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50 Years After U.S. Launched Secret War on Laos, Unexploded Bombs Still Killing Civilians
Fifty years ago this month, the United States began raining down bombs on Laos, in what would become the largest bombing campaign in history. From June 1964 to March 1973, the United States dropped at least two million tons of bombs on the small, landlocked Southeast Asian country. That is the equivalent of one planeload every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years — more than was dropped on Germany and Japan during World War II. The deadly legacy of the Vietnam War lives on today in the form of unexploded cluster bombs, which had about a 30 percent failure rate when they fell from American planes over large swaths of Laos. Experts estimate that Laos is littered with as many as 80 million "bombies," or bomblets — baseball-sized bombs found inside cluster bombs. Since the bombing stopped four decades ago, tens of thousands of people have been injured or killed as a result. We are joined by Karen Coates and Jerry Redfern, co-authors of "Eternal Harvest: The Legacy of American Bombs in Laos."
Image Credit: eternalharvestthebook.com
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Fifty years ago this month, the U.S. began raining down bombs on Laos in what would become the largest bombing campaign in history. From June 1964 to March 1973, the U.S dropped at least two million tons of bombs on the small, landlocked Southeast Asian country. That’s the equivalent of one planeload every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years—more than were dropped on Germany and Japan during World War II.
The deadly legacy of the Vietnam War lives on today in the form of unexploded cluster bombs, which had about a 30 percent failure rate when they were dropped from American planes over large swaths of Laos. Experts estimate that Laos is littered with as many as 80 million "bombies," or bomblets—baseball-sized bombs found inside cluster bombs. Well, since the bombing stopped four decades ago, tens of thousands of people have been injured or killed as a result.
Last year, Democracy Now! spoke to Thoummy Silamphan, a bomb accident survivor and victim assistance advocate. He explained how a bomb exploded when he was an eight-year-old child collecting bamboo shoots.
THOUMMY SILAMPHAN: One day, I needed to find some bamboo shoots for to feed my family, to make soup. So—and when I saw the bamboo shoots, and I tried to dig into bamboo shoots. After that, the bombie explode to me.
AMY GOODMAN: What you call a "bombie," like a bomblet, exploded?
THOUMMY SILAMPHAN: Yes, because at that time in my village or in those areas, we have a lot of the bombing, and we don’t know the bomb under ground. And when we’re digging for bamboo shoots, and then the UXO explode to me, yeah. And it get—I lost my left hand. And that time, it’s very, very difficult for me to continue my life.
AMY GOODMAN: For more on Laos, we go now to New Mexico public television in Albuquerque to speak with Karen Coates and Jerry Redfern, the co-authors of a remarkable new book called Eternal Harvest: The Legacy of American Bombs in Laos. They spent more than seven years in Laos working on the book.
Karen and Jerry, welcome to Democracy Now! Karen, let’s begin with you. Why did you write this book? And talk about the significance of this month, the 50th anniversary of the largest, most significant—well, the largest bombing in history.
KAREN COATES: Well, we were in the country in 2005 to work on an article for Archaeology Magazine, and at that point we had been living in the region for several years. We had visited Laos before. We knew the history, as Americans. But we had no idea the extent of the problem until we were there that trip. And in about two weeks during that time, we had heard of more than 20 accidents around the region where we were. And we sort of looked at each other and said, this is much bigger, a much bigger problem than we realized.
And one day we went to a local hospital and encountered a 10-year-old boy who had been in his farm field digging when he hit something, most likely a bombie, which blew up in his face. And we saw him. We interviewed his mother, and she said, "We know the problem, but what can my family do? Because we have to farm. We have to dig. We have to go to the field. And we know it’s dangerous, but we’re risking our lives every time we do." And so, that’s when Jerry and I said to each other, "We need to do something much bigger than an article. We need—we need to investigate this."
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And how did you—Jerry, perhaps you could answer this—how did you go about conducting your research? How many people, survivors, did you speak with for your book?
JERRY REDFERN: The reporting that we did was essentially grassroots reporting. We did it by traveling throughout the country from north to south and east to west, just going from village to village and asking people, "Do you have a bomb problem? Have you had problems with bomb accidents?" I can’t begin to guess how many people we talked to. Hundreds upon hundreds, from way up near the Chinese border in the north to down close to the Cambodian border in the south, all along the Vietnamese border on the east, and along the Thai border in the west, as well.
Sort of the way that we began or followed up on the reporting is, the United States actually kept track of most of the bombing raids that were conducted. And in around 2000, the Clinton administration gave this bombing data to the Lao government, the Cambodian government and Vietnamese government, since we bombed those countries, as well, to help them clear up this UXO after the fact. And the Lao government, with help from other aid groups, put together a series of maps showing the places in the country that had been most heavily bombed. And we essentially took those bombing maps and went to the areas of highest concentration and just asked people what sort of problems they had.
AMY GOODMAN: Karen Coates, go back 50 years ago. I mean, there are many people who are watching or listening to this broadcast right now who have no idea what happened. Why did this bombing campaign begin? Tell us the history of the U.S. bombing of Laos.
KAREN COATES: It’s a complicated question, but, really, it was a two-pronged air war. One of the primary goals was to basically wipe out the transmission of people and supplies through the Ho Chi Minh Trail between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, which went through Laos. And then, the other part was to aid our allies in the north against a communist insurgency. But it was much larger than that. In the end, every province was hit, to some extent.
AMY GOODMAN: This is during the presidency of President—and what was the rationale of President Nixon? And talk about the secrecy around it all.
JERRY REDFERN: Well, it actually began with LBJ in 1964, before Nixon came into office. And from reading the Air Force history of the overall campaign, it looks like LBJ actually began it thinking it would just be a couple of small bombing operations in the north of the country, maybe a little bit in the east. But by the end of 1964, what we kind of think about as the bombing that happened in the Vietnam War, the sort of huge, large-scale carpet bombing, that began by December. Nixon vastly increased the amount of bombing that went on in Laos, but it really did begin under LBJ.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s turn to the video you produced to accompany your book. This is Jim Harris, the founder of We Help War Victims. He spoke about the bombing campaign against Laos.
JIM HARRIS: The bombing campaign was to interdict the southbound traffic of North Vietnamese soldiers heading into South Vietnam. And that traffic went down what we called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We also bombed in support of the Hmong troops who were our allies in the war up in Xiangkhouang province. But a map of Lao indicating the full range of the bombing is really staggering for how—how much of the country was hit.
AMY GOODMAN: Karen Coates, take it from there.
KAREN COATES: Well, when you see that map, it’s almost unbelievable—it still is for me when I look at it today—because you can see how the entire country, almost, was covered, layer upon layer upon layer of bombs. And those bombs still come up from the ground today.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And so, Jerry, can you talk about what the effects are on people today? Your story tells—your book tells the story of a woman named Ta. You tell a number of stories; one of them is of a woman named Ta and her dead son Bunyon. Can you talk about that story and how representative it is of the hundreds of people you spoke to who are still suffering the effect of this bombing campaign?
JERRY REDFERN: That was a particularly astonishingly sad story. It’s a very—excuse me—that happened in a particularly poor part of the country, again, close to the Vietnamese border, at an entry point for the Ho Chi Minh Trail coming into Laos. So it was extremely heavily bombed. And the people there are very poor farmers. And essentially, the second crop during the year that they have is to go out and collect bomb scrap, either intact bombs or shrapnel from exploded bombs. And then they trade this for money, essentially, and that scrap metal goes into various other products, you know, for like rebar or spoons or things like that. But her son, as far as we could tell from people who survived, he and a couple other people had found some sort of bomb they didn’t recognize and were digging it up, when it exploded and essentially wiped him and at least two other people out completely. And everybody in this village knew the dangers of this sort of thing. People from this village had been killed regularly for years, but they still went out to try to collect it because they were so heavily impoverished. It was just—it was really a terrible story.
AMY GOODMAN: I want—
JERRY REDFERN: But unfortunately not the only story like that.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to Thoummy Silamphan, the bomb accident survivor and victim assistance advocate in Laos, who was in our studios. He spoke about the legacy of the U.S. bombing campaign against his country.
THOUMMY SILAMPHAN: As the war is ended and stopped many years ago, but now the UXO continue to kill and injure people, until now. And that is why we want to involve for the Legacies of War. I think Legacies of War is very, very important for the Lao people, especially for the UXO clearance and for victim assistance in Laos, because now we have more than hundred town the UXO explode in Laos. And now we also have many survivors that are just waiting for support and help.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Thoummy Silamphan, the bomb accident survivor and victim assistance advocate in Laos. Karen, can you explain UXO, the unexploded ordnance, that remain littering the country, and particularly what people in Laos feel is the responsibility of the United States today, 50 years later? And, Jerry, weigh in, as well.
KAREN COATES: So, the unexploded ordnance remaining—and that’s a term that covers all types of munitions that are left over, but the most common variety are the cluster bombs, or little bombies that you referred to earlier, which—they were packed into canisters that opened in midair and scattered all across the land. And those are particularly dangerous because they’re small. They’re about the size of a baseball. They can look like rocks to farmers. They can look like toys to kids. And if a person encounters one, it’s nearly impossible to tell whether that thing is going to blow or not. And often, it will blow up if a person moves it or throws it or something like that.
JERRY REDFERN: They’re also a particularly pernicious weapon, because they’re not designed to injure or just—you know, like a landmine, when used by the military, is meant to take one person out, and then maybe two other people have to take that person out of battle. These are—these tiny, little baseball-sized explosives are meant to kill anything within about 30 yards or so. And then you have hundreds of them in an area. It’s actually kind of remarkable to find people who survive accidents with these things, because they are intended to murder people.
KAREN COATES: But they aren’t the only bombs that are remaining.
AMY GOODMAN: And the U.S. responsibility—
KAREN COATES: For example—
AMY GOODMAN: —today? We just have 30 seconds.
JERRY REDFERN: That’s a good question. What we’ve been thinking is that the United States needs to come up with plans for what to do after we go into war. United States likes to plan wars a bit, but the after-effects, the aftermath, planning what to do with all the stuff that’s left behind, seems to be not considered much.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jerry Redfern and Karen Coates, we want to thank you for being with us, co-authors of Eternal Harvest: The Legacy of American Bombs in Laos. And thanks so much to New Mexico PBS.
That does it for our show. We have two job openings. Democracy Now! is hiring an administrative director and a Linux systems administrator, as well as fall internships. Visit democracynow.org/jobs for more information.
#FreeAJStaff: Al Jazeera Reporter Sentenced in Absentia Decries Egypt's Imprisonment of 3 Colleagues
Protests are continuing across the globe calling for Egypt to release three Al Jazeera journalists sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison. Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were convicted on Monday of "spreading false news" in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, deemed by the government a "terrorist group." The sentencing came down one day after Secretary of State John Kerry visited Cairo to meet with Egypt’s new president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and herald the resumption of stalled U.S. military aid. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Egypt is holding at least 11 other journalists in prison, placing Egypt among the world’s worst repressors of media freedom. We are joined by Al Jazeera correspondent Sue Turton, who was among nine journalists sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison during the same trial. We also hear from PBS NewsHour chief foreign correspondent Margaret Warner on how Fahmy saved her life.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Journalists are continuing protests across the globe over Egypt’s sentencing of three Al Jazeera journalists to between seven and 10 years in prison. Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were convicted on Monday of, quote, "spreading false news" in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, deemed by the government a "terrorist group." On Tuesday, staffers at the BBC took part in a one-minute silent protest. James Harding is BBC’s news director.
JAMES HARDING: Well, I think there are two things. I think there’s a simple thing, which is to send a message to people in Egypt. You know, this is a country which, obviously, as we’ve been reporting on the BBC, on all news outlets, is going through an extraordinary set of changes. And this is an important principle, we think, for Egypt, but for people around the world, the principle of journalistic freedom. And we want to do that in a considered and measured way, and that’s why we chose an act of solidarity, a silent protest, a way of standing alongside those people, those journalists who have been imprisoned, but to try and raise a message. In addition to that, we’ve drafted a letter that we’re sending to President el-Sisi. It’s been signed by a host of news organizations, from NBC to Sky to ITN. And we’re going to be sending that, as well, which makes a more detailed case. But in this moment, it was for journalists to stand with our fellow journalists.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was James Harding, the BBC’s news director. Peter Greste used to work at the BBC. At Channel 4 News in Britain and other news outlets, journalists placed black tape across their mouths in solidarity with their jailed colleagues. Online, the hashtag #FreeAJStaff has been trending for days.
And the Al Jazeera reporters are not alone. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Egypt is currently holding at least 11 other journalists in prison, placing Egypt among the world’s worst repressors of press freedom.
AMY GOODMAN: Monday’s sentencing of Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed came down one day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met in Cairo with Egypt’s new president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former general who led the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi last July. The Obama administration partially suspended aid to Egypt but has avoided a full cutoff by refusing to deem Morsi’s ouster a "coup." At a news conference in Cairo, Kerry said he expects a full resumption of U.S. military aid in the coming months, beginning with around $575 million already released in the last 10 days.
On Tuesday, President Sisi said he will not intervene in the sentencing of the journalists. While the three Al Jazeera journalists were sentenced to between seven and 10 years in jail, another nine journalists were charged in absentia and sentenced to 10 years. One of those journalists joins us now.
Sue Turton is a correspondent at Al Jazeera who has covered Afghanistan, Libya, Syria extensively for the network. She previously worked at Channel 4 News in England. And she’s joining us from the Al Jazeera studios in Doha, Qatar.
Sue, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you respond to the sentencing in both the case of your three colleagues, who will now spend seven to 10 years in jail, unless there’s a pardon or a commutation, as well as your own in absentia?
SUE TURTON: I think all of the verdicts left us all here at Al Jazeera quite stunned. We dared to believe that the verdict would be not guilty, because we had sat and watched the court sessions over the past few months, and we’d seen absolutely no evidence that the prosecution had brought that proved in any way, shape or form the charges against us, these charges that we supposed aided and abetted the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Egyptian authorities have now deemed a terrorist organization.
Just to slightly take you one step back, that decision to deem them terrorists wasn’t made until December. A very basic point, I left Egypt in November. I had been covering the country since the coup last summer that removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power, like many international journalists. And I had been covering all sorts of different stories, including the protests and the politics, but I hadn’t reported anything differently to all the other international journalists. And the very fact that I had left the country before the Muslim Brotherhood was even deemed a terrorist organization makes it ridiculous that I should have been seen as aiding and abetting this group.
But just to move you back to my colleagues in prison, you know, there was nothing in the evidence that proved anyway that they had done anything other than be straightforward, balanced, fair reporters. So, the reaction, really, was one of shock and disbelief. And now, I suppose, it’s really building to anger, to be frank.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Sue, you said you witnessed or heard some of the court sessions. And apparently some of the evidence had absolutely nothing to do with what the three journalists were charged with. It included family vacation photos and footage of news reports from other networks and on completely unrelated subjects. So could you comment on that?
SUE TURTON: They made a big thing when they went into the hotel suite that we’d kind of been using as a makeshift office because, months before, they had raided our bureau, so we’d had to move to a hotel. They made a big thing of showing—of leaking video of the arrest of my three colleagues. And they put ridiculous music to it—it was actually the soundtrack from Thor, this really dramatic music—with the release. And in this video, you see that they show pictures of the hard drives and the computers that were being used and a lighting stand and a tripod and a camera. And to them, you know, this is sort of showing the evidence that was found in this—what they deemed the Marriott cell, after the hotel we were staying in. And they used this evidence in court. And they basically just showed the hard drive that they had found in Peter Greste’s room. And it was ridiculous, to be frank. There were pictures from a bulletin from Sky News Arabia of a horse galloping around a paddock. I mean, you know, it would be funny if it wasn’t so serious that my colleagues are now incarcerated for years on end. There were pictures, as you say, of Peter Greste’s family on holiday. There were pictures of a documentary he made when he used to work for the BBC in Somalia, an award-winning documentary.
This is one of the reason—you mentioned earlier that there has been this vigil outside the BBC and many other media organizations in the last few days, because Peter is so respected as a brilliant journalist in—not just in the region that he usually covers, in East Africa, but he has been all over the world for a number of organizations. And everybody is aghast that they should have been accused of these things, let alone convicted. And I will put my hand on my heart and say the same for his other two cellmates, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, strong, balanced reporters that helped me enormously when I was trying to cover Cairo, to understand the complexities of the story in Egypt. And these guys are now convicted with the flimsiest of evidence brought into court.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Margaret Warner, the chief foreign affairs correspondent for PBS NewsHour. She worked with Mohamed Fahmy in Cairo during the Egyptian revolution. In 2011, Warner and a television crew were caught in the midst of a violent demonstration. She talked to Al Jazeera about how Fahmy saved their lives.
MARGARET WARNER: I first met Mohamed Fahmy about three days before the incident, when, through a local connection, he came to our editing suite in the hotel room and provided the voiceover for our Egyptian characters, whom we wanted translated into English. It was the afternoon after a mob had stormed the Israeli Embassy overnight, managed to penetrate to the upper floors, pull down the Israeli flag and hoist the Egyptian flag. And when we arrived back there, there were still young men out in front, but did not look particularly dangerous.
Our crew, our camera crew, went in for closer filming while I and the driver at the time and another young Egyptian producer with me waited in the van, so we could quickly get away. The driver abandoned the car for whatever reason. People were lying in front of the car and started to knock on the car. Just then, a mob approached across these five lanes, and I could see that our local producer and my cameraman and my producer were being pursued by this mob—and Mohamed Fahmy. And my driver had abandoned the car, so I leapt over the—you know, the middle of the seat, jumped into the van, as Mohamed Fahmy held onto the back railing and said, "Drive, drive." And this mob in front of me—he said, "Just drive through them. I’m going to get you out of here." That’s what happened. And for the next five or six minutes, he directed me down this side street and this side street and this side street, and we finally managed to get to a safe place. He absolutely saved our lives.
I’m no legal expert, but I can to you that Mohamed Fahmy struck me on both occasions as nothing more and nothing less than a professional journalist.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Margaret Warner, well known in the United States, PBS NewsHour chief foreign affairs correspondent, describing her experience in Egypt with one of the three jailed journalists, Mohamed Fahmy. I also wanted to turn to comments made by Peter Greste’s father in Australia after he heard of the ruling. This is Juris Greste.
JURIS GRESTE: This is a very dark time, not only for our family, but for journalism generally. We are devastated, shocked and dismayed at this finding. We are not usually a family of superlatives, but I have to say this morning my vocabulary fails to convey just how shattered we are. Journalism is not a crime, or you should all be behind bars. It’s as simple as that. This man, our son Peter, is an award-winning journalist. He is not a criminal. He’s not a criminal.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Peter Greste’s father, Juris Greste, speaking from Australia. The foreign minister of Australia, Julie Bishop, also spoke out against what happened in Egypt and the sentencing of their national, this also as the anchor of one of Britain’s main television news shows put tape over his mouth in protest of the sentencing by Egypt of the Al Jazeera reporters. This is Jon Snow on U.K.’s Channel 4.
JON SNOW: On the day that Egypt condemned three journalists to seven years in jail, journalists across the world are expressing their condemnation by taping up their mouths, as we are in our own newsroom.
AMY GOODMAN: For our radio listeners, we’re seeing the Channel 4 newsroom full of journalists with their mouths taped, holding signs that read "#FreeAJStaff." As the broadcast ends, the program’s host, Jon Snow, also then puts tape over his own mouth. That silence was heard—or not heard—all over Britain as newsrooms went silent. Sue Turton, you yourself are British. Can you talk about your own background and what this kind of international support means and what a sentence in absentia means for you? You are not in jail, but you were also sentenced.
SUE TURTON: Well, I’ve been a TV reporter for 25 years, many of those in the British TV industry. In fact, I was at Channel 4 News for 12 years. But since then, I moved to Al Jazeera. And, you know, I joined as the Afghanistan correspondent, but I covered the Arab uprisings for the last few years. I was in Libya for the whole revolution. And I’ve been in and out of Syria over the course of a year, as well, but, you know, every beat, really—Beirut, Moscow, all over the world for Al Jazeera. And I said this before: I’ve been shot at, I’ve been shelled, I’ve been physically abused and attacked, and verbally, but I’ve never been accused of anything like this. And this is basically a conviction of terrorism that I now have hanging over my head.
Now, of course I’m not going to go back to Egypt. I would be in jail. But it’s more serious than just Egypt. The African Union welcomed Egypt back into the fold just a few weeks ago. They had frozen their membership for quite some time during the revolution and the coup. But that means that if I were to go into an African country, it would be beholden on them to pass me over to the Egyptian authorities, because this is—this is agreement. If somebody as serious as a convicted terrorist enters their country, that’s what they’re supposed to do. And there are places in the Middle East that I’ve been warned to stay well away from. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates all back Egypt, all very much financially backing the new government in Egypt. So it’s kind of frozen what was my kind of beat, if you like, the conflict zones, the war zones. Those areas, certainly, in Africa at the moment are still very much bubbling, and I would expect to be covering.
But the focus for me right now is just to try and keep this campaign going to try and build a crescendo. We’ve been so lucky to have so much solidarity, not just from the media outlets all over the world, but also many governments all over the world, leaders stepping up, saying, you know, this must not be allowed to happen. Even people like Mia Farrow, the actress, has come out calling for a travel boycott. People shouldn’t go on holiday to Egypt, she’s saying. So, we really are trying to keep that campaign, the momentum of that campaign going, and promising the guys in prison that we won’t look away for a second. We won’t let this campaign drop for a second until they are freed.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sue, the Committee to Protect Journalists said that the trial—called the trial, quote, "almost farcical" and said that the Al Jazeera journalists have become pawns in a conflict with Qatar over its support for the Muslim Brotherhood. Could you say something about why you think Al Jazeera journalists, in particular, have been targeted by the Sisi regime?
SUE TURTON: Well, our sister channel, Al Jazeera Arabic, is the most-watched Arabic channel in the region, and it was still broadcasting, as was the other Egyptian Al Jazeera in Egypt. And the domestic audience only really sees domestic news, and that means they only really see coverage that backs the government. There is no breadth of opinion. They don’t get to talk to people who might not agree with the government anymore. So I certainly think that the Egyptian authorities wanted to shut Al Jazeera up. And the only reporters for Al Jazeera still on the ground were Al Jazeera English reporters. The Arabic reporters had pulled out, because it had become so difficult for them to operate. So, I think, in a way, we had just become an easy target. I don’t think they particularly wanted to target Al Jazeera English, but that’s what they did.
But I think it’s also very much on the record that Qatar and Egypt have really fallen out. Qatar did back the Muslim Brotherhood financially, very much backed President Mohamed Morsi when he was elected to power after the revolution, and had pinned their colors to the Muslim Brotherhood mast, I guess. But that doesn’t mean Al Jazeera has. It certainly doesn’t mean Al Jazeera English has. And we are—I think you’re right: We are pawns in this huge global clash at the moment. And there is almost a sense, I think, that the Egyptian government has taken revenge for the Qatari authorities backing the Muslim Brotherhood, and they’re taking it out on us, which is ludicrous. The Committee to Protect Journalists have got it completely right, because we are just journalists going out there trying to tell a story and very much committed to trying to tell a story on all sides. You know, they tried to make out in court that we were backing this one group, the Muslim Brotherhood. Why would I back one group? I’ve, as I say, been a journalist for 25 years. I have no allegiance with any group. I just try and tell it as I see it and as I hear it.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sue Turton, very quickly, before we conclude, could you say what possibility there is for a pardon for your colleagues who are now in prison in Egypt?
SUE TURTON: That’s been talked about a lot. A lot of people have asked that question. We did hear the president, President Sisi, just yesterday saying that he would not get involved in the judicial process, but I know that there is a lot of international pressure, a lot of it behind the scenes, now on Egypt to possibly consider a pardon. We’re also going through the legal ramifications of whether there could be an appeal. There’s also a system in the Egyptian legal system, a kind of a court that looks at the process of the legal decision that was made in the court a couple of days ago. And if there’s any holes in that process, if it’s seen that they didn’t follow the letter of the law either in the arrest or in the actual court proceedings, there is a chance there that they could throw the conviction out. It’s a big "if" at the moment, and we are talking to lawyers. We’re trying to take stock of what’s happened and work out what our next best move is to try and get the guys out of prison.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sue Turton, we have only 30 seconds, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Sisi the day before the convictions. While there were words of protest from the U.S. government on all of your convictions, the fact is, the U.S. is releasing hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid to Egypt as we speak. Your thoughts on this and what this means for your verdicts and sentencing?
SUE TURTON: When I heard that the U.S. administration had agreed to release that money, I thought they had had an assurance from the government that the verdict would be going towards not guilty. And I also got that sense when John Kerry released a statement straight after the verdict. It was an anguished statement. It called the verdict draconian and chilling and called for a pardon. And I have the sense that the Egyptian authorities almost pulled the rug from under the U.S. government’s feet, because when I was in D.C. a few months ago, I was talking to State Department, and they were very much saying they were very behind us or backing us, as they brought up our case every time they spoke to Egypt. And it was very suspicious, the fact that Kerry sort of agreed that they would release this money just before the verdict, and then the verdict came down as [guilty]. So I hope and pray they are doing everything they can now to speak to the Egyptian authorities, to the president, and say, "You can’t do this. You have to recognize you can’t behave this way towards journalists, if you want the relationship between the U.S. and Egypt to continue."
AMY GOODMAN: Sue Turton, thanks so much for being with us, Al Jazeera correspondent, charged in absentia and sentenced to 10 years by an Egyptian court, along with a number of other Al Jazeera reporters. But three of the reporters—Baher Mohamed, Mohamed Fahmy and Peter Greste—have been sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison. They sit in an Egyptian prison today.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’re coming up on the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising here in New York. Transgender people have sued New York over their lack of access to Medicaid and therapy. Stay with us.
"Trans Healthcare Now!" Lawsuit Seeks End to Healthcare Discrimination for Transgender New Yorkers
In New York, and in most other states, a transgender person with Medicaid cannot obtain coverage for hormone therapy, which non-transgender women routinely obtain in the form of birth control. The Sylvia Rivera Law Project and other groups have filed a lawsuit challenging a 1998 regulation which prevents Medicaid recipients in New York from accessing sex reassignment surgery, hormones and other forms of care. The lawsuit follows a number of recent victories for transgender healthcare. Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services overturned Medicare’s blanket ban on sex reassignment surgery, meaning recipients of Medicare will no longer have their claims for coverage of surgery automatically denied. Just last week, Massachusetts became the third state in the country to cover transgender healthcare under Medicaid. All this comes as activists prepare to mark the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in New York City on June 28, 1969, a seminal event that helped launch the modern LGBT movement. We speak with Pooja Gehi, staff attorney at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, which filed the class-action lawsuit over Medicaid coverage in New York, and Angie Milan-Cruz, a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Image Credit: Sylvia Rivera Law Project
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Here in New York and in most other states, a transgender person with Medicaid cannot obtain coverage for hormone therapy, which non-transgender women routinely obtain in the form of birth control. That’s a discrepancy activists are trying to change with a new lawsuit. Filed late last week by the Silvia Rivera Law Project and other groups, the lawsuit challenges a 1998 regulation which prevents transgender people from accessing sex reassignment surgery, hormones and other forms of care. In this video produced by the Silvia Rivera Law Project and GLAAD, healthcare providers and transgender people talk about the importance of basic health coverage.
STEPHEN: But I’ve always known that I wanted to move here, for the city’s vibrant artistic community. As a trans person, I would hope that I’d be welcomed, but many trans people aren’t, because we don’t have the basic healthcare coverage that we need to survive.
EGYPTT: In New York and many other states, transgender people like myself are so often refused coverage, even for routine and preventive care.
REINA GOSSETT: Every day, people come into the Silvia Rivera Law Project because they have been denied the basic healthcare they need to survive.
FINN: Transgender people, like all people, are healthier when they get the medical care they need.
RONICA: Trans medicine is a medically necessary intervention. Many people believe that doing—providing hormones for trans patients is cosmetic, but as a medical provider, I can tell you how crucial it is for the health and lives of trans people to have knowledgeable, trans-friendly providers.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The lawsuit over Medicaid coverage in New York follows a number of recent victories for transgender healthcare. Late last month, the federal Department of Health and Human Services overturned Medicare’s blanket ban on sex reassignment surgery. The change means recipients of Medicare will no longer have their claims for coverage of surgery automatically denied. Just last week, Massachusetts became the third state in the country to cover transgender healthcare under Medicaid.
AMY GOODMAN: All of this comes as activists are preparing to mark the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in New York City, a seminal event that helped launch the modern LGBT justice movement.
To talk about all these developments, we’re joined by Pooja Gehi, staff attorney and director of the Immigrant Justice Project at Sylvia Rivera Law Project, which has just filed the class-action lawsuit over New York Medicaid’s exclusion of transgender health coverage. And we’re joined by Angie Milan-Cruz, one of the two lead plaintiffs in the suit.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Angie, your name is the lead name. The other person didn’t want to be identified. Talk about why this is so important to you.
ANGIE MILAN-CRUZ: My personal experience has been hardship, depression, not being just accepted for who I am. I have to look at myself every day in the mirror and see the perfect me, but I want the whole package, where I can feel comfortable under my own skin.
AMY GOODMAN: And what would that whole package be? Why sue the New York State Department of Health?
ANGIE MILAN-CRUZ: To have the right to have reassignment surgery.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Pooja Gehi, could you explain why it is that Medicaid did not do what Medicare did in allowing these procedures?
POOJA GEHI: Yeah, well, the Medicaid regulation in the state of New York is really dated. It goes back to 1998. And it was passed sort of under the radar, and it’s a blanket exclusion to all transition-related healthcare. The only comments submitted were by two physicians, who actually said that the care is medically necessary and not experimental. And the state of New York went ahead anyways. And we think now is the time, right, with this Medicare decision. There’s also the Affordable Care Act, has a regulation that says it cannot discriminate on the basis of gender identity and expression, which we think means all state-based Medicaid programs should also cover transition-related healthcare.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And they make the argument that somehow—Medicaid makes the argument that these procedures are somehow dangerous for people who undergo them. And is that the justification that they provide?
POOJA GEHI: Mm-hmm.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And if that’s the case, then how come that wasn’t true when Medicare changed its policies?
POOJA GEHI: Mm-hmm. I mean, I think that that is the justification that the Department of Health in New York uses, and it’s extremely dated. We’ve seen—and actually, the regulation is supposed to be up for review each year. And we haven’t had any—seen any movement on it since 1998. During that time, the American Medical Association has said that the care is medically necessary—the American Psychiatric Association, the World Professional Standards for Transgender Healthcare, now Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. So we think now is the time that New York really needs to get on board.
AMY GOODMAN: Last month in New York, activists interrupted a speech by the New York state health commissioner to demand Medicaid coverage for transgender healthcare. Members of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project took over the stage at a health conference during a keynote address by Commissioner Howard Zucker. They displayed a banner with the hashtag "#TranshealthcareNOW." Member Reina Gossett spoke from the stage for several minutes.
REINA GOSSETT: We’re here to say that right now New York State Department of Health has a regulation that specifically excludes transgender people from accessing healthcare through Medicaid. Commissioner Howard Zucker has the power to change that. Please join us in demanding that Commissioner Zucker and the Department of Health end discrimination against transgender people in the great state of New York.
AMY GOODMAN: This is your organization, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.
POOJA GEHI: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Pooja Gehi, explain how New York differs from other states, like Massachusetts.
POOJA GEHI: Yeah. Well, New York continues to have a regulation that specifically excludes all transition-related healthcare. And in actuality, they cover the exact same healthcare for non-trans people, but not for trans people under Medicaid. So what happened in Massachusetts is that the state—the state Medicaid program reversed its regulation that excluded transition-related healthcare. And New York actually has the power to do the exact same thing.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And this care has actually been referred to as life-saving care. Could you explain how and why?
POOJA GEHI: Yeah, so, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project was founded in 2002. And since then, it’s been one of the most intense, major, life-threatening things that we’ve seen, is the way in which people are not able to access healthcare. And, you know, like any kind of healthcare, when you’re not able to access what you need, you’re more likely to suffer from suicidality, have increased rates of depression, not be able to work, not be able to participate in society in the way that you want to. And we also see people not able to access healthcare getting caught up in cycles of poverty and incarceration, because they are forced to resort to the black market, or they’re forced to do—engage in survival economies to be able to access the healthcare that they need, which then, of course, makes them more likely and more vulnerable to policing and incarceration.
AMY GOODMAN: Over the weekend, a vigil was held for a transgender woman whose body was found burned and hidden behind a dumpster last Thursday in Fort Myers, Florida. The brutal murder of Yaz’min Shancez was not labeled as a hate crime by local police. News-Press recently spoke with Yaz’min’s aunt.
REPORTER: What kind of person was she? What do you remember most about her?
BEATRICE LOGGINS: Just being a happy person, just full of life, that did not deserve to go out like that. He really didn’t. Just happy. I mean, liked to dance all the time, the life of the party. "Hey, let’s get it started!" you know, that type of thing. And I can just hear the voice over and over, you know what I’m saying? And it’s—it’s just hard.
AMY GOODMAN: The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs recorded more than 2,000 hate incidents against LGBT people last year, including 18 anti-LGBT homicides. Eighty-nine percent of the murder victims were people of color; 72 percent were transgender women. Do you, Angie, feel threatened?
ANGIE MILAN-CRUZ: Yes, absolutely. You know, my experience—being incarcerated, not being accepted for who I am, not able to find a job because of my sexual identity—is heartwrenching for me, per se.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And when did you first approach Medicaid for assistance with sex reassignment surgery?
ANGIE MILAN-CRUZ: Over 15 years.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what do you think, Pooja, are the prospects for success, given, as you’ve pointed out, that so many other state and federal bodies have changed their position on sex reassignment surgery and other assistance to trans people? What do you think the prospects are for success with this class-action lawsuit?
POOJA GEHI: Yeah, I feel really positive about it. I mean, our main—our major argument says that the federal government is saying that you cannot discriminate—states are not allowed to discriminate in the care that they provide on the basis of diagnosis, which is exactly what New York state is doing. So, because Angie is a trans woman, she’s not able to access the exact same care that non-trans people are able to access through Medicaid.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to a clip of Sylvia Rivera herself, which the Sylvia—she is the person who the Sylvia Rivera Law Project is named for, remembering the Stonewall uprising. She was one of the leaders of it, just down the street from our studios right here, in Greenwich Village. This is from the audio documentary Remembering Stonewall that was produced by Dave Isay in 1989 for the 20th anniversary of the uprising. Here’s Sylvia Rivera remembering what happened on that day 45 years ago.
SYLVIA RIVERA: Here, this queen is going completely bananas, you know, jumping on, hitting the windshield. The next thing you know, the taxicab was being turned over, the cars were being turned over, things—windows were shattering all over the place, fires were burning around the place. It was beautiful. It really was. It was really beautiful.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Sylvia Rivera. She died in 2002. The images of the people in the Stonewall bar with their stiletto heels hitting the police officers, launched the modern-day gay rights movement and LGBT movement. Why did your organization take her name?
POOJA GEHI: Yeah, well, Sylvia Rivera was a trendsetter, founder of Stonewall, but she also believed in intersectionality. So she was also a member of the Young Lords, where she provided meals for Puerto Rican folks in Harlem. She was part—was an anti-prison activist. She talked—she was an anti-racist activist. She was a trans activist. And she talked a lot about how all of those things are inextricably related, right? Which is what we really believe at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, too. We know that for people to express their gender identity and expression, it’s so much more challenging when people are also people of color, immigrant communities, people in prison, people living in poverty, people struggling against other barriers.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you both for joining us, Pooja Gehi, staff attorney at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and Angie Milan-Cruz, the lead plaintiff in the class-action suit to get Medicaid to cover hormone therapy and other forms of care for transgender people.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, it’s the 50th anniversary of the most massive bombing in history, the bombing of Laos. Stay with us.
Headlines:
•Maliki Calls Unity Gov’t Calls a "Coup" Against Iraq
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has rejected U.S. and other foreign calls for a more inclusive government as a "coup." Maliki spoke earlier today following the departure of Secretary of State John Kerry, who had visited Baghdad and the northern Kurdish region to press for a reconciliation agreement between Iraqi leaders. The Obama administration has apparently conditioned U.S. strikes against Sunni militants on a more inclusive central Iraqi government. But Maliki issued what appeared to be a strong rebuke.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki: "It is no secret to all Iraqis, the dangerous goals behind the call for the formation of a national salvation government, as they call it. It is simply an attempt by those who rebel against the constitution to end the young democratic process and confiscate the opinions of the voters and circumvent the constitutional merits. The call for the formation of a national salvation government is a coup against the constitution and the political process."
•U.S. Flies Surveillance over Iraq; Syria Bombs Sunni Targets
Comments by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki come as about 90 of the 300 U.S. Special Forces deployed to Iraq as "military advisers" have now arrived. The Pentagon says U.S. aircraft are flying up to 35 surveillance flights over Iraq daily. Meanwhile, the Syrian government waded into the Iraq crisis on Tuesday when it bombed Sunni militants near the Iraq-Syria border. The Syrian strike comes just two days after Israel bombed targets inside Syria. Militants with ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, meanwhile, have launched new attacks, hitting one of Iraq’s largest air bases near the town of Yathrib. Fighting between Iraqi forces and ISIS is also continuing for control of the oil refinery in Baiji.
•U.S. Talks Iraq Crisis with NATO Allies
Speaking during his visit to the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil, Secretary of State John Kerry urged Kurdish leaders to remain a part of Iraq instead of forming an independent state.
Secretary of State John Kerry: "As everybody knows, this is a very critical time for Iraq as a whole, and the government formation challenge is the central challenge that we face. In recent days, the security cooperation between the forces here in the Kurdish area has been really critical to helping to draw a line with respect to ISIL and also to provide some support to the Iraqi security forces."
Kerry is in Brussels today for talks with NATO allies on the Iraq crisis.
•GOP Sen. Cochran Defeats Tea Party Challenger After Appeal to Black Voters
Primaries were held Tuesday night in seven states. On the Republican side, Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi narrowly defeated tea party challenger Chris McDaniel in a runoff capping a heated race. The difference maker may have been the state’s African-American Democrats. Ahead of the runoff, Cochran urged black voters to vote in the primary in order to prevent a victory for McDaniel and his neo-Confederate views. While Cochran celebrated his victory Tuesday night, McDaniel refused to concede. Four of McDaniel’s supporters were arrested last month for a plot to break into a retirement home and take pictures of Cochran’s bedridden wife. The race was seen as a key test of establishment Republicans trying to fend off tea party challengers following the defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor earlier this month.
•Rangel Claims Victory in New York Primary
In Democrats’ most closely watched race, the 23-term Rep. Charles Rangel of New York has declared victory over State Senator Adriano Espaillat in a rematch of their 2012 primary. The 84-year-old Rangel has served in Congress for 43 years. Espaillat has yet to concede.
•Federal Court Rules "No-Fly" List Unconstitutional
A federal appeals court has ruled the "no-fly" list barring passengers from flying to or within the United States is unconstitutional. On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court in Oregon found the "no-fly" list violates the Fifth Amendment right to due process. The ruling came in the case of 13 plaintiffs barred from flying without notice or explanation. In some cases, U.S. citizens have been stranded abroad. The government has been ordered to inform the plaintiffs why they are on the list and to create a new process for them to challenge their placement on it. Up to 20,000 people are said to be included. In a statement, the ACLU said: "We hope this serves as a wake-up call for the government to fix its broken watchlist system, which has swept up so many innocent people."
•Obama Admin Warns of Deportation of Thousands of Children
The Obama administration has warned thousands of undocumented children are at risk of deportation following a wave of migration from Central America. More than 47,000 unaccompanied children have been caught at the U.S. border since October fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries. On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told lawmakers the United States is preparing additional detention centers to hold undocumented immigrants.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson: "We’re creating additional detention space for adults who bring their children, and I’m considering — I want to consider every option for stemming this tide, sir. We’re talking about large numbers of children, without their parents, who have arrived at our border hungry, thirsty, exhausted, scared and vulnerable. How we treat the children, in particular, is a reflection of our laws and our values."
Most of the children are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and many have come on their own.
•Assange Attorneys Petition Sweden to Drop Arrest Warrant
Attorneys for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange have asked the Swedish government to withdraw a warrant that has kept him confined in Ecuador’s London Embassy for two years. Assange has been holed up in a small embassy office since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces questioning on allegations of sexual assault. Assange has voiced fears he would ultimately be sent for prosecution in the United States if he were to return to Sweden. Assange’s attorneys say the warrant should be lifted because it can’t be enforced while Assange is in the embassy and Swedish prosecutors refuse to question him in London. Ecuador recently said talks with Britain over Assange’s fate were at an impasse, with Britain refusing to grant Assange safe passage to Quito. Although Assange faces a warrant for questioning on the sexual assault allegations, he has not been formally charged.
•Palestinian Prisoners End Mass Hunger Strike
Dozens of Palestinian prisoners have ended a hunger strike after winning concessions from Israel. Around 120 prisoners have refused meals since late April to protest their detention without charge and force-feedings.
•Witnesses: Militants Kidnap Dozens in Nigeria
Boko Haram militants have reportedly kidnapped around 90 more people in Nigeria. Witnesses in Borno state say the victims, including 60 girls and women, were seized over the weekend. The attacks come less than three months after the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls that sparked an international outcry.
•Connecticut Removes Trans Teen from Adult Prison
A 16-year-old transgender girl of color has been released from an adult women’s prison in Connecticut after being held there for two months without any criminal charges. The teenager, known as "Jane Doe," was jailed in April and held in solitary confinement after the Connecticut Department of Children and Families told a judge they could not safely care for her, citing her alleged history of violent behavior. Jane Doe had endured years of abuse as a child while under state supervision, at the hands of both relatives and DCF staff. Following a public outcry over her case, state officials announced Tuesday Jane Doe has been moved to a juvenile psychiatric facility. In a statement, the group Justice for Jane celebrated her transfer, saying: "Our next steps are to get Jane moved from Middletown and ultimately into a loving family."
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New York, New York, United States - Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Tuesday, June 24, 2014
democracynow.org
Stories:
Water is a Human Right: Detroit Residents Seek U.N. Intervention as City Shuts Off Taps to Thousands
Activists in Detroit have appealed to the United Nations over the city’s move to shut off the water of thousands of residents. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department says half of its 323,000 accounts are delinquent and has begun turning off the taps of those who do not pay bills that total above $150 or that are 60 days late. Since March, up to 3,000 account holders have had their water cut off every week. The Detroit water authority carries an estimated $5 billion in debt and has been the subject of privatization talks. In a submission to the United Nations special rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, activists say Detroit is trying to push through a private takeover of its water system at the expense of basic rights. We speak to Maureen Taylor of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and Meera Karunananthan, international water campaigner for the Blue Planet Project.
Photo Credit: flickr.com/ifmuth
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: Activists in Detroit have appealed to the U.N. over the city’s move to shut off the water of thousands of residents. The Detroit water authority says half of its 323,000 accounts are delinquent. It has begun turning off the taps of those who do not pay bills that total above $150 or that are 60 days late. Since March, up to 3,000 account holders have had their taps shut off per week. The Detroit water authority carries an estimated $5 billion in debt and has been the subject of talks to privatize.
Activists have been organizing against the water shutoffs, saying they target Detroit’s most vulnerable families. This is [an unidentified protester].
PROTESTER: I want to tell you why six kids on this porch when they came to shut off the water, and their parents had to run to try to find how they’re going to pay their water bill. Another woman, she’s pregnant. She has a two-year-old. She’s holding a bill for $400 in her hand, and she’s begging the man, "Don’t turn off my water." A pregnant woman with a $400 bill. You’re going to close the water off for a woman with a $400 bill who’s pregnant and a two-year-old. Shame on you!
AMY GOODMAN: That was [an unidentified activist protesting the water shutoffs]. In a submission to the United Nations special rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, activists say Detroit is trying to push through a private takeover of its water system at the expense of basic rights. The group Food & Water Watch said, "By denying water service to thousands, Detroit is violating the human right to water." The poverty rate in Detroit is approximately 40 percent, and people have seen their water bills increase by 119 percent within the last decade. Most of the residents are African American. Two-thirds of those impacted by the water shutoffs involve families with children.
Meanwhile, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, or DWSD, had defended its actions, saying the water shutoffs are necessary for alleviating the department’s debts. This is Greg Eno, the public affairs specialist at DWSD.
GREG ENO: We’re trying to work with people more aggressively—let’s put it that way—to try to get them either on payment plans or to get them paid. And it has worked. It has—we’ve increased our—we’ve lowered our debt a little bit by doing that.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Detroit, Michigan, where we’re joined by Maureen Taylor, the state chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization. In Ottawa, Canada, we’re joined by Meera Karunananthan, an international water campaigner for the Blue Planet Project. Her group filed the submission to the U.N. special rapporteur regarding the right to drinking water in Detroit.
We invited Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, to join us on the program, but his office declined our request.
Maureen and Meera, thanks for joining us. Maureen, tell us what’s happening on the ground. People must be scratching their heads around the United States and around the world to hear this. How many people are having their water cut off in Detroit every week?
MAUREEN TAYLOR: We’re getting conflicting information. And good morning to you. We’re told that it’s anywhere from 3,000 per month to 3,000 per week. It is historical for the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to not give its residents information. But at our offices at Michigan Welfare Rights, we are getting 30 to 40 calls an hour where people are saying, "I either have a water bill, and I’m afraid that my water is about to be cut off," or, "My water has already been cut off. What can you do to help us and give us some information?" So, it is scandalous.
And we live in the Great Lakes. And to have water threatened and people told that if your bill is $150 or more, you’re on a block, a chopping block, where your water is going to be turned off, in Michigan, it is particularly egregious, because a household that has welfare involvement, and water is turned off with minor children in a home, means that protective services can come in and take the children out and put them in foster care. And in a foster care home, you can earn more money as a foster parent than you can as a birth mother. It’s just scandalous what’s going on in Detroit. Just scandalous.
AMY GOODMAN: And what can families do if they don’t have water? Where do they get clean water?
MAUREEN TAYLOR: Well, again, we live in the Great Lakes, so it’s just—it’s an outrage to even have this discussion, that this kind of attack is going on. What we advise people to do is, first of all, we get information on what is the reason why you may be behind on your water bill. We have multiple agencies and organizations that we can send people to to get partial payments. We try and encourage people to set up payment plans.
But the number of people that are under attack—and again, we’re talking about blue-collar workers in Detroit. This is an orchestrated attack by banks and corporations and whatnot, in an effort to try to enrich themselves. And so, as the water department is trying to justify this egregious behavior, we didn’t have any choice. But our colleagues in Canada that suggested perhaps we should go to the U.N., we jumped at the opportunity. And we are expecting the United Nations to come to Detroit, take a look at what’s going on here and to make some kind of declarations about human rights violations. This is an outrage.
AARON MATÉ: Meera Karunananthan, you’re with the Blue Planet Project. Your group authored this report to the U.N. Can you talk about what this statement, this appeal, says?
MEERA KARUNANANTHAN: [Inaudible] the United Nations will look at the facts, look at what’s happening in Detroit, and join us in declaring this a violation of the human right to water and sanitation. If you listen to the Department of Water and Sewerage in Detroit, you would think this is—you know, this is a case of people not paying for running shoes they’ve purchased. But we’re talking about the water and sanitation services the people in Detroit are entitled to. This is their public water and sanitation utility. And so, the level of cutoffs that we’re seeing in Detroit, it’s absolutely outrageous. It is a scandal, and it is a—it’s a human rights violation. And these are not the measures that should be taken by the city to address the problem of underfunding in the—to the water and sanitation services.
AMY GOODMAN: Meera, how much—
MEERA KARUNANANTHAN: Now, we’re calling on the U.S. government, we’re calling on Congress to intervene, we’re calling on the state of Michigan to intervene, because both the federal government and the state have obligations to ensure that the rights of the people in the city of Detroit are respected.
AMY GOODMAN: Meera, how much do people pay for water in Detroit compared to other parts of the country?
MEERA KARUNANANTHAN: Well, the average—the national average is somewhere between $40 and $50 a month. In the city of Detroit, it’s something like $75 per household per month. Now, our—according to the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, that’s actually closer to, for a family of four, they’re paying $150 to $200 per month. And that’s—in a city like Detroit, that’s up to 20 percent—
AMY GOODMAN: And how much do people pay—
MEERA KARUNANANTHAN: —of the average monthly income.
AMY GOODMAN: How much do people make on average?
MEERA KARUNANANTHAN: And when you look at the number, the amount, the average household income in the city of Detroit is something like $25,000. I compared that to our situation here in Ottawa, Canada, where the average household income is in the range of $90,000, and we pay something like $50 a month for our water and sewerage bills. So, the rates are exorbitant and unaffordable in a city where the poverty rates are as high as they are in the city of Detroit.
AARON MATÉ: Maureen Taylor, I have to ask you, there’s been basically no federal aid for Detroit. There was a measure to give about $300 million that’s been proposed in private and federal funding. But seeing how banks, how auto companies got big bailouts, and Detroit was left to bleed, it’s a city that’s four-fifths black, 80 percent African-American. Do you think racism is at play here?
MAUREEN TAYLOR: Racism is always at play. People of color can never escape the shadow of the plantation. But we are moving quickly, not away from that, but we are joining this question of black and white with green. This is about greed. This is about the fact that there used to be about 1.4, 1.5 million people that lived in Detroit, and just in Detroit. And what was popular here was Dodge Main, Chevrolet Gear and Axle, Huber Avenue Foundry, Lynch Road Assembly, Rouge Plant, the great Rouge Plant, where the great, late General Baker worked for many, many years. And these factories built something called a middle class across the country.
Just where I live in Detroit alone, 400,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared. No one can take that kind of a hit. And where did they go? They went the way of technology. That’s the technology that used to enhance labor, now replaces labor. So R2-D2 robots now work at these, quote-unquote, "factories." These dinosaurs are gone. And so those good-paying jobs left with them. And, of course, you have people of color—let’s go get them first. Of course, you have blue-collar workers—let’s go get them first.
But this is more egregious. A woman and a child living on welfare in Michigan gets $420 a month in cash assistance. That tabulates to $5,040 in a year. This no-good, trifling, backstabbing Kevyn Orr, the emergency manager, is getting a thousand dollars an hour. This man makes $8,000 in one day; and a family of two, $5,040 in a year. It’s outrageous. And then to come after folks that have lost work, that have lost jobs, that are sticking and staying in Detroit to try to help to rebuild and repopulate my city, and then to say, "What we’re going to do is turn your water off because you can’t pay for it"? Not going to tolerate this mess.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have—
MAUREEN TAYLOR: We’re not going to tolerate it.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, but we will certainly continue to cover this crucial issue. Maureen Taylor, state chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization. Meera Karunananthan is international water campaigner for the Blue Planet Project.
Should Obama Go to Tehran? How a U.S.-Iran "Grand Bargain" Could Help the Crisis in Iraq
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: The Obama administration has promised Iraq "intense and sustained" support against a Sunni uprising overtaking large parts of the country. Secretary of State John Kerry made the pledge Monday in a surprise visit to Baghdad. Kerry, who is meeting with Kurdish leaders today, said Iraq’s most critical task is to adopt inclusiveness when it forms a new government by a July 1st deadline. But he gave new indications that regardless of political developments in Iraq, the U.S. is increasingly prepared to launch military strikes against Sunni militants.
SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: The very future of Iraq depends on choices that will be made in the next days and weeks, and the future of Iraq depends primarily on the ability of Iraq’s leaders to come together and take a stand united against ISIL—not next week, not next month, but now. Make no mistake: The president has moved the assets into place and has been gaining each day the assurances he needs with respect to potential targeting, and he has reserved the right to himself, as he should, to make a decision at any point in time if he deems it necessary strategically.
AARON MATÉ: John Kerry spoke as the first of around 300 U.S. special operations forces, labeled "military advisers," took up positions in Iraq. Their deployment came hours after Baghdad and Washington finalized a new immunity deal for their mission. Iraqi opposition to long-term troop immunity helped oust U.S. forces in 2011, but the special forces will now be covered while they are, quote, "temporarily present in connection with the current crisis." The special forces’ mission includes acting as forward spotters for potential U.S. airstrikes. Two U.S. aircraft carriers have already been deployed to the northern Gulf region. In addition to potential strikes in Iraq, the Obama administration has also floated the possibility of attacking ISIS militants in neighboring Syria.
AMY GOODMAN: All of this comes as ISIS has expanded its stronghold in the north and west, seizing three border crossings and four nearby towns over the weekend. According to monitors from the United Nations, more than 1,075 people have been killed so far this month in Iraq.
Kerry’s visit to Baghdad and Erbil followed stops in Egypt and Jordan. He is also expected to touch down in Brussels and Paris in the coming days. But some argue Kerry’s travel calendar ignores the most important stop he could make: Tehran. The U.S. and Iran are fighting a common enemy in Iraq’s Sunni militants. But despite much speculation and ongoing nuclear talks, there’s little sign the two sides are approaching meaningful engagement on Iraq and the threat of regional conflict it’s inflaming.
For more, we go to Washington, D.C., to speak to Phillis Bennis, senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. She’s the author of several books, including Ending the Iraq War.
Phyllis, welcome back to Democracy Now!
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Thanks, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, what about the United States and Iran vis-à-vis Iraq?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: You know, Amy, this is very much a Nixon-goes-to-China moment. President Obama should go to Tehran. This is the moment when, if we’re serious about what President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and so many other U.S. officials have acknowledged—there is no military solution in Iraq or in Syria—we have to make that real. We have to figure out how to do the diplomacy. And this is a moment for an outside-the-box, dramatic gesture to say, "We need to talk with Iran, the other major power, the big regional power in the equation, to talk about how to bring these horrific, exploding levels of violence in both countries to an end."
There are some real possibilities here. You know, the U.S. and Iran are already talking to each other. They’re underway in the talks over Iran’s nuclear program. Those talks seem to be going well, although slowly, as anticipated. It’s likely they will not meet the July 20th deadline and will be extended another six months, as was anticipated, in crafting the interim agreement that’s operative now. And as those talks go forward, we should see this—and I would hope the Obama administration would consider seeing this—as a moment to really expand those talks towards what’s known in the diplomatic parlance as a, quote, "grand bargain." What that means is going beyond the narrow constraints of talking about the nuclear question to a broader question of tamping down the tension and actually going towards normalization of relations between the United States and Iran.
This is the moment when that could be possible, because right now, in this exploding, violent conflict going on on a sectarian basis in Iraq and Syria, Iran and the U.S. have a lot of the same interests—for somewhat different reasons, but they come down on the same side. In Iraq, for instance, it’s clear that Iran, on one level, would like to see Nouri al-Maliki and his sectarian Shia government stay in power, but Iran certainly does not want to see an explosion of this kind of destabilizing violence on its long border with Iraq. In Syria, both countries have an interest in tamping down the violence, even though they have differences over what the real threat might be. Iran, in Syria, is still supporting the Syrian regime; the U.S., of course, opposes the Syrian regime. But both Iran and the United States say that they are against ISIS, I-S-I-S, the leading force in Syria that is opposed to the Syrian regime. So, the U.S. and Iran, in that context, are on the same side. It makes the whole U.S. policy very complicated and very contra—sort of contraindicative of what it’s trying to do. It’s challenging itself, if you will. And a new initiative to take on real diplomatic engagement with Iran might be a beginning of a way to get real negotiations underway.
AARON MATÉ: But Phyllis, say the U.S. and Iran have these talks, and they go really well. What exactly does that cooperation do to counter the situation in Iraq, with ISIS taking over large parts of the country, and also neighboring Syria?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Well, I think we have to be very clear that this is not just about ISIS taking over the country. ISIS is a very powerful militia organization. It’s very disciplined. It’s very violent. It’s very extreme. But it doesn’t have the capacity by itself to take over cities; to take over Mosul; to take over all these border crossings; to control, as claims are being made, an area of land inside Syria the size of Indiana—sorry, inside Iraq, the size of Indiana. It has that capacity because it has allies. And those allies are growing every day because of the sectarian behavior of Maliki’s government right now in Iraq.
Maliki, a Shia leader, is operating in a thoroughly sectarian way, stripping Sunni military leaders of their positions, kicking out government members who are Sunni. So the anger of the Sunni community, in general, is rising quickly. What that leads to is a kind of alliance of convenience between ordinary Sunnis, who may hate what ISIS stands for, but they will stand with them in order to go against the Iraqi government. They’re allying—ISIS is allying with the so-called Awakening Council, which were the Sunni tribal leaders that the U.S. bought off in the period of the so-called surge in Iraq in 2006 and '07 and ’08, when a lot of money was spent to convince these guys to fight with the U.S. instead of against the U.S. They were essentially bribed. And they're fighting—ISIS is fighting with the support of former Baathists, former members of the old Iraq military, the nationalist secular people, who were opposed to the takeover of the United States of Iraq and who were kicked out of their positions. You know, if you remember, back in 2003, the first thing the U.S. occupation did was dismantle the Iraqi army and send home all of these largely Sunni men with guns, with no jobs, no way to support their family, very angry, and then they dismantled the Iraqi government in the name of so-called de-Baathification. And all those people who lost their jobs, who lost their means of supporting their families, they are really, really angry. And they are now fighting with ISIS. That’s why ISIS has been able to make this sweep across northern and western Iraq, because that’s where the Sunni heartland is, and that’s where people are so angry at the sectarian Shia government that they’re willing to ally themselves even with this terrible extremist organization, ISIS, in order to go after the government.
That’s what could change if the U.S. and Iran, working together, were able to jointly bring pressure to bear on the government of Iraq, which is now in this transition moment. You know, they had elections in April. The Maliki government didn’t—the Maliki party didn’t win a majority, but they won more than others, so they’re trying to put together a government. But they’re refusing any kind of national unity. They’re refusing to build an inclusive government, as President Obama and so many others have called on. There’s absolutely no indication they’re ready to do that. Until they do, this kind of sectarian tension is only going to grow, and it’s only going to become more militarized, more violent. What it could mean, if the U.S. and Iran, the two most important allies and supporters of the current government, were together, jointly, bringing pressure to bear, including saying, "No more weapons. We’re not sending any more weapons to your army," which is now functioning, essentially, as a Shia militia—in that context, the U.S.-Iranian alliance, if there were to be such a thing, could play a hugely important role.
AMY GOODMAN: Phyllis, speaking to NBC News Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the U.S. to attempt to weaken both Sunnis in Iraq and Shia in Iran. He also repeated his warnings that Iran stands to develop nuclear weapons.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: What you’re seeing in the Middle East today in Iraq and in Syria is the historic hatreds between radical Shiites, in this case led by Iran, and radical Sunnis, led by al-Qaeda and ISIS and others. Now, both of these camps are enemies of the United States. And when your enemies are fighting each other, don’t strengthen either one of them. Weaken both. And I think, by far, the worst outcome that could come out of this is that one of these factions, Iran, would come out with nuclear weapons capability. That would be a tragic mistake. It would—it would make everything else pale in comparison.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Phyllis Bennis?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: You know, Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the last several years of his campaign, of his career, trying to convince the United States that opposition to Iran is the end of the story—that’s all that has to happen. It’s just wrong. It’s just wrong. And there’s no way that both Israeli opposition and the very likely virulent, powerful Saudi Arabian opposition to any kind of U.S.-Iranian rapprochement—those oppositions should not be allowed to determine U.S. foreign policy. Netanyahu is wrong. First of all, he’s wrong when he says that the opposition to ISIS is being led by Iran. It’s not. It’s being led by the Shia government in Iraq, supported by the United States. So, that’s the reality on the ground. And this notion that somehow alleviating the possibility of a U.S.-Iranian war would be a bad thing speaks to the bankruptcy of the Israeli policy on this. They’re saying this while they are continuing to kill Palestinians in the West Bank, hoping that nobody will call them to account for it because they’re worried about Iran. So this is really a political move by—not a strategic move, by Netanyahu.
There will be massive Israeli and Israeli lobby and Saudi opposition to any such rapprochement between the United States and Iran. President Obama, in these last two years of his time in office, should use the opportunity to say, "I don’t make my policies based on lobbies, based on what other countries think I should do. I make them on what’s best for this country and for the world. We’re a global power. What’s best for the world is doing everything the U.S. can do to tamp down this level of violence, and that means an alliance with the most stable country in the region right now—ironically, that would be Iran—and the one country that has enough influence in Iraq to actually make a difference.
AARON MATÉ: Phyllis, you mentioned Saudi Arabia. Even the U.S.'s own diplomatic cables, released by WikiLeaks, have acknowledged that it's Saudi Arabia that’s the largest source for the funding of these Islamist militant groups. So, can there be serious engagement with the process in Iraq without a U.S. shift in its policy toward Saudi Arabia?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: You know, in the long term, I think there’s going to have to be a regional shift of U.S. policy that goes way beyond Iraq and the immediate crisis. And that’s going to have to include holding Saudi Arabia to account. This isn’t an official Saudi policy of the government to support organizations like ISIS, but there are wide-ranging reports that a number of Saudi princes have been involved in the funding, and it’s clear that much of the money is coming from private individuals in Saudi Arabia and in other countries in the Gulf, as well—Qatar, the UAE, others—but particularly Saudi Arabia.
It’s the presence of U.S. troops and U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia that first gave rise to the extremism of al-Qaeda. If we look to the pre-9/11 period, what al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were reacting to was not the demand that they raised later—"We want a sharia-based state in the region," etc. That came later. Their first position was their opposition to the U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia: infidels in their holy land. And that’s what was the focus. That basis has allowed the Saudi government enormous leeway to not only violate massive human rights in their own country, but play this incredibly destabilizing role in the region, including through support of these extremist Sunni terrorist organizations like ISIS, like ISIS.
So, the question of what the U.S. needs to do includes telling the Saudis that until they stop allowing Saudi weapons, which are ultimately U.S. weapons sold to the Saudis, we’re not going to sell them any more weapons. You know, the U.S. has announced, two years ago, a $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, the largest single arms sale in history. It’s not going to be easy for any government—President Obama or any future administration—to tackle that, when the producers of those weapons in this country and their CEOs make such a killing on those kinds of sales.
AMY GOODMAN: Phyllis, it reminds me of the Iran-Iraq War—I mean, the U.S. supporting both sides.
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Absolutely, absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, why was—why is now Kerry there in Iraq? He was just in Egypt, where he also guaranteed the resumption of more military aid to Egypt.
PHYLLIS BENNIS: And Jordan, the same thing. This is a huge problem, that the U.S. is trying to buy the loyalty of Arab rulers by promising them more and more arms, despite any human rights violations. In Egypt, we’ve just been hearing about the outrageous sentencing of the Al Jazeera journalists to seven to 10 years apiece for doing their job, with no evidence provided. Not a word was said while Kerry was in Cairo. The next day, when he’s in Jordan, he says, "Oh, yeah, by the way, we didn’t like what the Egyptian government did." But in the meantime, they’re continuing to release $500 million of military aid. This is giving impunity to all of these rulers and making it much harder to hold anyone accountable in the Middle East.
AMY GOODMAN: Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck admitted last week on Fox News he was mistaken about the war in Iraq.
GLENN BECK: And I hate to say these things, and it pains me to say these—first of all, the—we should start with this: Progressives, liberals, whoever on the other side, I will admit I was wrong about the war in Iraq. I really thought we could bring peace and justice and freedom and all of that stuff. You didn’t. You were right. People have to want it, and they have to earn it themselves.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Glenn Beck. Phyllis Bennis?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Well, it’s all very nice that he is pained to say this, but that’s not nearly as bad as the pain of Iraqi families, so many millions of Iraqi families, who have lost members, who have had family members killed, injured, forced to leave their homes. The apology is a little too late, a little too little.
AARON MATÉ: Phyllis, as we wrap, I wanted to ask you quickly about the situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories over the past week and a half, Israel conducting raids throughout the West Bank, arresting over 360 Palestinians, killing at least four. Your response to what’s happening there right now?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: It’s a horrific scene of collective punishment. There have been three Israeli teenagers who disappeared, settler teenagers from the West Bank. No one knows where they are. No one is sure they’ve been kidnapped. But the assertion is made that they’ve been kidnapped, Hamas is somehow responsible, and therefore Israel has taken the position—and some Israeli officials have acknowledged that they’re doing this in order to weaken Hamas, to destroy the unity government that the Palestinians have created, that this has really nothing to do with the missing boys. Nobody knows where they are.
As you say, more than 360 people have been arrested. It’s now five people who have been killed, from the information I’m getting, in raids across the West Bank. People even now in Ramallah, which is the center of the Palestinian government and the Fatah organization led by Mahmoud Abbas—people in Ramallah have been saying that they are now facing these raids by the Israelis for the first time. The situation in Hebron is almost a complete lockdown. In other cities in the West Bank, Nablus and others, Israeli raids have been going on day and night. This is a massive collective punishment of the two million Palestinians in the West Bank who have nothing to do with what may or may not even be a kidnapping. These boys are missing. The notion that they are kidnapped is not even yet a certainty.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, the significance of the Presbyterian Church divesting from three companies—what was it, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Caterpillar—
PHYLLIS BENNIS: And Caterpillar.
AMY GOODMAN: —that were doing business in the Occupied Territories?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Finally we have a word of good news. This is an indication of the massive shift in discourse in this country and around the world on the question of recognition of the illegality and, for the churches especially, the immorality of Israel’s occupation. This was a long-fought decision in the Presbyterian Church. Two years ago, they narrowly defeated a motion. Although they passed a powerful motion to boycott settlement-produced goods, they narrowly defeated a very similar motion on divesting from these corporations that are making such an illegal profit from occupation. And they now have said, "We can’t do this anymore. We’ve tried to engage with these companies. We’ve tried to show them, if you will, the error of their ways. They have not listened to us. So we have no choice, because as a faith community, it’s our obligation to act on our faith."
So this, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States taking this position, it’s one more indication that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement around the world, initiated by Palestinians back in 2005, is having an enormous impact. It’s not yet having the sufficient impact to change Israeli policy, but it’s going in a massively important direction in showing the change in U.S. public opinion, and eventually, that’s got to have an impact on U.S. policy.
AMY GOODMAN: Phyllis Bennis, we want to thank you for being with us, senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, author of many books, including Ending the Iraq War.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll take a look at the drone memo that’s just been released by the Obama administration, justifying the killing of U.S. citizens in drone strikes. Stay with us.
Can the President Strike an American Anywhere in the World?: Drone Memo Raises Troubling Questions
During a three-month span in 2011, U.S. drones killed four American citizens overseas. On September 30, cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were killed in a drone strike in Yemen. Two weeks later, another U.S. drone killed Anwar’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, in Yemen. A month later, a U.S. citizen named Jude Kenan Mohammad was killed in Pakistan. For the past two-and-a-half years, the Obama administration has refused to release its legal rationale for killing American citizens overseas. That changed on Monday when a federal court released a heavily redacted 41-page memo. It concludes the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force gave the U.S. government the authority to target Anwar al-Awlaki, who the Obama administration claims had joined al-Qaeda. On Capitol Hill, Sen. Ron Wyden praised the release of the memo but said it raises many questions. Wyden asked, "How much evidence does the president need to determine that a particular American is a legitimate target for military action? Can the president strike an American anywhere in the world?" Questions also remain over when the United States can kill non-U.S. citizens. We speak to Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: During a three-month span in 2011, U.S. drones killed four American citizens overseas. On Sept. 30th, cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were killed in a drone strike in Yemen. Two weeks later, another U.S. drone killed Anwar’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, in Yemen. A month later, a U.S. citizen named Jude Kenan Mohammad was killed in Pakistan.
For the past two-and-a-half years, the Obama administration has kept secret its legal rationale for killing American citizens overseas. That changed on Monday, when a federal court released a heavily redacted 41-page memo. It concludes the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force gave the U.S. government the authority to target Anwar al-Awlaki, who the Obama administration claims had joined al-Qaeda. The Justice Department memo states, quote, "We believe that the A.U.M.F.’s authority to use lethal force abroad also may apply in appropriate circumstances to a United States citizen who is part of the forces of an enemy."
AMY GOODMAN: The memo goes on say the U.S. could use lethal force against a U.S. citizen when high-level government officials have determined a capture operation is infeasible and that the targeted person is engaged in activities that pose a continued and imminent threat to U.S. persons or interests. The memo also states the U.S. Constitution would not require the government to provide, quote, "further process," such as advance notice [or] a court hearing before carrying out a deadly strike on a U.S. citizen. The memo was written on July 16, 2010, months after the first known U.S. attempt to kill Anwar al-Awlaki.
On Capitol Hill, Senator Ron Wyden praised the release of the memo but said it raises many questions. Wyden asked, quote, "How much evidence does the president need to determine that a particular American is a legitimate target for military action? Can the president strike an American anywhere in the world?" he asked.
The memo was authored by former Obama Justice Department official David Barron. Last month, the Senate confirmed Barron’s nomination to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court ordered the memo’s disclosure in response to lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times.
To discuss the significance of the memo, we’re joined by Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.
Welcome to Democracy Now! So you got what you wanted: You got the memo. What do you find most significant inside it?
HINA SHAMSI: Well, Amy, this memo’s release is long overdue. It’s critically important for transparency. But as we see from reading the memo itself, it’s by far from enough. And there are a couple of things that I think are most important. One is both what’s in the memo, and, two, what’s surprisingly not in the memo.
With respect to what’s in the memo, as you said earlier, the justification for the killing of a U.S. citizen largely relies on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. Now, that authorization has to be read alongside the international law that regulates when the United States and any other country is or is not in an armed conflict. And one of the key things that this memo does is that it says that some of the limitations on when an armed conflict exists don’t have to apply. So it says that the things that we think of and that the law recognizes—you know, a certain level of duration of hostilities, a certain level of intensity of hostilities—those don’t have to be present. In essence, it reads away any kind of territorial limitation or temporal limitation for when war exists. And this has been one of the things we and others have been so long concerned about, which is the Obama administration’s broad interpretation of law of war authority, even when that does not exist.
AARON MATÉ: Can you talk about what the memo says about imminence? That’s such a key issue, is whether or not the target constitutes an imminent threat to the U.S.
HINA SHAMSI: And that’s one of the surprising aspects of the memo, because the concept of imminence, or what we’ve heard of earlier as a continuing imminent threat, is barely discussed in it, at least in the versions that have been made public. And this is critically important for at least a couple of reasons. First of all, the white paper that was earlier released, or leaked, that talked about the administration’s definition of a continuing imminent threat, said that the threat did not have to include specific evidence of a plot that was actually about to take place in the immediate future. So, the real-world meaning of imminence is read away. And the memo itself—again, at least in the parts that have been disclosed—does not discuss this controversial, novel interpretation, nor does it discuss how that interpretation could possibly be lawful.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the redaction in the footnotes? Why is this so significant?
HINA SHAMSI: There are multiple redactions in this memo. The largest chunks of redactions are, we know from reading the court’s opinion, with respect to the factual basis for the administration’s determination that it could carry out this killing. There’s also a set of redactions in the footnotes that appear to be about the legal justifications. And two key aspects again here. One is that without knowing the factual basis for why these killings are lawful, we don’t know whether they are in fact lawful. Repeatedly, the memo’s authors say that the legal conclusions are based on factual representations made by the CIA, by the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. It also says that senior intelligence officials can make the determination about whether facts are justified to permit the killing. And this shows you just how dangerous it is not to have any independent judicial review before or after the fact, which is what the administration has argued and what this memo seeks to justify.
AMY GOODMAN: Are there secret laws?
HINA SHAMSI: You know, I think that there are still secret interpretations of the law. One of the aspects we’ve thought has long existed is multiple legal memos. We know from Senate Intelligence Committee disclosures that there are approximately 11 legal memos governing the targeted killing program. Four of those apparently relate to citizens; the others apparently relate to noncitizens. This is a body of legal interpretation by the administration about when it can exercise perhaps the most consequential authority of all—killing of people, including its own citizens. And we do not yet have access to this body of information.
This is one of the things that the court has sent back to the district court, additional review of additional secret memos that we are seeking the release of. But, you know, the administration does not have to wait, as it did here, to be ordered by a court to release information that should be public. It can go ahead and follow through on promises of transparency and provide the legal interpretations, as well as basic information about noncitizens. Thousands of noncitizens have been killed in this program, and yet we do not know, officially, the number of noncitizens, their identity or the legal justifications for them.
AMY GOODMAN: Is there an explanation of Abdulrahman Awlaki, the 16-year-old boy that was born in Denver, who was out actually looking in the desert for his dad and was killed two weeks after his father was killed?
HINA SHAMSI: There is no mention of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. And Abdulrahman, of course, had no idea where his father was, because he was killed hundreds of miles away. But I think that’s an important part of what remains undisclosed. The memo itself says that, you know, in essence, efforts will be made to keep all civilian bystander casualties to a minimum, and those are policy pronouncements that the Obama administration’s senior administration officials have made over and over again. Yet we know from independent reporting and independent investigations from human rights groups that, in fact, at least hundreds of people who are civilian bystanders have died in this program, and we have no basis or way of understanding what the reasons were that they were killed. And certainly none of these people have been afforded any recognition, let alone compensation, by our government for wrongful killings.
AARON MATÉ: You mentioned noncitizens. And so much of the debate has been around whether Americans have the right to be killed without due process. But is there any indication that noncitizens have these rights, or is there any acknowledgment in any U.S. government document that noncitizens have these rights?
HINA SHAMSI: Well, of course, noncitizens and citizens have the same rights under international law, and we believe those rights are reflected in the human rights provisions of our Constitution. The administration has taken policy positions about what legal—what standards would be applicable to noncitizens. But here again, we go back to the lack of transparency. There are apparently seven memos that relate to the killings of noncitizens, although the administration itself has not confirmed that. And as much and as necessary as it is to know what standards apply to citizens, we also equally need to know what standards apply to noncitizens.
AMY GOODMAN: So where do you go from here?
HINA SHAMSI: We go in a number of different places. First, aspects of this case are going to go back to the court in New York, and we’re going to continue fighting for release of additional information, legal memos, factual basis. We have a second lawsuit in the District of Columbia, where we’re seeking information not just about citizens, but noncitizens, and the use of drones strikes with respect to noncitizens. But again, I think what’s really important is that the administration does not have to wait for the ACLU or The New York Times or anyone else. It can act and follow through on its promises of transparency, and it should do so.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you for being with us, Hina Shamsi, director of the America Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.
When we come back, something like 1,500 to 3,000 water consumers in Detroit a month—a week are having their water shut off. Stay with us.
Headlines:
•Court Releases Redacted Memo on Killing of U.S. Citizens
A federal court has released a heavily redacted memo that outlines the Obama administration’s legal rationale for killing U.S. citizens overseas. During a three-month span in 2011, U.S. drone strikes killed four American citizens, including Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and, weeks later, his Denver-born 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, in Yemen. The legal memo, kept secret by the administration until now, concludes the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force gave the U.S. government the authority to target al-Awlaki, who the administration claims had joined al-Qaeda. The memo was authored by former Obama Justice Department official David Barron, who was confirmed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals last month. We’ll discuss the memo’s release in detail later in the broadcast.
•U.S. Pledges "Intense Support" for Iraq; ISIS Solidifies Border Control
In Iraq, Sunni militants have solidified their control over the western border, including crossing points with Syria and Jordan. The expansion came as Secretary of State John Kerry paid a surprise visit to Baghdad on Monday. Speaking in Washington, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf laid out the details of what the administration called its "intense and sustained support for Iraq."
Marie Harf: "First, there are going to be advisers working with the Iraqis to help shore up their ability to fight ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). We’re also going to be enhancing our intelligence sharing, including through joint operation centers to fuse information. We’re going to continue to supply a steady stream of sophisticated munitions. And the advisers really be working with some of Iraq’s best units to help them fight ISIL."
The United Nations reports at least 1,075 people have been killed in Iraq this month, most of them civilians. We’ll have more on the crisis after headlines.
•Nigeria: Militants Abduct 91 People
In news from Nigeria, the Associated Press reports Islamic militants have kidnapped 60 more girls and women and 31 boys from northeastern villages. Witnesses confirmed the abductions while security forces have denied them. The militant group Boko Haram has carried out near-constant attacks in the region including the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in April.
•Israel Bombs Syria After Cross-Border Attack
"Israel"http://www.democracynow.org/topics/israel has bombed a number of targets in Syria in retaliation for a cross-border attack that killed a teenager in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Syria says the Israeli strikes have killed four people in what it called a "flagrant violation" of Syrian sovereignty.
•U.N. Voices Concern over Israeli Crackdown on West Bank
The strikes in Syria come as Israel faces international scrutiny for its raids on the occupied West Bank in response to the disappearance of three Israeli teenagers. Israel has accused Hamas of kidnapping the teens and has detained 361 Palestinians and killed five in an ongoing crackdown. Speaking on Monday, U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman called for restraint.
Jeffrey Feltman: The rising death toll as a result of Israeli security operations in the West Bank is alarming. We condemn all killing of civilians and call for an investigation into any such deaths. Reportedly, the Israeli Cabinet also voted to impose harsher conditions on detainees affiliated with Hamas who are in Israeli custody. As the search for the missing youth continues, we call for restraint in carrying out the security operations in strict compliance with international law and avoiding punishing individuals for offenses they have not personally committed."
•Syria Completes Chemical Weapons Handover
Syria has completed the handover of its chemical weapons stockpiles to Western powers under a deal reached last year to avert possible U.S. airstrikes. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says all 1,300 tons of Syria’s declared supply has been carried out of the country by ship and will be destroyed.
•Afghanistan Faces Election Crisis amid Deadly Month for U.S. Troops
Afghanistan is facing an election crisis amid allegations of fraud in the presidential runoff. A top election official resigned Monday after presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah released audio recordings which he claimed showed the official orchestrating the stuffing of ballot boxes. The official, Ziaulhaq Amarkhil, denied the tapes are real but said he would resign for the sake of "national unity." June has been the deadliest month this year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with nine killed, including three marines struck by a roadside bomb on Friday and five killed by friendly fire earlier in the month.
•Egyptian President Declines to Pardon Al Jazeera Journalists
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi says he will not intervene in the sentencing of three Al Jazeera journalists to between seven and 10 years in prison, even as international outcry spreads. Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were convicted on Monday of terrorism charges including "spreading false news" in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, deemed by the government a "terrorist group." Peter Greste’s father, Juris Greste, reacted to the sentencing.
Juris Greste: "This is a very dark time, not only for our family, but for journalism generally. We are devastated, shocked and dismayed at this finding. We are not usually a family of superlatives, but I have to say this morning my vocabulary fails to convey just how shattered we are."
The sentencing came one day after Secretary of State John Kerry met with el-Sisi and outlined plans for a full resumption of military ties in the coming months. On Monday, Kerry released a statement calling the verdict "draconian" and urging Egypt to "consider all available remedies, including pardons." But the statement did not mention U.S. military aid, including $575 million released in recent days and plans to send a long-delayed shipment of Apache helicopters. Australia has protested the sentencing of Peter Greste —- an Australian citizen –— by summoning a top Egyptian diplomat.
•Obama Calls for Paid Parental Leave
President Obama has called for paid family leave and greater flexibility to improve conditions for working parents. Obama repeated the call at a White House summit on Monday after initial remarks in his weekly address on Saturday.
President Obama: "Many jobs don’t offer adequate leave to care for a new baby or an ailing parent, so workers can’t afford to be there when their family needs them the most. That’s wrong, and it puts us way behind the times. Only three countries in the world report that they don’t offer paid maternity leave. Three. And the United States is one of them. It’s time to change that."
•Supreme Court Largely Upholds Greenhouse Gas Emission Rules
The U.S. Supreme Court has largely upheld the Obama administration’s limits on greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet. In a 7-to-2 decision, the court ruled the Environmental Protection Agency could regulate power plants and other stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions as long as they already require permits for other types of pollution. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said the ruling allows the EPA to regulate 83 percent of such emissions, compared to the 86 percent the agency sought to regulate.
•South Africa: Platinum Workers End Historic Strike
In South Africa, platinum miners have agreed to end a historic five-month-long strike in return for increased wages. The miners’ union said it accepted a plan to raise wages by about $94 per month, a roughly 20 percent rise, ending what has reportedly been the longest strike in South African history. During a previous strike in 2012, police opened fire on workers at the Marikana platinum mine, killing 34 people.
•Brazil: Favela Residents Protest Police Killings
In Brazil, anti-World Cup protests are continuing across the country even amidst celebrations over Brazil’s latest triumph on the field. On Monday, demonstrators marched in Porto Alegre, São Paulo and the capital Brasília to protest mass expenditures and displacement caused by the event. In Fortaleza, construction workers demanded higher pay as Brazil spends an estimated $11.5 billion on the most expensive World Cup on record. In Rio de Janeiro, hundreds of people marched past reveling fans to denounce police violence against residents of the favela neighborhoods.
Fransérgio Goulart: "This is a protest against the Cup and state violence and the UPP (Pacifying Police Unit). I live in Manguinhos, and since the UPP have been there, five people have been murdered by state hands. This idea that the UPP are pacifiers is a farce. I live in Manguinhos, and those who live in Manguinhos and who live in the favelas know. It is a continual policy about controlling the people. In less than two years in Manguinhos, more than five young people have been killed."
•Fresh Anti-Austerity Protests Planned After 50,000 March in London
In London, critics of austerity are vowing to stage more protests after an estimated 50,000 people marched this past weekend. The People’s Assembly has called for people in Britain to rise up and defend education, health and welfare in the face of austerity measures introduced by the government. Among the protesters was comedian Russell Brand.
Russell Brand: "A revolution is required. It’s not a revolution of radical ideas, but simply the implementation of the ideas that they say we already have. Democracy would be nice, actually, where people were represented, where people’s feelings were represented. I don’t believe that the people of this country want to focus their hatred and anger on other people that don’t have wealth or power. It is quite clear that the people that have wealth and power are the people that need to change."
•Rebekah Brooks Acquitted, Andy Coulson Convicted in Murdoch Phone-Hacking Case
Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper unit in Britain, has been acquitted of phone hacking and bribery in a trial that rocked Murdoch’s media empire. Her former deputy, Andy Coulson, who served as editor of the News of the World tabloid before becoming communications director for British Prime Minister David Cameron, has been found guilty of one count of phone hacking. The scandal led Murdoch to shut down the tabloid in 2011.
•Report: 39 Prisoners in California Illegally Sterilized
In California, a state auditor’s report has found dozens of prisoners were illegally sterilized. Out of 144 surgical sterilizations performed in recent years, 39 — or more than a quarter of them — were performed without the legal requirements for consent. In some cases, doctors failed to sign paperwork certifying the prisoner understood the impact of the procedure; in others, they falsified paperwork to make it appear as if a state-mandated waiting period had passed. It is the latest chapter in an unfolding scandal in California after former prisoners reported being coerced into sterilization.
•Thousands Oppose NBC’s Alleged Censoring of "Obvious Child" Film Ad Mentioning Abortion
A Planned Parenthood petition over the alleged censoring of a movie ad by NBC has received about 11,000 signatures. Planned Parenthood launched the petition following reports NBC refused to run a trailer for the romantic comedy "Obvious Child" because it mentions the word abortion. The petition reads in part: "It’s been more than 40 years since abortion was legalized — it’s about time television caught up. ... For far too long, the refusal to talk honestly about abortion has led to increasing stigma around the issue, and it’s got to stop." Click here to watch our interview with Gillian Robespierre, the director of "Obvious Child."
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