democracynow.org
Stories:
"We Will Prevail": Three Words, Three American Presidents & An Endless War in Iraq
On Tuesday, President Obama announced he’s exploring ways to scale up the battle against the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He said, "This will continue to be a difficult fight, but I’m absolutely confident that ISIL will lose. We will prevail." Those same three words, "We will prevail," were said 10 years ago by President George W. Bush and by Bush’s father 25 years ago about their own wars in Iraq. When will the seemingly never-ending U.S. wars in the Middle East end? We speak to retired Army colonel and military historian Andrew Bacevich, author "America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Secretary of State John Kerry flew into Baghdad today on a surprise visit amid increasing protests over government corruption. Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to replace most of his Cabinet following weeks of demonstrations. This comes amidst an ongoing airstrike campaign backing the Iraq military’s attempts to retake control of Mosul from ISIL militants. Kerry just met with the Iraqi prime minister.
SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: Mr. Minister, I’m happy to visit with you again. This is obviously a very critical time here in Iraq and in the region. And you and I have been working on a lot of different issues in the last few years. So, it’s good to come and be able to visit.
AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday, President Obama announced he’s exploring new ways to scale up the battle against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We’re working to make sure that we’re accelerating the campaign against ISIL in Syria, in Iraq. ISIL continues to lose ground. Coalition forces recently severed the main highway between ISIL strongholds in Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul in Iraq, and we continue to take on their leadership, their financial networks, their infrastructure. We are going to squeeze them, and we will defeat them. But as we’ve seen from Turkey to Belgium, ISIL still has the ability to launch serious terrorist attacks. One of my main messages today is that destroying ISIL continues to be my top priority. ... This will continue to be a difficult fight, but I’m absolutely confident that ISIL will lose, we will prevail.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: "We will prevail." Those were the words of President Obama on Tuesday. Nearly a decade ago, in December 2006, President George W. Bush said those same three words in another address on the fight in Iraq.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I also believe we’re going to succeed. I believe we’ll prevail. Not only do I know how important it is to prevail, I believe we will prevail. I understand how hard it is to prevail. But I also want the American people to understand that if we were to fail—and one way to assure failure is just to quit, is not to adjust and say, "It’s just not worth it." If we were to fail, that failed policy will come to hurt generations of Americans in the future.
AMY GOODMAN: "We will prevail." That was George W. Bush in 2006. His father, President George H.W. Bush, used the same phrase 25 years ago, January 1991, when he announced the U.S. had begun attacking Iraq to begin what became known as the Persian Gulf War.
PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: And even as planes of the multinational forces attack Iraq, I prefer to think of peace, not war. I am convinced not only that we will prevail, but that out of the horror of combat will come the recognition that no nation can stand against a world united.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: "We will prevail," three words said by three presidents, all addressing U.S. wars in Iraq dating back a quarter-century. The seemingly never-ending U.S. war in the Middle East is the subject of a new book by retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich titled America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History. In the book, Bacevich argues the Untied States has been involved in gigantic failed war with the Middle East since the 1980s that continues today with no end in sight.
AMY GOODMAN: In this new book, Andrew Bacevich writes, quote, "As an American who cares deeply about the fate of his country, I should state plainly my own assessment of this ongoing war, now well into its fourth decade. We have not won it. We are not winning it. Simply trying harder is unlikely to produce a different outcome." Andrew Bacevich is professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University, also author of several other books, including Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. His son was killed in action in Iraq in 2007.
Professor Bacevich, welcome back to Democracy Now!
ANDREW BACEVICH: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: "We will prevail"—George H.W. Bush. "We will prevail"—his son, George W. Bush. "We will prevail"—President Obama. Have we prevailed in any way?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, we haven’t. And I have to say, those are exquisitely chosen clips, because they really do illustrate what’s the point of my book. And that is that we have been engaged militarily in the Greater Middle East, large parts of the Islamic world, for going on four decades. We’ve engaged in innumerable interventions—large, small, brief, protracted—and we have yet to come anywhere close to achieving our aims. Whether we define our aims as restoring stability or promoting democracy or reducing the prevalence of anti-Americanism, it’s not happening. And arguably, our military efforts are actually making things worse.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, interestingly, as you point out, before 1980, virtually no American soldier had ever been killed in any kind of military action in that part of the world. And since 1980, very few have been killed who were not in that part of the world. This shift that occurred, from the Middle East being largely an area of influence or control by the European colonial powers to the United States exercising such a huge role, how did that happen?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, we Americans have forgotten, but prior to the beginning of the Cold War, the United States was not a great military power. We raised forces from time to time to deal with some particular issue, but it was in the wake of the Cold War that we, as a nation, decided on a permanent basis to maintain a large military establishment. For the first several decades of that Cold War, the United States had two priorities. We were willing to fight for Western Europe. We were willing to fight—did fight—in East Asia. We were not willing to fight for the Middle East. That changes in 1980, specifically a particular moment in January of 1980, when President Jimmy Carter, in his State of the Union address, promulgates what’s known as the Carter Doctrine.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I think we actually have a clip on that. We’d like to go to that now. This is Jimmy Carter, January 23rd, 1980, delivering the State of the Union address you mention and laying out what would later become known as the Carter Doctrine.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The importance of what happened after that enunciation of the Carter Doctrine?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, one of the things to appreciate, I think, is that Carter himself had no understanding of the implications that would flow from that statement. What happens, on an immediate basis, is that the national security bureaucracy now redefines its priorities and begins to orient itself toward the possibility of armed intervention by U.S. forces in the region. And over the course of the next 10 years, that process begins: Reagan sending peacekeepers into Lebanon, the initial jousting with Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, support for Saddam Hussein, of all people, in what I refer to as the first Gulf War—that’s the Gulf War of 1980 to ’88, pitting Iraq against Iran, with the United States coming to the aid of Iraq. So, Carter starts the process of militarizing U.S. policy, which, over time, deepens, becomes more frequent, becomes more ambitious and becomes more costly, bringing us to where we are today in 2016, where we continue to hear these speeches by presidents who insisting—insisting that we will prevail, when obviously we have not.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your book has sort of the epic scope of pulling everything together, that, for instance, Yergin’s book, The Prize, has, in terms of focusing in on the importance of oil in all this. Could you talk about that, as well?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, the war for the Greater Middle East did begin as a war for oil. I mean , the proximate trigger of Carter’s speech was the Iranian revolution, which had produced a second oil shock of the 1970s, combined with the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which in Washington raised fears that—I mean, they were bizarre notions, but raised fears that the Soviets were going to march across Iran and attack Saudi Arabia. So, at a time when we were increasingly dependent upon foreign oil, to include oil from the Persian Gulf, yes, we decided to fight for the region.
But I argue that there really was much more at stake than simply access to oil, that in the context of the times, the war for the Greater Middle East really becomes an effort to refute the notion that the United States is a country that has to take—to accept limits, to affirm the claim of American exceptionalism, of our uniqueness, of our special status in history and in the world at large.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to September 18th, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld holding a Pentagon briefing where he tells reporters how war against terrorist targets would differ from conventional war. This is an excerpt.
DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD: We have a choice: either to change the way we live, which is unacceptable, or to change the way that they live. And we have—we chose the latter. We intend to put them on the defensive, to disrupt terrorist networks and remove their sanctuaries and their support systems. This requires a distinctly different approach from any war that we have fought before.
AMY GOODMAN: So, assess what he said, and go back to what you referenced at the beginning. You’re saying our presence in Iraq right now in the Middle East is worsening the situation.
ANDREW BACEVICH: There’s no question about it. That’s a—that is a wonderful clip. I think that is, in a sense, the most important, the most telling, the most instructive quote from a U.S. government official to understand the path that we have followed. Now, prior to 9/11, I don’t believe that presidents and policymakers actually had a clear understanding of what they wanted to do in the Greater Middle East. They somehow assumed that the presence of U.S. forces or introduction of U.S. forces would have some kind of a positive effect. It’s after 9/11 that Rumsfeld, and those around him—the president, Cheney, Wolfowitz—embarked upon this massively ambitious strategy to change the way they live. You’ll notice that he really doesn’t specify who "they" are. I think, by implication, "they" are large numbers of inhabitants of the Islamic world. We’re going to change the way they live, to make them live the way we live, with the expectation that therefore they will no longer pose a threat. Informing that ambition, of course, is an estimate of American military capacity that assumes that we cannot be defeated, or, more to the point, that we can—that we can and will prevail militarily. That’s the thinking that, of course, then informs the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to break, and then we’re going to come back to this discussion with retired colonel, Vietnam War veteran, professor Andrew Bacevich. His latest book, America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History. Stay with us. ... Read More →
Juan González: Kasich May Look Like a "Moderate," But He's Still Dangerously Conservative
With the Republican primary in New York less than two weeks away, John Kasich met this week with the editorial board of the New York Daily News. Juan González talks about quizzing the Ohio governor about his anti-union, pro-fracking views. Juan wrote about the meeting in his latest column, "'Moderate' John Kasich is still dangerously conservative."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Juan, before we talk about Iraq, you know, the—John Kerry has just made a surprise visit there—your piece in the New York Daily News is about yet another New York Daily News editorial board meeting. A week or two ago, it was with Bernie Sanders. Yesterday, you and the board met with John Kasich.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, Kasich came into the editorial board to—obviously, to discuss his platform and hoping to get the voters of New York to back him, the Republican voters. And I specifically zeroed in, because he’s much more—those of us who have seen the debates among the Republicans regard him probably as the most reasonable, the most commonsense of the candidates in his approach. And he comes—and he really touted his ability to work with political opponents, his long experience in both the Congress and as a senator of a major—I mean, as a governor of a major state.
But I tried to zero in, in my few questions I was able to ask him, on his role in terms of American labor, because, obviously, in 2011, he pushed through a bill that not only would outlaw strikes by public employees in Ohio, but also would restrict the ability of union members to negotiate over pensions and health insurance. That created a huge stir, backlash in Ohio. Police, firefighters and teachers organized a major referendum, and Kasich was defeated two to one. It was the biggest defeat of his term as governor. So I asked him what he’d learned from that. And he said, "Don’t do it again." But when I then asked him, "Well, would a President Kasich attempt to restrict the union rights of federal employees?" he was a little bit more equivocal. He said, "It would depend on what you’re talking about. I wouldn’t make any sweeping judgment on that."
And Kasich also has a pretty checkered history in terms of public education, which he focused on a lot. The charter schools in Ohio are considered the Wild West of charter schools nationwide. There’s been all kinds of scandals on charter schools. And just last year, the person he had appointed to be in charge of charter schools had to resign when it was revealed that he was misrepresenting how badly charter schools were performing in the state to—in a federal government application. And Kasich had—did say that he’s fixed that, that he’s passed new laws to try to raise standards for charter schools in his state. But the wife of that disgraced official who resigned, who was Kasich’s chief of staff, is now running his presidential campaign, so that, really, in comparison to Trump and to Cruz, Kasich looks pretty good, but that’s only in comparison to the other Republican candidates who are running right now.
AMY GOODMAN: I know you don’t write the headline, but would you say it’s accurate? "'Moderate' John Kasich is still dangerously conservative"?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I didn’t write that headline, but that’s pretty much what the column talks about, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I’m headed to Columbus, Ohio, today, to John Kasich’s hometown, speaking at the Ohio State University, and hope to see folks there. And, of course, we’ll continue to cover the presidential race, as we travel across the country in our 100-city tour beginning today. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. ... Read More →
Military Historian Agrees with Bernie Sanders: Hillary Clinton is an Unreconstructed Hawk
In the Democratic presidential race, Senator Bernie Sanders has often clashed with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about U.S. policy in the Middle East. At one debate, he accused Clinton of being "too much into regime change." We ask military historian Andrew Bacevich for his assessment.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Colonel Bacevich, we are in New York right now, though we’re headed out on a 100-city tour around the country. But right now New York is ground zero for the presidential race, both for the Republicans and for the Democrats. The Democrats—Sanders, Clinton—the big debate right now over these days is each of them are saying the other is not qualified. I want to go back to the Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire last year, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders accusing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of being, quote, "too much into regime change."
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: But I think—and I say this with due respect—that I worry too much that Secretary Clinton is too much into regime change and a little bit too aggressive without knowing what the unintended consequences might be. Yes, we could get rid of Saddam Hussein, but that destabilized the entire region. Yes, we could get rid of Gaddafi, a terrible dictator, but that created a vacuum for ISIS. Yes, we could get rid of Assad tomorrow, but that would create another political vacuum that would benefit ISIS. So I think, yeah, regime change is easy, getting rid of dictators is easy. But before you do that, you’ve got to think about what happens the day after.
HILLARY CLINTON: Now, with all due respect, Senator, you voted for regime change with respect to Libya. You joined the Senate in voting to get rid of Gaddafi, and you asked that there be a Security Council validation of that with a resolution. All of these are very difficult issues.
AMY GOODMAN: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders says Hillary Clinton, among other things, is not qualified simply because she voted for the Iraq War. Colonel Bacevich?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I don’t know that I would judge somebody’s qualifications simply on one particular vote, but I have to agree with the basic argument that Senator Sanders is making, that Secretary Clinton is an unreconstructed hawk. Now, in terms of the rhetoric, she comes across as more reasoned than the Republican opposition, but the fact of the matter is, if we elect her to be our next commander-in-chief, we are voting for the continuation of the status quo with regard to U.S. national security policy, and specifically U.S. national security policy in the Greater Middle East. So, for people for whom that is an important issue, who want to see change in U.S. policy, she’s not going to be the vehicle for change.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you—you’re a veteran of Vietnam. After Vietnam, the United States got rid of its citizen or volunteer—its drafting of soldiers into the military, and created a volunteer army. You’ve been a critic of that. Why?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I think that one of the unintended consequences of ending the draft, creating a professional military, was to create a gap between the military and society. Now, we don’t acknowledge that gap. Matter of fact, we deny the existence of that gap by all of the rhetorical tributes that are paid to the troops and the obligation that we all have to, quote-unquote, "support the troops." The reality, I think, is that when it really comes down to it, the American people don’t pay much attention to how the troops are being used. And because they’re not paying attention, the troops have been subjected to abuse. That is to say, they’ve been sent to fight wars that are unnecessary. The wars have been mismanaged. The wars go on far longer than they ought to. And we respond by letting people in uniform be the first to board airplanes. And I think, frankly, that that is disgraceful and that it actually ought to be one of the things that gets discussed in a presidential campaign, but tends not to, sadly.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, what do you want these presidential candidates to say to—well, we’ve introduced you as a retired colonel, as a Vietnam War veteran, as a professor emeritus, but you’re also a dad, and you lost your son in Iraq in 2007, like so many parents in this country, also like so many Iraqis who lost family members. What do you want these presidential candidates—what do you want to hear from them? What do you want them to say to you?
ANDREW BACEVICH: What they ought to say to us, not simply to me because of my personal circumstances—what they ought to say is: "I understand that we, as a nation, have been engaged in this war for going on four decades now, and I have learned something from that experience. I have taken on board what the United States tried to do militarily and what it actually ended up doing and what the consequence is that resulted. And here’s what I’ve learned, and here’s how I’m going to ensure, if you elect me commander-in-chief, that we will behave in ways that are wiser and more prudent and more enlightened in the future." In other words, they have to look beyond simply the question of how many more bombs are we going to drop on ISIS. That is a secondary consideration. They have to have some appreciation of the history, that I try to lay out in this book.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Andrew Bacevich, retired colonel, Vietnam War veteran. His latest book, America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History. He’s professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University and is traveling around the country, will be in Providence, is going to Washington, D.C., is going to be speaking at the naval—a naval conference and many other places. You can go online. We’ll link to his website at democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now! Stay with us. ... Read More →
#Deported2Death: Why Did Obama Deport 85 Muslim Asylum Seekers?
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has sparked backlash and controversy with his proposals to ban Muslims from entering the United States—including refugees and asylum seekers. But deporting Muslim asylum seekers is nothing new. This week, the Obama administration deported 85 Muslim asylum seekers from Bangladesh, India and Nepal who were seeking asylum after fleeing repression and violence in their home countries. Some of the men deported from Corrections Corporations of America’s Florence Correctional Center in Arizona on Sunday night had participated in a series of hunger strikes last year to protest their ongoing detention by ICE, the Immigration Customs and Enforcement agency, and demand their release from for-profit detention centers. Some of the men have been detained for years. Following the deportation, an ICE official told Democracy Now!: "All of those on last weekend’s flight had been provided the opportunity to present their cases in immigration court, were issued final orders of removal, and had no outstanding stays that would prohibit their removal." We are joined by Fahd Ahmed, executive director of Desis Rising Up & Moving, or DRUM, a New York-based organization of South Asian immigrant workers and youth. After the deportation, Ahmed said, "The Obama administration just deported nearly 100 South Asian detainees who crossed three continents seeking safety in the U.S. What happens to them next is blood on his hands."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has sparked backlash and controversy with his proposals to ban Muslims from entering the United States, including refugees and asylum seekers. But deporting Muslim asylum seekers is nothing new. This week, the Obama administration deported 85 Muslim asylum seekers from Bangladesh, India and Nepal who were seeking asylum after fleeing repression and violence in their home countries. After the deportation, U.S.-based immigration advocates and the U.S. Embassy in Bangladesh arranged for media coverage of the arrival of the 27 Bangladeshi nationals at Shahjalal International Airport Tuesday night in Dhaka. One of the asylum seekers described the deportation experience.
BANGLADESHI DEPORTEE 1: [translated] The American Homeland Security has forcefully thrown into the plane those who do not want to come back. The detainees were tied with blankets.
BANGLADESHI DEPORTEE 2: [translated] Brother, it was not the regular blanket that people use regularly. It was security blanket. If they tie you with that kind of blanket, you will get no ability to move or free yourself. We were unable to breathe, like being choked to death.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Some of the men deported from Corrections Corporation of America’s Florence Correctional Center in Arizona on Sunday night had participated in a series of hunger strikes last year to protest their ongoing detention by ICE, the Immigration Customs and Enforcement agency, and demand their release from for-profit detention centers. Some of the men had been detained for years.
AMY GOODMAN: Following the deportation, an ICE official told Democracy Now!, quote, "All of those on last weekend’s flight had been provided the opportunity to present their cases in immigration court, were issued final orders of removal, and had no outstanding stays that would prohibit their removal."
In response, Fahd Ahmed, the executive director of Desis Rising Up & Moving, or DRUM, said, quote, "The Obama administration just deported nearly 100 South Asian detainees who crossed three continents seeking safety in the U.S. What happens to them next is blood on his hands."
Well, for more, we’re joined by Fahd Ahmed. He is the executive director of DRUM, the New York-based organization of South Asian immigrant workers and youth.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about what just took place, this mass deportation.
FAHD AHMED: So, this deportation is of South Asian detainees, of South Asian migrants who are escaping violence in their home countries. And they came here, as you mentioned, crossing three borders, crossing 14, 15, 16 different countries, only to end up in detention, in prolonged, endless detention. And while ICE says that these people had opportunities to present their cases, and they did go before courts, the reality is that nobody crosses 14 borders with an asylum packet in hand. Nobody gathers the evidence that they need for an asylum claim and then takes on a journey across a dozen countries. But when you end up in detention, it makes it impossible for you to be able to mount your case properly. And what we’ve seen is that the prolonged detention of these detainees was strongly influenced, that there’s strong concerns of discrimination as South Asians and as Muslims. And that’s the reason that they undertook the hunger strikes, was to bring light to the fact that they were being detained indefinitely.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I want to turn to another clip of the Bangladeshi media interviewing deportees shortly after they arrived at Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. One man spoke of the difficulty in trying to get asylum in the U.S.
BANGLADESHI DEPORTEE 3: [translated] Whatever papers or evidence you show them, they won’t believe you. They said they wouldn’t grant us political asylum. After telling us these things, they denied our appeals. Later, they asked us to sign papers and said, if we sign the papers, we would be released in three months or six months, if the embassy doesn’t issue travel documents.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Bangladeshi deportees also allege inhumane treatment while they were in detention in the U.S.
BANGLADESHI DEPORTEE 4: [translated] They kept us only in the prison. Not only they kept us detained, even we were kept tied to hands and legs with each other. Everyone was tied. We were tied for three days. Some of them were put in the body bags, which are used for dead bodies. At least 2,000 to 3,000 Bangladeshis are still imprisoned in U.S. jails.
BANGLADESHI DEPORTEE 3: [translated] They tied my hands to my waist with chains. I was also chained to my legs. They didn’t feed us for the whole journey. We have never seen such horror in our life.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Your response? And also, did many of these deportees, while they were going through their asylum claims, have any kind of legal representation?
FAHD AHMED: Some of them had legal representation. But as often happens in detention centers, you have a little bit of money, you get whatever attorney is available. And attorneys often do take advantage of people that are detained, because they know they don’t have a whole lot of leverage. So people will take money and then not show up to court cases or just only do a—you know, not do a really good job of representing them. But these detainees were in areas in Alabama, in Texas, in areas where they didn’t have access to attorneys that spoke their languages or that understood the conditions, the country conditions that they were coming from, and so it made it very difficult.
But then, on top of that, as one of the deportees was mentioning, these cases were strongly colored with the influence of national security concerns. So, the Bangladeshis, most of their cases were denied because they said they were affiliated with the Bangladesh National Party, which is the main opposition party in Bangladesh. They were in power; the U.S. government had great relations with them just a few years ago. And now, as a result of the internal politics in Bangladesh, some sections of Department of Homeland Security are labeling them as a Tier III terrorist organization, which has no basis. The State Department denies that designation. No other branch of government acknowledges them as a terrorist organization.
AMY GOODMAN: Some of these people were put into body bags?
FAHD AHMED: Yes. So, you know, the amount of torture that happens, in detention and in the process that they’re deported, is endless. When they were on hunger strikes, they were being forcibly catheterized. They got force-feeding orders against them. And then, as they were being deported, they were tied up and put into body bags.
AMY GOODMAN: Like for corpses.
FAHD AHMED: Yes. They were forcibly injected with tranquilizers. So many of them were beaten. The first clip that you showed, if you look at the detainee speaking there, he has a knot above his eye, because he’s been beaten up, even in the process of deportation.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did they get them to put them in detention before they deported them? Did they raid their homes? Did they pick them up off the street? What states were they in here in the U.S.?
FAHD AHMED: No, so, these are all people that came across the border. These are people that landed in Brazil, Peru and Bolivia, and then walked, hitchhiked, boated their way through jungles, through rivers, all the way up to the U.S.-Mexico border, and turned themselves in, claiming asylum. And after, you know, doing the proper intake, rather than being released to their communities or to their families, they continued to be held in detention—for six months, for one year, for one-and-a-half year. And it’s around when they got to the one-and-a-half- to two-year mark is when they undertook the hunger strikes.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And there have been some members of Congress who have been protesting or demanding explanations for what’s going on?
FAHD AHMED: So, we’ve had support from Congressman Crowley, Congressperson Judy Chu and Mike Honda, that have really taken on these cases, because they see the travesty of it. You know, there was the—while the hunger strike was happening in El Paso, ICE brought in representatives from the Bangladeshi government to come and break the hunger strike. It is illegal to allow representatives of the same government that you’re seeking asylum from to be exposed to asylum seekers. And so, those investigations were still going on. Those people had now even more elevated cases of danger if they’re sent back, but also had options to reopen their cases, and those people got deported. And a lot of the congresspeople are honing in on these things around the DHS’s just ramshod deporting people.
AMY GOODMAN: Fahd, we only have 30 seconds, but DRUM, your organization, organized a protest outside Hillary Clinton’s offices. Why?
FAHD AHMED: So we’ve been trying to bring this issue to light. You know, as rightly talked about, Donald Trump’s dreams are now a Obama reality. And we want to know what the candidates think of this and what actions are they willing to take. If they really want to demonstrate leadership, they should undertake actions to speak up for these people, to protect these people. The Clinton campaign was nonresponsive. The Sanders campaign issued a statement after some time. But we’re still yet to see real leadership from either one of the Democratic Party candidates.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there, and we thank you so much for being with us, but we will continue to follow this issue. Fahd Ahmed is executive director of DRUM, Desis Rising Up & Moving, a New York-based group of South Asian immigrant workers and youth. ... Read More →
Andrew Bacevich: America's War for the Greater Middle East Cannot Be Won
When will the United States realize a military victory is impossible in the Middle East? Military historian Andrew Bacevich asks this question in his latest book. He writes, "As an American who cares deeply about the fate of his country, I should state plainly my own assessment of this ongoing war, now well into its fourth decade. We have not won it. We are not winning it. Simply trying harder is unlikely to produce a different outcome."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich, Vietnam War veteran, professor emeritus at Boston University. His latest book, America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History. Andrew Bacevich, you have called Donald Trump—said he is to American politics what Martin Shkreli is to Big Pharma. Explain.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I mean, I think he has the same sort of—his attitude is the same sort of smirking cynicism that we saw in that pharmaceutical scandal. I have a five-year-old grandson, who I love dearly, and he’s a wonderful boy. He also has a tendency to blurt out whatever happens to be passing through his mind. And it seems to me that Donald Trump, who is not five years old, suffers from the same sort of inclination. And it suggests that he would be an enormously dangerous commander-in-chief. And I think we all recognize people say things on the campaign trail that may not actually reflect their intentions were they to be in office, but there does come—there are moments when the gap between what’s being said and what ought to be done by any responsible person, when that gap is so broad that the rhetoric itself, I think, becomes a disqualifying factor. But let me quickly add, it’s not clear to me that Senator Cruz, who is the apparent alternative, is, by any inclination, any better. And if you take a look at the people Cruz is surrounding himself with as foreign policy advisers, that, to my mind, is deeply troubling.
AMY GOODMAN: Like who?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I mean, we’ve got Islamophobes. We’ve got General—retired Lieutenant General Boykin, who, for all practical purposes, sees the war for the Greater Middle East as an exercise in Judeo-Christian jihad. I mean, he is keen to go slay the Muslims and, clearly, views Islam itself as the enemy.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what do you make of the selective choice of our government in terms of where it intervenes? It’s perfectly willing to bring down regimes or to intervene militarily, but in those countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates, that are so dictatorial toward their own people, we—as long as they’re our allies, we have no problems.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I think one of the things that strikes me about this, trying to understand and describe the larger military enterprise, is the extent to which, that once it began, it was kind of on autopilot. And even today, there appear to be, in official circles, remarkably few people who are willing to just pose that kind of basic question. Why are the people that we call our friends—why do they qualify as our friends? Why are security commitments, that may at one time in the past—the security commitment to Saudi Arabia may at one time in the past have made sense, at least from the point of view of national interest—do they make sense today? And if they don’t, if we’re not dependent upon oil from the Persian Gulf—and we’re not—then why isn’t it permissible at least to revisit and re-examine policy assumptions that simply are no longer valid? But there’s such an absence of creativity and imagination in the national security apparatus, such a determination to keep on doing what we did last year and the year before, that that, too, I think, is quite troubling.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Andrew Bacevich. He has written a new book called America’s War for the Greater Middle East. I wanted to turn to Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch is reiterating its call for the United States to stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, after the group said it found evidence the Saudi-led coalition used U.S.-supplied bombs in the deadly airstrikes on a crowded market in Yemen last month. The strikes killed at least 97 civilians, including 25 children. Medical clinic worker Othman Saleh spoke out about the aftermath of the attack.
OTHMAN SALEH: [translated] We received 44 wounded in total, including women, children and elders. Of those 44, two people died. Three others were in critical condition. They had to be taken to the ICU.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Yemen, the ongoing drone strikes there. In just our headlines today, speaking of drone strikes, Afghan officials saying at least 17 civilians killed in U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan on Wednesday—first strike reportedly hitting a truck of a local elder going to resolve a land dispute, killing the elder and 11 others; the second drone reportedly striking and killing two people going to collect the bodies; and a third strike reportedly killing three men who went to see what happened. This expanded drone war, which is President Obama’s?
ANDREW BACEVICH: There’s no question about it. I mean, and it has to be one of the most disappointing parts of his legacy, I think. You know, the president—we elected the president because he said that he was going to end the Iraq War responsibly. Sadly, he also said that he was going to escalate the Afghanistan War. He did that, without any particular success. My assessment of the president is that he understands that invading and occupying countries in the Islamic world basically doesn’t work, and so he is—he is refraining from trying to repeat that mistake. Alas, he has now turned to other methods of employing American military power, with missile-firing UAVs one very good example. And there is little evidence that those alternatives are all that much more effective, albeit, at least from a U.S. point of view—a U.S. point of view only—they aren’t as costly.
For some reason, I mean—I’m with Clausewitz: War is the continuation of politics by other means. War makes sense only if you are able to achieve your political purposes at some reasonable cost. And we have been fighting a war in the Greater Middle East without achieving, in any conclusive sense, any positive political outcomes. And yet the tendency is to evaluate our conduct there in operational military concerns, of winning fights as opposed to accomplishing political objectives. And that’s yet another problem.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And take that a little further now to the fight against ISIS and—or ISIL. To what degree is that a military battle that must be waged? And can it succeed?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, it’s a military battle that probably must be waged; it’s just not by our military. I mean, this is—in my count, this is the fourth Gulf War in which we have been involved—supporting Saddam Hussein in the first, kicking Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in the second, overthrowing Saddam Hussein in the third, and then occupying that country for eight years, hoping that when we departed in 2011, Iraq could stand by itself. That hasn’t happened, and so we’re back in it again, with the proximate adversary, ISIS. Yes, ISIS needs to be destroyed. One of the lessons, it seems to me, of America’s War for the Greater Middle East is that American power, American military power, doesn’t fix the problem, tends to worsen the problem. So the responsibility for the destruction of ISIS should fall on the shoulders of those who are most threatened by ISIS. That happens to be the countries in the region. Were they to recognize that they have a common interest in destroying ISIS, they could in fact do so. But our insistence that somehow it’s our responsibility, that American leadership, so-called, needs to be the decisive element, simply lets them off the hook. ... Read More →
Amy Goodman Is Inducted into I.F. Stone Hall of Fame as Democracy Now! Begins 20th Anniversary Tour
On Wednesday, Amy Goodman was inducted into the I.F. Stone Hall of Fame at an event organized by the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. The Center’s founding director, Jeff Cohen praised Goodman in his induction speech. "When New York University convened journalists and scholars to choose 'The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century,' number 16 on the list was I.F. Stone’s Weekly," Cohen said. "If we survive this century, I have no doubt that Democracy Now! will be near the top of that list for the 21st century."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Amy, before you head out on your 100-city tour, I want to mention, finally, on Wednesday night, our very own Amy Goodman was inducted into the I.F. Stone Hall of Fame, named after the pioneering independent investigative journalist. The I.F. Stone Hall of Fame was established to honor previous Izzy Award winners who continue to produce award-worthy independent journalism year after year. In 2009, Amy was the first recipient of the Izzy Award, sharing it with Glenn Greenwald. And you were inducted by Jeff Cohen, the founder of the media watchdog group FAIR, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, and the founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. Here’s a clip.
JEFF COHEN: For nearly 20 years, through the McCarthyite witch hunts, the endless war in Vietnam, Izzy Stone’s Weekly newsletter was a lifeline. It was the most trusted journalistic source for progressives nationwide on government deception, on war and peace, political repression, social movements. And for the last 20 years, Amy Goodman has filled that role of lifeline, most trusted source, except Democracy Now! is every day, and Democracy Now! has greater reach than Izzy’s Weekly ever did. Readers of the Weekly felt this personal connection to Izzy during some of the dark times. He was like their personal Washington bureau chief. And Democracy Now! viewers and listeners feel that same personal connection to Amy today. When New York University convened scholars, prominent journalists to choose the 100 greatest works of journalism in the United States in the 20th century, number 16 on the list was I.F. Stone’s Weekly. If we survive this century, I have no doubt that Democracy Now! will be near the top of the list for the 21st century. And that’s why tonight we officially induct Amy Goodman into the I.F. Stone Hall of Fame.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Congratulations to Amy on your induction into the Hall of Fame, much deserved.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, thanks, Juan. And I consider that an award for all of Democracy Now! and all of its supporters, as well, as we head out on our 100-city tour. Today we’ll be at Columbus, Ohio at the Ohio State University; check our website. I’ll be speaking on Saturday in St. Louis, Columbia and Kansas City, Missouri, on the 9th; Los Angeles and Santa Barbara on the 10th; and then in San Francisco on the 11th at City Arts & Lectures; Palo Alto, Stanford University, and then Santa Clara, both on the 12th.
I want to say happy birthday to Matt Ealy, and to our amazing Democracy Now! crew, thank you so much. Democracy Now! has two job openings. Check them out at democracynow.org. ... Read More →
Headlines:Black Lives Matter Activists Interrupt Bill Clinton over 1994 Crime Bill
Black Lives Matter activists interrupted former President Bill Clinton during a speech in support of Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia on Thursday—challenging the Clintons on their support for the 1994 crime bill, which led to a massive expansion of incarceration in the United States. Activists shouted, "Black youth are not super predators"—a reference to Hillary Clinton’s 1996 comments about some youth. They also held signs reading "Clinton Crime Bill Destroyed Our Communities." In response, Bill Clinton defended Hillary Clinton’s use of the term "superpredators" and accused the activists of defending criminals.
Bill Clinton: "Wait, wait. Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute, wait a minute. OK, I heard it. Can I answer? See these other signs? This is what’s a matter. I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack and sent them out onto the streets to murder other African-American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She didn’t. She didn’t. You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter."
This comes as Hillary Clinton is facing an increasingly tough challenge by Bernie Sanders in the New York primary on April 19.
TOPICS:
2016 Election
Hillary Clinton
Pope Calls on Church to Be More Open to "Irregular" Families
Pope Francis has issued a widely anticipated proclamation on family life, in which he calls on priests to make the church more inviting to single parents, LGBT people and unmarried couples. He also calls on governments to provide public healthcare and education in order to support families. Pope Francis did not, however, advance the church’s position on a range of social issues, including contraception and the role of women in the church. He also makes a point saying that unions between same-sex couples are not marriages.
TOPICS:
Pope Francis
Afghanistan: 17 Civilians Killed by U.S. Drone Strikes
Afghan officials say at least 17 civilians were killed by U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan on Wednesday. The first strike reportedly hit the truck of a local elder who was on his way to resolve a land dispute—killing the elder and 11 others. The second drone reportedly struck and killed two people were collecting their bodies. A third drone strike reportedly killed three more who had come to see what had happened. The Pentagon has confirmed two of the three drone strikes, but says there were no civilian casualties. Meanwhile, a U.S. oversight office has issued a damning report indicating the $113 billion effort to reconstruct Afghanistan has largely been a failure. The report details shoddily built structures, dangerous roads and hundreds of empty schools. U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko, who was responsible for the report, said, "Fifteen years into an unfinished work of funding and fighting, we must indeed ask, 'What went wrong?'" Since 2002, the U.S. has spent more than $113 billion on reconstruction efforts—more than the total spending on the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II.
TOPICS:
Afghanistan
John Kerry Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq
In a surprise visit, Secretary of State John Kerry flew into Iraq today, amid increasing protests over government corruption. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to replace most of his Cabinet following weeks of demonstrations. This comes amid an ongoing U.S. airstrike campaign backing the Iraqi military’s attempts to retake control of Mosul from ISIL militants. U.S. officials are also warning the Mosul Dam is in dire need of repair and could collapse at any minute. If the Mosul Dam collapses, hundreds of thousands of people would be at risk of drowning, and more than 1 million people would be displaced.
TOPICS:
Iraq
Syria: ISIL Reportedly Kidnaps 170+ Cement Factory Workers
In Syria, activists say ISIL militants have kidnapped at least 170 cement factory workers in Damascus. Their whereabouts are unknown. This comes as the United Nations has delayed the next round of Geneva peace talks until April 11.
TOPICS:
Syria
Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca Set Up 1,000+ Companies Inside U.S.
The massive data leak known as the Panama Papers has revealed the law firm Mossack Fonseca set up more than 1,000 shell companies inside the United States, once again raising questions about the United States’ role as an offshore tax haven. The papers show more than 600 shell companies were set up in Nevada alone. Matthew Gardner of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said, "We should be thinking about this as a very American problem, and a problem that arguably is worse here in the states than it is in Panama."
TOPICS:
Tax Havens
Panama Papers
Argentina: Calls for Probe of President Macri After Panama Papers
This comes as an Argentine prosecutor is calling for an investigation into President Mauricio Macri’s finances, following Panama Paper revelations that Macri’s family is connected to two offshore shell companies. Argentine Congressmember Norman Darío Martínez spoke Thursday.
Norman Darío Martínez: "We understand that not only does he have to give an explanation for the Panama Papers case, for the two companies to which he is tied—one in the Bahamas and the other in Panama—but he should also hold an open news conference with questions from all the journalists, and he should explain this to the Argentine people, given the gravity of this topic. Regarding the court, whatever he has to show, he should have to explain it there."
President Macri is claiming the companies belong to his father, and says he has not received income from them.
TOPICS:
Argentina
Tax Havens
PM David Cameron Says He's Profited from Offshore Trusts
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron finally admitted Thursday that he’s profited from an offshore trust set up by his father through the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. Cameron answered questions from reporters Thursday.
Reporter: "But, therefore, actually, you can’t be certain that some of that 300,000 didn’t come from offshore sources, presumably?"
Prime Minister David Cameron: "Well, he had investments in Blairmore Investment Trust—"
Reporter: "And money in Jersey."
Prime Minister David Cameron: "That was because of another unit trust, again established to industry standard and all the rest of it, and many people have those investments. But in all of this, I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a very lucky person and had wealthy parents who gave me a great upbringing, who paid for me to go to an amazing school. I’ve never tried to pretend to be anything I’m not."
Labour Party Member of Parliament John Mann has called for Cameron’s resignation.
TOPICS:
Tax Havens
Panama Papers
Class Action Filed for 18 People, Including a Baby, on Terrorism Watchlist
In Virginia, the Council of American-Islamic Relations has filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of 18 people who have been placed on the U.S. government’s sweeping terrorism watchlist. The plaintiffs include a four-year-old child named "Baby Doe," who has been on the watchlist since he was only seven months old. The suit accuses the government of "ensnaring individuals into an invisible web of consequences that are imposed indefinitely and without recourse as a result of the shockingly large federal watchlists."
TOPICS:
War on Terror
FBI and DHS Flying Dozens of Flights, Equipped with Cameras, Daily
A new investigation by BuzzFeed has revealed the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are flying dozens of federal aircraft over major U.S. cities every day. The agencies say they are not using the flights to conduct mass surveillance. But the BuzzFeed investigation shows the planes fly in slow circles and are outfitted with high-resolution video cameras. Some planes are also equipped with cellphone tracking devices.
TOPICS:
FBI
Domestic Surveillance
Wyoming: Fracking Poisoned Water Supply of Small Town
In Wyoming, scientists say chemical contamination from fracking has poisoned the water supply of the small town of Pavillion. The scientists recorded benzine levels 50 times above permitted limit. This comes three years after the Environmental Protection Agency decided to halt its investigation about water contamination in Pavillion.
Former BP Supervisor Sentenced to No Jail Time over 2010 Disaster
In New Orleans, former BP rig supervisor Donald Vidrine has been sentenced to probation, but no jail time, for crimes associated with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Vidrine was the last of four former BP employees to be prosecuted for crimes associated with the explosion. None are serving time in prison. This comes as the CEO of BP, Bob Dudley, is facing growing revolt from the company’s own shareholders over his record-setting $19.6 million paycheck for 2015. Some shareholders are expected to attempt to block Dudley’s pay raise during a vote at the annual shareholder meeting next week.
TOPICS:
BP Oil Spill
DOJ Files Lawsuit to Block Halliburton & Baker Hughes Merger
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has filed an anti-trust lawsuit to block a merger between energy giants Halliburton and Baker Hughes. They are the second and third largest oilfield service companies in the world. Environmental groups heralded the lawsuit. Food & Water Watch head Wenonah Hauter said, "It’s time for the DOJ to bust the energy trusts and for the U.S. Government to halt the industry’s damage to people and the environment."
TOPICS:
Natural Gas & Oil Drilling
Texas: Video Shows School Cop Body-Slamming 12-Year-Old Girl
In Texas, the San Antonio School District has launched an investigation after a video surfaced of a school police officer body-slamming a 12-year-old girl to the ground. The cellphone video appears to show officer Joshua Kehm lifting up 12-year-old Janissa Valdez and then forcibly throwing her face-first into the floor. Officer Kehm then handcuffs her hands behind her back. On the video, onlooking students can be heard saying, "She landed on her face."
TOPICS:
Police Brutality
Education
Calls for Probe into Fatal Israeli Soldier Shooting of Palestinian-American Teen
In Washington, D.C., activists are delivering a petition calling for an investigation into the death of 16-year-old Palestinian American Mahmoud Shaalan, who was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near the Jewish-only Beit El settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in February. Witnesses said that the soldiers continued shooting Shaalan even after he had fallen to the ground, and then prevented an ambulance from taking him to the hospital. Israeli soldiers say Shaalan tried to attack them with a knife.
TOPICS:
Israel & Palestine
U.N.: Israeli Govt. Triples Rate of Demolitions of Palestinian Homes
This comes as the United Nations says the Israeli government has tripled the number of demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank over the past three months. The data shows a monthly average of 165 home demolitions since January. On Thursday, Hussein Kaabneh spoke out after Israeli authorities demolished his home in a village near Jericho.
Hussein Kaabneh: "At 9:00 in the morning, I was surprised by the (Israeli) police and the army. They came to demolish the structures. So I was very mad. I asked them, 'Why do you want to demolish it?' I did not get a warning or anything. And he told me, 'You are not legal.'"
TOPICS:
Israel & Palestine
40% of Students Not Complying with Student Loan Payments
And new data shows more than 40 percent of people with federal student loans in the United States are either behind on their payments or are refusing to pay entirely—a noncompliance rate that is raising serious questions about the federal government’s ability to ever collect on these debts. One in six people have defaulted entirely. The average student loan debt for last year’s college graduates was more than $35,000, making the class of 2015 the most indebted class in U.S. history.
TOPICS:
Debt
Student Debt
Donate today:
Follow:
SPEAKING EVENTS
4/8 Columbus, OH
4/9 St. Louis, MO
4/9 Columbia, MO
4/9 Kansas City, MO
4/10 Los Angeles, CA
4/10 Santa Barbara, CA
4/11 San Francisco, CA
4/12 Palo Alto, CA
4/12 Santa Clara, CA
4/13 Santa Cruz, CA
4/14 Claremont, CA
4/14 Los Angeles, CA
4/15 Los Angeles, CA
4/15 Studio City, CA
4/16 Santa Rosa, CA
4/16 Willits, CA
4/16 Redway, CA
4/17 Davis, CA
4/17 Chico, CA
4/17 Berkeley, CA
more
NEW BOOK
Panama Papers: Could Pirate Party Co-Founder Birgitta Jónsdóttir Become Iceland's Next PM?
WORK WITH DN!
Stand Your Ground, Unless You're a Battered Woman
207 West 25th Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10001, United States
---------------------
---------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment