The Supreme Court accepted its first abortion case in five years on Monday, an unexpected development that despite the rather technical questions that the case presents is likely to add even more heat to the already superheated atmosphere surrounding the court and its immediate future.
The new case is an appeal by the State of New Hampshire of a federal appeals court ruling that struck down a parental-notification requirement for minors seeking abortions.
[. . .]
The court's answers could be important for its consideration of future abortion cases, including ones challenging the recent federal law that prohibits the procedure that abortion opponents call partial-birth abortion. That law has been declared unconstitutional in federal district courts around the country, and appeals by the Bush administration are now pending in three federal appeals courts.
[. . .]
One question facing the court in the current case is whether parental-notice laws, or by extension, any abortion regulations, must explicitly provide exceptions for those women whose continued pregnancy is a threat to their health. Beginning with Roe v. Wade in 1973, and including the court's most recent decision, which invalidated Nebraska's partial-birth abortion law in 2000, the court has held that the government may not constitutionally ban an abortion necessary to preserve a pregnant woman's health.

The above is from Linda Greenhouse's "Supreme Court to Tackle Abortion Again After 5 Years" in this morning's New York Times.

Ed steers us to Albert Salvato's "Soldier Says Killing of Iraqi Was Self-Defense:"

An American soldier accused of murdering an Iraqi police officer while they were on patrol together in 2003 and then concocting a story about being shot during a gun battle said on Monday that he had made "a split-second decision" to open fire in self-defense.
[. . .]
Army prosecutors contended that Corporal Berg lied about the shootings and altered his story several times before admitting that he killed Mr. Zubeidi and shot himself.
"The accused lied about the incident repeatedly," Capt. Dan Stigall, the prosecutor in the case, told the hearing officer, Maj. Samuel Butzbach. Captain Stigall's accusations came during a continuation of an Article 32 hearing, a military proceeding similar to a grand jury review. Major Butzbach will recommend whether Corporal Berg should face a court-martial on charges of murder and lying to investigators.

Eli e-mails to highlight Louis Uchitelle's "The New Profile of the Long-Term Unemployed:"

The experiences of Mr. Gruenhut and Ms. Ellenwood help to explain why many of the nation's unemployed are still struggling to get back to work. Not since World War II has long-term joblessness - the percentage of the unemployed out of work for six months or more - been so high for so long after a recession has ended.
The current trouble falls most heavily on people trapped by the shifting sands of the economy. Today, the unemployment rate is relatively low at 5.2 percent and overall hiring has started to pick up again, particularly for younger workers coming out of college and professional schools. But the presence of middle-aged women and better educated white-collar workers among the long-term unemployed has increased.
"There are just not new jobs being created in the things these people did before," said Andrew Stettner, a policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project and co-author of a study of long-term unemployment. "We are firing fewer people than we did in 2001 and 2002, but we are not hiring many people either, and that cuts off the exit route out of unemployment."

Brendon e-mails to note Laurie Goodstein's "Inquiry Into Dismissal of an Air Force Chaplain:"

An Air Force spokeswoman said Monday that the service had asked the inspector general to investigate the case of the chaplain, Capt. MeLinda Morton, who went public this month with her criticisms of the religious climate at the academy.
The announcement came on the day a task force was to finish a preliminary report on an inquiry into complaints that some officers permitted harassment and inappropriate proselytizing at the academy. The report will not be released for several weeks, Jennifer Stephens, an Air Force spokeswoman, said.


Margot e-mails regarding Douglas Jehl and Thom Shanker's "Syria Ending Cooperation With U.S., Envoy Says:"

Syria has halted military and intelligence cooperation with the United States, its ambassador to Washington said in an interview, in a sign of growing strains between the two nations over the insurgency in Iraq.
The ambassador, Imad Moustapha, said in the interview on Friday at the Syrian Embassy here that his country had, in the last 10 days, "severed all links" with the United States military and Central Intelligence Agency because of what he called unjust American allegations. The Bush administration has complained bitterly that Syria is not doing enough to halt the flow of men and money to the insurgency in Iraq.
Mr. Moustapha said he believed that the Bush administration had decided "to escalate the situation with Syria" despite steps the Syrians have taken against the insurgents in Iraq, and despite the withdrawal in recent weeks of Syrian troops from Lebanon, in response to international demands.

Noting that Douglas Jehl was absent "on Fluffy Saturday" and that the interview for this story took place on Friday, Margot wonders if the paper has been sitting on this article and, if so, why?

Scott Shane was also absent from Saturday's paper. He has a paragraph in "National Briefing:"

EX-FEDERAL EMPLOYEE INDICTED ON DOCUMENTS CHARGE
A former National Security Agency employee was indicted in Maryland for possession of classified documents. The federal indictment said the employee, Kenneth Wayne Ford Jr. of Waldorf, Md., left the agency in late 2003 and was arrested on Jan. 12, 2004, for illegally possessing secret information "relating to the national defense." The indictment said that Mr. Ford, 34, had reason to believe the classified material "could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of any foreign nation," but it did not accuse him of trying to sell or pass on the documents. He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison if convicted. A spokesman for the agency said he could not discuss the case. Mr. Ford declined to comment.

Lastly, we'll note David Johnston's "Ex-Analyst Is Expected to Face New Charges:"

A former Pentagon analyst, already accused of illegally disclosing military secrets, will be charged as early as Tuesday with illegally keeping classified documents at his home in West Virginia, his lawyer said on Monday.
The former analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, 58, will be charged in a criminal complaint to be brought in a federal court in West Virginia, said his lawyer, Plato Cacheris. Mr. Franklin was arrested May 4 on a criminal complaint filed in Alexandria, Va., accused of illegally disclosing classified information related to potential attacks on American forces in Iraq.

For those wanting commentary on the latest regarding the filibuster, skip the Times and head over to A Winding Road for Folding Star's "You say Compromise, I Say Sell Out:"

So, I was mid way through a post about the impending filibuster confrontation in the Senate when word comes through on CSPAN (in a little New Flash announcement at the bottom of the screen) that a 'compromise' has been reached.
Out goes that post, immediately rendered outdated.
The 'centrists' in both parties, according to the news reports, have reached a compromise whereby the Republicans won't take away the Democrats right to filibuster and the Democrats will only use the filibuster on 'extreme' nominees.
Excuse the hell out of me, but that's what they were doing already!

Also check out Bill Scher's comments at Liberal Oasis:

Now, thanks to the added pressure, enough Dems capitulated for a few more radical right-wing judges to get lifetime appointments (exactly how many is a little unclear at this writing).
So the corporate cons get more lobbyist-drafted legislation and a few more judges to boot.
Some deal.

Scher went into this last night on The Majority Report. (Link takes you to the Air America Place archived broadcast of that episode.)

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

The American soldier and the Iraqi police officer were on patrol together outside a flea market south of Baghdad, chatting from time to time, when one of them suddenly started shooting.
What prompted the gunfire is a matter of dispute, but one thing is not: The soldier, Cpl. Dustin M. Berg, fired three times at his Iraqi partner, Hussein Kamel Hadi Dawood al-Zubeidi, and killed him. As Corporal Berg ran away, he picked up Mr. Zubeidi's AK-47 and shot himself in the side.
In the days that followed, Corporal Berg lied about what happened, saying Mr. Zubeidi was the one who had shot him. And for months he went right on lying, after he recovered from his wound, after he left Iraq, even after he received a Purple Heart he did not deserve with his parents watching at a solemn ceremony back home in Indiana.
Corporal Berg has long acknowledged that he killed Mr. Zubeidi in a rush of moments that day in November 2003, but says he did so only after the officer abruptly raised his gun in a threatening way. Everything Corporal Berg now admits doing wrong after that - shooting himself and lying about the events - grew out of fear for what would happen to him, he says, and the knowledge that other soldiers in his unit had already been investigated for incidents in Iraq.

The above is the opening of Monica Davey's "An Iraqi Police Officer's Death, a Soldier's Varying Accounts" from this morning's New York Times.

Francisco e-mails about the littlest Judy Miller, Juan Forero and his article this morning. He wonders whether, after spinning like crazy re: the Venezuela coup and the US involvement for years, had turned a leaf.

I wondered the same. Then I read "Bolivia Epitomizes Fight for Natural Resources" closely.

We won't belabor everything wrong with the article, as it is I'm having flashbacks of being stuck in a poli sci study group with a right-winger who played fast and loose with the truth and you had to call him on everything to get him to stop. We will note one paragraph:

Such words could not be more troubling to Juan Carlos Iturri, an economist who said that many protesters are driven by slogans and do not take into account Bolivia's economic realities.

Juan Carlos Iturri is "an economist?" Economist? That's how we're going to bill him?
No, I don't think so. Why the Times lets Juan Forero play so loosely with the truth is beyond me. Juan Carlos Iturri? Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't he "the Coordinator of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States?" Interesting the way he's down-graded. But then the Times hasn't been overly concerned with the top of intellectual property rights in other countries.

Let's go to Marc Lacey (whom Krista e-mailed on) and his "U.N. Forces Using Tougher Tactics to Secure Peace:"

The United Nations, burdened by its inability to stave off the mass killings in Rwanda in 1994 and by failed missions in Bosnia and Somalia, is allowing its peacekeepers to mount some of the most aggressive operations in its history.
The change has been evolving over the last decade, as the Security Council has adopted the notion of "robust peacekeeping" and rejected the idea that the mere presence of blue-helmeted soldiers on the ground helps quell combat.
It is most obvious in Congo, which commands by far the largest deployment of United Nations troops in the world. Peacekeepers in armored personnel carriers, facing enemy sniper attacks as they lumber through rugged dirt paths in the eastern Ituri region, are returning fire. Attack helicopters swoop down over the trees in search of tribal fighters. And peacekeepers are surrounding villages in militia strongholds and searching hut by hut for guns.

Brad e-mails to note C.J. Chivers' "Survivors and Toe Tags Offer Clues to Uzbek's Uprising:"

Since May 13, when Uzbek troops used fusillades of gunfire to put down a prison break and demonstration in the eastern city of Andijon, President Islam A. Karimov of Uzbekistan has insisted the troops were fighting Islamic militants, and any civilians struck were felled either by accident or the militants' guns.
But lengthy interviews with more than 30 survivors who fled to Kyrgyzstan, combined with accounts collected by opposition workers and human rights groups, consistently indicate that what happened was not as the official version would have it.
Rather, it appears that a poorly conceived armed revolt to Mr. Karimov's centralized government set off a local popular uprising that ended in horror when the Uzbek authorities suppressed a mixed crowd of escaped prison inmates and demonstrators with machine-gun and rifle fire.

Cedric e-mails to note Kate Zernike and Anne E. Kornblut's "Link to Lobbyist Brings Scrutiny to G.O.P. Figure:"


In Republican Washington, Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist worked all the angles.
One was a $750-an-hour lobbyist, the other an antitax activist, and they helped drive the Republican takeover of the capital and cement the party's power. Both had a close ally in the House majority leader, Tom DeLay. And they shared a conservative ideology and a friendship going back to their days in college.
Now, with widening Congressional and criminal inquiries in the capital into Mr. Abramoff's dealings, they are sharing trouble, too.
While Mr. Abramoff has been under scrutiny for more than a year, Mr. Norquist has attracted unwelcome attention in recent weeks. A Congressional committee investigating whether Mr. Abramoff defrauded Indian tribes has subpoenaed records from Mr. Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform, after he refused for six months to turn them over voluntarily.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

THE mother of a British peace activist shot dead in the Gaza Strip accused Israel's Government of a cover-up as the trial of the marksman who allegedly killed him ended yesterday.
Jocelyn Hurndall said she had little confidence that her family would achieve real justice, and that they were likely to issue civil proceedings against the Israeli Government.
Tom Hurndall, 22, a photojournalism student from Tufnell Park, North London, died from a single shot to the head as he was moving Palestinian children to safety in Rafah, Gaza, in April 2003.
Mrs Hurndall, who walked out of an earlier hearing when the defence blamed his death on British doctors’ negligence, accused the Israeli military of pushing all the blame on to one "trigger-happy" soldier.
Sergeant Wahid Taysir, 21, an award-winning marksman in the desert patrol (Beduin) battalion, denies six charges of manslaughter, obstructing justice and conduct unbecoming a soldier. Initially he claimed Mr Hurndall was wearing a camouflage jacket and holding a gun, the court was told. He later changed his story to say that he fired a warning shot four inches left of Mr Hurndall’s ear "but he moved his head".

The above was sent in by Kara and it's from The Sunday Times of London -- Stephen Farrell's "Shot activist's mother says trial of sniper is a cover-up."

Same topic, from The Guardian, we'll note Chris McGreal's "Mother of shot activist accuses Israeli army of cover-up:"

As the trial ended, Mrs Hurndall accused senior army officers of creating a "trigger happy" climate and said the deaths of innocent people were covered up.
"The soldier might be convicted but the trial is not concerned with the wider justice to do with the chain of command and the culture of lies," said Mrs Hurndall outside the Kastina military court. The soldier has said himself that he has been used as a scapegoat ... I'm sure that's what happened."
Mrs Hurndall said there had only been a more thorough investigation because of her family's own efforts and pressure from the British government.
Israel also refused to cooperate with a British coroner's inquiry and barred Mr Hurndall's brother, Billy, from travelling to Israel to investigate the shooting.
"From the start it was a tremendous shock that we were not dealing with authorities who were adamant about getting to the truth," she said.
"You can only conclude that the command colluded in the soldier's original lies, and colluded in it for weeks until they couldn't sustain it any more."

Same topic, the UK's Telegraph, Tim Butcher's "Shot student's mother claims cover-up:"

The original military report claimed that her son was in camouflage clothes and brandishing a weapon. It was only after the family interviewed civilian witnesses at the Gaza refugee camp where the shooting occurred that the army accepted another version of events.
The witnesses said Mr Hurndall was wearing a bright orange jacket and helping children to escape tanks.
Mr Hurndall died in a London hospital after spending nine months in a coma.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

As with the siege of Fallujah six months back, U.S. claims over the siege of the Iraqi town Al Qa'im are being challenged now by independent sources. The U.S. military claims a "successful" end to the weeklong operation earlier this month around Al-Qa'im, a town about 320km west of Baghdad close to the Syrian border.
The operation was launched against what the U.S. military saw as the presence of Al-Qaeda fighters in the town. Iraqi civilians and doctors in the area say no foreign fighters were present in the town. Al Qa'im and surrounding areas have suffered great destruction, and many in the town population of 110,000 were killed, they say.
Abu Ahmed, a resident of Al-Qa'im, told IPS on telephone that "all the fighters here are Iraqis from this area."
He said continuing violations by U.S. soldiers had provoked people into confronting the occupying forces. He said troops had been raiding homes, sending women into the streets without their hijabs and entering areas where women sleep.
"The fighters are just local people who refuse to be treated like dogs," he said. "Nobody wants the Americans here." Abd al-Khaliq al-Rawi, head of communications for the local government in Al-Qa'im said on Al-Jazeera television that the fighters were all local Iraqis. "We have not seen any outsiders. The fighters are from the area. They are resisting the occupation."

The above IPS story is Dahr Jamail's "U.S. Claims Over Siege Challenged."


From an AFP report on Australia's ABC entitled "Iraqi, US forces put squeeze on Baghdad" sent in by Pru:

It is one of the largest post-war military operations in the capital to date.
Battalions generally comprise 300 to 400 troops.
The ongoing operation is focused on the Abu Ghraib neighbourhood in the
capital, from which many of the deadly attacks carried out daily on the perilous
airport road are thought to originate.

Cynthia e-mails (from the BBC) "Top Iraq trade official shot dead:"

A senior Iraqi trade ministry official has been shot dead in Baghdad, the latest in a series of assassinations of government figures, police have said.
Ali Moussa, director-general of the ministry, was killed with his driver as they drove to work on Sunday.
The gunmen have not been identified but attacks blamed on Sunni insurgents have increased since the swearing-in of the country's Shia-dominated government.

From China's Xinhua, Eddie e-mails "2 bomb attacks target US military convoys in Baghdad:"

Two car bomb attacks targeted two US military convoys in north of Baghdad on Sunday, police said.
"A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden vehicle into a US military convoy parking at Qadesiyah police station in Tikrit, destroying a US Humvee and wounding two policemen," police Col.Ahmed Hassan told Xinhua.

From the BBC, "Attacks 'delay' Iraq rebuilding:"

More than two years since the war, Iraqis still suffer from daily power cuts, and - in some areas - from contamination of drinking water by sewage.
In 2004, a year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, some 22,000 households were questioned by the UN about their lives.
The survey found that only just over a third of households were connected to a sewage network - and that almost a quarter of young children were chronically malnourished.
The report says that while the infrastructure exists to allow access to basic supplies - like electricity and clean running water - it is not reliable.

Where are those Operation Happy Talkers? Hmm? Guess they're going to start bragging about a few schools getting ceiling fans again? (And weren't they supposed to get air conditioning? Wasn't that what US taxpayer monies were supposed to be purchasing?)

In other reality based news, from The Guardian, note Michael Howard's "US military to build four giant new bases in Iraq:"

US military commanders are planning to pull back their troops from Iraq's towns and cities and redeploy them in four giant bases in a strategy they say is a prelude to eventual withdrawal.
The plan, details of which emerged at the weekend, also foresees a transfer to Iraqi command of more than 100 bases that have been occupied by US-led multinational forces since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
However, the decision to in vest in the bases, which will require the construction of more permanent structures such as blast-proof barracks and offices, is seen by some as a sign that the US expects to keep a permanent presence in Iraq.
Politicians opposed to a long-term US presence on Iraqi soil questioned the plan.
"They appear to settling in a for the long run, and that will only give fuel for the terrorists," said a spokesman for the mainstream Sunni Iraqi Islamic party.

Trevor e-mails to request that we highlight this article by Robert Fisk from May 8th. It's an analysis, so no problem. From Robert Fisk.com, "America's shame, two years on from 'Mission Accomplished:'"

Two years after "Mission Accomplished", whatever moral stature the United States could claim at the end of its invasion of Iraq has long ago been squandered in the torture and abuse and deaths at Abu Ghraib. That the symbol of Saddam Hussein’s brutality should have been turned by his own enemies into the symbol of their own brutality is a singularly ironic epitaph for the whole Iraq adventure. We have all been contaminated by the cruelty of the interrogators and the guards and prison commanders.
But this is not only about Abu Ghraib. There are clear and proven connections now between the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the cruelty at the Americans’ Bagram prison in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Curiously, General Janis Karpinski, the only senior US officer facing charges over Abu Ghraib, admitted to me a year earlier when I visited the prison that she had been at Guantanamo Bay, but that at Abu Ghraib she was not permitted to attend interrogations - which seems very odd.
A vast quantity of evidence has now been built up on the system which the Americans have created for mistreating and torturing prisoners. I have interviewed a Palestinian who gave me compelling evidence of anal rape with wooden poles at Bagram - by Americans, not by Afghans.
Many of the stories now coming out of Guantanamo - the sexual humiliation of Muslim prisoners, their shackling to seats in which they defecate and urinate, the use of pornography to make Muslim prisoners feel impure, the female interrogators who wear little clothing (or, in one case, pretended to smear menstrual blood on a prisoner’s face) - are increasingly proved true. Iraqis whom I have questioned at great length over many hours, speak with candour of terrifying beatings from military and civilian interrogators, not just in Abu Ghraib but in US bases elsewhere in Iraq.
At the American camp outside Fallujah, prisoners are beaten with full plastic water bottles which break, cutting the skin. At Abu Ghraib, prison dogs have been used to frighten and to bite prisoners.

(Note, there isn't an individual url for this article. Go to the site and it's currently the first article listed on the right hand sidebar.)

Lastly, for a collection of editorial reactions from around the world on the Saddam photos, see The Guardian's "Another in a long line of abuses."

The e-mail for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

From I.E. Breaking News, two theaters in India have had bombs go off in them, reportedly while "both theaters were showing a controversial Hindi-language film that has been condemned by Sikh religious leaders for denigrating their faith. Police declined to comment on whether any Sikh group was suspected of involvement in the blasts. " At least 20 people are injured and at least one is dead. "The film, titled Jo Bole So Nihal, was released more than a week ago, but it was pulled from most cinemas shortly afterwards in northern India after Sikh groups demanded a ban on it." (That's a summary of four reports at I.E. Breaking News. Click on links to learn more.)

From Australia's ABC (AFP report), "Kyrgyzstan turns back fleeing Uzbeks:"

"From May 13 to 22, following the disorder in Andijan, Kyrgyz border guards have returned to the Uzbek authorities 84 Uzbek citizens who illegally crossed the border," the border guards department said.

Also from Australia's ABC, Pru e-mails Reuters' "UK Govt to go halves with first-home buyers:"

Up to 100,000 people will be given help buying their own home under plans to be announced later this week, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown says.
Under a shared-ownership scheme announced in Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party manifesto before the May 5 election, couples currently unable to afford a home would be able to share the cost with the Government and a mortgage lender.

Seth notes that "The charm offensive isn't working" and sends "Laura Bush Jeered in Jerusalem" from Aljazeera:

Protesters heckled Laura Bush during her visit to religious sites in Jerusalem, part of a Mideast tour meant to defuse growing anti-American sentiment in the region.
As she approached the Dome of the Rock in the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) on Sunday, Muslim worshippers shouted, "How dare you come in here, and why are you hassling Muslims?" As she entered the Noble Sanctuary, one man said, "None of you belongs in here."
Israeli police formed a human chain around Bush, pressing together to push away protesters.

From The Independent, Gareth e-mails, same topic, Eric Silver's "Arab and Jewish hecklers target Laura Bush on visit:"


Laura Bush, America's first lady, was treated to a lesson in the strident realities of Middle Eastern street politics, as both Arab and Jewish protestors heckled her during a visit to Jerusalem's holiest sites.
The White House had hoped a visit by Mrs Bush, whose political stock has never been higher in Washington, would help assuage anti-American sentiment in the region, but the locals are not soothed that easily.
As she was touring Al Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine, and the neighbouring Dome of the Rock, two members of the radical Islamic Liberation Party shouted: "You are not welcome here. How dare you come here? You kill Muslims." Israeli police closed ranks around her, keeping them at bay and forcing back a gang of Palestinian youths trying to reach Mrs Bush, who had been welcomed to the site by Adnan Husseini, its Muslim custodian.


Brenda e-mails Noor Khan's "Six workers on US scheme assassinated" (from Scotland's The Herald):

GUNMEN ambushed and killed six Afghans yesterday on a highway in the country's troubled south in the second fatal attack in two days on employees of a US-funded anti-drug project, officials said.
The company managing the project has said it is withdrawing employees from southern Afghanistan, the US State Department said.
The victims were transporting the body of one of five people killed in the earlier assault to the capital, Kabul, when militants stopped their vehicle and shot everyone in the head, said a doctor in Qalat town, where the bodies were taken.

In other Afghanistan news, from Scotland's The Sunday Herald, Robert Birsel's "Karzai to call for return of prisoners:"

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for all Afghan prisoners, and control over US military operations, to be passed to his government following a US Army report on abuse of detainees in Afghanistan.
The abuse described in the report, including details of the deaths of two inmates at the US base at Bagram, north of Kabul, happened in 2002 and emerged from a nearly 2000-page file of US Army investigators, the New York Times reported on Friday.
"It has shocked me and we condemn it," Karzai told a news conference. "We want the US government to take very, very strong action, to take away people like that."
Karzai, a staunch ally in the US-led war against terrorism, is due to leave on a trip to America later today. He will meet President George W Bush for talks this week.


On the same topic, Gareth e-mails (from The Independent) Rupert Cowell's "UN joins Karzai in calling for Bagram abuse inquiry:"


On the eve of a tense US-Afghan summit, the United Nations condemned as "utterly unacceptable" the alleged abuse prisoners at the main American base in Afghanistan.
The UN joined Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, in demanding that the Pentagon agree to an independent investigation of conditions at Bagram airbase by local human rights investigators.
In a harshly worded statement, Jean Arnault, the special UN representative in Kabul, insisted those responsible for such "inexcusable crimes" must be punished.
Mr Karzai, who meets President George Bush at the White House today, said in a US television interview that he would demand custody of all detainees in his country, as well as control of US military operations.

Rory e-mails, from The Scotsman, Brian Brady's "Secret UK troops plan for Afghan crisis:"


DEFENCE chiefs are planning to rush thousands of British troops to Afghanistan in a bid to stop the country sliding towards civil war, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.
Ministers have been warned they face a "complete strategic failure" of the effort to rebuild Afghanistan and that 5,500 extra troops will be needed within months if the situation continues to deteriorate.
An explosive cocktail of feuding tribal warlords, insurgents, the remnants of the Taliban, and under-performing Afghan institutions has left the fledgling democracy on the verge of disintegration, according to analysts and senior officers.
The looming crisis in Afghanistan is a serious setback for the US-led 'War on Terror' and its bid to promote western democratic values around the world.
Defence analysts say UK forces are already so over-stretched that any operation to restore order in Afghanistan can only succeed if substantial numbers of troops are redeployed from Iraq, itself in the grip of insurgency.

At Aljazeera, we'll note that they have an interview with former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murrary. Here's the introduction pargraphs and first question and answer from Roshan Muhammed Salih's "The West should wash its hands of Karimov:"

The killing of hundreds of protesters in Uzbekistan by government troops has focused the world's attention on the strategic Central Asian nation.
The violence began on Friday after a pro-democracy protest and a jailbreak involving men accused of "Islamic extremism" in the eastern city of Andijan.
Since then, President Islam Karimov's government and its human rights record have come under the spotlight, and the possibility that he will be the second Central Asian leader to be toppled this year has been raised.
The US, which has a military base in the country, and Russia argue that Karimov is a stabilising force, a bastion against the spread of Islamic extremism, and a valuable ally in the war on terror.
But Craig Murray, who was sacked in October 2004 as UK ambassador to Uzbekistan after he spoke out against rights abuses, says the Uzbek government is beyond the pale and the West should wash its hands of it.
In an interview with Aljazeera.net, London-based Murray predicts that Islam Karimov will maintain his position; but says Uzbekistan will continue to suffer internal violence as long as he is in charge.
Aljazeera.net: The Uzbek government has closed down the towns of Andijan and Korasuv amid reports of popular uprisings. What do you think is happening?
Craig Murray: The regime will be cracking down now as harshly as possible. They will probably just be arresting and shooting people. This is a hideous and ruthless regime, and the fact that they are closing down towns and not letting journalists in is an ominous sign.

From Scotland's Sunday Herald, Lori e-mails Trevor Royle's "Karimov escapes regime change as America pursues the 'great game'" which is also on Uzbekistan:

A GLANCE at the map confirms the strategic importance of Uzbekistan, not just in regional terms but also as it is viewed from Washington.
To the south and southwest are Afghanistan and Iran, a fact which inspired President Islam Karimov to push himself into contention as a useful ally in President Bush’s war on terror.
The US operates an air base with 1000 ground troops at Khanabad outside the Uzbek capital Tashkent. The former Soviet facility is used for operations in Afghanistan, and to date the US has supplied the country with some $800 million in military and humanitarian aid.
More to the point, Uzbekistan has a key role to play in supporting Washington’s wider interests. Khanabad is part of the ring of air force bases, or "lily pads" as defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls them, which are used to project US authority over the surrounding countries and keep a close watch on the oil and gas supply lines running through the Caucasus and old Soviet central Asian republics.
The most important of these is the Baku to Ceyhan pipeline, which runs from Azerbaijan through Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia on to the Black Sea port of Ceyhan.
Small wonder then that the Bush administration has been so loath to criticise Karimov, apart from conceding that the US will be limiting operations from Khanabad during the present period of local unrest.
To re-use a well-worn US diplomatic cliché: Karimov may be a son-of-a-bitch, but at least he is our son-of-a-bitch.
As Craig Murray, formerly Britain’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, put it last week: "That strategic interest explains the recent signature of the US-Afghan strategic partnership agreement, as well as Bush's strong support for Karimov."

From The Economist, Alberto e-mails "The economy booms, the trees vanish:"

IF IT were simply a matter of passing strong laws to protect it, the Amazon rainforest--the world's largest tropical forest, around the size of western Europe--would be safe. Brazil, whose territory includes about two-thirds of the forest, has impressively tough laws that, on paper, set most of it aside as a nature reserve and impose stiff penalties for illegal logging. But the latest annual figures for deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, published by the government on Wednesday May 18th, have confirmed a disturbing recent trend: the destruction is accelerating despite all efforts to curb it. In the year to August 2004, more than 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 square miles) of forest were chopped down, an area larger than the American state of New Jersey.
The area deforested in the past year was up 6% on 2003, far worse than the Brazilian government's predictions that it would rise by no more than about 2%. It was the second worst year for the destruction of the rainforest since satellite surveys began (see chart). It is reckoned that almost a fifth of the Brazilian part of the forest has now been wiped out; if it were to continue at this rate, it would all be flattened within the next two centuries. Things are hardly any better in those portions of Amazonia that lie in neighbouring countries: Ecuador has lost about half of its forest, mainly due to illegal logging, in the past 30 years. Worse, tropical forests have been disappearing at an even faster rate elsewhere in the world, such as in Africa. The world’s greatest stores of biodiversity--and some of its main suppliers of the oxygen we breathe--are still being chewed up at an alarming rate, despite decades of talk among world leaders and environmentalists about the need to preserve them.

Lewis e-mails to note Geoffrey Lean's "Revealed: health fears over secret study into GM food"
from The Independent:


Rats fed on a diet rich in genetically modified corn developed abnormalities to internal organs and changes to their blood, raising fears that human health could be affected by eating GM food.
The Independent on Sunday can today reveal details of secret research carried out by Monsanto, the GM food giant, which shows that rats fed the modified corn had smaller kidneys and variations in the composition of their blood.
According to the confidential 1,139-page report, these health problems were absent from another batch of rodents fed non-GM food as part of the research project.
The disclosures come as European countries, including Britain, prepare to vote on whether the GM-modified corn should go on sale to the public. A vote last week by the European Union failed to secure agreement over whether the product should be sold here, after Britain and nine other countries voted in favour.
However, the disclosure of the health effects on the Monsanto rats has intensified the row over whether the corn is safe to eat without further research. Doctors said the changes in the blood of the rodents could indicate that the rat's immune system had been damaged or that a disorder such as a tumour had grown and the system was mobilising to fight it.

From The Independent, we'll also note Ben Russell's "PM has 'lost the authority to persuade voters:'"

Tony Blair has lost the authority to persuade voters to back the European constitution, according to a large-scale study of public opinion.
Labour supporters are less likely to back the constitution if they are told the Prime Minister is endorsing the treaty, according to the research by academics responsible for a study of attitudes in the run-up to the general election.
Pro-Europeans said they feared that the referendum could turn into a vote of confidence in Mr Blair.
The team from Essex University released the findings from the British Election Study, which has charted the public mood in every general election since 1964. They found that 41 per cent of Labour supporters from a sample of voters would back the EU constitution when asked a neutral question about the treaty.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

The littlest Judy Miller, Juan Forero, may be hopping mad right about now ("the funk soul brother"*). What could have Forero upset? Joel Brinkley's "U.S. Proposal in the O.A.S. Draws Fire as an Attack on Venezuela."

Francisco noted that article in an e-mail and wondered did a section contradict earlier reporting by Forero? Francisco had tried to google an earlier entry we did here but couldn't track it down. (My apologies for not having a search engine for this site.) It took a bit, but I found it.

Before we go there, let's note Brinkley's article and the part that contradicts Forero:

The relationship between the United States and Mr. Chávez, which was already tense, deteriorated in 2002, after the United States tacitly backed a coup that briefly toppled him. The animosity has deepened since then, which is one reason many Latin American envoys remain skeptical of the reasoning Washington offers for its proposal.

Now let's note what Forero wrote on December 3, 2004:

The documents do not show that the United States backed the coup, as Mr. Chávez has charged. Instead, the documents show that American officials issued "repeated warnings that the United States will not support any extraconstitutional moves to oust Chávez."

[Note: For those not wanting to pay to read the archived Times' article, you can find some quotes from it in our entry on Forero's earlier mop-up.]

No, the documents didn't show that. (And no, Okrent, who penned his final colum today hopefully, never addressed Forero's claims as opposed to the reality of the documents.)

Think of Forero as not just the littlest Judy Miller, but also the anti-Scott Shane. While Shane has to mop up for the paper's mistakes, Forero mops up for the administration.

Looking at documents that were publicly available on the net, Forero found things that no one else did. Largely because they aren't in the documents (such as "repeated" warnings).

Today, in Brinkley's article, readers learn what Forero was disinclined to tell them. It'll probably sail right over most. Franciso picked up on it because he's very interested in the paper's coverage of Latin America.

Tacit or otherwise, news made it into the paper. Some might argue it's nearly three years to late and I would understand that sentiment. Others would argue, better late than never.

Members can draw their own conclusions. Myself, I'm wondering what Forero's reaction is when he reads the story.

As for Brinkley's article, we'll also excerpt this section:

Roger F. Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs and a principal architect of the proposal, said in an interview this week that he was "not surprised they are seeing this in the context of Venezuela," but he added, "I am determined that it not be regarded as some kind of effort to isolate Venezuela."
Last month, however, he and other administration officials made several statements tying the effort directly to their concern about Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's populist, anti-American president. Mr. Chávez has curtailed some press freedoms and judicial independence while forming close ties with Cuba, an alliance that, more than anything else, infuriates some Bush administration officials.

"Last month, however . . ." Note how easy it is to write that sentence and then think about how rarely it appears in print when official sources are quoted. Give Brinkley credit for including perspective in his article as well as for the "correction" to Forero's earlier reporting. And remember Francico's title for Forero "el Molinero más pequeño de Judith."

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[*Fatboy Slim's "The Rockafeller Skank" appears on his album You've Come A Long Way, Baby.]

REMINDER: Katrina vanden Heuvel will be on ABC's This Week later today. (I believe it airs Sunday morning's everywhere, but some members have written that Meet the Press airs late Sunday night or early Monday morning from time to time in their areas. So check your local listings.) I'm going to sleep as soon as I get this up and Isaiah's comic. If it weren't an all nighter, I'd be watching the second half of This Week (that's the section with the roundtable). Hopefully, others have been sleeping and will be able to catch KvH on This Week.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

I'm helping out with The Third Estate Sunday Review and this is the first break we've taken tonight (in answer to Jodi's question). This is a quick entry and probably a link fest.

We're going to start off with Bob Somerby because there are a number of e-mails on his entry Thursday. I was hoping that unless someone had something he or she wanted to share, we'd find other things to address. But due to the number of e-mails on this topic asking for me to weigh in, I'll weigh in. These are my opinions and I'm not attempting to speak for the community. (Nor do I intend to compile an entry of community responses.)

Bob Somerby questioned Katrina vanden Heuvel's stance re: the Newsweek story. He offered his critique as a media watcher. He has a set of principles/guidelines he uses to determine his critiques. By those principles/guidelines he had a problem with KvH's remarks. His opinion, he's entitled.

Katrina vanden Heuvel did not rely on the traditional idea of the public record. KvH relied on statements made by people who were held there. That's perfectly in keeping with her committment to social justice.

Somerby's critique is valid on his terms, KvH's remarks are valid on her's. Both do fine work, but they do approach from different angles. I didn't see the episode. (Nor did I read the transcript.) From previous viewings (some time ago, back when Donahue was on MSNBC), I know it can be hard for any guest to get a word in with Chris Matthews. Whether that came in to play or not, I don't know.

I do know that KvH was going to where the silence is. I also know that Somerby's going by the public record. For those who missed it, that's his entire point re: Newsweek. He feels that people are making statements that there's no backing for. He feels other things as well -- he may be one of the people who rightly pointed out that Newsweek is far from a liberal publication -- but that's one of his main points regarding the Newsweek controversy.

To attempt to nutshell Somerby's view (and I'm sure I will screw it up), they relied on a single source. Their source burned them. The problem with the press today is relying on single sourcing. Or one of the problems. A large number of people came to Newsweek defense. Somerby feels that Newsweek should have done basic journalism prior to the article appearing in print. I don't think anyone's questioning that among the community.

With regards to KvH, she spoke, as she always will and it's why members respond to her, on subjects that our mainstream media has not covered or has covered slightly. She took a social justice position based on information that hasn't gotten a great deal of traction. Somerby questioned the use of such material. Both positions are perfectly in keeping with both people.

Another reason for addressing it now is that Troy e-mails that "now Bob Somerby is going after Bill [Scher]. Are you going to say something?"

Now refers to a Saturday Daily Howler. Which I'd hoped to highlight earlier tonight but time slipped away on the last thing we were working on at Third Estate Sunday Review. Troy's seeing something in the entry that I'm not. Here's the section Troy's bothered by:

We can all feel especially lucky. We're lucky because, as it turns out, our big newspapers aren't "pieces of crap" after all; in fact, they represent "the current state of the art in human perfectibility." (Well, at least the New York Times does. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/20/05.) And if they weren't the next best thing to perfection, think how bad their coverage would be--of Priscilla Owen, for example.
With that in mind, be sure to read this report in Liberal Oasis--a report critiquing Thursday's profile of Owen in the Los Angeles Times. We chuckled to think that the folks at Oasis didn’t realize what Blogger Pangloss explained--that they're only "enabling the right-wing agenda" when they pen such thoughtless critiques.

That is not an attack on Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis. You might need to read the Friday Howler to understand what Somerby's getting at, but there was a mind-your-manners critique that Somerby addressed on Friday. Somerby is mocking that mind-your-manners critique. He is not "attacking" Scher. He's saying that Scher's entry is worth reading. (And Lynne thinks so to and e-mailed on that late Friday night, but I only read it as I was going through the e-mails for this entry, sorry Lynne.)

I've got about three minutes left (which includes publishing and indexing time). So I'm not going to be able to highlight with excerpts on the next items. My apologies.

But I have no idea when the next break will come so I'll post them now as a head's up.

Working For Change has an article about BuzzFlash by Bill Berkowitz. A number of you have highlighted it this week. Beginning on Thursday, I believe. Ken e-mailed tonight to ask if I was ignoring it? I'm not ignoring it, I just haven't had time to read it. (When it first read an e-mail on it, it was right before Ruth and I did the interview. After the interview, I focused only on typing it up and getting it onto this site.)

On the subject of BuzzFlash, there are three e-mails about an interview they have with James Carroll who's written the new book Crusade (which I believe is a BuzzFlash premium) and is also a columnist for the Boston Globe.

I also am seeing seven e-mails on Dahr Jamails' "Coming Home." We've already linked to that. Perhaps the confusion is that we linked to it via Dahr's site and not ">Tomgram. So to read it at Tomgram, click the ">link.

If there's another break in the next few hours, we'll highlight the interview at BuzzFlash and the article on BuzzFlash. (I'm looking forward to reading both.) But it is shaping up to be a longer night/morning than expected so in case there's not time, check out the links for yourselves.

I'm already late so let me add, in case this is it for awhile, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, will be part of the roundtable on Sunday's ABC's This Week. Check your local listings. For most areas, if not all, it's a morning show.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

Despite autopsy findings of homicide and statements by soldiers that two prisoners died after being struck by guards at an American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, Army investigators initially recommended closing the case without bringing any criminal charges, documents and interviews show.
Within days after the two deaths in December 2002, military coroners determined that both had been caused by "blunt force trauma" to the legs. Soon after, soldiers and others at Bagram told the investigators that military guards had repeatedly struck both men in the thighs while they were shackled and that one had also been mistreated by military interrogators.
Nonetheless, agents of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command reported to their superiors that they could not clearly determine who was responsible for the detainees' injuries, military officials said. Military lawyers at Bagram took the same position, according to confidential documents from the investigation obtained by The New York Times.

The above is from Tim Golden's "Army Faltered in Investigating Detainee Abuse" which makes the front page of this morning's New York Times. Coming so closely after Golden's reporting in Friday's paper, Lynda writes that she's hopeful the Times might finally be returning to real reporting.

Also on the front page and also receiving praise via e-mails is David S. Cloud and Carlotta Gall's "U.S. Memo Faults Afghan Leader on Heroin Fight:"

United States officials warned this month in an internal memo that an American-financed poppy eradication program aimed at curtailing Afghanistan's huge heroin trade had been ineffective, in part because President Hamid Karzai "has been unwilling to assert strong leadership."
A cable sent on May 13 from the United States Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, said that provincial officials and village elders had impeded destruction of significant poppy acreage and that top Afghan officials, including Mr. Karzai, had done little to overcome that resistance.
"Although President Karzai has been well aware of the difficulty in trying to implement an effective ground eradication program, he has been unwilling to assert strong leadership, even in his own province of Kandahar," said the cable, which was drafted by embassy personnel involved in the anti-drug efforts, two American officials said.

Carl, Maria, Brad, Ben and Lloyd all noted that in this morning's e-mails. (What, may I ask, are you early birds doing up? I'm up because of an all nighter with The Third Estate Sunday Review.)

Susan e-mails to note Laurie Goodstein and David D. Kirkpatrick's "On a Christian Mission to the Top:"

Now a few affluent evangelicals are directing their attention and money at some of the tallest citadels of the secular elite: Ivy League universities. Three years ago a group of evangelical Ivy League alumni formed the Christian Union, an organization intended to "reclaim the Ivy League for Christ," according to its fund-raising materials, and to "shape the hearts and minds of many thousands who graduate from these schools and who become the elites in other American cultural institutions."

Susan: I'm thinking of a Joni Mitchell song. "They are immacutely . . . tax free." Also from the same song "Lord, there's evil in this land/ You get witch hunts and wars/ When church and state hold hands."

"Tax Free" is the name of the song and it appears first on Joni Mitchell's Dog Eat Dog album.

Inside the paper, we'll note Erik Eckholm's "Whistle-Blower Suit May Set Course on Iraq Fraud Cases:"


In a lawsuit now in federal court, two former associates of the company say it bilked the American-led coalition out of millions, turning in hugely inflated invoices from phantom supplier companies among other misdeeds. If successful, the suit, brought under the False Claims Act, could recover triple damages for the government and handsome rewards for the whistle-blowers.
Custer Battles has denied wrongdoing and the accusation remains to be proved. But before a trial can proceed at all - before any company can be sued for fraud in the chaos of occupied Iraq - a federal judge in Virginia must issue another, more basic ruling that is now anxiously awaited by the company, its accusers and the Justice Department.
Lawyers for Custer Battles argue that the False Claims Act - the prime legal tool against contractor fraud - does not apply because the company signed contracts with the Coalition Provisional Authority, not the American government, and was mainly paid with Iraqi money seized or managed by the United States, rather than with money appropriated by Congress.

Lloyd wins the earliest of early bird awards because he's not only read the Times already, he's also been to The Third Estate Sunday Review this morning. As Lloyd notes, they have an editorial on the departure of Daniel Okrent from the Times. I didn't participate in that (and it's noted) but I do agree with their take on Okrent and I think members will as well. So check out
"Editorial: Goodbye and good riddance to Daniel Okrent."

Lastly, we'll note Hassan M. Fattah's "Laura Bush Urges Rights for Women." Not because of the story. She urges rights for women today . . . tomorrow, it was all a joke. (See this entry from yesterday.) Or maybe she goes into one of her deep silences again. Who knows? Who cares? She's part of the charm offensive of the administration. Which is the other reason we note it, check out Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts comic for Laura Bush's charm offensive. It'll go up after this entry and one I'm working on regarding Francisco's e-mail this morning.

And we'll also note that those early birds who've read the main section and have had time to write were pleased to see news on the front page instead of the traditional "lifestyle" Sunday front page.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]