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Mr. Smith Goes to Prison: After Year in Jail, Former State Senator Condemns Mass Incarceration
The first time Jeff Smith appeared on the national radar, he was the subject of the critically acclaimed documentary, "Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?," which chronicled his 2004 campaign for the congressional seat of the retiring Dick Gephardt. Smith narrowly lost the race to Russ Carnahan, but his surprising performance in a crowded field of 10 made him a rising star in Missouri Democratic politics. Smith was elected state senator in 2006 and served until 2009, when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy for an election law violation tied to the 2004 campaign. Smith was sentenced to one year and a day in a Kentucky federal prison. He chronicles his experience in his new book, "Mr. Smith Goes to Prison: What My Year Behind Bars Taught Me About America’s Prison Crisis," which he calls "a scathing indictment of a system that teaches prisoners to be better criminals instead of better citizens." We speak with Smith, now an assistant professor of urban policy at The New School, about what he learned in prison and his thoughts about criminal justice reform.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The first time our next guest, Jeff Smith, appeared on the national radar, he was the subject of the critically acclaimed documentary, Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore? The year chronicled in the film was 2004. Jeff Smith was a 29-year-old unknown college professor vying for the congressional seat of the retiring Dick Gephardt.
JEFF SMITH: So, this woman who was a friend of my grandma’s, she got the first solicitation letter we sent during the campaign, and she calls my grandma says, "Ida, this is wonderful. Your grandson is running for Congress." And my grandma, who’s 96, said, "No, I don’t think he’s running for Congress. He’s running for the state Legislature." And the woman said, "Ida, I’m looking at the letter right here. He’s running for U.S. Congress." And my grandma said, "Well, if he’s really running for U.S. Congress, you ought to save your money."
JEFF SMITH’S GRANDMOTHER: I don’t think the things that a person with the mind that he has should waste it on politics.
JEFF SMITH: You know, my dad just pretty much laughed in my face.
JEFF SMITH’S FATHER: He said, "I’m going to run for Dick Gephardt’s spot in the U.S. House of Representatives." And I said, "What? Are you nuts?"
JEFF SMITH: The system is fundamentally flawed. It is broken.
UNIDENTIFIED: Normally a pollster will fudge a little and say, "Well, Jeff, you got five," or, "You’re at three." And, I mean, this pollster said, "You’re not even on here."
JEFF SMITH: My name is Jeff Smith. I’m running for the congressional seat that Dick Gephardt is leaving.
JO MANNIES: I was surprised to even know who Jeff Smith was. So you begin to kind of wonder, "Well, maybe there’s something out there."
AMY GOODMAN: Jeff Smith narrowly lost the race to Russ Carnahan, the scion of a Missouri political dynasty. His father, Mel, was governor, running for Senate when he died in a plane crash. His mother, Jean Carnahan, became the senator.
But Smith’s surprising performance in a crowded field of 10 made him a rising star in Missouri Democratic politics. Jeff Smith was elected state senator in 2006 and served until 2009. That’s when he pled guilty to conspiracy for lying to federal investigators about his involvement in creating a flier critical of Carnahan in the 2004 congressional campaign. Jeff Smith was sentenced to a year and a day in a Kentucky federal prison. He chronicles his experience in his new book, Mr. Smith Goes to Prison: What My Year Behind Bars Taught Me About America’s Prison Crisis. Smith writes, quote, that the book "is a scathing indictment of a system that teaches prisoners to be better criminals instead of better citizens."
Well, for more, we’re joined by Jeff Smith. Now he’s an assistant professor of urban policy at The New School here in New York, yes, former Missouri state senator from St. Louis, on the board of the nonprofit, Prison Entrepreneurship Program, or PEP. He’s also author of the e-book, Ferguson in Black and White.
Jeff Smith, welcome back to Democracy Now!
JEFF SMITH: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. Well, let’s start out with how you ended up in jail. How did you end up in prison?
JEFF SMITH: OK. So, it was my 2004 congressional campaign, and it was about a month out from Election Day. We had about 700 volunteers. We were moving in the polls. We could feel it. But I didn’t think we had enough to get over the top. At that point, two of my aides were approached by a third party, who said that he wanted to put out a postcard highlighting my opponent Russ Carnahan’s dismal attendance record in the state House. My aides came to me, and instead of telling them, "I don’t think we’re supposed to deal with a third party," I said, "Look, I don’t want to know any details. Just don’t tell me what you do." And they didn’t.
The postcard came out a few weeks later just before Election Day, and Mr. Carnahan filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against me alleging coordination. I responded by signing an affidavit denying any knowledge of the postcard, even though I knew my aides met with the third party. Five years later, when I was in the state Senate, my best friend wore a wire for two months and got me to admit that I knew about a meeting between my aides and the guy who did the postcard. And the prosecutor basically gave me a choice: I could either cooperate and help them get other people or go to prison. And I want to prison.
AMY GOODMAN: Why wouldn’t you cooperate?
JEFF SMITH: The people that they were interested in were not bad people, I didn’t think, and I didn’t want to help them in that way.
AMY GOODMAN: So you went to prison, what, 500 miles away from where you lived. Where was the prison?
JEFF SMITH: The prison was in what The New York Times has called the most miserable county in the country, Clay County, Kentucky, one of the poorest places, one of the most drug-addicted counties in the country, former coal-mining area, but the coal mines are all gone now, and they’ve had a lot of deep problems with unemployment and drug use.
AMY GOODMAN: Why were you sent there? Are there no other prisons closer to where you lived?
JEFF SMITH: No, there were several prisons closer to where I lived, but I wasn’t exactly on good terms with the prosecutor when I didn’t cooperate. So I think that might have had something to do with it, but I don’t know for sure.
AMY GOODMAN: There was a 500-mile rule.
JEFF SMITH: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: You had to be within 500 miles of home, and so you were on the 500-mile mark.
JEFF SMITH: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So talk about prison. What did you find there? What surprised you most?
JEFF SMITH: What surprised me most was the incredible untapped human potential in prison that we’re wasting. I saw guys whose business instincts were as sharp as those of the CEOs who had wined and dined me the year before, when I was a state senator, guys that were selling something that was illegal in a past life, but understood the same concepts that you’d learn at Harvard Business School—risk management, territorial expansion, new product launch, quality control. They intuitively grasped all these concepts from running successful drug businesses, and, if nurtured properly, as a couple different nonprofits are working to do now, could be very successful business people on the outside when they finish.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about some of the stories, of Catfish, of BJ, some of your fellow prisoners.
JEFF SMITH: OK. Well, you mentioned BJ, and he was a—he was an interesting one. He had been a successful drug dealer in Detroit for about 15 years and then got caught up. He had two passions. He was passionate about luxury sports cars and about women. And from the inside, his 19-year-old son—he had directed his 19-year-old son to start a company that would—a website that was pornographic and featured women having sex on top of luxury sports cars. He had bought the domain name. He had appointed his 19-year-old son vice president for talent development, and they were auditioning people. And he was running all of this from the prison. This was just—
AMY GOODMAN: Did he have big car sponsors?
JEFF SMITH: You know, I’m not exactly sure, but he had a business plan that he had written. He asked me to look through it. It was very impressive. And this was not unusual. I highlight that story because of the humor in it, but there were many men who had already written out business plans for personal fitness businesses, where they would train people; for restaurants; for landscaping businesses—all sorts of things. There was just a tremendous amount of both entrepreneurial potential and passion and desire to get back in the world and fly straight.
AMY GOODMAN: When we come back from break, I want to ask you about how you feel prisons encourage prisoners to be prisoners for the rest of their lives or commit crimes rather than to be rehabilitated. We’re talking to Jeff Smith. He is author of Mr. Smith Goes to Prison: What My Year Behind Bars Taught Me About America’s Prison Crisis. Back with him in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Damian Marley, here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We are talking to Jeff Smith. He’s author of Mr. Smith Goes to Prison: What My [Year] Behind Bars Taught Me About America’s Prison Crisis. He writes that the book is "a scathing indictment of a system that teaches prisoners to be better criminals instead of better citizens." Explain, Jeff.
JEFF SMITH: Well, first of all, prison is an incredibly dehumanizing experience, and it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s other countries, particularly in Europe, in Scandinavia, where prison is treated like a break from society, where you can acquire a skill, and then you can come back out into the world and be successful. That’s not how we do things in most of this country. There was almost no rehabilitative component or educational possibilities where I went to prison. In one year, there was a GED course taught once and then a hydroponics course for two weeks. That’s how to grow tomatoes in water. Right? So not a lot of real practical training to be able to come back and successfully re-enter society.
Another way that prison, I would say, is criminogenic is that one thinks—
AMY GOODMAN: Criminogenic?
JEFF SMITH: Encourages more crime—is that when—when we want to reduce recidivism, we know one very simple way to do it is to keep people in close contact with their loved ones and community support. And yet everything about prison makes that difficult. You know how expensive it is to make phone calls home in prison? These phone companies—I know you guys have done some stuff on these private phone companies that are gouging prisoners. Sometimes it could cost $3 or $4 a minute to talk to a loved one. You don’t have any money in prison. Most guys in there still owe court costs, you know, from before they came in. And people are just hustling to try to get by. If—
AMY GOODMAN: How much did you make? What did you do in prison?
JEFF SMITH: I worked in the food warehouse. I unloaded trucks, about 35,000 or 40,000 pounds of food every day, with six other men at the prison. And I made $5.25—not an hour, but per month of full-time work. So, when you make $5 a month—and it’s a big misconception about prison: They don’t give you things. You have to buy your own soap, your own toothpaste, just things for even basic hygiene. And that means that inmates are forced to hustle, you know, find ways to try to survive, whether it’s cooking or cutting other guys’ hair. There’s all types of prison businesses going on and a thriving underground economy.
AMY GOODMAN: And then, when—you served a year and a day. But talk about what happens to people when they get out of prison. You talk about prisons being criminogenic. How it—outside life, because of the restrictions on people who have been in prison, it forces them right back in.
JEFF SMITH: That’s exactly right. When you’re in prison, you’re probably not getting any job training. You don’t even—you come out of prison in the year 2015, you don’t even know how to point and click or use the Internet. And then you come out, and there’s all types of background checks for employment. About 90 percent of employers use background checks, and the majority say that they would never hire an ex-offender. Landlords, about four out of five landlords in this country use background checks and won’t rent to ex-offenders. And then you can’t even get public assistance in most states in this country, you know, if you were convicted of a drug crime. So, there’s all—
AMY GOODMAN: Food stamps?
JEFF SMITH: Food stamps, that’s right. So there’s all—
AMY GOODMAN: You cannot ever, for the rest of your life?
JEFF SMITH: For the rest of your life. Now, that was part of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. Some states have waived that ban. Texas, actually, just today, has decided to waive that ban, wisely. But most states still have some version of that ban on the books.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, if you wanted to vote out the legislators who have passed these very restrictive rules, in a lot of states you can’t, because you can never vote again.
JEFF SMITH: That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right.
AMY GOODMAN: Though it varies across states. In some places, I believe, like Vermont, you can vote from prison.
JEFF SMITH: That’s exactly right, but a huge variance. And, Amy, you make such a great point. We ask people when they re-enter society, "We want you to fly straight and become good citizens again." And yet the most fundamental tenet of citizenship—being able to vote—we deny in many states. And that makes no sense.
So, there’s a lot of respects in which prison actually causes more crime, and a key one is that when people come out, and they’re already in debt, they probably don’t have any community or family support, they don’t have a place to live, and then we’re making it even harder for them to get jobs—unless they’re states or municipalities that do Ban the Box legislation.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain Ban the Box.
JEFF SMITH: Ban the Box bans the right of employers to discriminate against people who have criminal records.
AMY GOODMAN: To force a person to check a box that said whether or not you served time in jail.
JEFF SMITH: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you make your way from—well, you were a politician, you go to jail for a year and a day, to becoming a professor here in New York at this illustrious university, The New School?
JEFF SMITH: Well, first of all, I’m very lucky. Second of all—well, again, I am blessed with a great education. I have a doctorate from—in political science from Washington University in St. Louis, and so I had some academic background beforehand. But look, when I came out of prison, I was a white guy who had 300 people who wrote letters on my behalf to the judge, including Missouri’s attorney general, lieutenant governor, House speaker and Senate majority leader. I had savings. I had family support. I had a—you know, and a great degree. Most people come out of prison with none of those things. Even I had a tough time getting a job, you know, when I was applying for academic positions and other jobs. I was struggling. Imagine how hard it is for people who have none of the advantages or privileges that I had.
AMY GOODMAN: So you’re a professor of urban policy now at The New School. What do you think would be the proper urban policy to avoid the mass incarceration crisis that we see in this country today?
JEFF SMITH: Well, the first thing we have to do is get rid of mandatory minimum sentences. Right? We’re tying the hands of judges around the country who don’t want to put people away for 15 years. You know, if you’re caught with drugs, with enough crack cocaine, which along with heroin is a plague in many of our cities, including St. Louis, my hometown, if you have a certain amount, then the judge has to give you 10 years in federal court. If there’s any—if there’s a gun in your house or your car, they’ll add on another five. That 15 years. You’ll probably do 13 of that if you’re in the federal system. And for a 19-year-old kid, you know, caught with drugs one time, to be away for 13 years, it doesn’t make any sense.
So the first thing we should do is get rid of federal mandatory minimums. And the second thing is get rid of these three strikes laws. So, first we have to look at the front end: sentencing reform. Then we have to look at what happens in prison, and give more opportunities for vocational and educational programs inside of prison. And then, third, we have to look at re-entry and ease the process of successfully re-entering by making sure that employers cannot discriminate against people with criminal backgrounds.
AMY GOODMAN: In this last minute we have with you, I last had you on after Ferguson, and you had a lot to say about what was going on in Ferguson, being from St. Louis. Last week, a judge in Ferguson withdrew as many as 10,000 arrest warrants as part of a series of changes in the court system. Explain the significance of this, but also just overall where we are today in Ferguson.
JEFF SMITH: So the significance of this is that in Ferguson, and in many of the towns—because I want to stress that Ferguson was the town that got the most attention, but there’s a lot of even worse violators than Ferguson in North St. Louis County in terms of the targeting of young black males and a very harsh municipal court system—in Ferguson, this is significant because Ferguson had one of the highest percentages of anywhere in the country of the number of people living in the town having arrest warrants on them. And once people get locked up, often, even if they’re only locked up for a week, they’ll lose a job.
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
JEFF SMITH: And this is very significant because it will give tons of young people an opportunity to make their way in the world without a criminal background.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much, Jeff, for joining us. The book is fascinating. It’s called Mr. Smith Goes to Prison: What My Year Behind Bars Taught Me About America’s Prison Crisis. Jeff Smith is a former Missouri state senator, now professor at New School here in New York.
The Next Not-So-Cold War: As Climate Change Heats Arctic, Nations Scramble for Control and Resources
President Barack Obama arrived in Alaska on Monday for a three-day tour during which he will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Alaska Arctic. On Monday, Obama highlighted the dangers posed by climate change in the region. "Arctic temperatures are rising about twice as fast as the global average," Obama said. "Over the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed about twice as fast as the rest of the United States." As the Arctic region warms, the geopolitical significance of the region is growing as new areas become reachable, spurring maritime traffic and oil drilling. Resources below the Arctic ice cap are worth over $17 trillion, the rough equivalent of the entire U.S. economy. According to investigative journalist James Bamford, the region has become the "crossroads of technical espionage" as the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark battle for control of those resources. Bamford joins us to talk about his recent piece, "Frozen Assets: The Newest Front in Global Espionage is One of the Least Habitable Locales on Earth—the Arctic."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: President Barack Obama arrived in Alaska Monday for a three-day tour during which he’ll become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Alaska Arctic. In a speech at the GLACIER conference in Anchorage, Obama highlighted the dangers posed by climate change.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Our understanding of climate change advances each day. Human activity is disrupting the climate, in many ways faster than we previously thought. The science is stark, it is sharpening. It proves that this once-distant threat is now very much in the present. In fact, the Arctic is the leading edge of climate change, our leading indicator of what the entire planet faces. Arctic temperatures are rising about twice as fast as the global average. Over the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed about twice as fast as the rest of the United States. Last year was Alaska’s warmest year on record, just as it was for the rest of the world. And the impacts here are very real.
AMY GOODMAN: As the Arctic region warms, the geopolitical significance of the region is growing as new areas become reachable, spurring maritime traffic and oil drilling. During his trip to Alaska, Obama is expected to propose the U.S. Coast Guard acquire and build new icebreaking ships that can operate in the Arctic in efforts to keep pace with Russia and China’s fleets. On Monday, Alaska Governor Bill Walker, who traveled with Obama to Anchorage, called Russia’s moves in the Arctic, quote, "the biggest buildup of the Russian military since the Cold War."
To talk more about the Arctic, we’re joined by investigative journalist James Bamford, who has covered the National Security Agency and U.S. intelligence community for the last, well, more than 30 years. He recently wrote an article for _Foreign Policy headlined "Frozen Assets: The Newest Front in Global Espionage is One of the Least Habitable Locales on Earth—the Arctic." Bamford points out the resources below the Arctic ice cap are worth over $17 trillion, the rough equivalent of the entire U.S. economy. Bamford says the region has become the, quote, "crossroads of technical espionage," as the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark battle for control of those resources. James Bamford joins us once again from Washington, D.C.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Jim. Can you start off by, well, beginning where you began your piece, in August 2014, with two Norwegian scientists, where they headed?
JAMES BAMFORD: Yeah, thanks, Amy. Yeah, it was really fascinating doing this article because I knew nothing, almost nothing, about the Arctic before, and doing all the research, it was fascinating. And I thought one of the most fascinating little incidents was two Norwegian scientists who were placed on a little ice island for a year to sort of drift in areas where even icebreakers couldn’t go, not far from the North Pole. And they were out there in the total darkness, all by themselves in an area that’s hardly ever been explored. And one night, they’re looking out, and they see some lights in the distance. So they go out, and they walk from their little camp area to these lights. And as they’re getting closer—again, this is total darkness out there because it’s the Arctic night—they see the lights, and then they start making out a shape. And it’s the shape of a huge submarine that has just surfaced. And as they were getting closer, close enough for the people on the submarine to see them, the submarine then suddenly went back under the ocean—or, under the Arctic Sea.
And what they—they actually took some pictures of the sub, and what they later determined was that it was a Russian spy sub. And it had a mini sub on, attached to the bottom of it, to explore this huge ridge that goes under the Arctic, because the Russians are trying, as well as almost all the other countries abutting the Arctic, are trying to show that their continental shelf touches that ridge. And if you can show that, then you can get much more of the Arctic to your own use.
AMY GOODMAN: You write, "the Arctic has become the crossroads of technical espionage today." Explain.
JAMES BAMFORD: Well, the Arctic is a place where you don’t put many human spies, but it’s a great place for technical spies, for spy planes, satellites, drones, everything else. So, because of all the military buildup—the Russians are building up enormously up there, they’ve just built one of the largest listening posts in the world, 3,000-man, 3,000-person facility—and because of all the energy underneath that people are trying to get, there’s been an enormous increase in the number of spy planes, satellites and other kinds of technical intelligence, submarines and so forth. Just in the last year, the number of U.S. surveillance flights over the Russian parts of the Arctic have gone from 22 to 140. And the Russians are doing the same thing. The Russians are flying surveillance planes very close to the U.S., and the U.S. is flying surveillance planes very close to Russia. Plus there’s a cat-and-mouse game under the North Pole, under the Arctic, between the U.S. and Russian submarines. We have satellites flying overhead every day. The Canadians are building drones. The Russians just built a new drone base about 400 miles from the U.S. in the Arctic. So, there’s this enormous buildup, not only of the military, but what I was focusing on was also on the intelligence capabilities.
AMY GOODMAN: You write that the United States is sending satellites over this icy region every 30 minutes, "averaging more than 17,000 passes every year, and [is] developing a new generation of unmanned intelligence sensors to monitor everything above, on, and below the ice and water."
JAMES BAMFORD: Well, the satellites that pass over the Arctic are the polar satellites, and they’re the ones that take pictures of most of the Earth. I mean, they focus on all parts of the Earth because it’s in a polar orbit. So the facility that controls most of those satellites and sends up instructions and takes down data from the satellites is located in Thule, Greenland, which is way above the Arctic Circle. So, U.S. has enormous intelligence assets up there to control these satellites that are vital to the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: I’d like to ask you about Russia’s position on the Arctic. In 2013, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s military to increase its presence in the Arctic after Canada signaled its intention to claim the North Pole and surrounding waters. Putin talked about Russia, quote, "reclaiming the region." Let’s go to a clip.
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] I would like you to devote special attention to deploying infrastructure and military units in the Arctic. Russia is ever-more actively reclaiming this promising region, returning to it. It must possess all the levers necessary for protecting its security and national interests.
AMY GOODMAN: So, James Bamford, can you talk about everything from Russia’s interest to Denmark’s to Norway’s to Canada’s to the United States’?
JAMES BAMFORD: Sure. These are the countries that border the actual Arctic, five countries: the United States, Russia, Canada, Denmark and Norway. And ironically, you have three countries that are now claiming the North Pole as theirs: Canada, Russia and Denmark—Denmark because of Greenland, which is a possession of Denmark, and it’s way up above the Arctic Circle. So, you have these countries that have vested interests in the Arctic, and they’re all exhibiting as much effort as possible to show that they deserve more of the Arctic than anybody else. And you can make claims to the United Nations by saying that your continental shelf is attached to this ridge. It’s the Lomonosov Ridge. It’s a long ridge. It’s about a thousand miles. It’s 12,000—12,000 feet high. It’s an enormous mountain ridge. And if you can show that your continental shelf is connected to that, your landmass, in essence, is connected to that, then you could get much more of the Arctic. So there’s this competition among these countries to show that they deserve more of the Arctic. The Russians are trying to claim half the Arctic is theirs. So, it’s an enormous battle up there, a political battle as well as a military and an intelligence frontier.
So, that’s where we are right now. And as the Arctic disappears, pretty soon there’s going to be a total ice-free summer up there in the next few years. And that means that there’s going to be a lot more activity in terms of commercial activities, ships sailing back and forth, tourist ships. There will be a lot of activity. And the problem is, the United States hasn’t kept up. We have two broken-down icebreakers that are due to pretty much be out of service in five years, and we haven’t been paying attention to the Arctic, so we have nothing to take their place.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what the Law of the Sea agreement is and how it relates to the Arctic?
JAMES BAMFORD: Sure. The Law of the Sea agreement was created by the United Nations and agreed to by most countries in the world. I think 170 countries in the world have signed and ratified the Law of the Sea agreement. What that is, is an agreement that—it’s sort of the law of the Arctic at this point, because the Law of the Sea agreement sets out what countries can do what, and what activities can take place in the Arctic.
The irony here is that of the five countries that actually border the Arctic, and out of 170 countries in the world, the United States is the only country not to have ratified the agreement. And it’s largely because of a small group of right-wing Republicans who are afraid of the black helicopters from the United Nations. They’re afraid that by signing this Law of the Sea agreement, we’re going to subject our country to the jurisdiction of the United Nations. So they’ve pretty much stood in the way of signing that. And that means that we’re not going to be in any position to claim any parts of the Arctic, because in order to do that, you actually have to have signed the Law of the Sea agreement, as Russia, Norway, Canada, Denmark and 170 other countries have done.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what would it take to—for the U.S. to sign on to this treaty?
JAMES BAMFORD: Well, all it would take would be for the Senate to basically ratify it. And it can’t do that as long as there is a small percentage that are standing in the way. I think you need—it’s either a third or three-quarters of the Senate to approve the treaty. And you can’t get that—you can’t get there with the number of right-wing senators standing in the way. And they’ve been doing that for years. President Bush, for example, when he was in office, just like President Clinton and President Obama, have all been in favor of signing the agreement, but it’s these sort of hardcore right-wing senators who have stood in the way for decades. And that’s why we’re one of the very, very few countries in the world that have never signed it, and therefore we really are out of touch when it comes to the Arctic.
AMY GOODMAN: James Bamford, can you talk about the ways different countries are trying to claim the North Pole, everything from Canada saying Santa Claus is a Canadian citizen to Russia planting the flag? The then-deputy speaker of the Duma, explain who he was and what he did.
JAMES BAMFORD: Well, he was on a very small Russian submergable, that very small Russian submarine, that went to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean right under the North Pole, 14,000 feet down, and he planted a titanium Russian flag down there. I mean, it had no real meaning, just symbolic, but that’s a metaphor of what’s taking place. The Russians were reclaiming the North Pole. The Canadians are claiming the North Pole. After the Russians did it, they claimed the North Pole, and they said, "Santa Claus is a Canadian citizen," sort of mocking the Russians in a way. But it’s very serious. And also, the—Denmark is claiming it also via Greenland.
So, it’s very serious, and most of the effort is focusing on undersea, under the Arctic Ocean, where countries are trying to take little pieces of this ridge and analyze it and show that it’s actually part of their continental shelf. It’s a very scientific effort, more so than—well, it’s political on one side, and then it’s scientific on the other, and they’re trying to put the two together. And if you can show that your continental shelf is connected to the ridge, then you’re able to extend your continental shelf and your ability to capture parts of the Arctic well beyond your borders. And that’s why this enormous effort’s going on, that really few people have ever paid any attention to.
AMY GOODMAN: What would a Cold War—pardon the pun—in the Arctic look like?
JAMES BAMFORD: Well, it would be certainly dominated by the Russians, since they own the vast portion of the coastline on the Arctic, and they’ve got the vast majority of hardware. The Russians, just last March, they had an exercise up there with almost 40,000 troops. And then the Norwegians sent up 5,000 troops on an exercise. So, you’d have submarines trailing each other and, you know, potentially getting in conflict with each other, since the U.S. and the Russians are both below the Arctic Ocean and following each other constantly. There would be the danger of aircraft incidents, just like we had in China where the Chinese shot down an American spy plane, or, actually, collided with an American spy plane, and the spy plane had to land on Chinese territory. So, you’ve got all these areas of potential conflict. Accidents may happen, and weapons may be fired.
AMY GOODMAN: What are your thoughts on President Obama being the first sitting U.S. president to go to the Alaskan Arctic, this coming right after he allows Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic? As they talk about sending more icebreaking ships up there, the U.S. government, are they also doing that on behalf of the oil companies?
JAMES BAMFORD: Well, we don’t have really hardly any icebreaking ships. We just have two, and they’re almost on their last voyages or so. They’ve only got a few more years left. So, no, in answer to your question, the problem is, what was he doing for the previous seven years or so, previous six years? This problem has been there for a long time. The Russians have been building up along the Arctic coast for years, if not decades, and the U.S. has been paying absolutely no attention to it until just now.
So, the problem is, you’ve got a really hazardous situation up there, where you’ve authorized offshore oil drilling, such as Shell, for example—and they’re just the first—but you have no infrastructure up there to protect the Arctic or the shoreline in case you have an oil spill like we had down in the Gulf of Mexico. The Russians have 41 icebreakers. I think it’s at least seven of those are nuclear power. We have no nuclear-powered icebreakers, and we only have two broken-down icebreakers. So we’re way out of touch when it comes to taking care of the Arctic in case there is a major oil spill or a ship disaster up there, or a search and rescue. We have very little, if any, search-and-rescue capability. We have no deepwater ports on the Arctic. So, we’re way out of touch. We’re years behind. And, you know, finally, in his twilight years, Obama has decided that we should start paying attention up there. It’s sort of amazing to me he hasn’t, or nobody in his administration has brought this to his attention before now.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Jim Bamford, for being with us, columnist for Foreign Policy magazine. We’ll link to your piece, "Frozen Assets: The Newest Front in Global Espionage is One of the Least Habitable Locales on Earth—the Arctic." He has covered the National Security Agency and intelligence communities for years. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.
Despite Global Ban, Saudi-Led Forces Kill Dozens in Yemen Using U.S.-Made Cluster Bombs
Human Rights Watch has accused Saudi Arabia of using U.S.-made cluster munition rockets in at least seven attacks in the Yemeni city of Hajjah between late April and mid-July. Dozens of civilians were killed or wounded, both during the attacks and later, when they picked up unexploded submunitions that detonated. Neither the United States, Saudi Arabia or Yemen have joined the global convention banning the use of cluster munitions. Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch criticized the U.S. stance on cluster munitions. "The U.S. thinks that cluster munitions are legitimate weapons," Roth said. "The U.S. still hasn’t signed onto the landmines treaty. So, the U.S. is very much behind the rest of the world."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn right now to Yemen. We turn to Yemen because, well, a Saudi-led airstrike killed 36 civilians working at a bottling plant in the northern province of Hajjah on Sunday. Another attack on the Yemeni capital Sana’a hit a house and killed four civilians. The news comes amidst new evidence the Saudi-led forces have used cluster munitions in Yemen. Human Rights Watch said it found U.S.-made cluster munition rockets likely used in at least seven attacks in Hajjah between late April and mid-July. Dozens of civilians were killed or wounded, both during the attacks and later, when they picked up unexploded submunitions that denotated. Neither the United States, Saudi Arabia or Yemen have joined the global convention banning the use of cluster munitions.
Yesterday I spoke to Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth and started by asking him what Human Rights Watch found in Yemen.
KENNETH ROTH: As you note, the fact that the relevant countries have not ratified the cluster munitions treaty, while it would be helpful to do so, it’s not decisive, because all of them have ratified the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit indiscriminate warfare. And cluster munitions are, by definition, indiscriminate. They scatter over wide areas, so they should never be used in civilian-populated areas to begin with. Plus they leave a residue. Not every munition explodes on contact with the ground, and they become antipersonnel land mines for people to just stumble upon and die. So the U.S. should be using pressure on the Saudis not to be using these weapons at all, but certainly not to be using them in populated areas where, as we’re seeing, Yemenis are being killed.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what these weapons are and what they do.
KENNETH ROTH: They’re essentially area-denial weapons. There is a canister with, you know, upwards of 200 submunitions, little bombs, inside. The canister opens in the sky and spreads these submunitions over a wide area. Each one of those is lethal, so you don’t want to be in that area as these things rain down on you. You also don’t want to walk through that area afterwards, but it becomes effectively a land mine field, because these cluster munitions are unreliable and a significant number don’t initially explode. They only explode later, when somebody touches them or stands on them.
AMY GOODMAN: How do they affect the human body?
KENNETH ROTH: They’re devastating. They’re like standing on a land mine. They, at minimum, will rip off your limbs, and they very frequently are completely lethal.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a video released by Human Rights Watch featuring interviews with victims of cluster munitions in Yemen.
AZIZ HADI MATIR HAYASH: [translated] We were together, and a rocket hit us. It exploded in the air, and cluster bombs, submunitions, fell out of it. Before we left the house with the sheep, two submunitions fell down while others spread all over the village. One exploded, and the other still remains. My cousins and I were wounded.
FATIMA IBRAHIM AL-MARZUQI: [translated] Three brothers were killed—two children and one adult. It hit us while we were sleeping, and we were all wounded, including my brothers. I can’t walk. My mother carries me. She gets me out, washes me, as well as my brother. My whole body is wounded. My dress was burned that night. My hands were burned, and my bones were broken.
AMY GOODMAN: Those were victims of cluster munitions in Yemen. Ken Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch, which put out this video. So, talk about what Saudi Arabia is doing right now in Yemen.
KENNETH ROTH: Well, Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition which is fighting the Houthi rebel forces in Yemen, and it’s repeatedly using indiscriminate forms of warfare. A big part of the problem has been these cluster munitions, but we’ve seen time and time again that even more targeted weapons are being targeted in the wrong place. These are sophisticated weapons; the Saudis should be able to target them only at military targets. But we’re finding often that they’re not. And that’s why we’re seeing such a significant civilian toll.
AMY GOODMAN: So they’re being used to terrorize.
KENNETH ROTH: Well, they’re being used at least without much care as to who is hit. There is a sense that, particularly in the northern areas, which are predominantly Houthi, that there’s not so much concern about civilians.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the U.S. just sealed a deal with Saudi Arabia for military weapons and jets that’s the largest deal in the world.
KENNETH ROTH: The U.S. obviously views Saudi Arabia as a major supporter of the U.S. military complex, you know. And airplane producers and the like need these contracts—think they need these contracts, in order to continue to be profitable. That shouldn’t be happening at the expense of civilians on the ground. The U.S. should be willing to live by the principles that it is theoretically signed up for in the Geneva Conventions and ensure that anybody it sells arms to is not using those arms to indiscriminately kill civilians, as the Saudis have been doing.
AMY GOODMAN: Human Rights Watch is calling for a U.N. inquiry into violations on all sides in Yemen?
KENNETH ROTH: Absolutely. In fact, there is a conference coming up reviewing compliance with the new cluster munitions treaty. And one of the problems is that the U.K., Canada and Australia, all of which had joined the cluster munitions treaty, are pushing to water down this inquiry. They’re trying to put "allegedly" in front of the evidence we have that Saudi clusters have killed civilians in Yemen.
AMY GOODMAN: Why?
KENNETH ROTH: They’re doing the U.S. bidding.
AMY GOODMAN: Why does the U.S. want to water this down?
KENNETH ROTH: Well, I mean, the U.S. thinks that cluster munitions are legitimate weapons. The U.S. still hasn’t signed onto the land mines treaty. So, the U.S. is very much behind the rest of the world. As most nations of the world want to ban these inherently indiscriminate weapons, the U.S. has a huge arsenal of them, it doesn’t want that arsenal limited, and it hates the idea of treaties that are restraining the Pentagon on humanitarian grounds. It lives with the Geneva Conventions because it understands that those help to fight a better war. But the add-ons that Human Rights Watch and others have pressed—the land mines treaty, the cluster munitions treaty and the like—the Pentagon hates and has prevented Obama from signing onto them, and is trying to undermine enforcement, using U.S. allies around the world to do that.
AMY GOODMAN: How much difference does mass protest make around something like this?
KENNETH ROTH: I think it makes all the difference in the world. In other words, Obama doesn’t want to be seen as underwriting indiscriminate warfare, even if it is on the other side of the world. If it happens under the radar screen, if the Pentagon is able to push this quietly, there’s no big political cost to Obama. But I think rabble-rousing and publicity helps make Obama responsible, and he’s going to have a hard time standing up and saying, "I don’t really care about indiscriminate warfare."
AMY GOODMAN: Just to be clear, the land mine treaty that the U.S. also has not signed onto, that’s the one that Princess Di was pushing so many years ago, right, among many other people?
KENNETH ROTH: Precisely. And, in fact, the U.S. government is—has limited the use of land mines. And even though it hasn’t joined onto the treaty, it recognizes that these are weapons that are extremely difficult to use because of public relations problems. And so, there has been a real shift at the Pentagon. We haven’t seen that shift yet, in any significant way, with cluster munitions.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you have this situation where people are being struck, civilians are being struck, by cluster munitions by the Saudi-led attacks on Yemen, yet Saudi Arabia continues to lead a blockade against people leaving. Can you explain what’s happening there?
KENNETH ROTH: Well, there’s an enormous humanitarian crisis in Yemen. It is already a country that is very dependent on international assistance for basic things like water and the like. And because the Saudis have been blockading the country, trying to prevent fuel and other things from getting into Yemen as part of its effort to fight the Houthi rebels, the Yemeni people are suffering. And we’re seeing enormous numbers of people who are facing malnutrition and even starvation because of the deprivation caused by this blockade.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the figures are amazing. According to the U.N., 21 million Yemenis, a staggering 80 percent of the population, need assistance. And half the population is facing hunger, famine. More than 15.2 million people lack access to basic healthcare, and over 20 million lack access to safe water.
KENNETH ROTH: Yeah, I mean, it’s absolutely horrendous, and it really underscores the importance of making clear that if you’re going to go to war, yes, you shoot at the other side’s combatants, but you can’t use means that cause the entire civilian population to suffer. And that’s what the Saudi-led coalition is doing in Yemen today.
AMY GOODMAN: Human Rights Watch executive director Ken Roth speaking here in New York. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, Mr. Smith Goes to Prison. Stay with us.
Headlines:
Obama Calls for Urgent Action on Climate Change During Arctic Visit
President Obama has challenged world leaders to act urgently on climate change or "condemn our children to a world they will no longer have the capacity to repair." On Monday, Obama opened an international conference on the Arctic being held in Alaska by emphasizing the U.S. role in creating the climate crisis.
President Obama: "The fact is that climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it. That, ladies and gentlemen, must change. We’re not acting fast enough. I’ve come here today as the leader of the world’s largest economy and its second largest emitter to say that the United States recognizes our role in creating this problem and we embrace our responsibility to help solve it."
Obama’s remarks come just weeks after his administration granted permission to Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic, a move critics say will accelerate climate change.
Obama to Call for New Icebreakers amid Military Escalation in Arctic
Meanwhile, Obama is also expected to propose the U.S. Coast Guard acquire and build new icebreaking ships that can operate in the Arctic in an effort to keep pace with Russian and Chinese fleets. On Monday, Alaska Governor Bill Walker, who traveled with Obama to Anchorage, called Russia’s moves in the Arctic "the biggest buildup of the Russian military since the Cold War." We’ll have more on Obama’s trip after headlines.
Syria: U.N. Confirms ISIL’s Destruction of Ancient Temple of Bel
In news from Syria, a United Nations agency has confirmed the destruction of the Temple of Bel in the ancient city of Palmyra by the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Satellite imagery shows the 2,000-year-old main temple building has been flattened.
Iraq: Anti-Corruption Protests Swell in Rebuke to U.S. Imposed Gov’t
In Iraq, nonviolent civil resistance is growing as a campaign of weekly protests enters its second month. Tens of thousands of protesters flooded Baghdad’s main square on Friday, calling for improvements to the country’s electrical system amid a sweltering heat wave, trials for corrupt officials and the enactment of anti-corruption reforms. The demonstrations are largely led by young people, many of whom see the movement as a rebuke of the government created by the United States following the 2003 invasion. One of demonstrators, 22-year-old Hussein Ali, told The New York Times: "This protest was established to demolish what the Americans set up."
Ukraine: 1 Officer Dead After Ultra-Nationalists Clash with Police
In Ukraine, the government says a National Guard member has been killed and 125 people injured, most of them officers, as members of nationalist parties clashed with security forces outside Ukraine’s Parliament. The Ukrainian government blamed the violence on ultra-nationalists, whom security forces accused of throwing grenades. The unrest came after lawmakers backed a measure to grant more autonomy to two eastern regions currently held by pro-Russia rebels. The measure is one of the first steps in a peace deal intended to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has killed more than 7,000 people since it began in March of last year.
Guatemala: Congress Prepares to Vote on President’s Impeachment
In Guatemala, President Otto Pérez Molina continues to refuse to resign as Congress prepares to vote on his impeachment. The president has faced months of massive demonstrations over a corruption scandal that has led to the resignation of the majority of the president’s Cabinet and the arrest of top officials. Pérez Molina said Monday he would face the impeachment process head-on.
President Otto Pérez Molina: "I am ready not only to face this process but also to respond to it, and to respond to it head-on, with my head held high, because if there’s anyone who has been hurt by this more than anyone, it is me."
Puerto Rico: Religious Leaders Call on Federal Reserve for Debt Help
Puerto Rico’s top religious leaders are calling on the Federal Reserve to restructure the territory’s $72 billion debt in order to avoid dramatic austerity measures. In August, Puerto Rico failed to make a $58 million debt payment, pushing the territory into default. Hedge funds that are heavily invested in Puerto Rico have called on the territory to raise taxes and slash funding for education, even though Puerto Rico has already closed almost 100 schools in 2015 alone. On Monday, 18 top religious leaders cited the biblical notion of jubilee to call for debt relief. They also threw their support behind a bill before Congress that would allow Puerto Rico to declare a limited bankruptcy, a move currently permitted only for cities and municipalities inside U.S. states.
Turkey: Two Vice Journalists and Translator Jailed on Terror Charges
In Turkey, two British journalists and their Iraqi translator have been jailed on terror charges. Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendlebury of Vice News were detained last week while covering protests in eastern Turkey over the government’s military offensive against Kurdish dissident groups. They were initially accused of filming without government accreditation. A court has now charged them with engaging in terror activity on behalf of the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
Philippines: Third Journalist Shot and Killed in Two Weeks
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, a radio anchor has been shot and killed, marking the third journalist to be murdered within just two weeks. Cosme Maestrado’s death comes on the heels of the murder of another radio anchor known for his reporting on human rights issues on August 20 and the murder of a newspaper publisher on August 18. The Philippines is the third most dangerous country for journalists, after Iraq and Somalia, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Pope to Let Priests Forgive "Contrite" Women Who Have Abortions
The Vatican has announced Pope Francis will allow Roman Catholic priests during the upcoming holy year to absolve women who have had an abortion. The Catholic Church stringently opposes abortion. But the pope said priests can forgive women who have had abortions if they seek forgiveness with a "contrite heart." The pope said, "I am well aware of the pressure that has led [women] to this decision. I know that it is an existential and moral ordeal."
Judge Sides with Anti-Choice Group Opposed to Birth Control
In the United States, a federal judge has ruled in favor of an anti-choice group that objected to including contraception in employee health plans, handing down what the website ThinkProgress called "the wackiest anti-birth control court decision to date." Judge Richard Leon’s ruling goes far beyond the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case, which allowed most private companies to refuse to provide birth control coverage to employees if they claim religious objections. The anti-choice group March for Life filed suit last year, saying they objected to the birth control mandate on secular, not religious, grounds. The Obama administration is likely to appeal the judge’s decision to side with the group.
KKK Member Convicted of Killing 3 at Jewish Centers
In Kansas, white supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller has been convicted of capital murder for killing three people at a Jewish community center and assisted living facility in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park last year. Miller has a lengthy history of ties to neo-Nazi groups and the Ku Klux Klan. He previously served time behind bars after being indicted on weapons charges and for plotting to assassinate the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. Proceedings to determine his punishment begin today. He could face the death penalty.
Chicago: Hunger Strike to Save Public School Enters Third Week
In Chicago, a group of public school parents, grandmothers and education activists are entering the third week of a hunger strike to save Dyett High School, the only remaining open-enrollment public high school left in the community of Bronzeville. Supporters say the city neglected the school for years before announcing plans to close it. Under Chicago mayor and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, the city has closed about 50 schools in predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods as part of what critics say is a push to privatize education. The hunger strikers have called for Chicago to reopen Dyett High School as a global leadership and green technology school, and have submitted a detailed proposal that has yet to be considered by officials. At least two of the hunger strikers have been hospitalized. On Monday, local clergy, including Rabbi Brant Rosen, voiced support for the hunger strikers.
Rabbi Brant Rosen: "We are here to say that in this day and age it is a shame, it is a shameful reality, that families in a community have to starve their bodies in order to have a decent school, open-enrollment school, public school for their families. This is what it has come to in this city, and this is what it has come to in this country, that our public institutions, our sacred public institutions, and in particular our public schools, are increasingly being treated as commodities that can be bought and sold to the highest bidder. We are here to stand with the Dyett hunger strikers because they are our moral role models, they are our teachers, they are showing us what it means to love your community."
State Dept. Posts Thousands of Hillary Clinton’s Emails
The State Department has posted thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails online as part of a court-ordered disclosure process following revelations Clinton used a private email server while she was secretary of state. The department said it redacted information from 125 emails after discovering "confidential" materials, but said none of the emails were marked classified when they were sent. Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign is defending his remarks about Clinton’s aide, Huma Abedin, and Abedin’s husband, Anthony Weiner. Weiner is the former New York congressman who resigned after admitting to sending sexually explicit photos and messages to women online. Speaking in Massachusetts over the weekend, Trump suggested Abedin’s husband’s transgressions made her handling of Clinton’s emails a security risk.
Donald Trump: "Huma now is one of the people that — it all sort of came through Huma. Who is Huma married to? One of the great sleazebags of our time, Anthony Weiner! Did you know that? She’s married to Anthony Weiner. You know, the little bing, bing, bing, bom, bom...I love you very much."
That’s Donald Trump, imitating Anthony Weiner sending online messages. Trump’s aide, Michael Cohen, defended Trump’s remarks, telling CNN, "It’s politics. All’s fair in love and war."
Professor Who Called for Treating Academics as "Combatants" Resigns
In news from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a newly hired assistant professor has resigned following a scandal involving his call for law professors critical of the so-called war on terror to be treated as "enemy combatants." In a 184-page article in the most recent issue of the National Security Law Journal published at the George Mason School of Law, now former West Point professor William Bradford argued that "lawful targets" of the war on terrorism include "law school facilities, scholars’ home offices and media outlets where they give interviews." He also called for attacking Islamic holy sites "even if it means great destruction, innumerable enemy casualties, and civilian collateral damage." Bradford has also been accused of inflating his academic credentials. West Point confirmed Bradford’s resignation on Monday.
SCOTUS Rules Against KY Clerk Refusing to Issue Marriage Licenses
And the Supreme Court has ruled against a Kentucky county clerk who has refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis stopped issuing all marriage licenses following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in June to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. In response, two gay couples and two straight couples sued Davis, arguing she has failed to carry out her duties as a public official. On Monday, the Supreme Court denied Davis’s appeal that the court grant her "asylum for her conscience." If Davis continues to refuse to issue licenses, she could face fines or possible jail time.
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