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Russia's Entry into Syria Worsens Killings of Medical Workers on War's Front Lines
As global talks on Syria take place in Vienna, we look at the dangers to medical workers on the front lines of the world’s deadliest conflict. Nearly 700 medical personnel have been killed in Syria since the war erupted in March 2011. The group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) says there have been more than 300 attacks on health facilities—with the Syrian regime responsible 90 percent of the time. According to Doctors Without Borders, airstrikes in Syria have killed at least 35 patients and medical staff since an escalation in bombings late last month. Russian airstrikes have damaged six Syrian health facilities this month, killing at least four civilians and wounding six medical staffers. We are joined by PHR’s Widney Brown and a Syrian doctor who fled his country under the cover of night.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen have been devastating for civilians, but recent attacks laid bare the dangers to medical personnel, as well. The latest figures from Doctors Without Borders say the U.S. airstrike on its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killed 30 people—13 workers, 10 patients and seven others who remain unidentified. Another 27 staffers were injured along with an unknown number of patients and caretakers. The bombing left the 94-bed trauma center in ruins and hundreds of thousands of Afghans without a critical surgical facility. Doctors Without Borders has accused the United States of a war crime and demanded an independent international probe.
Just three weeks later, another Doctors Without Borders hospital was destroyed in Yemen, this time by the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition that has waged war there since March. Doctors Without Borders says hospital staff and patients managed to escape as the facility was hit multiple times over a two-hour period Monday night. The hospital’s roof was marked with the Doctors Without Borders logo, and GPS coordinates had been shared with the Saudi-led coalition multiple times. Doctors Without Borders says the attack will leave 200,000 people without access to medical care.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Syria, the world’s deadliest conflict, has also been the deadliest for medical workers. Nearly 700 medical personnel have been killed since the war erupted in March of 2011. The group Physicians for Human Rights says there have been more than 300 attacks on health facilities, with the Syrian regime responsible 90 percent of the time. According to Doctors Without Borders, airstrikes in Syria have killed at least 35 patients and medical staff since an escalation in bombings late last month. Twelve Syrian hospitals were targeted, six were forced to close. The group Physicians for Human Rights says Russian airstrikes have damaged six Syrian health facilities this month, killing at least four civilians and wounding six medical staffers.
The violence against health workers in Syria was the focus Thursday of a major demonstration in New York City. Hundreds of medical professionals and volunteers donned white coats and took part in a die-in near the United Nations. They lay on the ground to represent the nearly 700 colleagues who have lost their lives.
DR. DEANE MARCHBEIN: Healthcare personnel, hospitals, ambulances are being targeted, which means that whole communities don’t have access to care. Our Syrian colleagues, many of them are like the only remaining medical providers in communities of tens of thousands, a hundred thousands. They are taking great personal risk to provide access to healthcare for their community. We stand in solidarity. I’ve worked in Syria. I’ve worked in support of Syria. And the Syrian people are asking, "Has the world forgotten about us? Do they know what’s happening? Do they know that people—that snipers are targeting doctors or nurses?" This is horrible. It’s unacceptable.
DR. CONRAD FISCHER: Various people and various groups are specifically targeting hospitals, because they know that if they wipe out the first responders and the doctors, all the injured will die. If you injure—one of the things people don’t know about an explosive device is that the actual number of people injured, for each person killed, is actually 20 to one. So when you hear on the news that one person died, you have to multiply it by 20. You get rid of the doctors, then those 20 people don’t make it.
AMY GOODMAN: Thursday’s protest came on the eve of international talks on the Syria crisis in Vienna, Austria. Iran, a key Assad regime ally, is taking part for the first time after the U.S. stopped objecting to its involvement.
We’re joined now by two guests. Widney Brown is with us. She is director of programs at Physicians for Human Rights, which helped organize Thursday’s die-in at the U.N. to protest the killings of medical professionals in Syria. And we’re joined by a Syrian doctor who’s using the pseudonym Majed Aboali to protect his identity and safety. He’s a Syrian health worker from East Ghouta and coordinator for the United Medical Office of East Ghouta. He fled Syria last year, now lives in Turkey.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Talk about the die-in and what’s happening in Syria. We’ll also talk about the bombings of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan and Yemen.
WIDNEY BROWN: Well, the attacks on hospitals and the killing of medical workers in Syria is at a scale that we simply have never seen before. And it’s undermining a really long-established norm, a 150-year norm, that says hospitals and medical providers must be protected in conflict, not targeted. So what’s happening in Syria is devastating both to the healthcare infrastructure and the ability to help people who need healthcare services, either because they’re victims in the bombing themselves or for other medical needs. And at this point, as you said, 90 percent of the attacks on hospitals, we’ve been able to confirm, are by the Syrian government. And about 95 percent of the killing of doctors and other medical professionals, again, is by the Syrian government.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But the protest was at the United Nations. What can the United Nations do in this conflict?
WIDNEY BROWN: Well, the U.N. Security Council is charged with maintaining international peace and security. And for nearly five years, it’s been completely paralyzed with regard to the conflict in Syria. Now, they did pass a resolution where they explicitly said the Syrian government and all other parties to the conflict must stop the attacks on hospitals, schools and attacks on civilians. And it said in that resolution, if there’s evidence of noncompliance, they will take further action. That was two years ago. I’m not sure what more evidence they need, but we need stronger actions by the U.N. Security Council.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Majed Aboali, tell us your story. You come from Ghouta?
DR. MAJED ABOALI: Yeah, I came from eastern Ghouta, which is just 10 kilometers from the great capital Damascus. It’s a besieged area since November 2012, where there is no electricity. After just five days, we will celebrate the third anniversary of being without electricity in this area. There is no pure water. There is no food. It’s completely besieged. We are struggling just to get our food.
I worked there—I was born there, actually, and I worked there 'til May 2014, where I could be no more, because I have family, and they have the right to live. And my decisions to stay and to help people, supporting medical assistance, supporting heath assistance and field hospitals, to provide health services for people and to treat the injuries, maybe would affect my family. And I just want my kids to be safe. So I decided that my decisions would affect my son and his future. He has a right to have a safe school, at least. He has a right to have a good health system. So I fled out with my family in May 2014. I'm working now now in Gaziantep.
AMY GOODMAN: Where?
DR. MAJED ABOALI: In Turkey, Gaziantep. It’s a city in the south that most of the Syrians will prefer to live in, because—it’s just not because it’s near to the Syrian borders. You can feel that you are very close, that you’re home, and you can at least be in contact with people there.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: When you were in Syria, you and your colleagues were forced to build, in essence, an underground health system?
DR. MAJED ABOALI: Yeah, actually, hospitals were targeted from the first day of the revolutions. And doctors were shot to death. Doctors were tortured to death in the prisons of the regime. So, actually, in my area, which is about—now it’s about 500,000 people living there, and it’s besieged, and before it was more than 1 million. When the regime pulled the forces on the ground outside of this area and began his strategy of putting it in siege, he stopped all the services inside this area. So, before—that happened November 2012. Before, we were treating the injuries, because they were not allowed to be treated in the hospitals of neither the public hospital or the private hospitals. They would be arrested with the doctors who are treating them. So we were just treating them away from the regime’s security. Now we have to provide all health services for the people who are living in this area. So you have to provide primary healthcare, dialysis unit, cardiologists have to work—all kind of health services. It’s too dangerous to work over the ground, so we began to use basements and to dig under the ground to build our hospital. It’s not healthy to have a hospital under the ground. It’s not—it’s a shame on this world that a doctor have to work under the ground just to be safe.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to the Ghouta attack in 2013—Ghouta, where you come from. Hundreds of Syrian civilians died in a chemical attack in Ghouta. The incident nearly caused the United States to launch military strikes in Syria after the Obama administration accused forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, of carrying out the attack. This is President Obama speaking on PBS days after the attack.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: When you start talking about chemical weapons, in a country that has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the world, where, over time, their control over chemical weapons may erode, where they’re allied to known terrorist organizations that in the past have targeted the United States, then there is a prospect, a possibility, in which chemical weapons, that can have devastating effects, could be directed at us. And we want to make sure that that does not happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Russia and the U.S. eventually reached a deal to have Syria destroy its chemical stockpiles. You were there when the chemical attack took place. Can you describe what you saw two years ago?
DR. MAJED ABOALI: Well, I think, as we are in New York, New Yorkers can understand a lot what I’m talking about, because it’s too similar to 9/11. You are at your work. We were at home. Me, for myself, I was at home. All the people were sleeping, most of the eastern Ghouta. Doctors were on shift, as usual. We’re used for receiving like bombs and shelling and airstrikes, but suddenly it was like a massacre. It was not the first chemical attack, but we used to receive 15 to 20 patients that were affected by a chemical attack. Suddenly hundreds of people began to came to the hospitals. They were sleeping—kids, women. Kids came with their sleeping suits. I think New Yorkers can understand that very much. It was like you can do nothing for this. Doctors stand hopeless and helpless in that night. It’s too hard to take the decisions—who will you treat before, because he have most chance to live, and who we have to delay, because you have not enough staff, you have not enough equipment, you not enough medical supplies. I think even a civilized city, which have a good equipment, which have a good capacity, will not be able to deal with such a disaster.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what were the symptoms as the patients came in? How many ended up dying, that you could tell?
DR. MAJED ABOALI: Well, actually, the symptoms are the same, but the degree of the symptoms were different from a patient to another. That depends upon how much he was closer to the center of the attacks. Well, the lack of breathing was the main thing that we had to deal with. Actually, experts considered it as a sarin attack. We, as medical—
AMY GOODMAN: Sarin gas?
DR. MAJED ABOALI: Yes, sarin gas. We, as medical staff, all our experience is to describe the symptoms, so that we described the symptoms exactly for the experts, for the United Nations mission which entered the eastern Ghouta. And it was there already. The mission was in Damascus when the chemical attack happened. And the experts considered it as a sarin attack.
Actually, it’s not a matter if it was sarin or it was chlorine or what is the weapon that the regime used. It was mentioned that the weapons, the chemical weapons, of the regime was destroyed, but a lot of Syrians in the same area were killed, more than the people who were killed in that night. After one year and the first anniversary of the chemical attack, we, as a medical office there, looked at our statistics. How many people were killed by airstrikes? They were double from the people who were killed by the chemical attack. How many people were killed by siege, from starvation and from lack of medical supplies? Many of them were killed, more than the number who were killed that night. Actually, what happened that night is still going 'til now, doctors standing hopeless today in the same eastern Ghouta. Today, just four hours ago, an airstrike targeted a market, and 47 people died in the same area. But no one care, because it's not a chemical attack.
AMY GOODMAN: You protested, Widney Brown, outside of the United Nations. What are you calling on the U.N. and the U.S. to do?
WIDNEY BROWN: Well, the U.N. and—
AMY GOODMAN: And this is about attacks on hospitals in Syria.
WIDNEY BROWN: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Increasing attacks, Doctors Without Borders are saying, by Russian attacks on hospitals?
WIDNEY BROWN: Yes, we’re also documenting attacks on hospitals by Russian airplanes. We’ve confirmed several. MSF, as you know, has announced that they’ve had 12 attacks just in October. The Russians started bombing, I think, the last day in September. So, obviously, we’ve got Russians using what they say is smart bombs in attacking hospitals. So now doctors are trying to survive both Syrian air force barrel bombs and guided missiles from the Russians.
What we’re calling on the U.N. to do is—the U.N. has imposed no sanctions against Syria since the start of this war. The only existing sanctions against Syria are actually from the assassination of Hariri in Lebanon. So they’ve taken none of the measures that they can take to try to address the violations that are happening here. So we’re calling on them to take action. They themselves envisioned it in the resolution that they did pass calling for a halt to the attacks on hospitals, the killings of doctors, etc.
AMY GOODMAN: When we come back, we’re going to ask about the attack on the bomb—on the hospital in Yemen, as well as the U.S. attack on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan that left at least 30 people dead. We’re talking to Widney Brown, who is the head of Physicians for Human Rights here in the United States, director of programs, and Dr. Majed Aboali—not his actual name. He’s a dentist, a Syrian health worker, from East Ghouta, coordinator for United Medical Office of East Ghouta. fled Syria last year, now lives in Turkey. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute. ... Read More →
How the Other Half Banks: Author Says America's Two-Tiered Banking System is a Threat to Democracy
The nation’s financial crisis taught us that when it comes to Wall Street giants, political leaders consider some banks "too big to fail." After initial misgivings, Democrats and Republicans joined together to commit over $700 billion to rescue major firms from collapse. Now a new book looks at the inverse of this policy: when it comes to serving communities on the local level, some banks are just too small to rescue. In "How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy," University of Georgia law professor Mehrsa Baradaran explores how poor communities have been denied the normal banking opportunities that help sustain households and grow economies.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The nation’s financial crisis taught us that when it comes to Wall Street giants, political leaders consider some banks "too big to fail." After initial misgivings, Democrats and Republicans joined together to commit over $700 billion to rescue major firms from collapse. But what was widely accepted seven years ago this month may no longer be the case today. Just this week, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said we should let the banks fail if the same situation arises again. Clinton was speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
STEPHEN COLBERT: If you’re president—
HILLARY CLINTON: Yes.
STEPHEN COLBERT: —and the banks—and the banks are failing, do we let them fail this time?
HILLARY CLINTON: Yes, yes.
STEPHEN COLBERT: We let them fail this time?
HILLARY CLINTON: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
STEPHEN COLBERT: Wow.
HILLARY CLINTON: Yes. First of all, under Dodd-Frank, that is what will happen, because we now have stress tests, and I’m going to impose a risk fee on the big bank if they—if they engage in risky behavior. But they have to know, their shareholders have to know, that, yes, they will fail. And if they’re too big to fail, then, under my plan and others that have been proposed, they may have to be broken up, because if you can’t manage it, then it’s more likely to fail.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But if big banks have been too big to fail so far, we turn now to a look at the inverse of this policy: When it comes to serving communities on the local level, some banks are just too small to rescue. That’s the lesson of the new book, How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy, by author and law professor Mehrsa Baradaran. The book explores how poor communities have been denied the normal banking opportunities that help sustain households and grow economies.
AMY GOODMAN: Between 2008 and 2013, some 2,000 bank branches were shut down in the United States. Ninety-three percent of those were in lower-income communities. Without normal banks, these communities have been at the mercy of check cashers and payday lenders, who charge rates and fees far higher than any normal institution. The result is a predatory system that helps keep low-income people in a crushing cycle of debt.
Mehrsa Baradaran argues in favor of a public banking option, such as through the post office, a system shut down in the U.S. nearly 50 years ago, an idea that also came up on late-night television recently when Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders was interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel.
JIMMY KIMMEL: This is something I’ve never heard before: You want to make post offices into banks.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, what I want to see is—
JIMMY KIMMEL: Or provide banking at the post office.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Jimmy, we have millions and millions of low-income people who have to go to these payday lenders and pay outrageous interest rates. They’re getting ripped off right and left. We can have our Postal Service provide modest banking to low-income people, where they can cash their checks and they can do banking. I think it will help the post office, and it will help millions of low-income people.
AMY GOODMAN: That was presidential candidate, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live. We’re joined now by Mehrsa Baradaran, the associate professor of law at the University of Georgia, specializing in banking regulation, who wrote How the Other Half Banks. So talk about how the other half banks and what we should know.
MEHRSA BARADARAN: That’s right. So, you know, half the population couldn’t access $400 within a month to meet some emergency needs. Right? Your tire needs to be fixed. Your kid is in the hospital, and you have some bill. You don’t have that money, you have to borrow from someone. And if you don’t have friends and family, you have to go to a payday lender. And you pay somewhere from 300 to 2,000 percent APR. So by the time all is said and done, you’ve not only, you know, paid back that initial principal, but 10 times, 20 times the principal. And so, this is something that not only doesn’t help people, but it ends up turning a temporary cash crunch into a financial disaster.
And not to mention a whole slew of other services that’s just not available to people [without] banking accounts. For example, to just use your paycheck, you have to pay, a lot of times, 10 percent of your money just to cash it, and then another, you know, couple dollars to turn it into a money order to pay your bills. Right? So this is, you know, more than a lot of low-income people spend on food, they have to pay for financial services.
And I see that as not just an economic problem. Right? As you said earlier, we’ve bailed out the big banks. We’ve funneled so much government money to shore up this system, while half the public has no access to that. And that half also doesn’t have access to any emergency liquidity, as the banks have so voluminously had access to. And so, the point of this book is let’s equalize the playing field a little bit.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, in terms, I mean, for instance, in banking, even on ATM machines, the less money you have in your account—
MEHRSA BARADARAN: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —the more you end up paying in fees just to be able to withdraw money. But yet there’s a lot of money being made. You mentioned the payday lenders. A lot of them are being bankrolled by major firms on Wall Street.
MEHRSA BARADARAN: That’s right. These payday lenders operate behind this sort of façade of informality. They seem like these mom-and-pop community shops. They’re not. They’re huge corporations. They make plenty of profits. They’re making a great margin on these loans. Look, I mean, yes, it is, you know, more expensive to lend to someone that is less liquid, right, has less money, but it’s not as expensive as they say they are. And the reason is, look—I mean, you look at how much payday lenders charge. Most of them charge the cap, usury laws allowable per state, right? So they don’t compete on price. These borrowers are not price-sensitive. They don’t shop around. And so there’s no incentive to lower the prices. And this is where a public option really steps in and says, "Look, we’re going to lower the price at the cost of the loan—not the cost plus profits plus all of the other overhead that we have, and have the poor bear that cost." Lend at the cost of the loan and give a huge buffer to people who really need it.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a payday loan borrower named Mary Bates. The single mother of two told CBS News she took out a $200 loan, plus interest, to fix her car. But after paying it off two weeks later, she couldn’t afford to live on what was left. So she had to take out another loan, starting a two-year cycle with a variety of payday lenders. It reportedly ended up costing her $1,500 plus interest to essentially recover from what was a $200 loan.
MARY BATES: An endless cycle, a dead-end. I would advise anybody not to. ... They’re set there for people like me that live payday to payday. And then once you get in there, you can’t get out. ... I would do without electricity, water, whatever it would take until my next payday, until I could pay. I would not do it.
AMY GOODMAN: Mehrsa Baradaran, explain her situation and how typical it is.
MEHRSA BARADARAN: Absolutely. It’s so typical. I hear so many stories like this. It’s so tragic. You know, a lot of people just need that $500 to get—you know, just to live. You know, life happens. You have unexpected emergencies. And for many of us, we have this buffer that can, you know, take the hits of life. And some people, they don’t, and so they get involved in this cycle of debt. And it turns, again, just a temporary problem into sometimes a permanent one. As she said, I would recommend anyone to not do this. But the problem is: Then what? What do you do? If you don’t have a payday loan, and you don’t have friends and family who can sort of send you this money, there really isn’t an alternative.
And in the book, in the introduction of the book, I compare, you know, people like her, who have this cash crunch and end up having to pay this much interest, versus, you know, a fictional person named Steven, who also had a cash crunch and got this miracle lender to lend to him at 0 percent interest and even bought up all of his bad investments. And, of course, this fictitious person is the nation’s banks. And I actually don’t think that analogy is that far off. Really, the banks weren’t just illiquid, right? They didn’t have a temporary cash crunch. Many of them were insolvent. And so, we didn’t just give them temporary loans, we actually ended up buffering them from the cost of their own misdeeds. And—
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: How was it that these affordable banking services became so rare? There was a time when there were community banks and credit unions all over the place, and you were able to get affordable banking service. What’s happened?
MEHRSA BARADARAN: Absolutely. So, over the last 30 years—and there’s a direct correlation, by the way. As the community banks leave these areas—credit unions, savings and loans—the fringe lenders come in. There was no payday loan before the 1980s, when communities had, you know, plenty of banking options, between credit unions, small community banks and thrifts. And over the last 30 years, there’s been market changes and deregulation that’s caused a massive conglomeration in banking. So now we have very large national, multinational banks, and it’s very difficult for community banks to compete against these banks, especially given that there is really no government support for these small institutions. And now, you know, if you’re a credit union, you’ve got to compete with the banks, and so you’re going to go after the higher-income individuals. So there just is this gap.
AMY GOODMAN: Last year, comedians John Oliver and Sarah Silverman weighed in on payday loans.
JOHN OLIVER: Apparently, 41 percent of those surveyed who have taken out payday loans ended up having to borrow from family or pawn possessions or other things that they could have done in the first place just to pay off that payday loan. And yet, payday loans superficially do look easier. All these commercials, they’re enticing, and they’re also everywhere. The least we can do is launch a countercampaign with a celebrity spokesperson of our own to remind people to make sure they explore all their better options first.
SARAH SILVERMAN: Hi, I’m Sarah Silverman. If you’re considering taking out a payday loan, I’d like to tell you about a great alternative. It’s called AnythingElse. The way it works is, instead of taking out a payday loan, you literally do anything else.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Sarah Silverman and John Oliver. Mehrsa Baradaran, as we wrap up, the significance of what they’re saying? And also talk about postal banking.
MEHRSA BARADARAN: Yeah, so, one thing is, they say "anything else," but what? You know? And I think that’s a problem that a lot of people—whenever I go talk about this, people say, "OK, you know, people need to be educated on the harms of these loans." And I think a lot of people know full well the harms of these loans, but what is that anything else? I mean, she goes into some off-color suggestions in the bit, which I won’t go into, but, you know, there really aren’t any other options.
And the reason I go with postal banking in this book is because, look, as the community banks left these areas, the post offices remained. And in every ZIP code, there’s a post office. It is a place where people feel comfortable. It’s an institution that has done this very well for 50 years, from 1910 until 1966. We had a thriving postal banking system—as does, by the way, every other developed country. And, you know, these are institutions that can very well handle the low-risk transactional accounts that we’re talking about, and even possibly small loans, that could really throw a lifeline to the people who most need it. And it would, essentially, cut out the middleman, the banking system that has become so bloated and is just not serving this other half of the population.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s a comment period for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau exploring new rules for tackling payday loaning?
MEHRSA BARADARAN: That’s right. And so, that’s been the model so far, is we’re going to regulate payday loans, we’re going to put caps on interest, if we can, you know, take away some of the claws of the industry and the worst of the offenses. And I think this is great, and I think we definitely should do this. The problem with these regulations is a lot of times they’re easy to be skirted, so you cap something, and it pops up in something else. You lower interest, and it comes out as a fee or an insurance product. And so, this is a wily industry. It’s like whack-a-mole or cat and mouse. And so, you know, I hope that we do have very stringent regulations, but until we have an alternative, I think the supply is going to be met by some sort of demand.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Mehrsa Baradaran, associate professor of law at the University of Georgia, specializing in banking regulation. Her book is How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. ... Read More →
While Condemning Assad, U.S. Bombs Afghan Hospital & Backs Devastating Saudi War on Yemen
The latest figures from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) show the U.S. airstrike on its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, earlier this month killed 30 people—13 workers, 10 patients and seven others who remain unidentified. Another 27 staffers were injured, along with an unknown number of patients and caretakers. The bombing left the 94-bed trauma center in ruins and hundreds of thousands of Afghans without a critical surgical facility. Doctors Without Borders has accused the U.S. of a "war crime" and demanded an independent international probe. Just three weeks later, another MSF hospital was destroyed in Yemen, this time by the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition that has waged war there since March. Doctors Without Borders says the attack will leave 200,000 people without access to medical care. "The U.S. has been very strong at condemning the Syrian attacks on hospitals in Syria, yet it is backing the Saudis in Yemen, supplying them with weaponry—just like Russia is in Syria—and ignoring the fact the Saudis are doing in Yemen everything the U.S. government is accusing the Syrian government of doing in Syria," says Widney Brown of Physicians for Human Rights.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. We’re staying with Widney Brown, who is the head of programs at Physicians for Human Rights, to talk about attacks on hospitals. We spoke about Syria, now Yemen and Afghanistan. Juan?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I want to turn to Yemen, where Doctors Without Borders says the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition bombed one of its hospitals late Monday. Hospital staff and two patients managed to escape. The hospital’s roof was marked with a Doctors Without Borders logo, and the GPS coordinates had been shared multiple times with the Saudi-led coalition, most recently just two weeks ago. And while the coalition denied responsibility, Doctors Without Borders said there is no doubt the coalition is responsible.
DR. MEGUERDITCH TERZIAN: Since the beginning of the last conflict, only coalition forces’ planes are capable to organize strikes, military strikes, in the country. The other belligerents, they don’t have planes circulating in Yemen. So we have no doubt that the coalition forces bombed Heedan district, and they bombed, as well, our hospital.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest, still with us, Widney Brown of Physicians for Human Rights. Can you talk about this?
WIDNEY BROWN: Yes. The thing that’s so shocking about this is the U.S. has been very strong at condemning the Syrian attacks on hospitals in Syria, yet it’s backing the Saudis in Yemen, supplying them with the weaponry—just like Russia is in Syria—and ignoring the fact that the Saudis are doing in Yemen everything that the U.S. government is accusing the Syrian government of doing in Syria. In fact, the head of OCHA said that he’s seen more devastation in four months in Yemen under the Saudi-led coalition attacks than in four years in Syria.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, but what about—the United States condemns Syria’s actions, but what about Afghanistan itself, the attack on the Doctors Without Borders facility in Afghanistan, which the United States has apologized for, but still it’s unfathomable how it happened?
WIDNEY BROWN: Yes, they’ve apologized, but from the get-go, they did everything they could to obscure what happened. So the announcement came in that there was the attack on the MSF hospital, and the U.S. government said, "Well, we were taking fire from the hospital." Then they immediately we had to change their tone, and then they said Afghan forces were taking fire, and they were supporting the Afghan forces. Then they said they had never been given the coordinates, even though MSF operating procedure always is to give coordinates—except for in Syria, where that will get you even more targeted. And then the U.S. went back and said, "Oops, we made a mistake. We didn’t follow standard operating procedure."
But to step in that rapidly with misinformation rather than say, "Something happened, and we need to investigate it," shows that they have no interest in actually finding out what’s happened. And that’s reinforced by the fact that it’s a military—a two-star general, who’s leading the investigation into the attack. You don’t have an independent investigation, and that is what Physicians for Human Rights is calling for, as is Médecins Sans Frontières. They’ve actually called for the ICRC, the International Committee of the Red Cross, to activate its international humanitarian fact-finding group, which is a group of international law experts, to conduct this investigation.
AMY GOODMAN: In Kunduz, tell us what is known so far, Afghanistan.
WIDNEY BROWN: Yes, what we know is that the U.S. did strike, and it struck over a period of an hour. Immediately after the first strike, MSF called the military to say, "You’re bombing our hospital." It continued for at least a half-hour after we know that the call was made saying that this was happening. So, the U.S. had the target. The other interesting thing is, the U.S. is now acknowledging that they were actually investigating the hospital. They are making the claim that a Taliban operative was working from the hospital. MSF denies that. MSF has no interest in allowing its clinics to become militarized because, in some cases, militarization of the clinic could make it a legitimate target. The idea that MSF would allow Taliban operatives to operate from the hospital doesn’t make any sense. The fact that they were treating Taliban fighters does not militarize the hospital. The doctors have an ethical obligation to treat anybody who needs medical care.
AMY GOODMAN: What is happening with both the U.S.-backed Saudi attacks in Yemen and with Kunduz, this attack on the hospital, that Médecins Sans Frontières has rejected the U.S.’s explanation of why they bombed the hospital and killed so many inside?
WIDNEY BROWN: Well, if it’s like most U.S. investigations of allegations of war crimes, the U.S. government won’t have an arm’s-length investigation, and there will be some form of cover-up and denial. In Saudi, there has to be some accountability. And again, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution that enabled the Saudi-led coalition to make those strikes. The U.S. government cannot be a hypocrite. Neither can the U.K. and the French government, who also are criticizing Syria but not Saudi. And that needs to be addressed. ... Read More →
Resolved: Debate Win for Inmates Against Harvard Shows Benefits of Higher Education Behind Bars
Image Credit: Jared Ames
Despite their stellar record, a loss by the Harvard University debate team wouldn’t normally be national, let alone international, news. But one match last month wasn’t your typical sparring contest. Three members of the Harvard team squared off with opponents not from a rival university, but a maximum security New York prison. The topic was whether U.S. public schools should be able to deny enrollment to undocumented students. Despite being forced to advocate a position they don’t agree with, the prison team was declared the winner. The story went viral across the United States and around the world. The prisoners were debating as representatives of the Bard Prison Initiative, a program that offers inmates a college-level liberal arts education. Since its founding in 2001, more than 300 alumni have earned degrees while behind bars. We are joined by Max Kenner, founder and executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Despite their stellar record, a loss by the Harvard University debate team wouldn’t normally be national, let alone international, news. But one match last month wasn’t your typical sparring contest. Three members of the Harvard team squared off with opponents, not from a rival university, but from a maximum security New York state prison. The topic was whether U.S. public schools should be able to deny enrollment to undocumented students. And despite being forced to advocate a position they don’t agree with, the prison team was declared the winner. The story went viral across the U.S. and around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: The prisoners were debating as representatives of the Bard Prison Initiative, a program that offers inmates a college-level liberal arts education. Since its founding in 2001, more than 300 alumni have earned degrees while behind bars.
For more, we’re joined by Max Kenner, the founder and executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative, 2014 recipient of the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Education.
It’s great to have you with us. Describe the scene. Where did this debate take place? How did it take place?
MAX KENNER: Well, the scene, you know, it was really very simple. It happens in an auditorium, within a maximum security prison. While the people debating on our side are incarcerated, Juan, they are, as Amy said, college students. We are a college team, and we are a college. And, you know, we run, in this particular maximum security prison and others across the state, the closest thing we can to a full liberal arts curriculum, at replicating a full college experience. So students study the full breadth of humanities, science, math, Mandarin language, German language, Spanish language, etc., and also engage in some extracurricular activities—
AMY GOODMAN: Did the Harvard students come to the prison?
MAX KENNER: —the debate being one of them. So, people are interested in rhetoric, in public speaking and debate, and that got to the point where we started doing regular intercollegiate debates once a semester. We start with West Point. We debate the cadets from the West Point Academy every spring. And we did well, and it was exciting and fun.
AMY GOODMAN: Who won?
MAX KENNER: So we invited Harvard to come, who was the national champion last year. And so far our record is three and one with the debates.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the inmates, your team, argued against providing assistance to undocumented students?
MAX KENNER: That’s right. Sure. It’s a little more technical than that, but that’s boring, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, but did the Harvard students come to the prison?
MAX KENNER: That’s right. Everything happens in person. Nothing happens remotely.
AMY GOODMAN: So, they—
MAX KENNER: In our program, in the classroom and otherwise.
AMY GOODMAN: So they come to a maximum security prison.
MAX KENNER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And they debate this?
MAX KENNER: Sure. So it’s a large auditorium, same place where we have graduations and what have you. In the audience were over a hundred other incarcerated Bard students and a scattering of faculty and other friends of the program. And then there’s a stage. And then there were three Harvard kids on one side, three of the incarcerated Bard students on the other, and a panel of judges.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Who were the judges?
MAX KENNER: Judges are people who do this professionally, work in that profession.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did the prisoners feel?
MAX KENNER: Look, anytime you get on a stage and are forced to, you know, articulate something clearly and be judged how well you are and clearly you are articulating it as compared to someone else, that’s causing anxiety. And, you know, I think it’s amazing how much the media has responded to the fact that Harvard might lose. You know, we’ve been doing this for a while, and just how special it was didn’t quite dawn on us until two weeks later after the event. This was still the most popular story in The Wall Street Journal. It sort of amazed us.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: What was the reaction of the Harvard team and the Harvard coach?
MAX KENNER: You know, to their credit, I don’t think they thought it was extraordinary, either, you know? I think they maybe, you know, wish they had prepared a little more. I don’t know. You know?
AMY GOODMAN: How are the prisoners selected? How is the debate team—
MAX KENNER: So, it’s a self-selecting group in that you can join the Debate Union as a Bard student, if you choose, for fun, so something you do, you know, once or twice a week. And then they prepare. And these are people, you know, all joking aside, who are very busy. They’re enrolled full-time in college in an extremely rigorous academic program. And so, while there are 15 or so members of the Debate Union, they sort of self-select the three or four who participate formally in a given competition.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Did the warden offer them any reduction of their sentences as a result of the victory?
MAX KENNER: I don’t think that’s at his discretion, but I think many people felt surprising satisfaction at seeing—
AMY GOODMAN: And was the audience prisoners?
MAX KENNER: Yeah, our other incarcerated Bard students, that’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a clip from a film that the Bard Prison Initiative produced on the occasion of its 10th anniversary. This is Erica Mateo, who graduated from the program in 2011.
ERICA MATEO: Growing up in Brownsville, I always felt like I would end up in prison, because I didn’t feel like I had many options. I’m now working as a case manager, working with 16- to 24-year-olds who have some criminal justice system involvement within the last 12 months. People don’t expect a lot from these kids. And if people actually got to know them, they would prove almost everything wrong. You know, they aren’t lazy kids. They want to work. They’re eager to work. They have dreams, like they want to be accountants and architects. And it brings me a lot of pleasure to see them achieve their goals.
AMY GOODMAN: So that’s Erica Mateo, who graduated from the Bard Prison Initiative in 2011. How are the students taught in—who are prisoners? Do the Bard professors come to prison?
MAX KENNER: Absolutely. Everything happens in person. And the work is less extraordinary and less novel, I think, than it might seem. Everything we do, the entire—the basic idea of the program is an experiment, is: What happens when we provide the same education, that is typically afforded to the children of the lucky and the entitled and the rich, to others? And the results have been extraordinary. We have, you know, alumni in graduate schools at Yale, Columbia, NYU, people working in management in billion-dollar businesses—and most of all, alumni like Erica, going back to the communities from which they came, serving youth at risk, people with HIV and AIDS, the homeless, etc.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In the less than a minute that we have left, has this program of Bard’s been replicated in other states at all?
MAX KENNER: Absolutely. There’s suddenly a real resurgence in a belief in the place of education in American prisons. And we have a program called the Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison, where we work with sister college universities—Washington University in St. Louis, University of Notre Dame, etc. We’re in 11 states across the country.
AMY GOODMAN: We’ve heard a lot about the school-to-prison pipeline. You’re talking here about the prison-to-college pipeline. What can be done to help students? Earlier this year, President Obama announced a plan to offer limited Pell grants to federal and state prisoners. What would that mean?
MAX KENNER: Well, that will transform the meaning of our prison system back to what it was prior to the Clinton crime bill in 1994, which is to say, though we incarcerate you as a fellow citizen or you as a neighbor, we have not written off the possibility of your contributions to society permanently.
AMY GOODMAN: Max, as we wrap up, how did you end up doing this? We only have 15 seconds.
MAX KENNER: Oh, dear. Well, I was an undergraduate at Bard College and recognized what’s now common, that the investment we made in punishment over a generation was extraordinary, and that educators have a place in fixing these social problems, and they shouldn’t wait for the government and the public sector to lead the way.
AMY GOODMAN: Max Kenner, founder and executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative. He conceived and created the Bard Prison Initiative as a student volunteer organization when he was an undergraduate at Bard.
That does it for our program today. We have a job opening, director of development. You can go to our website, democracynow.org, to get the details and send in your résumé. ... Read More →
We Won't Torture Anymore: APA Tells U.S. to Withdraw Psychologists from Nat. Sec. Interrogations
The American Psychological Association has officially notified the U.S. government of its new policy barring psychologists from participating in national security interrogations. The new rules were approved in August after an independent investigation documented how the APA leadership actively colluded with the Pentagon and the CIA torture programs. In a new letter to the White House and top federal officials, the APA asks the government to withdraw psychologists from any interrogation or prison setting that could put them in violation of the new ethics policy. We get reaction from Widney Brown, director of programs at Physicians for Human Rights, who says the changes are key to protecting health professionals from military prosecution "when they stand by those ethical codes of conduct and refuse to engage in what is patently unlawful behavior."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’d like to ask you also, in terms of torture, about the psychologists and torture. The American Psychological Association has officially notified the U.S. government of its new policy barring psychologists from participation in national security interrogations. The new rules were approved in August after an independent investigation documented how the APA leadership actively colluded with the Pentagon and the CIA torture programs.
AMY GOODMAN: In a new letter to the White House and top federal officials, the APA asks the government to withdraw psychologists from any interrogation or prison setting that could put them in violation of the new ethics policy. The letter also urges officials to grant detainees their rights under federal and international law. Explain the significance of this, Widney Brown.
WIDNEY BROWN: Well, the CIA turned to the American Psychological Association to get a psychologist to basically endorse what was euphemistically called "enhanced interrogation techniques"—two psychologists we know of, Mitchell and Jessen, who the ACLU actually has now filed a civil suit against. The APA then had a panel that altered its ethics structure such that psychologists could participate in these interrogations—basically, colluding in torture. The American Medical Association prohibits that. The American Psychiatric Association prohibits that. But the American Psychological Association actually reduced its ethical standards. So this vote restoring the standards is critically important, and the withdrawing of psychologists from any interrogation of national security detainees or any interrogation of anyone being held in unlawful detention circumstances is a very important step forward.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But what practical effect would it have in terms of actual individual psychologists refusing to do that, to refusing to participate? In other words, what would be the sanctions imposed upon them if they did?
WIDNEY BROWN: Well, the American Psychological Association has its own ethical board, so if a psychologist did go forward with that, they could be challenged, including possibly losing their license. Our concern has more been, if you think back to the Navy nurse who refused to participate in force-feeding in Guantánamo Bay, he was threatened with a court-martial. We can’t have the military going after health professionals, who have ethical codes, when they stand by those ethical codes of conduct and refuse to engage in what is patently unlawful behavior.
AMY GOODMAN: Widney Brown, we want to thank you very much for being with us, director of programs at Physicians for Human Rights.
When we come back, we’re switching gears. We’re going to be talking about How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy. Stay with us. ... Read More →
Freedom for Shaker Aamer: After 13 Years Behind Bars, British Prisoner Released from Guantánamo
British resident Shaker Aamer has been freed from Guantánamo after more than 13 years behind bars. Aamer had been cleared for release since 2007, but the Pentagon kept him locked up without charge. During his time in captivity, Aamer claims he was subjected to abuses including torture, beatings and sleep deprivation. At one point, he lost half his body weight while on a hunger strike. Aamer is en route to London where he’ll rejoin his wife and four children. "If you think about how much our world has changed, it’s like they’re dropping them into a completely different place with very little support, and there’s no right to a remedy for the allegations of torture—which are absolutely credible—for the prolonged arbitrary detention and for any of the other violations that happened," says our guest Widney Brown, director of programs at Physicians for Human Rights.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to Shaker Aamer, this latest news we have that he is flying right now, as we broadcast. He has been released from Guantánamo after more than 13 years behind bars, on his way to London, home. Shaker Aamer had been cleared for release since 2007, but the Pentagon refused to set him free. During his time in captivity, he claims he was subjected to torture, beatings, sleep deprivation, at one point lost half his body weight while on a hunger strike. He’s never been charged with a crime. For all the more than 13 years he’s been held by the Americans, he has never been charged with a crime. As recently as last week, British MP Tania Mathias had called for his release.
TANIA MATHIAS: It’s very scary, because, remember, he’s cleared for release 2007 and, subsequently, 2009. So it’s a form of torture to say to somebody, "You’re released," and then keep them again for years.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond to this, Widney Brown?
WIDNEY BROWN: Yeah, first to say, Shaker Aamer’s experiences just are an endless story of human rights violations, from his detention, arbitrary detention, prolonged detention, no due process for trial protections. He’s cleared for release in 2007 and held for an additional eight years. And the key issue was that, unlike the other British detainees who were released, he was a British resident, not a British citizen. And the U.S. used that as the pretext for refusing to release him even though he was cleared.
There’s also the issue of any of these men who are now being released. It’s like time travel. They have been held for, many of them, over a decade, with no access to the outside world. If you think about how much our world has changed, it’s like they’re dropping them in there with—into a completely different place with very little support, and there’s no right to a remedy for the allegations of torture—which are absolutely credible—for the prolonged arbitrary detention and for any of the other violations that happened. And one of the things that helps victims of torture heal is to be able to claim an effective remedy against the state that tortured you. ... Read More →Headlines:
British Resident Shaker Aamer Freed from Gitmo After 13 Years
British resident Shaker Aamer has been freed from Guantánamo after more than 13 years behind bars. He was the last British resident imprisoned at Guantánamo. Aamer had been cleared for release since 2007, but the Pentagon kept him locked up without charge. During his time in captivity, he claims he was subjected to abuses including torture, beatings and sleep deprivation. At one point, he lost half his body weight while on a hunger strike. Aamer is en route to London where he’ll rejoin his wife and four children.
27 Women in For-Profit Immigrant Detention Center on Hunger Strike
In Texas, 27 women detained at a for-profit immigrant detention center say they’re on a hunger strike to demand their immediate release. Most of the women are from Central America, which has seen a surge in migrants fleeing violence and abuse. They are held at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, as they apply for asylum. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency denies there is a hunger strike. This comes as another hunger strike by 14 South Asian asylum seekers held at Louisiana’s for-profit LaSalle Detention Center enters its 12th day.
Turkey: Police Raid Newspapers Ahead of Sunday’s National Election
In Turkey, police have raided and shut down the offices of television channels and newspapers ahead of Sunday’s national election. Police fired pepper spray and water cannons at protesters outside. Turkish journalist Mustafa Kilic, who works for one of the raided newspapers, spoke out.
Mustafa Kilic: "We came to work feeling as if we are criminals. We prepared today’s newspaper under police blockade. We have mentioned it in our stories. We are under police blockade. Psychologically, we cannot work, and that is how we prepared this newspaper for print. As for tomorrow’s newspaper, today the trustees came and talked to us and said, 'Go away if that's how you think.’"
Yemen: MSF Asks for Security Guarantees After Its Hospital Is Bombed
In Yemen, Doctors Without Borders is seeking security guarantees after one of its hospitals was bombed by the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition Monday. At least one nurse was injured in the strikes. Saudi authorities have denied their forces carried out the bombing. The attack in Yemen comes weeks after a U.S. gunship repeatedly bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing at least 30 people.
Doctors Stage Die-In to Protest Killing of Syrian Healthcare Workers
Meanwhile, an estimated 700 medical professionals have been killed in Syria since the war began in 2011. On Thursday, hundreds of medical workers staged a die-in near the United Nations building in New York City to protest the targeting of healthcare workers. Dr. Deane Marchbein of Doctors Without Borders spoke out.
Dr. Deane Marchbein: "I’ve worked in Syria. I’ve worked in support of Syria. And the Syrian people are asking, 'Has the world forgotten about us? Do they know what's happening? Do they know that people—that snipers are targeting doctors or nurses?’ This is horrible. It’s unacceptable."
This comes as Secretary of State John Kerry meets with officials from nearly 20 nations, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, Britain, France and Germany, to discuss the ongoing conflict in Syria. It’s the first time Iran is taking part in global talks on Syria after the U.S. stopped objecting to its involvement.
Retired Tampa Police Captain to Use "Stand Your Ground" as Defense After Shooting Man over Texting
In Florida, a retired Tampa police captain accused of fatally shooting a man at a movie theater after a dispute about texting is reportedly planning to use Florida’s controversial "Stand Your Ground" law in his defense. Police say former Captain Curtis Reeves began arguing with fellow movie-goer Chad Oulson about his texting. Reeves claims Oulson then hit him in the face, although witnesses—including Reeves’ own wife—dispute that claim. Reeves’ lawyers plan to argue that the shooting was justified under the Stand Your Ground law because Reeves had "reasonable belief" his life was in danger. Both Reeves and Oulson are white.
Texas: White Police Officer Immune from State Charges After Killing Black Man
Meanwhile, in Texas, a white police officer who is accused of fatally shooting an unarmed African-American man has persuaded a judge to throw out the case after arguing he is immune from state charges because he was working for a federal task force at the time of the shooting. Officer Charles Kleinert was employed as an Austin police officer in 2013 when he says he accidentally shot and killed Larry Jackson Jr. The officer began chasing Jackson after the man allegedly attempted to enter a locked bank and then fled. When Officer Kleinert caught up with Jackson, he says he meant to hit the man in the neck with his pistol. Instead, the officer fired his gun, killing Jackson. On Thursday, a Texas judge ruled the state court has no jurisdiction over Officer Kleinert in this case, because he had been investigating an unrelated bank robbery for his federal task force when he began the chase.
Mexico Unveils Altar to Murdered Journalists
In Mexico City, the Museum of Memory and Tolerance has unveiled an altar to the journalists killed over the last decade ahead of this weekend’s Day of the Dead celebrations. At least 32 reporters have been killed in Mexico since 1992, making it one of the deadliest countries for journalists. Darío Ramírez of the human rights group Article 19 spoke at the unveiling.
Darío Ramírez: "It’s an altar that speaks for itself of a punishing silence, which undermines a society’s right to be informed. It’s a humble altar but with nationwide importance, which is clearly evident. The journalists who have been murdered and who have found no justice, it’s simply a reminder of what we are losing."
Senate Passes Bipartisan 2-Year Budget Deal
In Washington, the Senate has passed a bipartisan budget deal to avert government default. The two-year budget includes cuts to Social Security disability benefits and Medicare payments to providers. New revenue would come from sales of U.S. oil reserves and the use of public airwaves for telecommunications firms. It will also increase military spending by about $25 billion for each of the next two fiscal years.
European Parliament Votes to Protect Snowden from Rendition
And the European Parliament has voted to support a nonbinding resolution that calls on EU member states to protect NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden from extradition. On Thursday, the Parliament voted 285-281 to "prevent [Snowden’s] extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and international human rights defender." Snowden celebrated the vote in a tweet, calling it a "game changer."
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