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In what has been described as the biggest intelligence leak since Edward Snowden, Al Jazeera has begun publishing a series of spy cables from the world’s top intelligence agencies. In one cable, the Israeli spy agency Mossad contradicts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own dire warnings about Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear bomb within one year. In a report to South African counterparts in October 2012, the Mossad concluded Iran was "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons." The explosive disclosure comes just as the United States and Iran have reported progress toward reaching a nuclear deal, an outcome Netanyahu will try to undermine when he addresses the U.S. Congress next week. We go to Doha to speak with Clayton Swisher, the head of Al Jazeera’s investigative unit, which broke the Iran story and several others in a series of articles called, "The Spy Cables."
Image Credit: Reuters
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: Just days before his controversial speech to the U.S. Congress, an explosive report has raised new questions about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s effort to thwart a nuclear deal with Iran. According to Al Jazeera, Israel’s spy agency, the Mossad, contradicted Netanyahu’s own dire warnings about Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear bomb within one year. In a leaked cable to South African counterparts in October 2012, the Mossad concluded Iran was, quote, "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons." The assessment was sent just weeks after Netanyahu went before the U.N. General Assembly with a far different message. Netanyahu held up a cartoonish diagram of a bomb with a fuse to illustrate what he called Iran’s alleged progress on a nuclear weapon.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: This is a bomb. This is a fuse. In the case of Iran’s nuclear plans to build a bomb, this bomb has to be filled with enough enriched uranium. And Iran has to go through three stages. By next spring, at most by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb. A red line should be drawn right here, before—before Iran completes the second stage of nuclear enrichment necessary to make a bomb.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September of 2012. The Mossad assessment contradicting Netanyahu was sent just weeks after, but it was likely written earlier. It said Iran, quote, "does not appear to be ready" to enrich uranium to the higher levels needed for a nuclear weapon. A bomb would require 90 percent enrichment, but the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, found Iran had only enriched to 20 percent. That number was later reduced under an interim nuclear deal the following year.
That 2013 agreement laid the basis for the ongoing talks in Geneva this week between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif. The U.S. and Iran are seeking a framework agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program and impose international monitoring in return for an easing of U.S.-led sanctions before a March 31st deadline. The talks appear to be gaining momentum, with the involvement of high-ranking officials from both sides and leaked details of a plan to limit Iranian nuclear production for at least 10 years. They are set to resume next week.
AARON MATÉ: The advancing talks and the leaked cable come just as Netanyahu prepares for a controversial U.S. visit, where he’ll try to undermine the nuclear deal. On March 3rd, Netanyahu will address a joint session of Congress on Iran at the invitation of Republican House Speaker John Boehner. The trip has caused a major rift with the White House, to the point where Obama has refused to host Netanyahu for a meeting. Administration officials are also reportedly withholding details of the talks from Israeli counterparts. Speaking last week, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Israel has spread false information about the proposed nuclear deal.
PRESS SECRETARY JOSH EARNEST: There’s no question that some of the things that the Israelis have said in characterizing our negotiating position have not been accurate. There’s no question about that.
AMY GOODMAN: With the White House accusing Israel of spreading falsehoods, the new revelations about Israel’s own intelligence assessments mark the second time in one week tying Prime Minister Netanyahu to dishonest claims about Iran.
The leaked cable appears to have come from inside South Africa’s intelligence service, revealing its exchanges with counterparts around the world, including the U.S., Israel, Russia, Britain, France and several Arab and African nations. Other revelations so far include CIA attempts to establish contact with Hamas despite a U.S. ban and a threat by President Obama to force the Palestinian Authority to abandon its bid for U.N. recognition. More disclosures are expected in the coming days.
For more, we go directly to Doha, Qatar, to be joined by Clayton Swisher, director of investigative journalism at Al Jazeera, which broke the Iran story and several others in a series of articles called "The Spy Cables." He co-wrote the piece, "Leaked Cables Show Netanyahu’s Iran Bomb Claim Contradicted by Mossad," that appears in The Guardian newspaper.
Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s good to have you with us, Clayton Swisher. Explain what has happened. What did South Africa get a hold of? Is there a South African Ed Snowden?
CLAYTON SWISHER: Well, I think, after the Edward Snowden experience, someone would have to have their head checked to publicly fess up to being the source of such a leak, given all the travails that followed Edward Snowden after he essentially outed himself. This was a digital leak made to Al Jazeera. And one of the reasons people bring information to Al Jazeera in the past, as they did with the Palestine Papers and other projects, is because that they know we’ll take every step we can to protect and shield their identity. So, the way that we got these files, this digital leak, is not up for discussion.
But it is, I will gladly describe for you, an unprecedented window into how espionage is conducted, not just in South Africa, but the broader continent. What we have obtained is perhaps best thought of as, you know, if you look at a discarded bag of rubbish, you won’t know what’s inside it until you open it up. Similarly, in this—it’s not rubbish, it’s actually very useful information, but it’s an absolute assortment of things that are seemingly unrelated but nonetheless highly newsworthy. There is a high concentration of humdrum, routine intelligence cables within the South African security services that we came into possession of, and, in addition to that, correspondences from a variety of Western and foreign intelligence services asking the South Africans to take certain actions or trying to influence the South African intelligence services on a certain course of action. So, they’re, you know, an absolute fascinating window into how things are done, but they’re a fragment in a mosaic, and we’re missing—very much so—the rest of the painting. But what we can do is reveal what—you know, what operational cables that we can put into context. And that’s why we said in our editors’ note we’re not publishing everything, purely because it either wouldn’t be in the public interest or it wouldn’t add up to a bigger story in and of itself.
AARON MATÉ: So talk about what has emerged here on the issue of Iran. Just as talks are picking up between the U.S. and Tehran, and just as Netanyahu is coming to the U.S. trying to undermine their deal, an internal cable reveals that the Mossad contradicts Netanyahu on his own claims about Iran’s capabilities.
CLAYTON SWISHER: Well, there was much discussion that came after Netanyahu’s 2012 U.N. speech that he was at loggerheads with his Mossad chief, Meir Dagan. That was discussed, and in fact Meir Dagan even publicly said that a war with Iran would be a bad idea. But what is just—I think what’s breathtaking for the journalists who work on this is to see Mossad’s classified documents—a top-secret assessment no less—that is now available for the entire world to peruse and read at its own leisure. I mean, clearly, Netanyahu came and spoke before the entire world, presenting information that was in direct contradiction to the country’s premier intelligence service. It begs a strong question: Where did he get his information from? Was he taking talking points from the Washington Institute and AEI, or was he listening to his own intelligence services, who the government of Israel pays to look after this sort of material? So, it makes it a question similar to what Americans experienced in the run-up to the Iraq War: Is this based on intelligence, or is this based on political fiction? And, you know, I’m a journalist, true. I’ve lived here in Qatar for going on eight years. I’m also a citizen of this planet, and I think everyone who’s a citizen of this planet who lived through the Iraq War and who think of an impending Iran war, we should do everything to scrutinize the politics behind people who wish to start a new war, particularly with Iran, which would not only be a disaster for the United States at home, but also for the region and the entire world. So, as Netanyahu is going to come to the United States, I think there’s every reason to have beyond a healthy skepticism of what he intends to say at his, you know, home audience, if you will, the U.S. Congress. In fact, I would say that, you know, knowing what we know now with this top-secret Mossad cable, we should demand strict evidence of anything that he says before the American public, because it may in fact inform our elected officials to make a decision on whether or not to use military action to defy President Obama’s diplomatic efforts, etc.
AMY GOODMAN: Clayton Swisher, in addition to the former Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, who left office in December 2010, disagreeing with Netanyahu wanting to prepare a military attack on Iran, there are other leaders in Israel’s security establishment who, you write, were riled by Netanyahu’s rhetoric on the Iranian nuclear threat, accusing him of "messianic" political leadership pushing for military action. Can you explain?
CLAYTON SWISHER: Sure. I mean, it’s long—it’s long been the Israeli security military tradition where there’s a class of people—they refer to them as "bit hunis [phon.]," which are people that are in the security sector but are also seen as having a rational worldview, if you will, that want to establish some form of peace with their neighbors. Oftentimes—there’s an excellent film called The Gatekeepers, which I would recommend anyone watch, that interviews the last several directors of Shin Bet, their domestic intelligence service. And you find—actually, when the documentary interviewer sits with these Shin Bet directors, you find a much more pragmatic outlook and a much more realistic assessment of—you know, for example, on the Palestinian issue, that the Israeli government can’t continue killing Palestinians if it wants to have a permanent place in the neighborhood.
Yet the security people are often trumped by the politicians, the loudmouths, who are perpetually campaigning. If you think it’s bad in the U.S., it’s a perpetual campaign in Israel. And as a result, you don’t really get mature discussions, mature conversations in the public from their leaders. And it’s a very—it’s a very real risk. And it’s, I would hazard to guess, why Israel has not been able to make peace, because time and again they have proven to not have leaders who have been thinking in the long term, but politicians who are seeing which way the winds are blowing and how they can get through the next election.
So, unfortunately, in some instances, the only ones that have the real assessment on Israel’s security happen to be people who live in classified worlds. And I think it’s extraordinary the amount of security officials that spoke out and sniped against Netanyahu, because they realize the stakes are very high. They’ve seen the Iraq War experience, where bad intelligence got mixed into politics, and people sat on it and didn’t speak up. And lo and behold, now Israel has ISIS on its borders, and they’re further than ever from ever being welcome in the neighborhood. And, you know, it’s—looking back at the two-state solution is pie in the sky. So, you know, I think, frankly, as a journalist, I’m skeptical of everyone. But in this case, it’s remarkable to see Mossad at such variance with the prime minister. If only the United States had had that kind of disclosure ahead of the Iraq War between what the CIA was saying and what the Bush administration was saying, a war may have been averted.
AARON MATÉ: Let’s hear from more of Benjamin Netanyahu speaking last month. This was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Netanyahu used the occasion to accuse Iran of planning another genocide against the Jewish people.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: The ayatollahs in Iran, they deny the Holocaust, while planning another genocide against our people. Let me be clear: The Jewish people will defend itself, by itself, against any threat. That’s what the Jewish state is all about.
AARON MATÉ: That’s Benjamin Netanyahu speaking last month. The irony, Clayton, of course, is that it’s Netanyahu who has threatened attack on Iran for many years over its alleged nuclear activities—a violation of the U.N. Charter, in which you can’t make threats to other nations. But let’s talk about some of the other revelations here. Talk about the claims that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas opposed the U.N.'s endorsement of a report that accused Israel of war crimes, and also President Obama's attempt to pressure Abbas on seeking statehood recognition at the U.N.
CLAYTON SWISHER: Well, I’ll take it in that order then. So, in the case of the—there is a leaked cable describing an effort by Meir Dagan, the leader of Mossad, calling the South African spy boss on the eve of the U.N. Human Rights Council vote on whether or not to recommend Israel face investigation for alleged war crimes in Gaza in 2009, asked the spy boss of South Africa: "South Africa should not vote, and you know why? Mahmoud Abbas does not want South Africa to vote, because it will harm his political party and bolster that of his opposition in Hamas. And, of course, Mahmoud Abbas cannot say this publicly, so the Mossad is asking you, South Africa, not to cast your vote." And I think that, if anything—and we’ve seen a lot of evidence over the years. I was involved in the Palestine Papers in 2011. We had a whole mountain of evidence showing that President Abbas had advance knowledge that there was going to be an Israeli attack on Gaza, that he opted not to warn his people, that he was under incredible American pressure not to advance any sort of war crimes investigation, that it would be seen as prejudicing negotiations—which were moribund anyway—and he went for it. And so, you know, people were saying he bungled it. I think the evidence now is far the opposite. He directly obstructed it, and it was an abject—I’m sorry, it was, you know, an abdication of his responsibilities as a leader and shielded the occupier, that he’s supposed to be liberating his people from, against any possible war crimes.
And so, you know, this—to me, there’s too many data points. There’s too much evidence that’s now out there showing that he shielded Israel. And some will say, "Well, he just recently joined the ICC." Well, you’ll note that after the recent 50-day conflict of last summer, he waited until well after the conflict ended before signing the ICC. And what has Israel done in the meantime? They’ve gone in and launched their own investigations. And under the ICC rules, if one of the parties is seasoned in investigation, the ICC cannot do it. And the Israelis are going to say—mark my words—for many years, that they’re investigating, and it is credible, and we’ve got it all covered. And, you know, meanwhile, evidence is lost, memories fade, people die. You know, this was beyond bungling. You know, this was a craven abdication of his responsibilities. And I think that the cables make this clear now in a very oblique way, from South Africa of all places.
With respect to the cable that suggests there was a CIA operative in East Jerusalem who asked a South African operative to help with inroads with Hamas, the South Africans then write between themselves, Pretoria and East Jerusalem, "Well, how can we then run this CIA guy to see what kind of information they’re after?" It’s a very, again, oblique window into what the CIA’s interests are. You remember, in 2009, President Obama wanted to have a new relationship with the Muslim world. He spoke in Cairo. Autocrats were adopted by the Bush administration. Obama came in and thought, "Well, maybe there is room for political Islam." This was when they were still open to the idea, let’s say. So, it makes sense—it makes sense to me, at least. We’re reporting that this interest was expressed, but of course we don’t know whether the CIA took it forward. Hamas has said today on Al Jazeera they deny official contact, but they won’t say whether there was unofficial. And who knows how that’s defined? So, I think it’s intriguing.
AMY GOODMAN: You also note that a South African State Security Agency report from November 2012 records a Palestinian intelligence officer handing over a memo detailing a phone call made by President Obama to Mahmoud Abbas, where President Obama threatened Abbas if he goes ahead with the U.N. bid. Now, Abbas ultimately does. But explain the significance of this, and then also the cables revealing the same former Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, personally lobbying South African intelligence officials in 2009 against South Africa endorsing the findings of a U.N. inquiry led by the South African judge, Richard Goldstone, which alleged war crimes carried out by Israel’s three-week bombardment of Gaza in 2008 and 2009.
CLAYTON SWISHER: OK. Well, with respect to President Obama trying to, you know, convince Mahmoud Abbas not to go ahead with statehood, it’s important to note that the United States has always been hammering Palestinians to abandon armed resistance and embrace peaceful, nonviolent struggle. And you can understand the frustration of Arabs, Muslims and especially Palestinians, when they look at the American rhetoric, and they say, "OK, well, what’s wrong with, in embracing that nonviolent struggle, we take legal measures—pen to paper, we submit it before a court—or we petition a very legal body, like the United Nations, and we ask for things like diplomatic recognition?" It’s absolutely indefensible, and it’s just painfully hypocritical, when you see U.S. officials, like President Obama, as revealed in "The Spy Cables," or Samantha Power on the floor of the United Nations, obstructing these very blatant efforts by the Palestinians to exercise some kind of resistance through legal, peaceful means. You tell them violence is out. You tell them legal means is out. What do they have left? They have—I mean, it’s just—it’s absolutely absurd.
And we’ve seen, in recent events, they’ve gotten statehood. Did the sky fall? No. We see, in recent events, they joined the ICC. Did the sky fall? No. So, every time that they threaten all of—you know, that the end is nigh and this will—you know, this will damage things beyond recognition, the peace process is already damaged beyond recognition. And it’s only a handful of Western analysts and Pollyannaish journalists who continue to believe that there is a two-state solution and that this—you know, what’s been created on the ground can somehow be reversed. Rather than looking beyond, you know, President Obama and his administration has very much made this situation, in fact because they haven’t allowed Palestinians to express themselves, you know, through these various mechanisms.
AMY GOODMAN: Clayton Swisher, we want to thank you for being with us, director of investigative journalism at Al Jazeera. He’s overseeing the network’s coverage of "The Spy Cables." And we’ll continue to report on what’s revealed. He’s speaking to us from Doha, Qatar.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go to Texas, where immigrant prisoners have staged an uprising, thousands of them, over lack of medical care. Stay with us.
In Texas, up to 2,000 immigrant prisoners in Raymondville staged a two-day uprising to protest inadequate medical care at a privately run prison. After refusing to eat breakfast on February 20, prisoners seized control of part of the prison and set fires. Critics have described the jail as "Ritmo" — short for Raymondville’s Guantánamo prison — or simply "tent city," since most of the prison population sleeps in massive Kevlar tents. In a report last year, the American Civil Liberties Union described living conditions as "[not] only foul, cramped and depressing, but also overcrowded." The Willacy County Correctional Center in Raymondville is owned and operated by Management & Training Corporation, a private company based in Utah. It is one of 13 privately run so-called "Criminal Alien Requirement" prisons. The latest reports indicate that the prisoners are being relocated from the facility after it was deemed "uninhabitable." We speak to Carl Takei, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project. Last year he wrote the report, "Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System."
Image Credit: American Civil Liberties Union
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: We turn now to Texas, where up to 2,000 immigrant prisoners have staged a two-day uprising. It began Friday at a privately run prison in Willacy County to protest poor medical care. After refusing to eat breakfast, prisoners seized control of part of the prison and set fires. Video shot by KGBT in Texas showed a large group of prisoners in the yard, some climbing and shaking the prison fence. Prison guards reportedly used tear gas to quell the protest.
Federal officials have since deemed the prison to be "uninhabitable" and are moving the prisoners to other facilities. Critics have described the jail as "Ritmo," short for Raymondville’s Guantánamo, or simply "tent city," since most of the prison population sleeps in massive Kevlar tents. In a report last year, the ACLU described living conditions as, quote, "[not] only foul, cramped and depressing, but also overcrowded."
AMY GOODMAN: The Willacy County Correctional Center in Raymondville, Texas, is owned and operated by Management & Training Corp., a private company based in Utah. It’s one of 13 privately run so-called Criminal Alien Requirement prisons.
This marks the third uprising in recent years at a privately run immigration prison. In 2012, one guard was killed, 20 people were injured, when prisoners rose up at the Adams County Correctional Facility in Mississippi. That prison was operated by CCA—that’s the Corrections Corporation of America. In 2008, immigrant prisoners at a facility in Reeves County, Texas, staged an uprising after the death of a prisoner named Jesus Manuel Galindo. That prison was owned by the GEO Group.
We’re joined now by Carl Takei. He is a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project, author of the report, "Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System."
We invited a representative from Management & Training Corp. to join us, as well, but they declined our request.
So, if you could tell us, Carl, what happened, that you understand? I mean, it’s hard to get information, obviously, from inside this for-profit prison right now. How many prisoners rose up? What’s happened?
CARL TAKEI: Well, it is hard to get information, as you said, because one of the things that happens when a prison gets taken over by the prisoners and the authorities feel they’ve lost control, one of the first groups to lose access is a nongovernmental organization. So, I’m going entirely on what I’ve heard from media reports. The uprising appears to involved as many as two-thirds of the people who are incarcerated at Willacy, and it was about poor conditions and medical care, from what I understand.
AARON MATÉ: Carl, can you give us a background on this prison and the broader network of privately run immigration prisons that it’s a part of? Your group did an extensive report on the conditions there.
CARL TAKEI: That’s right. Willacy is one of 13 private prisons in the federal system. It’s sort of a shadow system within the Federal Bureau of Prisons system, that is run by private prison companies. These prisons house immigrants who have been convicted of drug offenses and immigrants who have been convicted of something called illegally re-entering the United States after deportation. The Bureau of Prisons has consigned immigrants to these prisons based on the assumption that they are all going to be deported after their sentences are up. And it can therefore treat them as second-class prisoners and hand them over to these for-profit companies that have a history of abusing and mistreating the people in their custody.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Carl, how many people are in this prison? And what do the grounds look like? They talk about the tents that they live in. What actually is taking place?
CARL TAKEI: Before the uprising occurred, there were about 2,800 or 2,900 people incarcerated at Willacy. And it’s—as you said, it’s a tent city prison, which means that the complex is dominated by 10 200-foot-long Kevlar tents. There are about 200 men inside each tent. And when I went there and interviewed prisoners in 2013, the impression that I came away with was a sense of overwhelming despair. People talked about how overcrowded it was and how unclean the place was. There were insects that would crawl in and bite people at night in their bunks. The toilets were constantly overflowing, spilling raw sewage back into the housing units and leaving the stench of sewage hanging in the air of the entire tent. They also talked about problems with medical care and the overuse of isolation. People would actually be moved into isolation cells when they first arrived at the prison, not because they had done anything wrong, but just because the tents were so overcrowded that there weren’t even available bunks there.
AMY GOODMAN: A recent study by the Justice Department found the number of suspects arrested for federal offenses more than doubled between ’94 and 2012, and that by 2012 half of all federal arrests were for immigration violations. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of arrests for unlawful re-entry into the U.S. increased 28-fold during that same time period. Can you talk about these reports and this program Operation Streamline?
CARL TAKEI: Yeah. Over the past decade, there have been a couple of little-used criminal offenses, that were on the books before, but that, thanks to zero-tolerance programs like Operation Streamline, have led to an explosion of immigration prosecutions. These are criminal prosecutions of people for crossing the border into the United States. And it’s taken over the federal judicial system along the Southwest border and also fed the flow of people into these Criminal Alien Requirement private prisons. And there are serious due process problems with the Operation Streamline proceedings, with mass guilty pleas. There are also—it’s also, as I said, led to a huge increase in the number of people entering the federal prison system for what was previously treated as a civil immigration violation.
AARON MATÉ: Carl, could you talk about the policy issues here? I mean, has there been any debate over the fact that we have private companies running prisons for immigration, effectively creating what some could call a second-class prison system for immigrants? And are there any efforts to reform this private control?
CARL TAKEI: It is a major problem. In our 2014 report, "Warehoused and Forgotten," we profiled the lack of oversight, transparency and accountability from the Bureau of Prisons. These are companies where their goal is to use the housing of—the incarceration of human beings and our tax dollars, and convert that into maximum profits. And that creates a situation rife with abuse, neglect and misconduct. One example comes from the Reeves CAR prison, also in Texas, where the Bureau of Prisons’ own monitors went in and found that the private prison company was not complying—not meeting its own corrective action plans. And they concluded that the lack of healthcare at the prison was contributing to significant suffering among the prisoners who were incarcerated there. Even after making those conclusions, though, the Bureau of Prisons chose to renew its contract with the company. When they asked to justify this to other Department of Justice officials, Bureau of Prisons officials said that they did this in order to preserve their credibility as a good customer for the private prison companies.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you, Carl Takei, for joining us, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project, author of the report, "Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System." Of course, we’ll continue to follow this uprising at the Raymondville, Texas, immigrant prison run by a for-profit company, as well as others, of course, across the country.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll be joined by the daughter of Malcolm X on this aftermath of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. Stay with us.
As Democracy Now! continues to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, we are joined by his daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, and friend, A. Peter Bailey. Both were inside the Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, the day Malcolm X was shot dead. Shabazz was just two years old, while Bailey was among the last people to speak with Malcolm X that day. Shabazz is a community organizer, motivational speaker and author of several books, including the young adult-themed "X: A Novel" and a memoir, "Growing Up X." Bailey is a journalist, author and lecturer who helped Malcolm X found the Organization of Afro-American Unity and served as one of the pallbearers at his funeral. Bailey is the author of several books, including "Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher." Shabazz and Bailey discuss the circumstances surrounding Malcolm X’s killing and share personal reflections on his life and legacy.
Watch Part 2 of the discussion here.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: As Democracy Now! continues to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, today we spend the rest of the show with his daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, and his friend, A. Peter Bailey. They were both inside the Audubon Ballroom on February 21st, 1965, the day Malcolm was shot dead. Ilyasah was just two years old.
AMY GOODMAN: Ilyasah Shabazz is a community organizer, a motivational speaker, activist and author. She recently co-wrote a young adult book called X: A Novel. Her previous books include Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X and The Diary of Malcolm X: El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Her 2003 memoir is called Growing Up X. Her latest piece for The New York Times was headlined "What Would Malcolm X Think?" She joins us here in New York.
And from Silver Spring, Maryland, we’re joined by A. Peter Bailey, journalist, author, lecturer, helped Malcolm X found the Organization of Afro-American Unity and edited its newsletter, Blacklash. Bailey was one of the last people to speak with Malcolm X on the day of his assassination. He served as one of the pallbearers at Malcolm’s funeral. He’s the author of Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher.
We want to welcome you both to Democracy Now! Ilyasah, let’s begin with you, although I’m sure it’s hard to remember this day. You were in the Audubon Ballroom on February 21st, 1965?
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: I was. I was there. My two older sisters, Attallah and Qubilah, and my mother, we were there to hear our father’s confederation on the OAAU. And I don’t—
AMY GOODMAN: What row were you in, or did your mother tell you after that you were in?
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: Yeah, yeah, we were stage right, in the front. Yeah. And
AMY GOODMAN: Do you have any recollection?
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: I don’t have any recollection. But, you know, I wasn’t quite three years old, and I—when I was writing Growing Up X, I remembered my uncle Wilfred visiting, and I remembered being at the Malcolm X College in Chicago, and I remember when he was leaving. And I was about a little over three. And I remember just crying at the top of my lungs. And my mother, later, she had this story that I used to wake up looking for my father. And, you know, she would replace this with cookies, because we used to share cookies late at night. And so, I used to wake up, when we stayed at Peter Bailey’s—I mean, not Peter Bailey, at Sidney Poitier’s house, and looking for my father, and so she started putting cookies at the door. So I sort of made the correlation that even though I was so young, I’m sure, you know, the chaos, the loud noise, had some sort of effect, and just remembering that your father never came home, you know, that missing.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter Bailey, your recollection of that day—where you were, what happened—at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, February 21st, 1965?
A. PETER BAILEY: Well, I was at the Audubon, and Brother Malcolm, when he came in, asked me to come backstage, which I did. And we talked about several things while I was back there. And then he asked which one of us—there was about five of us back there—recognized a New York City minister, who had been very involved in the school battles in New York. He was coming to the Audubon that day to make a pitch for support for clothing for Brother Malcolm’s children, which had been burned up in the firebombing of his home the previous weekend. So I said, well, I recognized him, so he asked me to go out front to the little lobby area before you came into the main ballroom—and the ballroom was huge—and wait for Reverend Galamison and bring him backstage.
So I was sitting there facing the entrance, and I heard Malcolm say, "Assalamu alaikum." And the next thing I heard, you know, was shots. It sounded to me like hundreds of shots. Later, I found out there weren’t that many, but it sounded like hundreds of shots. And I, with a few of us that were out there, we ran into this bathroom that was off to the side, and when the shooting stopped, we ran back. I came back and ran through the swinging doors into the main ballroom. And people were yelling and screaming and crying and cursing, and chairs were all knocked over, tables knocked over. And I ran down, and I jumped upon the stage. And Mary Kochiyama, a Japanese American who was very close to us, had him cradled in her arms. And his shirt was open, and I saw the bullet holes in his body. And I remember thinking to myself, "He’s going to die. He’s going to die. He’s going to die." And then the brothers came in with a rolling stretcher and put him on the stretcher and wheeled him over across the street, which was Columbia Presbyterian Hospital at that time. And I still remember that no doctor from the hospital would come to the Audubon.
AARON MATÉ: Mr. Bailey, can you—
A. PETER BAILEY: It was right across the street.
AMY GOODMAN: No doctor would come?
A. PETER BAILEY: No.
AMY GOODMAN: Why not?
A. PETER BAILEY: I assume because they were afraid.
AARON MATÉ: Well, on that point—
A. PETER BAILEY: So the brothers literally—they literally had to bogard and just take a stretcher and roll it through the streets back over to the Audubon and put Brother Malcolm on it. Now, when I jumped upon stage, he had not died, because he was gasping. I was watching as he was gasping. And then they put him on the stretcher and rolled the stretcher across the street to the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
AARON MATÉ: Mr. Bailey, can you talk about the climate for Malcolm at that time? You mentioned the firebombing of his house. He had recently broken with the Nation, living under constant threat, undergone what we believe to be a sort of political evolution in some of his views, or at least changing his views publicly. What was life like for him at that time?
A. PETER BAILEY: He was under constant threats from the Nation. There were elements in the Nation of Islam who were out to get him. And there was also the federal government. See, most people want to talk just about the thing between him and the Nation of Islam. But the federal government, the FBI, the CIA, were very concerned, because Brother Malcolm was on a mission to internationalize the movement. That’s why the organization that he founded, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, of which I was a member and editor of its newsletter, we called ourselves a human rights organization, not a civil rights organization. And Brother Malcolm was planning to take the United States government before the U.N. Commission on Human Rights for being either unable or unwilling to protect the lives or property of black people. And he spent most of the last year of his life, you know, moving towards that goal. And because of what he was doing, he was getting—being threatened by elements in the Nation of Islam and by U.S. government agencies. And I think that the assassination was a willing collaboration between these two factions.
AMY GOODMAN: And for young people especially, Peter Bailey, when you talk about the rift with the Nation of Islam, who might not be familiar with what happened, how Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam?
A. PETER BAILEY: Well, Brother Malcolm—I think it really got down to the fact that there were elements in the leadership of the Nation of Islam who wanted to keep—you know, like it’s better to control a small—what is it? You know, a small pond than to be—have a larger thing to deal with. And they did not like the fact that he was making outreach to the traditional civil rights organizations. And, by the way, this happened before he even got out. In 1963, he had a rally in Harlem that he invited all the major civil rights leaders to come to. They didn’t come. And at that time, he was still in the Nation of Islam. So, they did not want—they didn’t like what he was doing in terms of the outreach. They did not like what he was doing in terms of being more involved actively in making some connection with the civil rights movement. They wanted to keep themselves isolated, and many of them resented that.
And so they began to try to undermine him with Elijah Muhammad, who was the leader of the Nation of Islam. And I’ve always believed that if Elijah Muhammad had not been ill at the time, where people can take advantage of a leader who’s ill, he might have just called Brother Malcolm in and said, "Listen, what’s going on here? Let’s sit down and talk." But when I read a book called Pathology of Leadership, that sometimes when a leader is ill, it can have a major effect on events.
And so, those—and then, of course, again, government agencies were helping to promote this. They would call Brother Malcolm’s people and say, "You better watch out for Elijah Muhammad’s people." They would call Elijah Muhammad’s people and say, "You better watch out for Malcolm X’s people." So they were kind of trying to keep the rift going. And there were elements in the Nation leadership who were working, who were collaborating with this effort. And that’s the way I have to come to realize it and see it after all these years.
AARON MATÉ: Ilyasah, can you reflect on this time for Malcolm? One of the big revelations in the movie Selma that surprised many people is that your father goes to Selma to meet with Coretta Scott King while Dr. King is in jail.
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: Right, that’s correct. First, you know, both of our families were very close—Dr. King’s family and Malcolm’s family. And both were seeking solutions to this human condition that would oppress its fellow man. It’s just an unfortunate situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Ilyasah, while at the time, of course, you were too young, you have written extensively about your dad. You’ve written—you co-wrote, with Herb Boyd—you co-edited The Diary of Malcolm X in that last year. In 1964, your father went to Africa, went to Mecca. Talk about the significance of that period. And then, how interesting that your families knew each other—Dr. King’s family and yours—yet a lot has been made of the rift between your father and Dr. King. But you’re saying there was something else going on.
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: Well, yes, our families were very close. But, you know, it had to have been quite challenging for my father to discover that the Nation of Islam wasn’t what he thought it was, that he had sacrificed so much of his life, that he had dedicated so much to this organization that he felt was the best kind of organization to help black people reliberate themselves, reclaim their history and so forth. And so, you know, to find that it wasn’t the organization that he thought had to have been quite devastating. And he was fortunate to go and make his pilgrimage and, you know, be treated as a human being. And many times, you know, we forget what the social climate was like in the 1960s. And so, that he was able to go to this holy place and be treated as an equal, you know, to be treated as a man, which was not the case here in America. And I think that that’s really one of the things that we—we seem to forget that, the social climate that was in the 1960s, that my father and Dr. King and so many others fought against.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you tell young people? Now, you wrote the novel; it’s called X: A Novel. Why did you choose to make it a novel?
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: Historical fiction to bring the young reader in, you know, along into Malcolm’s journey of self-discovery. He was evidently in pain by the loss of his father, by—
AMY GOODMAN: What happened to his dad?
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: His father—you know, his father was a great activist—both of his parents. And he was a Garveyite. He was the president—
AMY GOODMAN: Follower of Marcus Garvey.
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: Yes. He was the president, actually, of the Milwaukee chapter where they lived in the Midwest. And he wrote a letter to President Coolidge when Marcus Garvey was arrested. And, I mean, when you read this letter that he wrote to the president, you can see his son, Malcolm X, you know, where he said, "I suggest that you let this dear man out of jail. He did not commit any crimes. And if you do let him out, you will be in good graces with God and the people and history." And not too long after, President Coolidge released him from jail. So you see the kind of father that Malcolm had, you know, the two parents who contributed to this development, the foundation of Malcolm. And so I thought it was important to write first the children’s book, because it promotes self-love and leadership for young children, and then to write X: The Novel, which would bring the young reader along the journey of Malcolm in this time of pain, sometimes living a life of self-destruction, self-destructive behavior. And so, young people, challenged, can see that ultimately he would grow to become one of the greatest political strategists of our time.
AARON MATÉ: Mr. Bailey, the place where Malcolm X was killed, the Audubon Ballroom, is now a center in his name and that of his wife, Betty Shabazz. Looking back 50 years later, how do you want us to remember Malcolm X?
A. PETER BAILEY: I want him to be remembered as a wise leader; as a man who at a time when white supremacy terrorism rampant, between 1955 and 1965, was courageous enough to stand up to that; as a man who advocated the gaining of knowledge; as a man who understood that we were part of a world, not just the United States, but that we were part of a world, so he was reaching out to kind of internationalize the movement and connect the movement against white supremacist terrorism to the movement against colonialism, especially on the African continent. I mean, he was a teacher. That’s why when I talk about him to young people especially, I always refer to him as a master teacher. And there’s no more important a member of a community than a master teacher. He taught us. People say, "What did he do?" I say he changed minds. He gave us a perception on how to view the world, and the country and the world. He taught us the importance of doing research and speaking, and not just off the top of your head, of actually getting the facts. He used to say, "I know when I go out and speak at various places that there are people in the audience whose sole reason of being there is to catch me with my facts wrong. So I don’t give them that opportunity."
AMY GOODMAN: Peter Bailey, we have to break now, but we’re going to do part two of this discussion with you and Ilyasah Shabazz, and we’ll post it online at democracynow.org.
Headlines:
ISIS Captures Up to 100 Christians in Syria
Islamic State militants have reportedly kidnapped scores of Christians in northeastern Syria. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 90 Assyrian Christians have been captured, while another group put the number between 70 and 100. The captures came as ISIS militants retreated from Kurdish militia backed by the U.S.-led coalition. The Obama administration, meanwhile, is planning a major offensive in Iraq to retake the ISIS-controlled city of Mosul. Speaking in Kuwait Monday after meetings with top U.S. officials, new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter vowed to defeat the Islamic State.
Ashton Carter: "Our discussion this afternoon affirmed the seriousness and the complexity of the threat posed by ISIL (Islamic State), especially in an interconnected and networked world. Lasting defeat of this brutal group can and will be accomplished."
Earlier this month, ISIS released video of the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya. Amnesty International has now accused Egyptian forces of failing to take key precautions before launching retaliatory airstrikes, which killed seven civilians in the Libyan city of Derna.
Report: Mossad Contradicted Netanyahu Claims on Iran
A new report has raised questions about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s effort to thwart a nuclear deal with Iran. According to Al Jazeera, Israel’s spy agency, the Mossad, contradicted Netanyahu’s own dire warnings, made before the U.N. General Assembly, about Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear bomb within one year. The news comes as U.S. officials have reported progress in nuclear talks with Iran, and as Netanyahu is due to address Congress next month. We will have more on the story after headlines.
U.S. Jury Finds Palestinian Groups Liable for Attacks in Israel
In the United States, a Manhattan jury has found the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization liable for allegedly supporting terrorist attacks in Israel which killed or injured Americans. The groups have denied any involvement in the attacks, which took place over a decade ago. In a statement, Palestinian Authority spokesperson Dr. Mahmoud Khalifa vowed to appeal the jury’s decision, saying, "This case is just the latest attempt by hard-line antipeace factions in Israel to use and abuse the U.S. legal system to advance their narrow political and ideological agenda."
Palestinian Authority Faces Financial Crisis as Israel Blocks Funds
The jury’s finding imposes $655 million in damages at a time when the Palestinian Authority faces a financial crisis over Israel’s withholding of more than $100 million in tax revenue. Israel has blocked the funds over the Palestinians’ decision to join the International Criminal Court. Secretary of State John Kerry has warned the Palestinian Authority’s survival may be under threat.
John Kerry: "If the Palestinian Authority ceases or were to cease security cooperation, or even decide to disband, as a result of their economic predicament — and that could happen in the near future if they don’t receive additional revenues — then we would be faced with yet another crisis that could also greatly impact the security of both Palestinians and Israelis. And that would have the potential of serious ripple effects elsewhere in the region."
Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian Teenager in Bethlehem Camp
Israeli forces have shot and killed a Palestinian teenager in a refugee camp in Bethlehem. The Israeli military says the soldiers opened fire after they were attacked with rocks and incendiary devices during an arrest raid. But the local governor says 19-year-old Jihad Shehada al-Jaafari was shot and killed while watching the clashes from his roof.
Maldives: Ex-President Mohamed Nasheed Dragged into Court
Police in the Maldives have physically dragged environmentalist and former President Mohamed Nasheed into court to face charges of illegally ordering the arrest of a judge while Nasheed was still president. Nasheed’s arrest Sunday marked the latest chapter in a battle over his decision to arrest a judge appointed by his predecessor, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives for 30 years before Nasheed became its first democratically elected president in 2008. He became famous in 2009 for holding a cabinet meeting underwater to show the threat of climate change to his island nation. Nasheed was ousted in 2012 in what he called an armed coup by Gayoom’s supporters.
GOP Bid to Block Immigration Policies Threatens to Shut Down DHS
Senate Democrats have blocked a fourth Republican bid to defund President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, in exchange for continuing to fund the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is due to run out of money on Friday unless Congress passes legislation to fund it. But Republicans have sought to tie the funding to a rollback of Obama’s plan to spare millions of immigrants from deportation. Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland criticized the deadlock.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski: "The Coast Guard is on the job. They’re working in the cold. They’re working in the wind. They’re breaking up ice in not only Maryland, but all over to these frozen ports. And what do we say? 'Good job, guys. There they are on TV, and we love you, but we might not pay you.' What is this? They’re out there saving lives, and we’re playing parliamentary ping-pong."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has announced plans to end the stalemate by splitting the bid to defund immigration initiatives into a separate measure.
Texas: Court Stays Execution of Rodney Reed
A court in Texas has stayed the execution of an African-American man who has been on death row for 17 years, after his attorneys presented new evidence of his innocence. Rodney Reed was scheduled to die March 5 for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, a white woman with whom he says he was having an affair. But Reed’s attorneys say a new investigation has uncovered evidence Stites was actually killed hours before state prosecutors claimed. The new timeline appears to implicate Stites’ fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, a white former police officer now in prison for sexually assaulting a woman while on duty.
Houston Officials Clear 3-Decade Rape-Kit Backlog
In Texas, officials in Houston have cleared a three-decade backlog of more than 6,600 rape kits. The testing turned up 850 DNA matches in a national database. The authorities acknowledged some suspects whose DNA was in the Houston kits committed other crimes while the evidence languished. Houston is one of several cities nationwide with massive rape-kit backlogs.
Los Angeles Police Avoid Charges for Killing Unarmed Veteran on Live TV
Three Los Angeles police officers have avoided criminal charges for shooting an unarmed, disabled veteran on live television. Billy Beaird was shot in December 2013 following a car chase which aired live on local news. Beaird’s father was among those who watched live as his son emerged from his car, raised his hands and was shot 13 times. Prosecutors found the fatal shots hit Beaird while he fell or while he was on the ground, but they said there was insufficient evidence to prove the officers did not fire to defend themselves or someone else. Late last year, the officers were found to have violated department rules. They have been relieved of duty without pay, pending punishment. The city has approved a $5 million settlement for Beaird’s family.
VA Secretary Apologizes for Claiming He was in Special Forces
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald has apologized for falsely claiming he served in the U.S. special forces. McDonald made the claim last month while speaking with a homeless veteran in a segment that aired on CBS Evening News.
Robert McDonald: "Do you happen to be a veteran of military service?"
Veteran: "Yes."
Robert McDonald: "Really?"
Veteran: "Yes."
Robert McDonald: "Army? Navy? Air Force?"
Veteran: "Army."
Robert McDonald: "Army. What unit?"
Veteran: "Special forces."
Robert McDonald: "Special forces. What years? I was in special forces."
McDonald actually served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division — not special forces. In a statement Monday, McDonald said, "I incorrectly stated that I had been in special forces. That was inaccurate and I apologize to anyone that was offended by my misstatement."
U.N. Climate Chief Resigns amid Sexual Harassment Case
Top climate scientist Rajendra Pachauri has stepped down as head of the United Nations’ Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change amid an investigation in India over sexual harassment. A female researcher at Pachauri’s group, The Energy and Resources Institute, accused him of sending her harassing email and text messages. Pachauri’s attorneys say his accounts and phone were hacked.
Wisconsin: Labor Unions Protest Anti-Union Bill Copied from ALEC
Labor unions are heading to the Wisconsin State Capitol today to protest plans by Republican Gov. Scott Walker to sign anti-union legislation. The so-called right-to-work bill would undermine the ability of private sector unions to collect dues and collectively bargain. The Center for Media and Democracy has revealed the bill in Wisconsin is taken word for word from model legislation proposed by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council.
Recreational Marijuana Becomes Legal in Alaska
Alaska has become the third U.S. state to legalize recreational marijuana. A ballot measure passed by voters in November takes effect today, allowing people ages 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of pot.
Former Corinthian Students Launch Debt Strike; Rolling Jubilee Erases $13 Million of Debt
Fifteen former students of the for-profit Corinthian Colleges system have launched what they say is the nation’s first student debt strike. The students have refused to pay back loans they took out to attend Corinthian, which has been sued by the federal government for its predatory lending. Meanwhile, an activist group has announced it has erased over $13 million of debt owed by students of Everest College, a Corinthian subsidiary. The Rolling Jubilee uses donated funds to purchase debt at discounted prices, then abolish it.
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