Video: Fascist America on Display

This is absolutely outrageous.

Reverend Lennox Yearwood was arrested while standing in line as he waited to get into the hearing room to watch the testimony of General Petraeus and Ryan Crocker on Monday.

When he questioned why he was not being allowed into the room, this is what happened:



From the LA Times:

Interest in the hearing was hot, likened to Gen. William Westmorland's performance on Vietnam a generation ago. But some tempers were hotter. There weren't enough seats. The acoustics were bad. The overflow room was two buildings away, and it was muggy outside. Clearly, a lot of people were sick of this war, and a lot of other people were sick of the people who were sick of this war.

They started lining up before 8 a.m. Two opposing factions standing in line for five hours with nothing to do is not a recipe for harmony.

Suddenly, there was a lot of scuffling and a clot of Capitol police coagulated in the hallway. In the middle of the clot was the anti-war activist Rev. Lennox Yearwood, who apparently had attempted to push his way into the hearing room and was wrestled to the floor.

Television cameras scurried to the scene. Yearwood was lying on the ground with his legs askew, as though he had been hit by a car. Seizing the moment, Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war protesting mom, started chanting, "Arrest Bush, not Rev!" The police told her, if she said that one more time, they would have to arrest her. She said it one more time and put her hands behind her back before the officer even reached for the cuffs.

The Washington Post reported:

Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, was among the first to be arrested. She was taken into custody shortly after noon and charged with disorderly conduct, Capitol Police said, because she shouted during the hearing.

Christy Anne Miller, Sheehan's sister, was also charged with disorderly conduct after allegedly shouting in the hallway.

Others arrested included Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, who was charged with unlawful conduct after allegedly shouting during the hearing, and the Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., of the D.C.-based Hip Hop Caucus, who allegedly refused to move back after jumping in front of a line of people waiting to get inside the room. He was charged with disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer, Capitol Police said.

Yearwood had to be removed by wheelchair and was taken to the hospital as a result. I've watched that video twice and obviously missed the part where he supposedly tried to "push his way into the hearing room" or where he jumped in front of the line.

Code Pink has more on Monday's arrests which included former CIA officer Ray McGovern.

Visit the site of the Hip Hop Caucus.

Update: Rep. Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairing the hearing, called the protesters in the room "assholes".

Skelton: That really pisses me off, Duncan.

Hunter: What?

Skelton: Those assholes. And I don't need a goddamn lecture from Dan Burton neither.

Hunter: Here's their strategy; there's about ten of them, so they say they’re going to sacrifice one every five minutes. If they do that I would boot the whole identifiable group out.

Skelton: How do you do that?

Hunter: Because they're all in the same dress--the pink people. They're an association. So you [makes out the door hand gesture, muttering].

Skelton: Might have to.

Update:
Ray McGovern speaks out about his arrest.

'Swear Him In'

by Ray McGovern

That's all I said in the unusual silence on Monday afternoon as first aid was being administered to Gen. David Petraeus' microphone before he spoke before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.

It had dawned on me that when House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) invited Gen. Petraeus to make his presentation, Skelton forgot to ask him to take the customary oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I had no idea that my suggestion would be enough to get me thrown out of the hearing.

Sunday Food for Thought: Questions

The simplest questions are the most profound.

Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?

Think about these once in awhile, and watch your answers change.

- Richard Bach, Illusions

It's my birthday!

And you know what that means:

Cheesecake!!

And a song:



(Don't sing and eat at the same time.)

Oh what fun it is to be 29 again...over and over and over and over.

And over and over and over.

And over again and over.

Okay, my hands are tired now.
 

Friday Fun

New product line: Just For Terrorists™ - covers up the grey in just 5 minutes so you can quickly get back to plotting world domination while looking hot for the ladies.

 

Video: Olbermann - Surge Protectors & The Great Conflation

All of the buzz leading up to the surge report to be given by Petraeus next week has been like watching movie trailers in which the major action shots released show, for all intents and purposes, the entire content of the movie.

There won't be any surprises.

Olbermann has a look at how "insurgent" numbers have been fixed around the surge policy and Jonathan Alter of Newsweek discusses 'The Great Conflation" ie. the continual, nauseating linking of the Iraq war with 9/11.



The situation in Iraq is such a farce that an independent report this week called for disbanding Iraq's national police force which is rife with sectarian Shiite bias. The Democrats, meanwhile, couldn't put a coherent policy plan together about how to deal with the Iraq war if their lives depended on it. Maybe that's the problem: their lives don't depend on it. They might be singing a different tune if they were all forced to live in the middle of Baghdad for a month or so. In the meantime, they just cobble together whatever they think might make their base happy while blaming those nasty Republicans for not being able to get anything done. (And those Republicans are nasty, but at least they know how to put up a real fight when they go after something they want.)

Dana Milbank, in what is perhaps a precursor to what will surely be the reactions from both parties to the WH/Petraeus report next week, shows how Democrats and Republicans are using the independent commission's report to try and sell the same old schtick about the war. No one, it seems, has any new ideas.

Madeleine Albright seems to think that if only Bush would admit his mistakes, some major corner would be turned for US allies to come in and save the day. It's long past time for that to mean anything and Bush won't do it anyway, so what's the point?

As for what Olbermann and Alter were talking about, here is the WaPo story about how the surge numbers have been manipulated.

The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

"Depending on which numbers you pick," he said, "you get a different outcome." Analysts found "trend lines . . . going in different directions" compared with previous years, when numbers in different categories varied widely but trended in the same direction. "It began to look like spaghetti."

"spaghetti".

There you have it.

I'm sorry, but aren't we talking about dead people here?

Related:
Most of world wants U.S. out of Iraq in a year: poll

New Twist In Saga Over ‘Petraeus Report’: There Will Be No Report
 

Riverbend Leaves Iraq

From Baghdad Burning, an excerpt:

As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby. I didn’t want the driver to think I was ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the last four and a half years.

The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds… we were all equal in front of the Syrian border personnel.

We were all refugees- rich or poor. And refugees all look the same- there’s a unique expression you’ll find on their faces- relief, mixed with sorrow, tinged with apprehension. The faces almost all look the same.

The first minutes after passing the border were overwhelming. Overwhelming relief and overwhelming sadness… How is it that only a stretch of several kilometers and maybe twenty minutes, so firmly segregates life from death?

How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs, militias, death squads and… peace, safety? It’s difficult to believe- even now. I sit here and write this and wonder why I can’t hear the explosions.

I wonder at how the windows don’t rattle as the planes pass overhead. I’m trying to rid myself of the expectation that armed people in black will break through the door and into our lives. I’m trying to let my eyes grow accustomed to streets free of road blocks, hummers and pictures of Muqtada and the rest…

How is it that all of this lies a short car ride away?

I wish her and her family all the best. May they all find peace and comfort.

Such a sad reality.
 

Barak Contemplates Collective Punishment

Via Ha'aretz:

Cabinet likely to back 'punishing' Gaza civilians over Qassams

By Amos Harel, Aluf Benn and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondents

Government sources believe most Security Cabinet members will support increasing financial pressure on the Gaza Strip during the cabinet's meeting in Jerusalem Wednesday, in response to the ongoing rocket fire at Israel.

Sderot parents, meanwhile, intend to demonstrate outside the Knesset building. Sources in the defense ministry said that Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the Israel Defense Forces Tuesday to examine the implications of temporarily cutting off the Strip from Israeli infrastructure, including electricity, fuel and the supply of basic commodities.

Barak ordered the defense establishment to examine "the operational and legal aspects of steps designed to limit Hamas' rule in the Gaza Strip." Barak told the IDF he wanted to determine the degree to which Israel was obligated to provide services for the Strip.

The call to cut off water, electricity, gas and fuel to the Strip is seen as an alternative - or, if unsuccessful, a prelude - to a broad IDF incursion into northern Gaza. Government sources, however, said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was unlikely to authorize an escalation in Israel's military actions in the region.

It seems to me that there isn't much to "examine". Collective punishment of civilians in territories that your government occupies violates the Geneva Conventions. The inclusion of the issue of collective punishment came about as a response to the actions of the Nazis during WW2.

And, as if that wasn't ironic enough - the following statement actually made me gasp:

Earlier Tuesday, Vice Premier Haim Ramon - one of a growing number of cabinet ministers in favor of cutting off utilities to Gaza - said that Israel should attach a "price tag" to every rocket launched at Israel.

"We will set a price tag for every Qassam, in terms of cutting off infrastructures," Ramon told Army Radio. "Hamas will ... know this in advance. We will not continue to supply 'oxygen' in the form of electricity, fuel, and water while they are trying to murder our children."

The first thing that came to mind when I read that was the gassing of the Jews by the Nazis. The intended action certainly isn't the same but the sentiment is.

The oppressed have become the oppressors and if Israel's government has the equivalent of an Alberto Gonzales who manipulated a so-called legal defence for Bush to condone torture, no doubt the Israeli government can come up with some sort of justification to apply this type of collective punishment to the civilians in Gaza as well.

It really is something that Ramon would defend his belief in collective punishment by stating that he's concerned about the lives of Israeli children while the IDF continues to kill Palestinian children, refusing to cease military actions that clearly place those children in the sites of their weapons, while issuing half-hearted apologies. These killings are war crimes.

See also: Gaza: "The children killed in a war the world doesn't want to know about" and If Americans Knew

Meanwhile, the world does nothing - as usual. Or, in the case of the United States government - with support from both Republicans and Democrats, the Israeli government is getting even more money and arms to continue its illegal occupation while the victims have absolutely no voice.

Who speaks for the dead Palestinian children? And who will protect the civilians that Ramon and Barak want to punish for the actions of Hamas? And the bigger question always is, of course, how does any of this advance the peace process? Or does Israel's government even care about that anymore as it continues to apply failed military "solutions"?

Deciding to cut off essential services shows how desperately unwilling that government is to consider anything other than the concept of "might makes right". That hasn't worked. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results - made all the more brutal when children and other civilians become your publicly contemplated targets due to your own failures.

You'd think they would have learned that from their own peoples' history.

Related:
Land Grab at OG&P
Israel town anger at school attack
 

Bush Does Iraq

Bush will indeed cast a very long shadow over Iraq for decades to come.

Administration officials rejected the idea that the trip was a publicity stunt ahead of the progress report by General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker.

“There are some people who might try to derive this trip as a photo opportunity,” the White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said. “We wholeheartedly disagree.”
NYT link

Nope. No photo ops there.

Photo credits: Reuters
 

Sunday Food for Thought: 'Children of War'

From Gideon Levy:

Again children. Five children killed in Gaza in eight days. The public indifference to their killing - the last three, for example, were accorded only a short item on the margins of page 11 in Yedioth Ahronoth, a sickening matter in itself - cannot blur the fact that the IDF is waging a war against children. A year ago, a fifth of those killed in the "Summer Rain" operation in Gaza were children; during the past two weeks, they comprised a quarter of the 21 killed. If, heaven forbid, children are hurt in Sderot, we will have to remember this before we begin raising hell.

The IDF explains that the Palestinians make a practice of sending children to collect the Qassam launchers. However, in this case, the children killed were not collecting launchers. The first two were killed while collecting carob fruit and the next three - according to the IDF's own investigation - were playing tag. But even if we accept the IDF's claim that there is a general trend of sending children to collect launchers (which has not been proven), that should have brought about an immediate halt to firing at launcher collectors.

But the IDF does not care whether its victims are liable to be children. The fact is that it shoots at figures it considers suspicious, with full knowledge - according to its own contention - that they are liable to be children. Therefore, an IDF that fires at launcher collectors is an army that kills children, without any intention of preventing this. This then is not a series of unfortunate mistakes, as it is being portrayed, but rather reflects the army's contempt for the lives of Palestinian children and its terrifying indifference to their fate.

A society that holds ethical considerations in high regard would at least ask itself: Is it permissible to shoot at anyone who is approaching the launchers, even if we know that some of these people may be small children, lacking in judgment, and thus not punishable?
[...]
Anyone who takes an honest look at the progression of events during the past two months will discover that the Qassams have a context: They are almost always fired after an IDF assassination operation, and there have been many of these. The question of who started it is not a childish question in this context. The IDF has returned to liquidations, and in a big way. And in their wake there has been an increase in Qassam firings.

That is the truth, and they are hiding it from us.
[...]
Yes, the children of Gaza gather around the Qassams. It is practically the only diversion they have in their lives. It is their amusement park. Those who arrogantly preach to their parents "to watch over them" have never visited Beit Hanoun. There is nothing there, except for the filthy alleys and meager homes. Even if it is true that those launching the Qassams are taking advantage of these miserable children (which has yet to be proven), this should not shape our moral portrait. Yes, it is permissible to exercise restraint and caution. Yes, it is not always necessary to respond, especially when the response ends up killing children.

When the continual use of military might becomes so ordinary that the killing of children cannot even cause a forceful enough impetus to truly reject militarism, what hope is there?

Related: Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977; PART IV: CIVILIAN POPULATION

(h/t Editerette)

Karl Rove is Delusional

I guess he has to find some way to justify the last 30 years of his life.

Here's Rove's "Long View" which is quite short on reality. Grab the vomit bag.

So how might history view the 43rd president? I can hardly be considered an objective observer, but in this highly polarized period, who is?

You should have stopped right there. But, no...

However, I believe history will provide a more clear-eyed verdict on this president’s leadership than the anger of current critics would suggest.

President Bush will be viewed as a far-sighted leader who confronted the key test of the 21st century.

He will be judged as a man of moral clarity who put America on wartime footing in the dangerous struggle against radical Islamic terrorism.
[...]
President Bush will be seen as a compassionate leader who used America’s power for good.
[...]
History will see President Bush as a reformer who focused on modernizing important institutions.

He is concerned with fundamental change that will — among other goals — strengthen the ways our children are educated and health care is provided.

In education, “No Child Left Behind” introduced accountability into our public-education system by ensuring every child’s progress is measured.
[...]
He will be seen as an innovative conservative thinker with a positive, optimistic agenda for action.
[...]
The outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan will color how history views the president.

History’s concern is with final outcomes, not the missteps or advances of the moment. History will render a favorable verdict if the outcome in the Middle East is similar to what America saw after World War II.
[...]
History will see President Bush as right, and the opponents of his policy as mistaken — as George McGovern was in his time.
[...]
History demands much of America and its leaders and I am confident it will judge the 43rd president as a man more than worthy of the great office the American people twice entrusted to him.

Don't say I didn't warn you.