bookofdays

notes from their front line

I know I said I’d blog from California, but the trip proved unexpectedly tiring: physical challenges to  my vertigo presented by hills and wobbly public transit, the usual business-trip logistics, and intermittent Internet access in the various homestays. But most of all, my brain was full to bursting with stories -- from experts like Judy Ehrlich (link to TGW) and the directors of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers’  Guild, but more important, from veterans of America’s three most recent wars.

I talked to Vietnam veterans like Paul Cox, who “turned off the war,” he says, when his unit slaughtered mamas and babies in their huts; Mike Wong, who left after advanced training rather than go to Vietnam;  and Steve Morse, a born Quaker who went back in after  his court martial for insubordination, and followed the invasion of Cambodia. I talked to Gulf War veteran Daniel Fahey, who went on to become a leading voice for those exposed to depleted uranium. I talked to Stephen Funk, the first public conscientious objector of the Iraq war, whose unusual and lefty background and sweet, fey presence make him an unusual military voice – but who still says “it’s easier to talk to people who’ve been through the training.”

And to two funding members of Iraq Veterans Against the War – one of whom’s still in the National Guard, and another who was a member of the First Marine Expeditionary Force – yes, that one.

r.i.p. - the first hero of my lai

“Didn't you take your life in your hands, Hugh, when you got out and told the American soldiers who had been killing that they'd better quit and let these people get out of the bunker,” Wallace asked Thompson, who wouldn’t answer.

“Yes sir, he did,” says Colburn. “And he didn’t even take a weapon with him. He had a side arm. He didn’t even have it drawn. He just placed himself … And I was thinking that, at that point, anything could have happened. And we watched Mr. Thompson go to the bunker and bring the people out.”

I learned at about 3 a.m. that Hugh Thompson had died: My first thought, after great sadness, was an additional sadness that I couldn't now speak to him, when giving him his honoured place in my history of dissenting soldiers.   I'll let Richard Goldstein's smart obit remind those who don't know or remember:

Hugh Thompson, an Army helicopter pilot who rescued Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre, reported the killings to his superior officers in a rage over what he had seen, testified at the inquiries and received a commendation from the Army three decades later, died yesterday in Alexandria, La. He was 62.

satyagraha in NOLA

Mahatma Gandhi and MLK would both be proud of what they've done in the Ninth Ward. Not the government - the people standing in front of bulldozers.

When I 've taught introductory composition to community college students, I often insisted on either beginning or ending with an examination of Martin Luther King's "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression." It was in the text as an example of structured argument, one that examined both acquiescence and violence before asserting

The third way open to oppressed people in their quest for freedom is the way         of nonviolent resistance. Like the synthesis in Hegelian philosophy, the principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites acquiescence and violence while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both. The nonviolent resister agrees with the person who acquiesces  that one should not be physically aggressive toward his opponent; but he balances the equation by agreeing with the person of violence that evil must be resisted. He avoids the nonresistance of the former and the         violent resistance of the latter. With nonviolent resistance, no individual or group need submit to any wrong, nor need anyone resort to violence  in order to right a wrong.      

I was then often tasked with explaining what King (and I) meant by "nonviolent resistance." Did he mean boycotts? Walking around with a sign? I sometimes, even before they hit the news, cited "peace teams" like the Christian Peacemaker Teams, who place their physical bodies between armies and civilians; much of the coverage, since four CPT workerx were taken hostage, has the same kind of incomprehension as my students expressed about King. And talking about Gandhi and satyagraha, actual resistance in this country, about civil rights workers battered by police in Montgomery, just felt like a history lesson.

If I were teaching this spring, I'd start with that essay, and I would have  this example to point to: Ninth Ward residents putting their bodies between their homes and the bulldozers.

john mccain figleafs a national emergency

Those of you who faithfully read this blog only need to know this: the Graham Amendment, the one all set to undo Rasul and kiss habeas corpus goodbye, just got worse. Forget all the press about John McCain's heroic stand on torture (where were you when Gonzales was confirmed, sir?) - in the dead of night, that gnarly little amendment says, basically, that all such declarations are moot: evidence from torture can still be used as evidence in military tribunals. Contact your Senators now, especially if (as for New Yorkers) they're on one of the relevant committees: tell them to refuse, if necessary, to sign the conference committee report.

How do we know all this? Because they love it. Thanks as always, Hilzoy, for pointing out that

According to an amended draft of the measure being circulated Thursday among the sponsors, Graham has agreed to language that loosens the restrictions on terror evidence that’s obtained through “coercive” interrogations that may occur in other countries. Whereas Graham’s previous draft had forbidden the use of such evidence—in accordance with standard rules of military justice—the new draft says that it should be barred only “to the extent practicable.” The latest bill language also now says that the “probative value” of evidence should be considered—in other words, whether the information is persuasive.

when PR falls on us like snow

Journalists say it over and over:  journalism is the opposite of public relations. We're supposed to be afflicting the comfortable, comforting the afflicted, puncturing holes in the smooth stories played out by politicians, corporations, churches. I came to journalism by way on nonprofit, good-cause PR, and try to remember that the hallmarks of good PR – super-clear stories with exact endings, data that all point the same way – and suggesting that they don't make good journalism.

But we're in an era where PR masking as journalism has defined our politics, with sometimes tragic results. So how do we interact with power, when they've learned how to do what we do?

on a magic carpet (bomb) ride

I know, it's been forever: I'm reporting simultaneously for two different pieces, one about domestic violence in New York's immigrant communities and one, called informally "The Things They Carry," about a prototypical new veteran I've been following around. And I write this about to head into a meeitng of the Veterans Advisory Board of the NY City Council.

But knowing Seymour Hersh's new piece was hitting today, I had to read it right away, and deliver some of the most disturbing bits to you. And of course, in the time I took to put this together, Jehanne was already giving a more plangent frame to it all.

Everyone who, unlike TV-resistant me,  watched Wolf Blitzer last night already knows Hersh's harshest: that when the inevitable troop withdrawals happen, they'll be replaced by an escalated air war, right on Vietnam-Not-So-Lite Schedule: The Return of Carpet Bombing.

In the battle for the city, more than seven hundred Americans were killed or wounded; U.S. officials did not release estimates of civilian dead, but press reports at the time told of women and children killed in the bombardments.

In recent months, the tempo of American bombing seems to have increased. Most of the targets appear to be in the hostile, predominantly Sunni provinces that surround Baghdad and along the Syrian border. As yet, neither Congress nor the public has engaged in a significant discussion or debate about the air war.

The insurgency operates mainly in crowded urban areas, and Air Force warplanes rely on sophisticated, laser-guided bombs to avoid civilian casualties. These bombs home in on targets that must be “painted,” or illuminated, by laser beams directed by ground units. “The pilot doesn’t identify the target as seen in the pre-brief”—the instructions provided before takeoff—a former high-level intelligence official told me. “The guy with the laser is the targeteer. Not the pilot. Often you get a ‘hot-read’ ”—from a military unit on the ground—“and you drop your bombs with no communication with the guys on the ground. You don’t want to break radio silence. The people on the ground are calling in targets that the pilots can’t verify.” He added, “And we’re going to turn this process over to the Iraqis?

one hero smears himself, while another implodes.

I'm live-blogging a lecture by Floyd Abrams at Columbia Journalism School - because I can't believe what he's saying, in the process of supposedly discussing the constitutional right to protect confidential sources.

Abrams is a giant of First Amendment law, and I'd looked forward to meeting him from the moment I was admitted to the school's class of 2005 - even though I felt he was being manipulated by an Administration operative (go google "Judith Miller" + "White House Iraq Group").

Or maybe we should all hang ourselves.

Just an update on the Graham Amendment, that assault on our constitution that I posted about some time ago. Hilary and Katherine, the two heroines of Obsidian Wings, have stayed on the job, while the rest of us wrung our hands and chirped "Call your Senators."

Specifically, they're going after Senator Graham's completely bizarre statement that "Two medical malpractice claims have come out of this…. Never in the history of the rule of law of armed conflict has an enemy combatant, POW, person who is trying to kill U.S. troops, been given the right to sue those same troops for their medical care." 

First of all, you can just hear the balls rattling off old Mr. Graham's brain: he sees fake whiplash neck braces, people holding their heads, and a darn good talking point. I can't think he really means this:

"[redacted] is from Yemen. He had an injury to his shin and the US amputated more than necessary. However, because he has refused to cooperate with his interrogators, the US military refused for two years to give him a prosthetic limb. The clinic showed him such a prosthetic several times and said that he could only have it if he talked to his interrogators.

Other prisoners who have been denied prosthetic devices unless they cooperate with the interrogators include (...) [redacted] from Saudi Arabia who was denied a prosthetic limb for more than eight months, [redacted] from Yemen who was denied a prosthetic limb for more than two and a half years, and [redacted] from Tukistan (sic) who is without a prosthetic foot to this date, after three years."

* p. 16: One detainee reports the following:

"One mental health professional actually described to Mr. Begg how he could hang himself. She said that he could take his underwear, thread a blanket or trousers through this, and use it to hang himself. Mr. Begg has since been unable to get this image out of his mind, and it haunts him constantly. For a mental health professional to say this to a patient is the height of stupidity, irresponsibility, or sadism."

Moazzam Begg is also among one of the leading plaintiffs in Rasul v. Rumsfeld ( the suit that prompted Graham's legislation.),  and had his story dramatized in last year's Broadway play, Guantanamo. What he carries inside him I cant't imagine.

I just chose a piece of this section, from an extremely complex and important series of posts. PLEASE go  check out the whole series. Please go read.  Be aware. Write and talk about this whenever you can. (And for lobbying marching orders, check here.)

I'll  be back, to talk a bit about my newest pair of projects - my little contribution to the story of the things they carry.

sometimes the flashbacks burn your retina.

Italian journalists are taking revenge for Nicola Calipari in the best way they can:  they kept working, bringing us news we don't want but  need.  About Fallujah  - news that we could have guessed if we thought we could stand it.

In a documentary to be broadcast by RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, this morning, a former American soldier who fought at Fallujah says: "I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it's known as Willy Pete.

"Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."

    -- The Independent, US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah

I had just turned ten when photos of the napalmed Kim Phuc streamed across the AP wire.  I was probably still wearing that  Nixon button I got from my father; you can likely count me as one of the millions driven by that image to ask more questions about the war in Vietnam.

As much as they twist my stomach, I hope these images get out even more broadly.  Though I wonder - are people so saturated with fictional violent imagery that they won't have the same impact as 30 years ago?

(Via Hunter at kos.)

buh-bye, habeas corpus?

Oh. My. God.

Here we are, with the Supreme Court finally accepting Hamdan for review, with the McCain/Leahy amendment on torture finally getting some traction, and now this.

The Senate just voted to block access to federal courts for anyone the Pentagon chooses:

"(1) In General: Section 2241 of Title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

"(e) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to consider -

(1) An application for a writ of habeas corpus based on policies established by the Secretary of Defense under Section 1071 (a) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 filed by an alien who is detained by the Secretary of Defense, or

(2) any other action, challenging any aspect of the detention of an alien who is detained by the Secretary of Defense as an enemy combatant."

(2) Effective Date: The amendment made by paragraph 1 shall apply to any application or other action pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act."

I spent my morning writing about habeas corpus in an entirely different context. I don't think this would be constitutional if attempted, but please go here, and do what they say.  As the Times notes, Sen. Jeff Bingaman is pulling together some allies to block this poison from entering the already-polluted national bloodstream.  (Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings, who alerted many of us to it, has some observations here about the minimal appeals rights left in by the amendment.)

I missed this on Wednesday, when Hilzoy  first wrote about it,  because I was busy most of the day talking about domestic violence in immigrant families.

At one point Anindita, of the Urban Justice Center, told me a reason many may not call the cops: "These are women [from countries like Pakistan and the Congo] who have grown up terrified of the uniform." If the free pass for SecDef above stands, all of us may feel a little like that.

Hilzoy quotes the decision that prompted this, which is entirely appropriate; I chose a section less directly applicable, but one that reminds us all why This. Can. Not. Stand.

“Executive imprisonment has been considered oppres-sive and lawless since John, at Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. The judges of England de-veloped the writ of habeas corpus largely to preserve these immunities from executive restraint.” ''

As it turns out, Justice Stevens was actually quoting the great Justice Black, from fifty years earlier.  And here, from that same opinion, is something that speaks to the issue much more powerfully.

The Founders abhorred arbitrary one-man imprisonments. Their belief was - our constitutional principles are - that no person of any faith, rich or poor, high or low, native or foreigner, white or colored, can have his life, liberty or property taken "without due process of law." This means to me that neither the federal police not federal prosecutors nor any other governmental official, whatever his title, can put or keep people in prison without accountability to courts of justice. It means that individual liberty is too highly prized in this country to allow executive officials to imprison and hold people on the basis of information kept secret from courts.

Let's hope that both Roberts and Scalito meant it when they talked about respect for precedent. And that enough Senators (see the link) show some backbone here,  perhaps  building on what they showed last week in the "Rule 21" dance.