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"A Very Big Mistake": Joseph Stiglitz Slams Obama for Pushing the TPP
As Congress debates the Trans-Pacific Partnership, we speak to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz about the trade deal. "The irony is that the president came out and said, 'This is about who makes the trade rules—China or the United States?'" Stiglitz said. "But I think the big issue is, this is about who makes the rules of trade—the American people, our democratic process, or the corporations? And who they’re made for, which is, for the corporations or for all of us?"
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, what’s very interesting is you have Bernie Sanders really stressing inequality. This pushes Hillary Clinton to do this, because he has gained so much momentum and drawn tens of thousands of peoples to his rally. On the Republican side, you have, in some areas, Donald Trump sounding more liberal than Hillary Clinton—immediately came out against these trade deals.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yeah, so, in a sense, what you see both in the Republican and Democratic Party is a sense that something is wrong. You know, America was the first middle-class society. We’re about to become the first society that ceases to be a middle-class society. The basic requirements of being a member of the middle class—the ability to send your kids to school, a secure retirement—all those things are being put in jeopardy. And one of the things we talk about in Rewriting the Rules is how we can get those back. But what you’re seeing on both sides is a sense of anger. Now, I think that both of the Democratic candidates have put forward credible ways of dealing with it. And there’s going to be a long discussion. The problem is that on the Republican side there’s anger, but it’s basically inchoate. You know, it’s basically tax reforms that actually rewrite the rules in the wrong way, making things even more unequal than we have and the numbers not adding up.
AMY GOODMAN: In Part 1 of our conversation, we talked about the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that President Obama has really championed. What would—what grade, as a college professor, would you give President Obama, who actually went to Columbia University, where you’re a professor, when it comes to these issues? You’ve called the trade deal a "charade."
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, unfortunately, you know, he’s done some things that—he did not support some of the basic reforms in the financial sector that I think were needed. TPP, I think, is a very big mistake. On the other—
AMY GOODMAN: It means corporations control trade, as opposed to democratic societies and their governments?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Exactly, and particularly as we move away from lowering tariffs, which is what the old trade deals—these are about regulations. And yes, regulations maybe have—so many regulations have to be harmonized, they have to be changed. But you can’t leave that up to corporations. And with a changing world, you can’t lock in the current regulatory structure, which is what TPP attempts to do. So—
AMY GOODMAN: For people who don’t understand TPP, explain who makes the decisions around these global trade rules. This will control what? Forty percent of the global economy?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yeah. And the irony is that the president came out and said, "This is about who makes the trade rules—China or the United States?" But I think the big issue is, this is about who makes the rules of trade—the American people, our democratic process, or the corporations? And who they’re made for, which is, for the corporations or for all of us?
AMY GOODMAN: You don’t think President Obama understands that?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: No.
AMY GOODMAN: You don’t think he understands it, or he—
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: I think he wants to chalk up some kind of an achievement, i.e. he can’t pass anything through Congress because the Republicans won’t allow him, so he has to get something that the Republicans want. And they want a trade agreement. The provisions about—in the TPP about investment, about—are the kinds of provisions that were number one in the agenda of the Business Roundtable. And so—
AMY GOODMAN: And explain what the Business Roundtable is.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: This is the group of the big—America’s biggest corporations.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s not the mom-and-pop stores.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: It’s not the mom-and-pop stores. So this is about big business being able to protect themselves. But let me make it clear: It’s not about property rights, as we usually understand it. You know, what the USTR says, they say, "Well, we’re dealing with countries where we can’t trust the way the legal system works, so we have to put these protections in, because these countries just can’t be trusted." We’re insisting on the same kind of provision in our trade agreements with Europe, with Germany. And the Germans are saying, you know, "We have just as good a legal system as yours, and why are you trying to go beyond our legal system?" I mean, for instance, there, they care about GMO. You know, they care a lot about various kinds of—
AMY GOODMAN: Right, genetically modified organisms.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: And they say, you know, "We want at least the consumers be informed. They can make a choice." And if this gets passed, if you pass the regulation that says you have to display, and Americans—and people say, "I’m not going to buy a product that’s GMO," they can be sued, because of—
AMY GOODMAN: If you put the label on, just informing people that there may be GMOs in this product, you can be sued.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: You could be sued. Now, we don’t know—let me make it clear: We don’t know all the provisions. They kept it secret. But you have to say—
AMY GOODMAN: And how do they get away with keeping it secret?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, that is the amazing thing. You know, this was—their argument again is they have—you know, these are negotiations, very complex, and if everything were open, everybody would be—you know, it would be a mess. But they haven’t really kept it secret, because they’ve talked to the corporations. The corporations have been there at the table saying, "Well, it’s really important for us to have this provision. It’s really important for us to have that provision." But ordinary citizens have not been at the table. You know, the only way that we know what’s going on is leaked documents. And some of the links come from other countries, where there’s a stronger democratic commitment to more transparency. But our government has been keeping it much more secret.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Joe Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, who’s written the new book, Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy. What would rejuvenate worker power, labor power, union power in this country?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, all these things are about rewriting the rules. I mean, our basic idea is that over the past 35 years we’ve rewritten the rules in ways that have weakened labor power, increased the financial sector power. There’s been a rebalancing of the power in the wrong way. And TPP—
AMY GOODMAN: What happened 35 years ago? Reagan?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: President Reagan, but he was part of a zeitgeist, because you see it in Europe going on at the same time. And let me just say, TPP is another example of rewriting the rules in the wrong way. It’s a continuation of that trend that began back in around 1980 that has increased the imbalance and made things more difficult. So what we need to do now is to rewrite the rules once again, but this time, you know, we’re in the 21st century: It’s not going back exactly to where we were before 1980; it has to be modernized. But realize that we rewrote the rules in ways that destroyed the kind of balance of power that we had.
AMY GOODMAN: So if you were in charge of writing a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact that helped people, the vast majority of people, what would be the rules of this TPP?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, one thing that we haven’t talked about is—one of the most controversial aspects is access to generic medicines. You know, ordinary people need to be able to get medicines at a low price. We struck a balance in the United States in the Hatch-Waxman Act, where we said, "OK, Big Pharma has to be able to get some returns for their investments and research." But—mostly research really goes on in the universities, let’s be clear, and at NIH government-sponsored research labs. But the generic medicines, which are now more than 80 percent of all drugs, bring the prices down. That’s the competition that makes the market work. Well, we struck that balance, but in this trade agreement they’re trying to restrike the balance in favor of Big Pharma. You know, this is—we were talking about President Obama’s legacy. One of his big legacy is Obamacare, and that’s supposed to bring access to medicine. But when you—TPP will go in exactly the wrong way, because it will restrict access to medicine for many countries around the world. So, that’s one thing.
But take the investment agreement. I would do two things. First, it seems to me that the conditions under which you can sue are wrong. If a country passes a regulation, whether it’s for health, safety, the environment or managing the economy, you shouldn’t be able to sue. These are called regulatory takings. And repeatedly our courts have said it’s the basic right of a country to design rules to protect their citizens, protect their economy, protect their environment. So the conditions under which you can sue are wrong. Who can bring a suit is wrong. It should be government to government, not corporations suing a government.
And thirdly, the judicial process by which it’s done, it shouldn’t be in private courts. The most important—one of the most important public functions is dispute resolution. When we created the WTO, we created an international panel for dispute resolution. We could do the same thing for investment agreements. But instead, they’ve decided to go to very expensive private arbitration, rife with conflicts of interests, you know, so expensive that—I referred earlier to the Uruguay, where Philip Morris is suing.
AMY GOODMAN: Altria, is it called?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Altria, you know, the successor to Philip Morris. It’s so expensive that Uruguay can’t pay for its own defense. And Mayor Bloomberg, who is so concerned about smoking, is paying—is contributing to the support of Uruguay to defend itself against Altria, which is just passing regulations to try to protect people’s health.
AMY GOODMAN: Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz, author of Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy. We’ll be back with him in a moment.
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Center for American Progress Hosts Netanyahu as Leaked Emails Show Group Censored Staff on Israel
The Center for American Progress, a leading progressive group with close ties to both President Obama and Hillary Clinton, held an event this week hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington. That decision reportedly prompted a revolt from some staffers angered that a liberal group would give Netanyahu a platform. In his opening remarks at the event, Netanyahu told attendees he wanted to speak to "a progressive audience." Netanyahu’s appearance came just days after a new controversy over the group’s alleged censoring of writers critical of Israel. Newly leaked emails from 2011 and 2012 published by The Intercept show CAP made key editorial decisions—including editing articles, silencing writers and backing off criticism—at the behest of influential groups who backed Israeli government policies. We speak to Ali Gharib, a contributor to The Nation magazine and a former staffer at the Center for American Progress. Gharib says one of his articles for the Center was censored.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Just eight months ago, U.S. and Israeli relations were said to be at their lowest point in decades. In early March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came before Congress in an unprecedented, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to kill the nuclear deal with Iran. Then, several weeks later, Netanyahu was re-elected after warning of a high turnout of Arab voters and vowing to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. That prompted criticism from the Obama administration and even talk for the first time of the U.S. no longer blocking U.N. measures critical of Israeli settlements and the occupation.
But those expecting a confrontation when Netanyahu returned to Washington this week were mistaken. Instead, President Obama and Netanyahu held what all sides agreed to be cordial talks on increasing U.S. military aid to Israel. Netanyahu reportedly requested a record $5 billion in annual U.S. military aid, an increase over the $3 billion the U.S. already provides. If Obama had any concerns about Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and its continued illegal settlement activity, he did not share them publicly.
Addressing the Jewish Federation of North America, Netanyahu praised his talks with Obama.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I had a very good meeting with President Obama at the White House, and I deeply appreciate his commitment to bolster Israel’s security at the time when the Middle East is becoming more dangerous than ever. And I also want to say that we are sharing so many things. The United States is giving indispensable help to Israel—indispensable—but Israel is returning that assistance almost on a daily basis in intelligence and in many other things.
AMY GOODMAN: Despite the high praise, there are signs the tension still remains. Ahead of Netanyahu’s visit, Israel moved to greenlight the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank with 2,200 new housing units. The move recalled a similar act by Netanyahu just before a visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden in 2010.
A few days before the Israeli prime minister arrived in Washington, he appointed Ron Baratz to become head of public diplomacy and media at the prime minister’s office. In a Facebook post in March, Baratz described Obama as, quote, "the modern face of anti-Semitism in Western and liberal countries." Last year, Baratz said Secretary of State John Kerry had the mental capacity of a 12-year-old.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: While President Obama was publicly silent on the occupation during Netanyahu’s visit, Hillary Clinton wrote an article for The Forward headlined "How I Would Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond with Israel—and Benjamin Netanyahu."
Meanwhile, the Center for American Progress, a leading progressive group with close ties to both Clinton and Obama, held an event this week hosting Netanyahu in Washington. That decision reportedly prompted a revolt from some staffers, angered that a liberal group would give Netanyahu a platform. In his opening remarks at the event, Netanyahu told attendees he wanted to speak to a progressive audience.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I’d like to talk to a progressive audience about progressive values. I think that Israel is at the very least misunderstood, because I think that if you look at all the values and all the rights that you deem important—I’m talking about the rights of women or the rights of gays or the rights of minorities, the rights of Arabs, the rights of Jews, the rights of people—these are enshrined in an imperfect society—Israel is not perfect, I don’t know any society that is—but one that is facing incredible odds with incredible successes. And it safeguards those values in a very, very troubled area.
AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to the Center for American Progress.
Netanyahu’s appearance came just days after a new controversy over the group’s alleged censoring of writers critical of Israel. Newly leaked emails from 2011 and ’12 published by The Intercept show the Center made key editorial decisions—including editing articles, silencing writers and backing off criticism—at the behest of influential groups who backed Israeli government policies.
Center for American Progress representatives were not available to join us today on the show, and they sent us a statement instead, saying, quote, "CAP believes we need to engage with people we don’t agree with. Tuesday’s forum covered a broad range of issues including the prospects for peace, West Bank settlements, the Prime Minister’s past remarks, and settler violence. By having the Prime Minister with us, we sought to elevate the quality of the debate about U.S.-Israeli relations after several years of tension," they wrote.
For more, we’re joined by a guest who experienced the censorship firsthand, he says. Ali Gharib is with us, contributor to The Nation magazine, former staffer at the Center for American Progress. One of Ali Gharib’s articles for the Center, he said, was censored after complaints that the Center president, Neera Tanden, a Clinton loyalist who served under President Obama—Ali Gharib was told firsthand not write articles [critical] of leading pro-Israel groups, such as AIPAC.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! Before we get into Netanyahu speaking before the Center, can you talk about these allegations you’ve made? You worked for the Center at that time that these leaked emails come from, that The Intercept got a hold of?
ALI GHARIB: Yeah, I mean, the basic story was that we got attacked by a group of right-wing, pro-Israel advocates over a period of several months, and instead of kind of standing behind our work, CAP’s leadership turned around and went to the same groups that were attacking us, and in an attempt to curry favor with them, said, "Well, we’ll tamp down these criticisms of Israel." And as you said, I—
AMY GOODMAN: How do you know they said that?
ALI GHARIB: Sorry?
AMY GOODMAN: How do you know they said, "We’ll tamp down these..."?
ALI GHARIB: Well, it was clear in the emails that were leaked that they had been going to groups like AIPAC and saying, "We’re working on this problem." And then, you know, I sat in an editorial meeting where it was made absolutely clear that AIPAC—criticizing AIPAC was not on the menu, and, less specifically, criticizing Jewish groups that were advocating for Israel was something that we weren’t supposed to do in the pages of the CAP products we were putting out.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And is it the case that there was a special editor who was designated to look at all the material that was being written about Israel?
ALI GHARIB: Yeah, we had a minder who—you know, I was looking at the Center’s blog, ThinkProgress, and we had a minder who would take all of our posts before publication to the executives upstairs whenever the subject was Israel, and also, in many cases, Iran. And then, you know, one of the posts that you were talking about, Amy, that got censored after publication had been a post that was about an Islamaphobic film that was being shown at NYPD trainings, and we wrote an article pointing out that the people behind this film were a group of an evangelist Orthodox Jewish group that was involved in promoting West Bank settlements and had a long history of Islamophobia. And that was the post that—you know, it didn’t go through the normal channels because it wasn’t about Israel, it was just that the people who happened to be putting out the movie were Israelis. And that was the one that then elicited complaints from pro-Israel advocates and was cut down after publication to remove any references to Israel.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to turn to one of the emails leaked to The Intercept. Writing in January 2012 to some of her employees, CAP President Neera Tanden said, quote, "I just got off the phone with Ann Lewis who continues to be adamant that a real problem is that our blog seems anti-Israel because—and I’m just reporting in—while it seemingly takes every opportunity to criticize Israel, it takes no opportunity to actually say Israel is doing the right thing. She said she went through even the last few weeks and saw this bias." Tanden went on to say that Ann Lewis, who was a close aide to Hillary Clinton, insisted that, quote, "we’re going to continue to have a problem until our blog seems like it’s not anti-Israel. I tried to discuss Israel, v. the Israeli govt.’s policies. But she ... was not really buying it." So could you talk about who Ann Lewis is and why the CAP leadership was concerned about her opinions of the CAP blog?
ALI GHARIB: Well, Ann Lewis is sort of a Democratic apparatchik who, since that time, since 2011, 2012, when all this happened, has joined The Israel Project, which is a right-wing, pro-Israel advocacy group that’s headed up by a fellow named Josh Block, a former AIPAC spokesman, who also was the one who launched the attacks against us, calling us anti-Semites and trying to, you know, curtail our message on Israel. And I don’t know what was going on in Neera Tanden’s head, but I presume they met somewhere in Clintonland. They were both Clinton aides, and they’re both considered Clinton loyalists. And that line of communication, presumably, remained in—
AMY GOODMAN: When you say Clinton, you’re talking about?
ALI GHARIB: Bill and Hillary Clinton, I think. They both—Tanden worked for Hillary’s campaign the first time around in 2008, and Ann Lewis was close to the Clintons when Bill was president, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break, and when we come back, we’re going to talk about Netanyahu coming to the Center for American Progress. ThinkProgress wrote "10 Falsehoods That Netanyahu Told During His Appearance at CAP." ThinkProgress, you talk about it in the past as being the blog of the Center—
ALI GHARIB: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —but it is separate now?
ALI GHARIB: Yeah, I think they’re staking out some editorial independence. I mean, that becomes clear with these sorts of posts that they’re doing. You know, I can’t speak to whether they have restraints now on their work, but they certainly did when I was there.
AMY GOODMAN: Ali Gharib is a contributor to The Nation, former national security reporter for ThinkProgress, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. His most recent piece is headlined "Dissent Breaks Out at the Center for American Progress over Netanyahu’s Visit." We’ll be back with him in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to ask about some of the objections raised by Center for American Progress staff last week regarding the invitation to Netanyahu. In the statement they read aloud, they wrote, quote, "there’s something distinctly not bold or progressive about referring to the Prime Minister as 'someone with whom we disagree' or 'someone who said some terrible things.'" They went to say, quote, "this is a person who continues to defend the deaths of over 2000 people—many of them children—last summer alone. What do we call a disagreement of that magnitude? A thing that terrible? Would we bring other leaders to this institution who had committed similar crimes?"
Meanwhile, Winnie Stachelberg, CAP’s executive vice president for external affairs, told Foreign Policy magazine that, as a think tank, quote, "we believe we need to be open in engaging with people we don’t agree with." She also pointed out that the Israelis initially reached out to CAP and that in the past CAP has been, quote, "highly critical of the prime minister for only dealing with the right." She went on to say, quote, "Had we said no [to Netanyahu], there would be no public forum where he would’ve been asked tough questions, and quite frankly, we would’ve been hypocritical."
So, Ali Gharib, can you comment on what the CAP executive vice president for external affairs said and whether, from your assessment of the event, the questions asked were critical of Netanyahu?
ALI GHARIB: Well, you know, I think that there’s a hypocrisy there. You know, it’s tough from where I’m sitting, because of this incident that happened a few years ago, to have some of the same CAP executives that were involved in that saying that now they favor an open debate, after they censored our writing. But, you know, I think that their record speaks for themselves—itself. There’s no—you know, none of these groups would host proponents of boycott, divesting and sanctioning Israel, even though that’s a growing grassroots movement. And granted, you know, that’s different than a head of state, but still, it’s about the—if it’s about the free debate of the ideas, that’s an idea that’s growing and is increasingly important. And so, I don’t think that they really want just an open debate with all comers. I think that it is sort of pandering to a particularly powerful political force in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to the Center for American Progress event with the Israeli prime minister, Netanyahu on Tuesday. CAP President Neera Tanden questioned him about a comment he made during the recent elections in Israel.
NEERA TANDEN: One incident that really did strike a nerve with many progressives was statements made during the recent election. And I just want to quote where it was said. You said, "Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls." And people were a little taken aback by that. So what do you say to progressives in the United States who worry about comments like that and what it means for an inclusive Israel?
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Well, I think that these—this statement, as it was said, was wrong, because, first of all, you should know that Arabs voted for me. And I welcome that. In fact, you may check this, but I think they voted for me in considerably larger numbers than they voted for the Labor Party. I was not referring to going to vote. I was speaking about a specific list that was opposed. But it shouldn’t have been said. A few days after the election, I called in the Arab leaders and—Arab leaders to the prime minister’s residence. And I said, "I’m the prime minister of each of you. And I—I don’t want that statement to go uncorrected." I corrected it. I made sure that they understand it.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Your response, Ali Gharib?
ALI GHARIB: Well, you know, even that answer has some problems with it. He says that despite his statement that Palestinian citizens of Israel voted for the Likud in larger numbers than Labor—and that’s just not true. Noam Sheizaf did an analysis on +972 Magazine, the lefty Israeli blog, that—you know, it wasn’t a comprehensive analysis, because the actual statistics can be tough to divine, but he pointed out that in the Arab municipalities that are Palestinian cities within Israel, Likud had been beat something like three to one by Labor in its best showings. And so, you know, even that, the guy just spits out falsehoods. And I think that speaks to the fact that Neera Tanden wasn’t the right person to conduct this interview, because she’s not prepared with that sort of information. She doesn’t know the issues well enough to be able to respond when Netanyahu brings these falsehoods.
AMY GOODMAN: He was also questioned during the Center for American Progress event on Tuesday about Gaza.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Israel went through the book. It went by the book. It left Gaza to the last square centimeter. It took away all the settlements, skip freeze, just took them apart. It even disinterred people from their graves, handed the keys over to Abu Mazen, who promptly lost it to Hamas, even though they were only 3,000-strong then and he had 15,000 troops. They kicked him out.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response, Ali Gharib?
ALI GHARIB: Yeah, I mean, that’s just not true, either. Every international authority in the world considers Gaza occupied. And the reason for that is because Israel controls its borders and reserves the right to make incursions there. Just because there aren’t settlements and aren’t like checkpoints on Gazan roads doesn’t mean that it’s not militarily occupied and that the residents there aren’t subjugated by Israeli military power. I mean, even—Israel doesn’t make new declarations of war every time it starts these flares-up of violence in Gaza. It does it under the authority that it has as an occupying power.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Netanyahu was also asked about settlements, and this was his response.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: There have been no new settlements built in the last 20 years, and even before I became prime minister the first time. The additions are in existing communities. The map doesn’t materially change. By the way, google this, because this is just repeated ad nauseam, so it assumes the cachet of self-evident truth that we’re gobbling up land and so on. We’re not gobbling up land, because it doesn’t take up any land. I mean, the total amount of built-up land is just a few percent. And the addition, if you look at it over time, the addition, it’s got to be a fraction of a percent, maybe one-tenth of 1 percent, two-tenths of 1—maybe I’m wrong. Maybe three-tenths of 1 percent. That’s the land that has been gobbled up. ... The settlements are there. The growth in the settlements does not materially affect the potential map for peace. And third, I think that it’s an issue that can be resolved, but I don’t think it’s the core issue. The reason it’s not the core issue is that it wasn’t a core issue in Gaza, either.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ali Gharib, your comments on what Netanyahu said about the status of settlements?
ALI GHARIB: Yeah, I mean, again, it’s just like obfuscation. He doesn’t—he just elides the main points. The settlements are clearly growing. They’re growing in population. They’re growing in size. And when Netanyahu says there hasn’t been any new settlements, his government took steps just this very week to legalize two outpost settlements, which are settlements that are considered illegal even by Israeli law. And yeah, I mean, the settlements have grown in population so much over the past 20 years. You know, if you look back at the evacuation of settlers from Gaza, that was about 5,000 or so settlers. And now you’ve got hundreds of thousands living in the West Bank. The idea that they can just be extricated without an issue and it’s not a problem and the settlements aren’t an obstacle to peace is totally bogus. And everybody knows it in the world, except for Netanyahu.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to go back to the op-ed in The Forward written by Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton last week. In the piece headlined "How I Would Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond with Israel—and Benjamin Netanyahu," Clinton wrote, quote, "I have stood with Israel my entire career. ... As president, I will continue this fight." She goes on to say, quote, "I will do everything I can to enhance our strategic partnership and strengthen America’s security commitment to Israel, ensuring that it always has the qualitative military edge to defend itself. That includes immediately dispatching a delegation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to meet with senior Israeli commanders. I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office."
In July this year, Clinton also wrote a letter to the billionaire Israel supporter Haim Saban, seeking his assistance in countering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, calling it, quote, "the latest attempt to single out Israel on the world stage," adding that "we’ve seen this sort of attack before, at the UN and elsewhere."
So, Ali Gharib, could you comment on Hillary Clinton coming out so openly in defense of Israel?
ALI GHARIB: Yeah, I mean, she’s clearly trying to draw a contrast to Obama, and it seems pretty obvious that a big part of that issue is donors like Haim Saban. I mean, Saban was—is a billionaire and is a Democratic mega-donor, but was notably cool on Barack Obama, and as he said himself, over Israel. He’s got very hawkish views on Israel. And so it seems obvious that this is just kind of pandering. You know, in Clinton’s op-ed, there was not a word about the occupation. And the only appearances Palestinians made were as knife-wielding terrorists. And, you know, no mention of their basic rights and how their basic rights are being trampled on by the Israeli occupation. So, you know, this is like going—taking us back a few steps in the changing discourse about Israel in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Ali Gharib, we want to thank you very much for being with us, contributor to The Nation magazine, former national security reporter for ThinkProgress. We will link to your piece and also to the ThinkProgress piece, "10 Falsehoods That Netanyahu Told During His Appearance at CAP."
ALI GHARIB: They deserve credit for that piece.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org.
... Read More →
Our Economy Is Not Working: Joseph Stiglitz on Widening Income Inequality & the Fight for $15
The fight over income inequality gained national attention when fast-food workers walked off the job in hundreds of cities across the country on Tuesday demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights. Some "Fight for $15" protesters rallied outside the Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee. During the debate, billionaire Donald Trump and other Republican contenders rejected calls to increase the minimum wage. We speak to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, author of the new book, "Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity." "We’re saying something is wrong with the way our economy is working," says Stiglitz. "The fact that at the bottom, minimum wage is as low as it was 45 years ago, a half-century ago, says something. … It’s not a living wage."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn right now to Joe Stiglitz, to the Nobel Prize-winning economist.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The fight over income inequality gained national attention when fast-food workers walked off the job in hundreds of cities across the country on Tuesday demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights. Some "Fight for 15" protesters rallied outside the Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee. During the debate, billionaire Donald Trump and other Republican contenders rejected calls to increase the minimum wage.
DONALD TRUMP: Taxes too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is. People have to go out, they have to work really hard, and they have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can’t do it.
AMY GOODMAN: We end today with Part 2 of my interview with the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz and his plan to address income inequality. He has written a new book called Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity. I asked him what an agenda for growth and shared prosperity would look like.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, it is about rewriting the rules in a fairly comprehensive way. I mean, the basic—
AMY GOODMAN: Who writes them?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, that has to be done by Congress, and it has to be with a lot of popular support. And in a way, we’re beginning to do that. You know, the Fight for 15 movement, raising the minimum wage, that’s one of the rules. But one of our points is that we need a more comprehensive agenda than just raising the minimum wage, and that if we make—and the two words there, for "growth" and "shared prosperity," so our view is that the only sustainable prosperity is shared prosperity and that one of the problems is that the way the rules have been rewritten since the beginning of Reagan has been to actually slow the American economy.
And let me give you one example. When you have corporations having a very shortsighted view, paying their CEOs such outrageous monies with less money spent on investment, of course you’re not going to make long-term investments that are going to result in long-term economic growth. And at the same time, there’s going to be less money to pay for ordinary workers. And paying that low wages to ordinary workers, not giving them security, not giving them paid, you know, family leave, all that results in a less productive labor force. So what we’ve done is we’ve actually undermined investments in people, investments in the corporation, all for the sake of increasing the income of the people at the very top. So there’s a really close link here between the growing inequality in our society and the weak economic performance.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re in the midst of an extended election year. But that goes to the issue of how we govern ourselves in this country, a very critical point. Let’s talk about what underlies these elections: campaign finances. How does campaign finance reform fit into rewriting the rules of the American economy?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, it’s actually absolutely essential. And, you know, the problem is that we’ve gone basically from a political system with "one person, one vote" to "one dollar, one vote." And, you know, Citizens United made that worse. So, the only way that you can combat the force of money is, you might say, people power, people coming out. And we’ve seen this work. I mean, we’ve seen it work in raising the minimum wage. You know, just—we couldn’t do it in Congress, because the gridlock there, the money there, so we’ve done it in city after city—Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, in New York. So, we’ve actually been able to see that this kind of uprising can work, even in a political system with money making so much difference.
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Stiglitz: Sanders is Right–Everybody Has the Right to Healthcare, Sick Days and Family Leave
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz talks about three presidential contenders: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. "The question is whether the United States is rich enough to be able to make sure that everyone has a basic right to healthcare, family leave, parental, you know, sick leave—we are exceptional—whether we are a society that can tolerate—that should tolerate the levels of inequality that we have," Stiglitz said. "I think Bernie Sanders is right about that."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We return to my conversation with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz, author of Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Proseperity. I asked him about the 2016 presidential race and began by playing Stiglitz a clip of Republican contender Donald Trump calling Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders a "communist" and a "maniac."
DONALD TRUMP: I watched Hillary last night with "We’re going to give this, we’re going to give that, we’re going to give that." She—the poor woman! She’s got to give everything away, because this maniac, that was standing on her right, is giving everything away, so she’s following. That’s what’s happening. This socialist-slash-communist, OK? Nobody wants to say it.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Donald Trump on Bernie Sanders. Explain what Bernie Sanders represents.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: First, let me comment. You know, the great irony of that is he’s talking about Bernie Sanders and Hillary’s putting in programs that don’t add up, and he’s called for a tax cut, aimed at the rich, that is $1 trillion short. So you talk about somebody who is—
AMY GOODMAN: And he said he’d make the hedge fund guys pay.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: That’s right. No, that’s one good thing that he’s done. And the irony is that the hedge fund guys are taxed at a lower rate than people who are actually working for a living. It’s one of the real, you might say, anomalies of our tax system, one that is actually very costly to our economy not just in terms of lost revenue, but induces our best students—my best students—to go into finance, into speculation, and we’re wasting our most valuable resource, I think—our human resources.
AMY GOODMAN: When, instead, you would like to see them—
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Go into research, go into creating productive firms, you know, strengthening the productive capacity of our economy. You know, the fact that such a large fraction of our most talented young people go into finance is a worry. It should be a worry to—you know, we’ve really lost a balance.
Now, to come back to Bernie and Hillary, you know, what they’re both saying is, really, points that we raise in Rewriting the Rules. They’re saying it’s not—these are not giveaways. We’re saying something is wrong with the way our economy is working. The fact that at the bottom, minimum wage is as low as it was 45 years ago, a half-century ago, says something. An economy that—you know, we’re supposed to—we’ve had technological change, globalization, all these things which are supposed to make our economy better and stronger, and yet, at the bottom, they haven’t had a pay raise in a half-century. It’s not a living wage. So, that’s all he’s calling for. You know, he’s calling for a living wage for ordinary Americans. And they’re both going for—we’re a wealthy-enough economy that we should be able to provide the basic requisites of a middle-class lifestyle for all Americans.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders was asked if a socialist could ever win a general election in the United States. This was in the debate.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, we’re going to win, because, first, we’re going to explain what democratic socialism is. And what democratic socialism is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country own almost 90 percent, almost—own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent; that it is wrong today, in a rigged economy, that 57 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent; that when you look around the world, you see every other major country providing healthcare to all people as a right, except the United States. You see every other major country saying to moms that when you have a baby, we’re not going to separate you from your newborn baby, because we are going to have—we are going to have medical and family paid leave like every other country on Earth. Those are some of the principles that I believe in, and I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton weighed in, in the same CNN debate.
HILLARY CLINTON: When I think about capitalism, I think about all the small businesses that were started, because we have the opportunity and the freedom in our country for people to do that and to make a good living for themselves and their families. And I don’t think we should confuse what we have to do every so often in America, which is save capitalism from itself. And I think what Senator Sanders is saying certainly makes sense in the terms of the inequality that we have. But we are not Denmark. I love Denmark. We are the United States of America, and it’s our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn’t run amok and doesn’t cause the kind of inequities that we’re seeing in our economic system.
AMY GOODMAN: So that’s Hillary Clinton. You advise Hillary Clinton?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: I talk to her, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, her response—"We’re not Denmark"—as a put-down to Bernie Sanders?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, it’s a fact we are not Denmark. But the question is whether the United States is rich enough to be able to make sure that everyone has a basic right to healthcare, family leave, parental, you know, sick leave—we are exceptional—whether we are a society that can tolerate—that should tolerate the levels of inequality that we have. I think Bernie Sanders is right about that. And I think that we—Hillary is right that one of the strengths of America should be that we can give opportunity for small businesses. Actually, Denmark and Norway do that, as well. So, what I would say is that Bernie is absolutely right that providing the basic necessities of a middle-class society should be the right of everybody in our country.
AMY GOODMAN: Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz, author of the new book, Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity. To see Part 1 of our conversation, go to democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is hiring a development director to lead our fundraising efforts and an on-air graphics operator. We’re also accepting applications for our internship program. Find out more at democracynow.org.
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Iraq: Kurdish Forces Launch Offensive Against ISIL
Up to 7,500 Kurdish peshmerga forces backed by U.S.-led warplanes have launched an offensive against the self-proclaimed Islamic State in northern Iraq. The offensive seeks to retake Mount Sinjar and surrounding areas from ISIL. Last year, ISIL trapped tens of thousands of Yazidi religious minorities on Mount Sinjar, prompting President Obama to authorize airstrikes to prevent what he called a "potential act of genocide." Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis fled, and many were raped, murdered or enslaved by ISIL. The offensive also seeks to sever a key ISIL supply route between Syria and the ISIL-held Iraqi city of Mosul.
Afghanistan: Thousands Protest After Beheadings of 7 Hostages
In the Afghan capital Kabul, thousands of people marched through the streets Wednesday carrying the coffins of seven ethnic Hazara hostages beheaded by ISIL. The demonstrators called for the resignation of President Ashraf Ghani’s government, accusing him of inadequately responding to violence against civilians in Afghanistan.
Protests Against Campus Racism Spread Across U.S.
In the United States, protests against racism on college campuses have spread across the country. Following the resignation of two top officials at University of Missouri, students rallied on the campus of Smith College in Massachusetts and Yale University in Connecticut, where more than 1,000 people packed into a forum on race Wednesday.
Ithaca Students Call for President to Resign After Racist Incidents
At Ithaca College in upstate New York, up to 2,000 faculty, students and staff staged a walkout to call for the resignation of President Tom Rochon. The students lay down on the rainy walkways in a mass "die-in." They expressed solidarity with students on other campuses across the country.
Brittany Gardner: "All over the nation, both on and off college campuses, we have seen those young and old fighting against injustice. We stand here in solidarity. Our hearts are heavy with the pain of Mizzou and Yale and Smith and every person of color on a college campus simply because of the color of their skin and the texture of their hair or their ancestry. This is a problem of the nation. However, how can a campus dedicated to preparing us for the real world not actively foster growth to our consciousness of oppression and privilege?"
The protesters at Ithaca College accuse President Tom Rochon of responding inadequately to racist incidents, including one where an African-American graduate was repeatedly called a "savage" by two white male fellow alumni. The incident took place during a panel discussion in October, when Tatiana Sy said she had a "savage hunger" to succeed. J. Christopher Burch, chief executive of the investment firm Burch Creative Capital, then repeatedly called her a "savage," saying, "I love what the savage here said." In this clip, you also hear the panel moderator, former NBC News correspondent Bob Kur, pointing to Burch and saying, "You are driven," then telling Sy, "You’re the savage." It begins with Burch.
J. Christopher Burch: "I love what the savage here said."
Bob Kur: "You’re driven and have been driven since college. You’re the savage, and you were driven."
J. Christopher Burch: "What empathy means is actually caring deeply for other people’s personal pain, and so as this young—as this savage sits here..."
Tatiana Sy: "All right, I mean..."
J. Christopher Burch: "It’s a compliment. I’m really complimenting you, because I think she’s an amazing young woman."
2 White Men Arrested over Racist Threats at U. of Missouri
The protests at Ithaca and elsewhere come amid ongoing concerns over racism at the University of Missouri. On Wednesday, two men were arrested for allegedly posting social media threats against students of color at the university. The threats included, "I’m going to stand my ground tomorrow and shoot every black person I see" and "I’m gonna shoot any black people tomorrow, so be ready." The two men arrested are both 19-year-old white college students, but neither is a student at the University of Missouri. Hunter Park, who attends Missouri University of Science and Technology, was in Rolla, Missouri, about 100 miles from Columbia. The second suspect, Connor B. Stottlemyre, attended Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, 200 miles from Columbia. A number of professors cancelled classes, and some African-American students left the University of Missouri campus over the threats. One professor submitted a letter of resignation after he sparked outrage by refusing to reschedule an exam when students said they felt unsafe coming to his class. A university spokesperson said Professor Dale Brigham’s resignation was not accepted.
Students Walk Out over Student Loan Debt
In another wave of student activism, students across the United States are walking out of class today to protest massive student loan debt. The students are calling for a minimum wage increase for campus workers and free public college tuition. Their protests come two days after fast-food workers walked off the job nationwide calling for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights.
Video: Virginia Man Died in Custody After Police Tased Him 20 Times
Newly released video footage shows three South Boston, Virginia, police officers repeatedly tasing an African-American man who died in police custody. During the incident two years ago, police took Linwood Lambert to the emergency room because they said he appeared delusional. He was not under arrest at the time. The video shown by MSNBC shows Lambert kicking out a cruiser window and running for the emergency room entrance. The officers tase him repeatedly, even as he lies on the ground, and restrain him with shackles. They continue to tase him. Then they take him back to the cruiser, where they tase him some more. In total, he was tased 20 times over a half-hour period. The officers then drove Lambert to jail, where they noticed he was unconscious. An ambulance brought Lambert back to the same hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His family has filed a $25 million lawsuit.
Israeli Agents Storm Hospital, Fatally Shoot Palestinian
Palestinian officials say undercover Israeli agents stormed a hospital in Hebron and fatally shot a 27-year-old Palestinian today. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said undercover commandos shot Abdullah al-Shalaldeh five times after he allegedly attempted to stop them from questioning his cousin, who was receiving treatment after being injured by Israeli security forces. Israeli news outlets said the agents were with the secretive Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet as well as the Israeli army and Border Police. One was reportedly disguised as a pregnant woman. Jehad Shawar, director of Al-Ahli hospital, condemned the attack.
Jehad Shawar: "It is a clear breach of all international laws and all ethics related to hospitals. It is well known that hospitals are a safe place for everyone. So what do you think when a unit of undercover security raid a hospital? They came as undercover security, not even as soldiers, to arrest one of the patients who was lying injured in his bed. The crime even became uglier when they surprised a companion of the patient and shot him with five bullets and executed him in the hospital."
EU Issues New Labeling Rules for Products from Israeli Settlements
The European Commission has issued new guidelines for the labeling of products from the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Under the new standards, products made in Israeli settlements, which are deemed illegal under international law, must be labeled "made in settlements." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposed the regulations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "The labeling of products of the Jewish state by the European Union brings back dark memories. Europe should be ashamed of itself. It took an immoral decision. Of the hundreds of territorial conflicts around the world, it chose to single out Israel, and Israel alone, while it’s fighting its back—with its back against the wall against a wave of terror."
We’ll have more on Netanyahu’s recent visit to the United States and his ties to the leading progressive think tank Center for American Progress after headlines.
Sweden Introduces New Border Controls to Halt Refugees
Sweden has introduced new border controls as refugees from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere seek to enter the country. Nearly 200,000 people are expected to arrive in Sweden this year—a higher number per capita than any other EU country. Meanwhile, Slovenian soldiers began erecting a barbed wire fence near the border with Croatia in a bid to stop the flow of refugees. And 14 refugees, including seven children, drowned off the Turkish coast as they attempted to reach Greece.
Report: Firm Recorded Thousands of Attorney-Prisoner Phone Calls
In what appears to be a massive breach in attorney-client privilege in the United States, The Intercept has obtained a trove of prisoner phone records, including recorded calls between prisoners and their attorneys. Attorney-client phone calls are privileged communications which are not supposed to be recorded. But hacked phone records from Securus Technologies—a leading provider of phone services in prisons and jails—appear to include about 14,000 recorded attorney-prisoner conversations. The company’s contract specifically stipulates telephone calls with attorneys are not to be recorded, and any calls that are recorded must be destroyed. The ACLU said the revelations may constitute "the most massive breach of the attorney-client privilege in modern U.S. history."
New Zealand: Women MPs Thrown Out for Disclosing Sexual Assaults
And in New Zealand, women members of Parliament have been thrown out of the chamber Wednesday after sharing their stories of sexual assault. Their actions came after New Zealand Prime Minister John Key accused opposition politicians of "backing the rapists" when they raised concerns about the detention of New Zealand citizens by the Australian government. One by one, the women Parliament members rose to say that as survivors of sexual assault, they were offended by Key’s remarks. The House speaker, David Carter, declared their statements out of order, but they continued to rise, one by one, over the speaker’s objections.
Poto Williams: "As a victim and survivor of family violence and an advocate for victims of violence, I take personal offense at the comments of the prime minister and ask him to withdraw..."
David Carter: "Order! Order! Now we’re now getting into the stage when there could be a series of these points of orders. ... I’ll hear from Catherine Delahunty on the assurance that it’s a fresh point of order and not in any way the type of points of order with..."
Catherine Delahunty: "It’s a fresh point of order. It’s not a campaign, Mr. Speaker."
David Carter: "Sorry. Catherine Delahunty."
Catherine Delahunty: "As a victim of sexual assault..."
David Carter: "Order! Order!"
Catherine Delahunty: "I take personal offense and would like to ask for a personal explanation..."
David Carter: "The member will resume her seat."
The women Parliament members continued to rise one by one, until finally the House speaker of the New Zealand Parliament ordered them out.
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SPEAKING EVENTS
"Even War Has Rules" by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
An employee surveys the charred remnants of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, after it was hit by a U.S. airstrike in early October. Weeks later, a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Yemen was struck. (Najim Rahim / AP)
No one disputes that the United States military attacked a hospital in the city of Kunduz, Afghanistan, in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, Oct. 3. The airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders facility, the Kunduz Trauma Center, was devastating, with at least 30 people killed. Patients in the only intensive-care unit in the region were burned to death in their beds. Medical staffers were killed by shrapnel bombs that tore off their limbs. At least one person was decapitated. As people fled the burning building, the U.S. AC-130 gunship slaughtered them from above with automatic fire. Doctors and other medical staff were shot while running to reach safety in a different part of the compound.
The Kunduz Trauma Center had been in the same place, performing thousands of surgeries and treating tens of thousands of people in the emergency room, for four years. Doctors Without Borders, known internationally by its French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF, had repeatedly provided the exact GPS coordinates of the hospital complex to U.S. and Afghan government officials. “As a precondition of opening the hospital, we negotiated with both the U.S., Afghan, NATO, as well as opposition forces, with the Taliban. We received the support of all of those groups to operate this hospital,” Jason Cone, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders USA, told us on the “Democracy Now!” news hour. “Part of that was sharing our GPS coordinates with the various parties. We shared them as recently as September 29th.”
Sept. 29 was an important day in Kunduz. Battles for control of the city had been raging since April. On Sept. 28, a Taliban force reported to be only 500 strong routed 7,000 Afghan National Army troops, capturing Kunduz. This was the first major city that the Taliban had taken since the U.S invasion and occupation began in October 2001, when the Taliban were driven from power. MSF knew that the front line of the conflict had come to their door, and that there would be many more casualties flooding the hospital. “It was probably the most well-lit structure in the entire city of Kunduz, which has about 300,000 people in it, because we were running generators that night,” Cone said.
When asked if the attack constituted a war crime, Cone employed the precise language of the humanitarian-aid worker: “There’s been a lot of discussion about whether or not this was a mistake. This is not necessarily the threshold that has to be crossed for this to constitute a grave breach of international humanitarian law. If the military fails to distinguish between military and civilian targets, as is in this case, from our standpoint, from everything we know, then they’re guilty.”
MSF conducted an extensive internal review and shared it with the U.S. government, NATO and the Afghan government. The next day, they released it to the public. “It’s part of our efforts to cooperate with the investigation. There needs to be an independent and impartial investigation conducted into the bombing,” Cone explained. MSF has asked the U.S. government to accept the services of a Swiss-based group, the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, which was founded 24 years ago specifically to investigate possible war-crimes violations. To date, the commission has never been put to use on an investigation. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of the attack—the U.S. government, NATO and the Afghan government—are conducting their own investigations. MSF’s public demand for an independent investigation is being supported by a global petition that has so far garnered more than 500,000 signatures.
Three weeks after the attack in Kunduz, another MSF hospital was struck, this time in Yemen. The hospital was hit multiple times over a two-hour period last week, even though the roof was marked with the MSF logo and its GPS coordinates had been shared multiple times with the Saudi-led coalition. Every indication is that the Saudi Arabian military, using U.S.-provided bombers and arms, launched the strike.
“It certainly is a breach of humanitarian law,” Cone said of the Yemen attack. “For us, this is about just reinforcing the fact that there are the Geneva Conventions that govern the laws of war ... we need to understand that governments still respect these rules, because it’s the rules that allow us to send people into these war zones and treat the victims.”
The horror of the Kunduz hospital attack will never leave MSF nurse Lajos Zoltan Jecs. She was sleeping in the hospital safe room when the bombs hit: “We tried to take a look into one of the burning buildings. I cannot describe what was inside. There are no words for how terrible it was. In the Intensive Care Unit six patients were burning in their beds. ... We saw our colleagues dying. Our pharmacist ... I was just talking to him last night and planning the stocks, and then he died there in our office.”
Neither hospital attack has been mentioned in any of the U.S. presidential debates or forums so far. We need a full investigation of these crimes, to hold those responsible accountable. And we need a full debate, in this presidential year, to determine whether attacks like these, that only perpetuate terror, will be allowed to continue.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,300 stations. She is the co-author, with Denis Moynihan, of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times best-seller.
(c) 2015 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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