Say Anything Blog

“Guilty” was what Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Mayo of Fort Bragg, N.C. pleaded to the murder – execution-style – of four bound and blindfolded Iraqi detainees in 2007. Mayo is the second person convicted in the murders.

What is almost as frightening is the story behind the murders- the cold, calm, and calculating way it was carried out:

  According to testimony at previous courts-martial, at least four Iraqis were taken into custody in spring 2007 after a shootout with a patrol. The Iraqis were taken to the U.S. unit’s operating base in Baghdad for questioning and processing, although there was not enough evidence to hold them for attacking the unit. Later that night patrol members took the Iraqis to a remote area and shot them in retribution for the attacks on the unit, according to testimony. Mayo, Leahy and Master Sgt. John Hatley, 40, are accused of pulling the trigger. “Hatley stated that if we took (the) individuals to detention they’d be released in a matter of days,” Mayo told the court. “He said we should take care of them. I agreed.”

In April, it will be Hatley’s turn to face the music.

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_eu_germany_us_iraq_deaths.html

Speaking to The Phnom Pen Post’s George McLeod about Cambodia’s war crimes court, Linguist and author Noam Chomsky, who has written extensively on the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese occupation in the 1980s, says that any court that would not take into account Henry Kissinger or the other authors of the American bombing of Cambodia and the support of the KR (Khmer Rouge) after they were kicked out of the country would be a farce, especially with what we know now about the bombing since the release of the Nixon tapes.

Ben Kiernan, who released the documentation of the Nixon tapes, concluded that this bombing, had genocidal intent. The following is the documented order by Kissinger to bomb Cambodia: “A massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies on anything that moves.” The bombings, which were greater than all the bombing by the U.S. in WWll, played a significant factor in making the KR a mass army of what they call enraged peasants bent on revenge.

As a veteran who served in Southern Thailand in 1969 at the very base that carried out these genocidal bombings, I recall receiving a letter from a close friend who was there after I had been discharged in 1970. He wrote that “the B-52’s are flying 24-7, somethings going on.”

Having witnessed from far away (fortunately) what these bombs could do in an accidental bomb dump explosion which will never leave my mind, I have a frightening idea of the horror the people of Cambodia must have gone through. May Henry and company rot in hell forever!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/politics/27TAPE.html?ex=1400990400&en=6fc3dd5c0d415b85&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/National-news/Tribunal-ignoring-US-role-says-Chomsky.html

Could something positive come out of our current economic crisis? Believe it or not, the answer is yes.

It seems like our bankrupt state governments are forcing us to take a new approach to our lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key attitude we have had toward criminals.

For example, Kansas is closing prisons and “boosting support for offenders on probation and declining to return them to prison for every probation violation.”

Michelle Stephenson, a corrections officer says, “it used to be that it was more about waiting for them to mess up and send them back to prison, in this time and this economy, you can’t afford to keep doing that. There is a better way to do business.”

The new approach brings back the old argument between the lock-em-up-crowd and those who believe in a softer approach with programs geared to change behavior.
http://content.usatoday.com/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=clarionledger&sParam=34473886.story&loc=interstitialskip

Both the CISPES site on election coverage in El Salvador and the BBC are reporting that the FMLN is claiming victory in Sunday’s presidential election. VIVA FMLN!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7944899.stm

Che Guevara, who years ago chose Bolivia as the revolutionary base for South America and died in their struggle, must be smiling today:

With strong support from Bolivia’s indigenous groups, President Evo Morales has redistributed thousands of hectares of land from large scale owners to indigenous farmers.

In January, 61% of the voters approved of a new constitution “empowering the country’s indigenous majority.”

The new constitution gives sweeping rights to Bolivia’s 36 indigenous groups in the areas of government, the judiciary and land holdings.

It also allows agrarian land reform to take place by limiting the size of rural landholdings in future sales.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7944564.stm

They answered Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s call to help win the war against Japan in World War ll. Many fought as guerrillas, secretly helping U.S. forces.

However, when the dust settled, and the war was won with their help, the 470,000 Filipinos soldiers who bravely volunteered were forgotten, despite an F.D.R. executive order which classified them as veterans of the U.S. forces who were suppose to receive the same benefits as our soldiers.

In 1946, Congress stripped the Filipinos of their right to citizenship and veterans benefits which saved the U.S. government something like $57 billion.

All this will change and the broken promise will be addressed with Obama’s new stimulus package.

Officials from the U.S. Veterans Affairs office in Manila began interviewing veterans to confirm their eligibility two days after Obama signed the stimulus bill on Feb. 17.

Sadly, help did not arrive sooner. Think of the many hardships families must have endured over the years because of no help from the V.A.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-philippines-veterans7-2009mar07,0,545085.story

Can you imagine taking high speed rail from Los Angeles to San Fransisco (432 miles) in 2 1/2 hours? It is difficult to fathom considering our obsession with building more freeways while the rest of the world passes us by with competent mass transit planning.

All this could change under the Obama Administration. They are planning dozens of high-speed rail and inner city passenger rail programs. And they are willing to spend the money- $8 billion in stimulus money and $5 billion more over the next five year.

States are stampeding to get in line. The Obama Administration has dozens of high speed rail projects in mind. Experts believe the stongest candidates for funding are the areas of the country that have the most developed plans for high-speed rail service: California, the Washington-New York-Boston corridor, and the web of rail lines centered around Chicago.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/07/AR2009030701794.html?wpisrc=newsletter

No thanks New Orleans. That is the title of the letter posted on the web site of The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB).

The letter, which was initially sent to new Republican superstar and Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal, stated that as long as the recently adopted Science Education Act remains on the books they will not have their convention there.

Last year Jindal signed the law which gives teachers wider latitude to use supplemental materials for lessons on topics such as evolutionary biology, global warming and cloning.

Both national and Louisiana science groups urged Jindal not to sign the bill because they believe it is a “back-door attempt to allow Judeo-Christian creation theology or ‘intelligent design’ — the concept that biological life forms are the result of an intelligent being — to be taught as part of science class.”

Richard Satterlie, the president of SICB made the following remark about the law: “It is the firm opinion of SICB’s leadership that this law undermines the integrity of science and science education in Louisiana.

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/national_science_boycotting_lo.html

Why is it that when the government gives money to corporations it is called bailouts, but when it gives to poor people it is called handouts?

Kudos to Chea Mony, the president of the Free Trade Union of the Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTU).

Mony, the brother of Chea Vichea, a union leader who was shot and killed near Wat Lanka in 2004, has been nominated for the 2009 Martin Enals Award- a prize given by 10 leading human rights NGOs (nongovernmental organizations)- for his exceptional record of combating human rights violations by courageous and innovative means.

  “This award would mean the world would recognize my hard work defending garment factory workers as well as human rights and justice in Cambodian society,” Chea Mony told the Post Thursday.

  “Every day I work and protest against social injustice without worrying about my personal security.”

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Federation of Human Rights are some of the organizations behind the award.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009021324203/National-news/Union-leader-Chea-Mony-nominated-for-human-rights-award.html

I don’t know about you, but I could not get all worked up into a lather at the sight of young Michael Phelps holding a pot pipe and doing what countless thousands of young (and old) folks do all the time.

I am happy to see that folks are angered at Kellogg’s for deciding to cut ties with Phelps over the incident.

“Kellogg’s had no problem signing up Phelps when he had a conviction for drunk driving, an illegal act that could actually have killed someone,” said Rob Kampia, the director of the Marijuana Policy Project.

Kampia’s group along with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the Drug Policy Alliance are urging a boycott of Kellogg’s.

“It’s not just that Michael Phelps did what millions of other 20-somethings do,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

“It’s that he did what over 100 million Americans have done at least once in their lives, including the president, former presidents, members of the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court.”

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/399568_kellogg11.html

Bad news for us Obama supporters. One of the most blatant crimes by the Bush Administration- “extraordinary rendition”- where individuals are abducted by the CIA, held in secrecy and without charges and transported to third countries to be interrogated under torture, will continue under Obama’s watch.

The practice has come to symbolize for people all over the world everything that was lawless, sadistic and reactionary about the Bush administration. Contained within this lawless act of the US government were all of the most nightmarish features of a police-state dictatorship.

A federal attorney representing President Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, rose to announce that the new administration will be standing pat on the position taken by George Bush and his Justice Department in a case involving some of the most heinous crimes of the previous administration.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/09/state_secrets/

With the economy tanking and funding for law enforcement at a low, there has been an uptick in neighborhood patrols. The numbers are close to the amount during the aftermath of 9-11.

Empty houses and criminals becoming more brazen and open have pushed residence to patrol together in autos, especially in urban transitioning communities.

Says Peter Scharf, a criminologist at Tulane University in New Orleans: “when you go broke, be creative. Outsource criminal justice back to the people.”

Others are not as positive. Some are concerned with vigilantism, which has flourished at times in the U.S.

The Nation magazine recently reported that after hurricane Katrina, vigilantes killed several black men for simply walking through a neighborhood. Several registered sex offenders have also been killed. Citizen patrols became a controversy in New Haven, Conn., in 2007 when the Edgewood Park Defense Patrol included some armed with licensed firearms.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0127/p01s02-usgn.html

Could divestment work to pressure Israel to stop the illegal occupation and expansion of their territory? Could it be as effective as it was against South Africa? Can enough liberals finally say enough? International pressure is mounting and attitudes toward Israel are changing. Here is a promising start:

http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/rethink_capitalism_blog/campus_divestment_vs_israeli_apartheid.html

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/01/the_inauguration_of_president.html