction from Karshi-Khanabad air base, known as K2, was delivered by a courier from the Uzbek Foreign Ministry to the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, said a senior U.S. administration official involved in Central Asia policy. The message did not give a reason. Uzbekistan will give the United States 180 days to move aircraft, personnel and equipment, U.S. officials said.
If Uzbekistan follows through, as Washington expects, the United States will face several logistical problems for its operations in Afghanistan. Scores of flights have used K2 monthly. It has been a landing base to transfer humanitarian goods that then are taken by road into northern Afghanistan, particularly to Mazar-e Sharif — with no alternative for a region difficult to reach in the winter. K2 is also a refueling base with a runway long enough for large military aircraft. The alternative is much costlier midair refueling.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld returned this week from Central Asia, where he won assurances from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that the United States can use their bases for operations in Afghanistan. U.S. forces use Tajikistan for emergency landings and occasional refueling, but it lacks good roads into Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan does not border Afghanistan.
“We always think ahead. We’ll be fine,” Rumsfeld said Sunday when asked how the United States would cope with losing the base in Uzbekistan.
In May, however, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman called access to the airfield “undeniably critical in supporting our combat operations” and humanitarian deliveries. The United States has paid $15 million to Uzbek authorities for use of the airfield since 2001, he said.
Yesterday, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita said that the U.S. military does not depend on one base in any part of the world. “We’ll be able to conduct our operations as we need to, regardless of how this turns out. It’s a diplomatic issue at the moment,” Di Rita said.
The eviction notice came four days before a senior State Department official was to arrive in Tashkent for talks with the government of President Islam Karimov. The relationship has been increasingly tense since bloody protests in the province of Andijan in May, the worst unrest since Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union.
Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns was going to pressure Tashkent to allow an international investigation into the Andijan protests, which human rights groups and three U.S. senators who met with eyewitnesses said killed about 500 people. Burns was also going to warn the government, one of the most authoritarian in the Islamic world, to open up politically — or risk the kind of upheavals witnessed recently in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, U.S. officials said.
Karimov has balked at an international probe. As U.S. pressure mounted, he cut off U.S. night flights and some cargo flights, forcing Washington to move search-and-rescue operations and some cargo flights to Bagram air base in Afghanistan and Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan. As relations soured, the Bush administration was preparing for a further cutoff, U.S. officials said.
The United States was given the notice just hours after 439 Uzbek political refugees were flown out of neighboring Kyrgyzstan — over Uzbek objections — by the United Nations. The refugees fled after the May unrest, which Uzbek officials charged was the work of terrorists. The Bush administration had been pressuring Kyrgyzstan not to force the refugees to return to Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan has been widely viewed as an important test for the Bush administration — and whether the anti-terrorism efforts or promotion of democracy takes priority. “We all knew basically that if we really wanted to keep access to the base, the way to do it was to shut up about democracy and turn a blind eye to the refugees,” said the senior official, on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive diplomacy. “We could have saved the base if we had wanted.”
After the latest setback in relations, the Bush administration is going to “wait for a cooling-off period,” the administration official said. “We are assuming they mean it and want us out. We are now not sending someone to Uzbekistan.”
The next test will be whether to withhold as much as $22 million in aid to Uzbekistan if it does not comply with provisions on political and economic reforms it committed to undertake in a 2002 strategic partnership agreement with Washington. Last year, the administration withheld almost $11 million. U.S. officials expect the Uzbek government will again be ineligible for funds.
New Americans
July 29, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Across Iraq, I keep running across American troops who are not Americans. Many of these soldiers and Marines are working towards attaining U.S. citizenship while in uniform, under fire, in Iraq.
I was privileged to witness the award ceremony for 12 new American citizens in Deuce Four recently. I hope America makes them feel welcome. If the folks at home could see what these people are doing in Iraq, they would make these special troops feel as honored guests. But now, better yet, they are honored citizens, giving life to the concept of active citizenship.
Today, I walked to noon chow with SSG William Suarez, from Puerto Rico. Suarez has a home in central Florida, and is as American as I am, except he comes complete with a very thick Puerto Rican accent. The soldiers love to have Suarez around; he has a great reputation under fire. One time, during a big fight downtown, SSG Suarez’s voice came over the radio. With his thick accent, the commander joked at first he thought the radio had been captured by the enemy. There are at least five Spanish speaking soldiers in the fire support element, and the running joke in the TOC is that Deuce Four can do all their calls for fire (artillery, aviation, etc) in Spanish, without need to encrypt the calls.
SSG Suarez and I had lunch today with SFC Kim, who I had never met before and will probably never meet again. (Kim just happened to sit next to us at the chow hall.) SFC Kim was born in Korea 53 years ago, but he looks about 35, and didn’t even join the US Army until he was 30 years-old. Kim says he’s very happy to be an American, and that some of us don’t realize how good we have it.
There’s another soldier here from Mexico, Victor Quinonez. Everyone calls him Q. At 23, Q fights like crazy; he’s earned his great combat reputation. I joke with Q that he’ll either be a top military leader, or in trouble with the law if he doesn’t listen to his leaders. And Q always tells me, “Mike, when the shit goes down and the bullets are flying, you stick with me and I’ll get you out. Never fear when the Q is here! You’ve seen me in action. You know I’ll get you out. I’m a Mexican, not a Mexican’t!”
First time I met Q, I thought he was full of something, and he was, but it wasn’t what I was thinking. One time, during a brief shootout, I kind of broke through a gate for cover in a house, and Q said, “Mike, what you hidin’ from!” I answered, “Bullets, dumbass! Get in here!” “You come out here!” Q said, “We’re gonna get these guys!” Now he’s like my young Mexican-American brother and I get worried he’ll get shot or blown up.
It’s been true since the U.S. was founded that some of the best Americans were not born in America. And we can use all the good people we can get. That’s something to remember.
Ann doesn’t like John
July 20, 2005 | Leave a Comment
After pretending to consider various women and minorities for the Supreme Court these past few weeks, President Bush decided to disappoint all the groups he had just ginned up and nominate a white male.
So all we know about him for sure is that he can’t dance and he probably doesn’t know who Jay-Z is. Other than that, he is a blank slate. Tabula rasa. Big zippo. Nada. Oh, yeah … We also know he’s argued cases before the Supreme Court. Big deal; so has Larry Flynt’s attorney.
But unfortunately, other than that that, we don’t know much about John Roberts. Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever.
Since the announcement, court-watchers have been like the old Kremlinologists from Soviet days looking for clues as to what kind of justice Roberts will be.
Will he let us vote?
Does he live in a small, rough-hewn cabin in the woods of New Hampshire and avoid “womenfolk”?
Does he trust democracy? Or will he make all the important decisions for us and call them “constitutional rights”?
It means absolutely nothing that NARAL and Planned Parenthood attack him: They also attacked Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Hackett Souter.
The only way a Supreme Court nominee could win the approval of NARAL and Planned Parenthood would be to actually perform an abortion during his confirmation hearing, live, on camera, and preferably a partial-birth one.
It means nothing that Roberts wrote briefs arguing for the repeal of Roe v. Wade when he worked for Republican administrations. He was arguing on behalf of his client, the United States of America. Roberts has specifically disassociated himself from those cases, dropping a footnote to a 1994 law review article that said:
“In the interest of full disclosure, the author would like to point out that as Deputy Solicitor General for a portion of the 1992-’93 term, he was involved in many of the cases discussed below. In the interest of even fuller disclosure, he would also like to point out that his views as a commentator on those cases do not necessarily reflect his views as an advocate for his former client, the United States.”
This would have been the legal equivalent, after O.J.’s acquittal, of Johnnie Cochran saying: “Hey, I never said the guy was innocent. I was just doing my job.”
And it makes no difference that conservatives in the White House are assuring us Roberts can be trusted. We got the exact same assurances from officials working for the last president Bush about David Hackett Souter.
I believe their exact words were, “Read our lips; Souter’s a reliable conservative.”
From the theater of the absurd category, the Republican National Committee’s “talking points” on Roberts provide this little tidbit:
“In the 1995 case of Barry v. Little, Judge Roberts argued — free of charge — before the D.C. Court of Appeals on behalf of a class of the neediest welfare recipients, challenging a termination of benefits under the District’s Public Assistance Act of 1982.”
I’m glad to hear the man has a steady work record, but how did this make it to the top of his resume?
Bill Clinton goes around bragging that he passed welfare reform, which was, admittedly, the one public policy success of his entire administration (passed by the Republican Congress). But now apparently Republicans want to pretend we’re the party of welfare queens! Soon the RNC will be boasting that Republicans want to raise your taxes and surrender in the war on terrorism, too.
Finally, let’s ponder the fact that Roberts has gone through 50 years on this planet without ever saying anything controversial. That’s just unnatural.
By contrast, I held out for three months, tops, before dropping my first rhetorical bombshell, which I think was about Goldwater.
It’s especially unnatural for someone who is smart, and there’s no question but that Roberts is smart.
If a smart and accomplished person goes this long without expressing an opinion, he’d better be pursuing the Miss America title.
Apparently, Roberts decided early on that he wanted to be on the Supreme Court and that the way to do that was not to express a personal opinion on anything to anybody ever. It’s as if he is from some space alien sleeper cell. Maybe the space aliens are trying to help us, but I wish we knew that.
If the Senate were in Democrat hands, Roberts would be perfect. But why on earth would Bush waste a nomination on a person who is a complete blank slate when we have a majority in the Senate!
We also have a majority in the House, state legislatures, state governorships, and have won five of the last seven presidential elections — seven of the last 10!
We’re the Harlem Globetrotters now — why do we have to play the Washington Generals every week?
Conservatism is sweeping the nation, we have a fully functioning alternative media, we’re ticked off and ready to avenge Robert Bork … and Bush nominates a Rorschach blot.
Even as they are losing voters, Democrats don’t hesitate to nominate reliable left-wing lunatics like Ruth Bader Ginsburg to lifetime tenure on the high court. And the vast majority of Americans loathe her views.
As I’ve said before, if a majority of Americans agreed with liberals on abortion, gay marriage, pornography, criminals’ rights and property rights — liberals wouldn’t need the Supreme Court to give them everything they want through invented “constitutional” rights invisible to everyone but People for the American Way. It’s always good to remind voters that Democrats are the party of abortion, sodomy and atheism, and nothing presents an opportunity to do so like a Supreme Court nomination.
The Democrats’ own polls showed voters are no longer fooled by claims that the Democrats are trying to block “judges who would roll back civil rights.” Borking is over.
And Bush responds by nominating a candidate who will allow Democrats to avoid fighting on their weakest ground — substance. He has given us a Supreme Court nomination that will placate no liberals and should please no conservatives.
Maybe Roberts will contravene the sordid history of “stealth nominees” and be the Scalia or Thomas that Bush promised us when he was asking for our votes. Or maybe he won’t. The Supreme Court shouldn’t be a game of Russian roulette.