ABOUT THAT REBATE STIMULUS CHECK FROM GEORGE W

Source: Allen L Roland’s Radio Weblog.

George W Bush’s so called stimulus check to all Americans is a joke and meant only to pacify the masses and uneducated while the Cheney / Bush crime syndicate continues to fleece the economy: Allen L Roland

Here’s how to use your rebate ~

As you may have heard, the Bush Administration said each and every one of us would now get a nice rebate of $600 dollars. A rebate which will obviously go to savings, debt and bills and virtually none will be spent to stimulate the economy ~ which is in the midst of a Bush recession, which is following a failed Bush occupation and an equally illegal and failed Bush war.

So, in many instances, the Bush stimulus will just be stimulating the banks ~ that are already being bailed out !

But what would happen if we actually spent it ?

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China.

If we spend it on gasoline it will all go to the Arabs, if we purchase a computer it will all go to India, if we purchase fruit and vegetables it will all go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatamala, if we purchase a good car it will all go to Japan, if we purchase useless nicknacks it will all go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.

If you’re not outraged ~ you’re on life support.

Networks continue to ignore NY Times’ military analyst story, but all find time for Hannah Montana

Source: Media Matters for America.

Summary: Since The New York Times reported on the hidden ties between media military analysts and the Pentagon on April 20, ABC, CBS, and NBC have still not mentioned the report. By contrast, during their April 28 evening news broadcasts, all three networks reported on the Vanity Fair photo of Miley Cyrus.

Since The New York Times reported on the hidden ties between media military analysts and the Pentagon on April 20, the three major broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — have still not mentioned the report at all, according to a Media Matters for America search* of the Nexis news database. Times reporter David Barstow wrote that “the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform” these military analysts, many of whom have clients with an interest in obtaining Pentagon contracts, “into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.” As Media Matters noted, the three networks also reportedly declined to participate in a segment on the April 24 edition of PBS’ NewsHour regarding the Times story; Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC also refused to appear in the PBS segment.

By contrast, during their April 28 evening newscasts, all three broadcast networks reported on the Vanity Fair photo of Miley Cyrus, star of Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana: ABC devoted about two and a half minutes to that story, while CBS and NBC each devoted about two minutes to it.

* Search terms = “publication (ABC or CBS or CNN or MSNBC or NBC or NPR or Fox) and (Pentagon OR (Department w/2 Defense) OR New York Times OR (military w/10 analys!))” Programs searched in the Nexis database on networks that didn’t mention the Times report include:

ABC = Good Morning America, Nightline, World News with Charles Gibson

CBS = CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, The Early Show, Face the Nation

NBC = Nightly News with Brian Williams, Today, Meet the Press

Election 2008: “Fastened To A Dying Animal”

A short jeremiad regarding that affront to the nation’s dignity known as the US election process

By Phil Rockstroh, Cyrano’s Journal:

Here in this crumbling empire once known as the American republic, here in a nation that, at present, for all practical purposes, only produces Cheetos and killer drones, whose architecture is being winnowed down to thriving rural meth houses and foreclosed upon suburban mchouses, whose corrupt corporate culture has bequeathed upon our suffering planet dying oceans and the hyper-caffeinated tsunami of Red Bull Capitalism– the essential question confronts us — how does one retain (not retail) one’s humanity amid the catastrophic machinery and inane accouterment of our age?

“Show your wounds,” exhorted the late 20th Century artist Joseph Boyce. The wound becomes the womb, poets tell us. Out of painful truth, beauty is born. But, antithetical to the orthodoxies of consumer capitalism, there are no shortcuts. According to legend, Faust sold his soul for a glimpse of eternal beauty and the hidden knowledge of the world. Sadly, we’ve done likewise (but worse, pathetically) for a glimpse of Paris Hilton’s privileged (but hardly gated and guarded) cooter.

Here, now, sprawled upon the detritus of our dignity, we are confronted by the exponential dynamics of decay known as the US Presidential Election cycle. In this, all three corporate candidates are of little use to us. Although all three have done very well for themselves by the present and prevailing arrangement known as Disaster Capitalism.

What motivation do they have to change the system by which they’ve thrived? McCain, Clinton, and Obama must serve the interests of the corrupt corporate class – or else they would be marginalized. Paradoxically, as we have witnessed, as of late, if they make even the most minute rumblings to the contrary — as for example, blundering into a steaming pile of the obvious such as the observation that the battered laboring class of the nation might be embittered by their lot — they risk political immolation by being labeled an elitist.

Of course, Obama is an elitist. (As are Clinton and McCain.) And he has been put on notice by the Powers That Be that they have no problem with him being among their ranks, as long as he doesn’t go rattling off at the mouth about those the rigged system benefits and those it kicks daily in the gut. Because in a political culture as far down the rabbit hole as is this one, the surest way to be branded an elitist is to refuse to serve the elite. (Not that Obama threatened any such thing.) This is the modus operandi of the lacquered, autoerotic dudes and dolls of the corporate media and the K Street cash-flushed phonies of the American political classes: Pose as protecters of the beer-bleary multitudes, as, all the while, carrying vintage Cabernet for a privileged few.

This is not a situation fraught with layers of ambiguity in which any deeper meaning can be mined: Below the corporate media’s electronic cloud of nebulous phoniness lies a dense core of calcified phoniness. Thus it is difficult not to harbor contempt for this cartel of narcissistic strivers who have networked the nation into a perpetual state of cataclysmic ignorance. Seemingly, their creed is: Let the ignorant multitudes languish on the low nutrient, junk news we serve them from the drive thru windows of our corporate media outlets, while the political and business elite cannibalize what is left of the republic.

The ongoing tragedy in Iraq and the ecological and economic turmoil roiling the globe are consequences of the domination-driven mindset that the mainstream media protects. Ergo, increasingly violent responses from outside forces, both of the human and natural variety, are rising across the planet. America, many shocks and sorrows are coming soon (probably sooner than you think) to that vacuous bubble known as “your way of life.”

It should be increasingly clear to see that the corporate media’s job has never been to be unbiased chroniclers of the events and circumstances of a free republic. Rather, they are active agents serving to protect and promulgate the pernicious myths of free market capitalism. And they are a highly partisan lot.

Moreover, they have been highly successful in their mission. Hence, our lives, both inner and outer, have been conquered and colonized by the corporate empire, and a resultant forced occupation dominates our days determining the trajectory of our brief lives upon this earth.

“[S]ick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.” – W.B. Yeats

Yet, we, against all evidence, believe we are free actors in a spontaneous, unfolding democratic drama. When, in reality, we have been cast as dehumanized supernumeraries in a lethal farce that renders all concerned both oppressor and oppressed. This is the central paradox that binds us. And it is why the average American cannot see our imperial occupation of Iraq and our increasingly dangerous belligerence towards Iran for what it is. How can we have a modicum of empathy for the people of Iraq when we refuse to even glimpse our own degraded condition and our complicity therein?

“God Damn America,” the people of Sadr City must rage, as the bombs shake their homes and tear the flesh from their friends and family. “God Damn, America,” I mutter, echoing the good Reverend Wright, as I witness the indifference of the American people to the war crimes committed by our nation’s leaders.

By the insidious technique of propaganda by omission, the public has been manipulated into a state approaching criminal obliviousness. “What is this crazy talk about the calamity of class stratification that defines and divides the nation, and what sort of demented, leftist loser would even raise the topic among decent company?” our present mandarins of media scoff when the topic of class inequity is broached.

Add to that, the ongoing ruse of the ceaseless dissemination of fear perfected by the right-wing media noise machine and then parroted in the mainstream media that goes something like the following: “There are evil entities afoot in the nation known as radical liberals who scheme to take away your guns and give them to islamofascist terrorists so that those agents of Satan over at Planned Parenthood will be free to rip fetuses from their mothers wombs in order to expose the unborn to porn.”

This is the reason for the cacophony of inanity that dominates the coverage of the political events of our time: It serves as white noise that drowns out unpleasant truths. It is the mood music piped into our national bubble. Accordingly, trivial and specious narratives drive and dominate our national political debate and it has, as a consequence, rendered the nation’s public too shallow to even apprehend the extent of the damage inflicted by official treachery, professional cupidity, and the degree of their own degradation therein.

Otherwise, the collective psyche of the nation would be shaken to the core. Tragically, there is no longer any core to be found. There is merely the surface sheen of the American bubblescape … its surface taut with inner tension as it is stretched to its limits, as, all the while, reality bristles ever closer to its over-stretched skin.

Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at phil@philrockstroh.com Visit Phil’s website, http://philrockstroh.com/

Iran Ends Oil Transactions In U.S. Dollars

War under false pretenses imminent.

Ahmadinejad has one thing right: the dollar is a “worthless piece of paper.”

OPEC’s Second-Largest Producer Now Pegs Petroleum To Euros And Yen

Source: CBS News.

Iran, OPEC’s second-largest producer, has completely stopped conducting oil transactions in U.S. dollars, a top Oil Ministry official said Wednesday, a concerted attempt to reduce reliance on Washington at a time of tension over Tehran’s nuclear program and suspected involvement in Iraq.

Iran has dramatically reduced dependence on the dollar over the past year in the face of increasing U.S. pressure on its financial system and the fall in the value of the American currency.

Oil is priced in U.S. dollars on the world market, and the currency’s depreciation has concerned producers because it has contributed to rising crude prices and eroded the value of their dollar reserves.

“The dollar has totally been removed from Iran’s oil transactions,” Oil Ministry official Hojjatollah Ghanimifard told state-run television Wednesday. “We have agreed with all of our crude oil customers to do our transactions in non-dollar currencies.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the depreciating dollar a “worthless piece of paper” at a rare summit last year in Saudi Arabia attended by state leaders from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Iran put pressure on other OPEC countries at the meeting to price oil in a basket of currencies, but it has not been able to generate support from fellow members — many of whom, including Saudi Arabia, are staunch U.S. allies.

Iran has a tense relationship with the U.S., which has accused Tehran of using its nuclear program as a cover for weapons development and providing support to Shiite militants in Iraq that are killing American troops. Iran has denied the allegations.

Iranian oil officials have said previously that they were shifting oil sales out of the dollar into other currencies, but Ghanimifard indicated Wednesday that all of Iran’s oil transactions were now conducted in either euros or yen.

“In Europe, Iran’s oil is sold in euros, but both euros and yen are paid for Iranian crude in Asia,” said Ghanimifard.

Iran’s central bank has also been reducing its foreign reserves denominated in U.S. dollars, motivated by the falling value of the greenback and U.S. attempts to make it difficult for Iran to conduct dollar transactions.

U.S. banks are prohibited from conducting business directly with Iran, and many European banks have curbed their dealings with the country over the past year under pressure from Washington.

However, the U.S. has been wary of targeting Iran’s oil industry directly, apparently worried that such a move could drive up crude prices that are already at record levels.

Iranian analysts say Tehran can withstand U.S. pressure as long as it can continue its oil and gas sales, which constitute most of the country’s US$80 billion in exports.

We’ll Sleep a Little Better Knowing PA’s Raw Milk Safety Expert Trained on Hershey Bars

Why did Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s Bill Chirdon think it was okay to steal Mark Nolt’s copy of Joel Salatin’s book? Can he not read a search warrant? Or does he consider himself above the law?

Folks, these are the kind of thugs who formerly work in industry (in this case, Dean Foods and Hershey) and then work for government, and sometimes back again through a lucrative revolving door. Do you really think they have your best interests at heart?

This article makes some pointed comments on the arrest of the Mennonite farmer in PA who sells his farms’ products directly to consumers.

If you’re lucky enough to be able to buy high-quality food from farmers like Mark Nolt, you should seriously consider joining the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

Source: from David Gumpert’s blog, The Complete Patient:

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture must feel on solid ground. The press person there was cordial and forthcoming to my requests for information. The only question he had some trouble dealing with was about why Bill Chirdon, the PDA food safety guy, confiscated a copy of the Joel Salatin book, “Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal” from raw milk farmer Mark Nolt during the PDA’s raid on his farm Friday.

“We did seize one book,” the official told me, the Salatin book. “I don’t have any other information on that.”

When I pressed him that the seizure seemed weird, he said that Chirdon “will be glad to give it back to him on Monday” at the court hearing. But why was it taken in the first place? At that point, he resorted to euphemisms and legalisms: “It was taken as evidence. We can’t go into the details as to how it might be used.” Yeah, maybe they’re going to use it at PDA to supplement the new-employee orientation program.

Chirdon likely didn’t expect anyone to even notice his act of arrogance and condescension in swiping the book. It’s definitely not allowed for in the search warrant, which PDA sent me as well. That provides for search and seizure of product, equipment, containers, and records, but not for books.

A few other items of interest in the search warrant:

–Chirdon claims dairy expertise because “I was a plant manager at Hershey Foods for twenty years and also the plant manager at Dean Foods for five years. In those jobs, I gained extensive experience in milk and dairy manufacturing, processing, and sales.” Yes, those sound like just the qualifications to help guide consumers in their dairy journeys. Those Hershey bars and Kisses are made from only the purest and freshest of dairy products, with a keen eye on nutrition.

–PDA on several occasions used its agents to go undercover and make purchases from Mark “of the raw milk on display, which was lab tested by PDA’s Food Safety Laboratory and confirmed to be raw milk.” I wonder if they had to call in the FBI for definitive confirmation.

–PDA seems to have chosen to look the other way for about eight months while Mark resumed selling raw dairy products after the agency’s last raid in August. “From 8/10/07 through 3/8/08, the Department did not possess evidence that Nolt was continuing to sell milk and manufactured dairy products made from raw milk…” Presumably PDA had bigger fish to fry, other raw dairies to shut down.

I know a number of readers think Mark Nolt is going at this correctly by not seeking legal representation, and claiming the state doesn’t have jurisdiction. I find it kind of frustrating, since an experienced lawyer could almost certainly find a number of flaws in not only the search warrant procedure, but the state’s approach to the entire matter. Which helps explain why the state is as confident as it is.

Is There a US Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?

A good article to share with women who want to join the military.

By Ann Wright, Commondreams.org:

The Department of Defense statistics are alarming – one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted or raped by men in the military. The warnings to women should begin above the doors of the military recruiting stations, as that is where assaults on women in the military begins – before they are even recruited.

But, now, even more alarming, are deaths of women soldiers in Iraq, and in the United States, following rape. The military has characterized each of the deaths of women who were first sexually assaulted as deaths from “non-combat related injuries,” and then added “suicide.” Yet, the families of the women whom the military has declared to have committed suicide, strongly dispute the findings and are calling for further investigations into the deaths of their daughters. Specific US Army units and certain US military bases in Iraq have an inordinate number of women soldiers who have died of “non-combat related injuries,” with several identified as “suicides.”

94 US military women in the military have died in Iraq or during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). 12 US Civilian women have been killed in OIF. 13 US military women have been killed in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). 12 US Civilian women have been killed in Afghanistan.

Of the 94 US military women who died in Iraq or in OIF, the military says 36 died from non-combat related injuries, which included vehicle accidents, illness, death by “natural causes,” and self-inflicted gunshot wounds, or suicide. The military has declared the deaths of the Navy women in Bahrain that were killed by a third sailor, as homicides. 5 deaths have been labeled as suicides, but 15 more deaths occurred under extremely suspicious circumstances.

8 women soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas (six from the Fourth Infantry Division and two from the 1st Armored Cavalry Division) have died of “non-combat related injuries” on the same base, Camp Taji, and three were raped before their deaths. Two were raped immediately before their deaths and another raped prior to arriving in Iraq. Two military women have died of suspicious “non-combat related injuries” on Balad base, and one was raped before she died. Four deaths have been classified as “suicides.”

©Unknown

Private Lavena Johnson

19-year-old US Army Private Lavena Johnson, was found dead on the military base in Balad, Iraq in July, 2005 and her death characterized by the US Army to be suicide as a self-inflicted M-16 shot. On April 9, 2008, Dr. John Johnson and his wife Linda, parents of Private Johnson, flew from their home in St. Louis for meetings with US Congress members and their staffs. They were in Washington to ask that Congressional hearings be conducted on the Army’s investigation into the death of their daughter, an investigation that classified her death as a suicide despite extensive evidence suggesting she was murdered.

From the day their daughter’s body was returned to them, the parents had grave suspicions about the Army’s investigation into Lavena’s death and the characterization of her death as suicide. In charge of a communications facility, Lavena was able to call home daily. In those calls she gave no indication of emotional problems or being upset. In a letter to her parents, Lavena’s commanding officer Captain David Woods wrote : “Lavena was clearly happy and seemed in very good health both physically and emotionally.”

In viewing his daughter’s body at the funeral home, Dr. Johnson was concerned about the bruising on her face. He was puzzled by the discrepancy in the autopsy report on the location of the gunshot wound. As a US Army veteran and a 25-year US Army civilian employee who had counseled veterans, he was mystified how the exit wound of an M-16 shot could be so small. The hole in Lavena’s head appeared to be more the size of a pistol shot rather than an M-16 round. He questioned why the exit hole was on the left side of her head, when she was right handed. But the gluing of military uniform white gloves onto Lavena’s hands hiding burns on one of her hands is what deepened Dr. Johnson’s concerns that the Army’s investigation into the death of his daughter was flawed.

Over the next two and one-half years, Dr. and Mrs. Johnson, and their family and friends relentlessly through the Freedom of Information Act and Congressional offices requested the Department of the Army for documents concerning Lavena’s death. With each response of the Army to the request for information another piece of information/evidence about Lavena’s death emerged.

The military criminal investigator’s initial drawing of the death scene revealed that Lavena’s M16 was found perfectly parallel to her body. The investigator’s sketch showed that her body was found inside a burning tent, under a wooden bench with an aerosol can nearby. A witness stated that he heard a gunshot and when he came to investigate found a tent on fire and when he looked into the tent saw a body. The Army official investigation did not mention a fire nor that her body had been burned.

After two years of requesting documents, one set of papers provided by the Army included a xerox copy of a CD. Wondering why the xerox copy was in the documents, Dr. Johnson requested the CD itself. With help from his local Congressional representative, the US Army finally complied. When Dr. Johnson viewed the CD, he was shocked to see photographs taken by Army investigators of his daughter’s body as it lay where her body had been found, as well as other photographs of her disrobed body taken during the investigation.

The photographs revealed that Lavena, a small woman, barely 5 feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds, had been struck in the face with a blunt instrument, perhaps a weapon stock. Her nose was broken and her teeth knocked backwards. One elbow was distended. The back of her clothes had debris on them indicating she had been dragged from one location to another. The photographs of her disrobed body showed bruises, scratch marks and teeth imprints on the upper part of her body. The right side of her back as well as her right hand had been burned apparently from a flammable liquid poured on her and then lighted. The photographs of her genital area revealed massive bruising and lacerations. A corrosive liquid had been poured into her genital area, probably to destroy DNA evidence of sexual assault.

Despite the bruises, scratches, teeth imprints and burns on her body, Lavena was found completely dressed in the burning tent. There was a blood trail from outside a contractor’s tent to inside the tent. She apparently had been dressed after the attack and her attacker placed her body into the tent and set it on fire.

Investigator records reveal that members of her unit said Lavena told them she was going jogging with friends on the other side of the base. One unit member walked with her to the Post Exchange where she bought a soda and then, in her Army workout clothes, went on by herself to meet friends and get exercise. The unit member said she was in good spirits with no indication of personal emotional problems.

The Army investigators initially assumed Private Johnson’s death was a homicide and indicated that on their paperwork. However, shortly into the investigation, a decision apparently was made by higher officials that the investigators must stop the investigation into a homicide and to classify her death a suicide.

As a result, no further investigation took place into a possible homicide despite strong evidence available to the investigators.

Another family that does not believe their daughter committed suicide in Iraq is the family of Army Private First Class Tina Priest, 20, of Smithville, Texas, who was raped by a fellow soldier in February, 2006 on a military base known as Camp Taji. Priest was a part of the 5th Support Battalion, lst Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. The Army said Tina was found dead in her room on March 1, 2006, of a self-inflicted M-16 shot, a “suicide”, 11 days after the rape. Private Priest’s mother, Joy Priest, disputes the Army’s findings. Mrs. Priest said she talked several times with her daughter after the rape, and while very upset about the rape, she was not suicidal. Priest continues to challenge the Army’s 800 pages of investigative documents with a simple question. How could her petite daughter, 5-foot-tall daughter with a short arm length, have held the M-16 at the angle which would have resulted in the gunshot? The Army attempted several attempts explanations, but each was debunked by Mrs. Priest and by the 800 pages of materials provided by the Army itself. The Army now says Tina used her toe to pull the trigger of the weapon that killed her. The Army never investigated Tina’s death as a homicide, but only as a suicide.

Rape charges against the soldier whose sperm was found on her sleeping bag were dropped a few weeks after her death. He was convicted of failure to obey an order and sentenced to forfeiture of $714 for 2 months, 30 days restriction to the base and 45 days of extra duty.

On the same Camp Taji, 10 days later after Tina Priest was found dead, on May 11, 2006, woman US Army Private First Class (name known to author, but not identified for the article), 19, was found dead. She died three days after she suffered what the Army called “a self-inflicted gunshot”. The Army claimed that she too had committed suicide. In her room where her body was found, investigators discovered her diary open to a page on which she had written about being raped during training after unknowingly drinking a date rape drug. The person identified in the diary as the rapist was charged by the Army with rape after her death. Many who knew her did not believe she shot herself, but there is no evidence of a homicide investigation by the Army.

The September 4, 2006 death at Camp Taji of Private First Class Hannah Gunterman McKinney, 20, of the 44th Corps Support Battalion, Ft. Lewis, WA was investigated and rather than having been run over by a military vehicle as she crossed a road from a guard tower to the latrine as initially claimed by the Army, she fell or was pushed from and run over by a vehicle driven by a drunk Sergeant from her unit who had first sexually assaulted her. The Sergeant pleaded guilty to drinking in a war zone, drunken driving and consensual sodomy with an underage, incapacitated junior soldier to whom he had supplied alcohol. A military judge ruled that McKinney’s death was an accident and the Sergeant was sentenced to 13 months imprisonment, demotion to private, but he would not be discharged from the Army.

Other suspicious “non-combat related injury” deaths on Camp Taji include Fort Hood’s 1st Armored Cavalry Division PFC Melissa J. Hobart who died June 6, 2004, 1st Armored Cavalry Sergeant Jeannette Dunn who died November 26, 2006), 89th Military Police Brigade Specialist Kamisha J. Block (who died August, 2007), 4th Infantry Division Specialist Marisol Heredia who died September 7, 2007) and 4th Infantry Division Specialist Keisha M. Morgan who died February, 22, 2008. None of the deaths have been classified as suicides, but the circumstances of their deaths should be investigated further because of serious questions concerning their deaths.

The US Army has classified the deaths of four other women as suicides. In the space of three months in 2006, three members of the U.S. Army who had been part of a logistics group in Kuwait committed suicide. Two of them were women. In August 2006, Lt. Col. Marshall Gutierrez, was arrested at a restaurant in Kuwait and was accused of shaking down a laundry contractor for a $3,400 bribe. He was allowed to return to his quarters and found dead on September 4, 2006 with an empty bottle of prescription sleeping pills an open container of what appeared to be antifreeze.

Major Gloria D. Davis, 47, assigned to the Defense Security Assistance Agency which handles the sales of military equipment to other countries, reportedly committed suicide in Baghdad on December 12, 2006, the day after she allegedly admitted to an Army investigator that she had accepted at least $225,000 in bribes from Lee Dynamics, a US Army contractor, that reportedly bribed officers for work in Iraq. Major Davis had a daughter, son and granddaughter. She had worked as a police officer, was a volunteer at women’s shelters and helped get disadvantaged African-American students into ROTC programs.

New York Army National Guard Sergeant Denise A. Lannaman, 46, assigned to a desk job at a procurement office in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait that purchased millions of dollars in supplies. She received excellent performance ratings, her supervisor citing that her oversight eliminated misuse of funds by 36 percent. On October 1, 2006, Lannaman was questioned by a senior officer about the death of Lt. Col. Gutierrez and reportedly told by that officer that she would be leaving the military in disgrace. She was found in a jeep dead of a gunshot wound later in the day. While her family said that she had attempted suicide four different times in her life, the Army has not ruled on the cause of death of Lannaman.

US Army interrogator Specialist Alyssa Renee Peterson, 27, assigned to C Company, 311th Military Intelligence Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, Ft. Campbell, KY, was an Arabic linguist who reportedly was very concerned about the manner in which interrogations were being conducted. She died on September 15, 2003 near Tal Afar, Iraq in what the Army described as a gunshot wound to the head, a non-combat, self-inflicted weapons discharge, or suicide. Peterson reportedly objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners and refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Members of her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Peterson objected to. The military says that all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. After refusing to conduct more interrogations, Peterson was assigned to guard the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards. She was also sent to suicide prevention training. On the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle. Family members challenge the Army’s conclusion.

US Army Sergeant Melissa Valles, 26, assigned to Headquarters Detachment, Company B, 64th Forward Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, Fort Carson, CO, died on July 9, 2003, in Balad from a two non-combat gunshot wounds to her abdomen. The Army has not ruled whether her death was a suicide or a homicide. But Valles’ family stated that although small in stature at 5 foot 3, she was a tough person. “She really put people in their place. She did that since she was a girl. She would put little boys who were bullies in their place.” The family does not believe Valles committed suicide.

One suspicious non-combat death of a military woman occurred in Afghanistan.

On September 28, 2007, Massachusetts Army National Guard Specialist Ciara Durkin, 30, a finance specialist, was found lying near a church on the very secure Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, with a single gunshot wound to her head. She had recently told her relatives to press for answers if anything happened to her while she was deployed in Afghanistan. When she was home three weeks prior to her death, she told her sister about something she had come across that raised some concern with her and that she had made some enemies because of it. Members of her family also questioned whether the fact that she was gay played a role in her death. They believe Ciara was killed by a fellow service member, intentionally or accidentally, and they are confident that she did not commit suicide.

In Bahrain, On January 16, 2007, US Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer A. Valdivia, 27, assigned to the naval security force for Naval Support Activity, Bahrain, was found dead 3 days after she was to report for duty on January 14. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has classified her death as a suicide. Valdivia was kennel master of the largest military kennel in the world. In 2005 she was named Sailor of the Year at the Bahrain Naval Base.

Although the data on the number of suicides in the military is vague and
purposely underreported by the Veterans Administration, of 69 suicides of men in the military since 2002, 64 committed suicide in the United States, 1 in Kuwait, 2 in Iraq and 2 in Afghanistan. Men are much more likely to commit suicide once they return from a combat zone, than in the combat zone. Of the 8 alleged suicides of women in the military, 3 were in Iraq, 2 in the US, 1 in Kuwait and 1 in Bahrain. The question of why women would be more likely to commit suicide outside the US than once home should be investigated.

The circumstances surrounding each of these deaths warrants further investigation by the US military. Congress can compel the military to reopen cases and provide further investigation.

I strongly urge the Congress to demand further investigation of the deaths of these women.

The curious tale of Israel’s nuclear whistleblower

Source: Greenpeace (UK).

Four years ago Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was released from jail having served 18 years inside. Yet this month the Israeli government renewed, for the fifth time, an order confining him to Jerusalem, where he is under constant surveillance, banned from talking to foreigners and shunned by Israeli society. He lives with no work, income, home or support. A virtual prisoner.

What crime did Vanunu commit to so incense Israeli government and society? He was the whistleblower that alerted the world to Israel’s secret possession of over 200 nuclear weapons. A ‘crime’ that others have seen as worthy of the Nobel peace prize – for which he has been nominated over five times.

Vanunu’s life story reads like a thriller. Between 1976 and 1985 he worked as a junior technician at the Negev Nuclear Research Center – Israel’s nuclear weapons factory. He quit in 1985 and in 1986 left Israel to travel the world. During his travels, he met a freelance journalist who worked for the Sunday Times newspaper and revealed to him the facts of Israel’s nuclear weapons programme.

In September 1986, days before his information was published, Vanunu was lured into a ‘honeytrap’ by an undercover agent with Mossad, Israel’s feared secret service. Operating under the name of Cindy and masquerading as an American tourist, she persuaded him to fly to Rome with her on a holiday. In Rome, Mossad agents drugged him and smuggled him to Israel on a freighter. Once there he was tried in total secrecy, charged with treason and espionage and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment.

Vanunu served his time, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement in conditions that Amnesty characterized as “cruel, inhuman and degrading”. Since his release has tried repeatedly to leave Israel and start a new life. But asylum applications have been rejected by Norway, Sweden, Ireland and Canada. The reason why was indicated by recently released Norwegian government documents showing that they rejected his application despite initial enthusiasm (he was offered a university job, the support of the previous Prime Minister and awarded a Norwegian peace prize) after Israel exerted diplomatic pressure on them.

Why won’t Israel let Vanunu go? The official argument is that Vanunu possesses confidential information about the Israeli weapons programme that he could publicise if allowed to leave the country. This despite the time elapsed and his junior role at Negev. Ray Kidder of the US’s nuclear weapons programme refutes this idea: “I am ready to challenge any official assertion that Mr Vanunu possesses any technical nuclear information not already made public.” Also following this logic means Vanunu will remain a security risk forever, and his restrictions will never be lifted.

The more likely explanation is that Israel doesn’t want any more attention paid to its nuclear weapons. Despite Vanunu’s revelations, Israel still officially continues its doublethink policy of nuclear ambiguity, ie neither acknowledging nor denying that it possesses any such weapons. So today most Israeli news reports of referring to nuclear weapons will cite “foreigner’s reports” or “allegations” that Israel has nuclear weapons. This policy even survived a recent very public slip by prime minister Ehud Olmert who, in an interview with German TV, said “Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly, threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia?”

The rationale for the policy is initially difficult to understand – surely nuclear weapons cannot magically deter others if their existence isn’t acknowledged? However a rather large clue to why the policy exists is the fact that a US legal prohibition exists on granting aid to countries with unauthorised weapons of mass destruction. If Israel formally acknowledges their WMD they would risk losing more than US$2 billion a year in military and other aid from Washington.

Whatever the rationale the effect of Israel’s ‘allowed hypocrisy’ both regionally and in the international arena is to fuel existing tensions and to stifle progress on creating a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, an acknowledged crucial first step towards creating a nuclear weapons-free world.

Surely all these years on, it’s now time for Israel to stop wasting effort punishing Vanunu and instead focus on the task of creating a more secure Middle East.

For more on Mordechai Vanunu, visit his website.

Pushing the Single-Payer Solution

Source: Amy Goodman, King Features Syndicate.

It’s time for the candidates to stop dancing around real health-care reform and get behind a single-payer system.

As the media coverage of the Democratic presidential race continues to focus on lapel pins and pastors, America is ailing. As I travel around the country, I find people are angry and motivated. Like Dr. Rocky White, a physician from a conservative, evangelical background who practices in rural Alamosa, Colo. A tall, gray-haired Westerner in black jeans, a crisp white shirt and a bolo tie, Dr. White is a leading advocate for single-payer health care. He wasn’t always.

He told me in a recent interview: “Here I am, a Republican, thinking about nationalizing health care. It just went against the grain of everything that I stood for. But you have to remember: I didn’t come to those conclusions with lofty ideals of social justice.”

In the early 1990s, his medical group started falling apart. White, a keen student of economics and the business of medicine, determined that it wasn’t just his practice but the system that was broken.

“You’re seeing an ever-increasing number of people starting to support a national health program. In fact, 59 percent of practicing physicians today believe that we need to have a national health program. I mean, that’s unheard of, even 10 years ago. It’s amazing to see a new generation of physicians coming up who are disgusted with our current health-care system. You know, we’re trained to be advocates of patients, we’re trained to save lives, we’re trained to practice medicine. And instead, what we’re doing is we’re practicing Wall Street economics.”

Single-payer is not to be confused with universal coverage, which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both support. In fact, in a recent debate, when Clinton raised the issue of single-payer, the audience interrupted with applause. She immediately countered, “I know a lot of people favor [it], but for many reasons [it] is difficult to achieve.”

Why? One of the most powerful industries in the country opposes it — the insurance industry. Under universal coverage, insurance profits are preserved. Under single-payer, they are not. Dr. Rocky White, who now sits on the board of the nonprofit Health Care for All Colorado, has switched his political affiliation. He also has updated and reissued Dr. Robert LeBow’s book on single-payer called Health Care Meltdown: Confronting the Myths and Fixing Our Failing System.

He described possible solutions: “There are a lot of different types of single-payer systems — you could have purely socialized medicine. That’s kind of like what England has. The government owns the hospitals, the government owns the clinics, the government finances all the health care, and all the doctors work for the government. That is truly socialized medicine, as opposed to the Canadian system, where the financing comes through their Medicare program, but all the doctors are in private practice.”

The economics are complex, but this plain-spoken country doctor explains it clearly:

“You know, this industry is a $2-trillion industry, and the profits in the for-profit insurance industry are so huge and it’s so deeply entrenched into Wall Street … but until we move to a single-payer system and get rid of the profit motive in financing of health care, we will not be able to fix the problems that we have.”

What would it take? Dr. White has spent his life dealing with the high winds on the high plains, from Nebraska to Colorado, and describes the challenge the country faces in familiar terms:

“I think that our current presidential candidates understand that ideally single-payer would be the best, but they don’t have the political will to move that forward. Their job is to feel which way the wind is blowing. Our job is to turn that wind.”