Senate Republicans began their press conference with Senator Tom Cotton, who called for the “investigation of protesters funding” and the “Department of Education to withhold funding from universities.” Additionally, they called for the removal of visas and the deportation of international student protesters.

When a journalist pushed back on the accusations of antisemitism by student protesters, Senator John Kennedy called the protests “rule by mob” and praised Tulane University, the University of Florida, and Vanderbilt for repressing protesters.

When asked about the protests, Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary, pivoted to condemning antisemitism and hatred, referred to the protests as a “small group of students that are disrupting academic experience”, and refused to answer questions on police brutality of protesters. Journalists continued to press Jean-Pierre on how the White House views the protests and their cause, trying to push back on the press secretary’s conflation of protests with antisemitism; Jean-Pierre highlighted the necessity for peaceful demonstrations and condemned hatred, again not answering journalists' questions. 

These dual press briefings highlight the bipartisan nature of support for Israel and the attacks on the pro-Palestine movement. “Biden condemns the use of the term intifada and hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America,” said Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates, in a recent statement from the White House.

In a recent statement from former President Donald Trump, he compared the campus encampments to January 6, “because they’re doing a lot of destruction, a lot of damages, a lot of people getting hurt very badly.” Comparing the campus encampments to the 2017 Unite the Right Charlottesville protest, Trump said: “The hate [at Charlottesville] wasn’t the kind of hate that you have here.” These comments are in the context of Biden signing $14.1 billion in aid to Israel and vowing to “make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself.”

Despite these attacks, campus encampments are continuing to spread around the nation, and in fact, around the world. The movement to end U.S. aid to Israel is growing and people around the world are demanding an end to genocide, an end to occupation, and a free Palestine!

#FreePalestine #Analysis

Jacksonville, FL – On Dec. 8, President-elect Donald Trump announced fast food executive Andy Puzder as his pick for Secretary of Labor. Puzder is the CEO of CKE Restaurants, which owns Hardee's, Carl’s Jr. and several other national chains.

If confirmed by the Senate, Puzder will head up the Department of Labor, which sets wage and hour standards, controls unemployment insurance and enforces U.S. labor law.

During his presidential campaign, Trump criticized free trade agreements like NAFTA and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership and portrayed himself as an anti-establishment candidate. This populist message resonated with a section of white workers in Midwestern states hit hard by free trade agreements, like Michigan and Ohio.

Far from standing up to big business, however, Trump stands ready to lead an onslaught of attacks on the working class on behalf of corporate America. During the interim period before his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017, Trump has made peace with the same banks and monopoly capitalists he sometimes criticized during the campaign. The cabinet assembled by Trump includes more billionaires than any previous administration. Instead of ruling through loyal politicians and bureaucratic puppets, the 1% directly holds power in Trump's administration, with certain corporations and banks (Exxon Mobil, Goldman Sachs) explicitly getting seats at the table.

Trump's cabinet picks signal the beginning of a massive government-led employer offensive against labor unions, collective bargaining and workers' rights. With labor at its weakest point in decades, employers hope to deal a mortal blow to the remaining unions and roll back the protections and gains made by working people. The next four years promise an open class war between employers and workers – a war that today's unions are incredibly ill-equipped to fight. To defeat the Trump offensive, labor must embrace the weapons they fought and won with in the past – and do so quickly.

Opening shots: The Carrier scam and trade policy

Trump announced Puzder as his pick for Labor Secretary just days after posting a string of nasty anti-union attacks on Twitter. Leaders of United Steelworkers (USW) 1999, which represents Carrier manufacturing workers in Indiana, came under fire from Trump after a heavily publicized deal struck between the president-elect and Carrier management earlier in the month.

Trump met with Carrier over plans to outsource its profitable Indiana manufacturing operations to Mexico, seeking lower labor costs and higher profit. In exchange for a series of corporate tax cuts totaling at least $6 million, Carrier supposedly agreed to keep some of their plants in the U.S. According to Trump, the deal saved 1100 U.S. jobs slated for relocation.

Details later emerged revealing that Trump's deal only keeps about 800 jobs in the U.S., leaving 600 Carrier workers unemployed. Chuck Jones, president of USW 1999, slammed Trump for leaving the union out of negotiations and exaggerating the number of jobs saved by the deal.

Trump responded on Twitter with a whiny anti-union rant directed at both Jones and USW 1999. Blaming the union for outsourcing, the president-elect wrote, “If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they [Carrier] would have kept those jobs in Indiana.” Trump singled out Jones, who he claimed had “done a terrible job representing workers.”

By themselves, these tweets seem petty and childish. In actuality, they mark a dramatic shift in the president-elect's public approach towards organized labor. Trump criticized union leaders for backing his opponent, Hillary Clinton, on the campaign trail, but he stayed away from the outright anti-union rhetoric used by other Republican candidates, like Scott Walker and Marco Rubio. His goal was obvious: break off a large percentage of union voters from Clinton. With the election over, Trump dropped all pretenses. He attacked USW 1999 by name and blamed the union for the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Trump campaigned heavily against corporate outsourcing and he repeatedly vowed to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. But cabinet picks like billionaire and free trade advocate Wilbur Ross for Commerce Secretary suggest Trump has no intention of “ripping up” trade agreements like NAFTA. It seems more likely that Trump will scapegoat unions, higher wages, and work rules for supposedly making domestic manufacturing too expensive for corporations.

Weaponizing the Department of Labor

Thus far, Trump's proposed cabinet secretaries hold views sharply at odds with the stated purpose of their departments and agencies. Texas Governor Rick Perry, an oil industry puppet and Trump's pick for Energy Secretary, called for abolishing the Department of Energy in 2012. Similarly, climate-change denier Scott Pruitt received Trump's nomination to head up the Environmental Protection Agency. For the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Trump tapped Ben Carson, an outspoken opponent of public housing for poor and working people and a person with zero government experience.

Trump's pick for Secretary of Labor follows this trend. As the top executive of a major fast food corporation and an outspoken opponent of unions, Puzder has frequently come into conflict with the Department of Labor he now seeks to run.

Workplace safety ranked low on Puzder's list of priorities as CEO of CKE Restaurants. During Puzder's tenure, the Department of Labor issued 98 OSHA safety violations, including 36 that posed fatal or serious bodily harm to workers, to CKE Restaurants and its subsidiaries. Employers have long sought to roll back OSHA, which allows workers to anonymously report hazards to the Department of Labor and carries steep fines for violations. With Puzder able to control OSHA investigations and enforcement, companies stand to make larger profits at the expense of the health and safety of workers.

Wage theft runs rampant throughout the fast food industry, and CKE Restaurants under Puzder was no exception. The Labor Department conducted numerous investigations into wage theft complaints by workers at CKE Restaurants, most of which resulted in fines, settlements and damages awarded to workers. A particularly disturbing 2007 investigation found that Hardee's Food Systems Inc., a part of CKE Restaurants, had illegally withheld overtime from over 450 workers and was forced to pay $58,000.

Employers will face no such consequences from Trump's Secretary of Labor. Wage theft investigations will become few and far between as Puzder scales down the size of the Labor Department, which already suffers from a shortage of staff. Puzder also pledged to repeal overtime protections for workers, which were expanded under President Obama, paving the way for greater exploitation and higher profits.

Trump declares war on the Fight for $15

In the last four years, fast food workers, like those employed by CKE Restaurants, have waged a countrywide struggle for a $15 per hour minimum wage and union representation. Using a combination of protests and one-day strikes, the Fight for $15 campaign has won victories in cities like Seattle, Los Angeles and New York City, where local governments have agreed to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour for some workers. Their efforts, supported heavily by SEIU, have mainly targeted the fast food industry, where corporations like CKE Restaurants rake in obscene profits by exploiting a non-union, low-wage workforce.

By picking a fast food CEO to head the Department of Labor, Trump has declared war on the Fight for $15 movement. Puzder vocally opposes raising the federal minimum wage, currently at $7.25 per hour, which puts him in line with Trump's own position that “wages are too high” for workers in the U.S.

National right-to-work: Trump's anti-union kill shot

National right-to-work legislation sits at the core of this new employer offensive against unions.

Right-to-work laws force unions to represent workers who refuse to join and pay dues. This gives workers a disincentive to join, since they receive all the benefits of union membership whether they pay dues or not. The effect is a net drain on union resources, which go towards representing non-members, and a weakened position at the bargaining table with employers.

Right-to-work laws came about in 1948, when an anti-labor coalition of Democrats and Republicans passed the Taft-Hartley Act on behalf of employers. This devastating piece of legislation outlawed solidarity strikes, restricted union activity and allowed states to pass so-called 'right to work' laws. Since that time, 26 states have enacted right-to-work legislation. The Bureau of Labor statistics estimates that workers in these states make about $6000 per year less than workers in states where all workers in union workplaces pay dues.

After the 2010 election brought a wave of Tea Party governors to power, employers successfully passed right-to-work laws in union strongholds like Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. Since then, however, unions defeated similar efforts in Missouri, West Virginia and most recently Virginia. Attempts to push right-to-work in the three strongest union states – California, New York and Illinois – have go nowhere.

With union density at its lowest point since the Great Depression, employers hope to break organized labor with national right-to-work legislation. Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky introduced the National Right to Work Act to both houses of Congress in 2015, but it stalled in the face of a guaranteed veto by President Obama. Trump, an outspoken supporter of right-to-work, along with a Republican-controlled Congress, gives employers an opportunity to turn their twisted dream into reality.

Support for national right-to-work legislation – along with other anti-union laws, like the Employee Reform Act – in Trump's proposed cabinet goes beyond Puzder. Billionaire Betsy DeVos, tapped by Trump for Secretary of Education, was the main financial backer of Michigan's 2012 right-to-work law. DeVos is the daughter-in-law of Richard DeVos, the founder of Amway, who made his fortune by ripping off poor and working people with ‘multi-level marketing’ pyramid schemes.

DeVos pushed right-to-work in Michigan under the Trojan horse of ‘education reform,’ aimed at weakening teachers’ unions and converting public schools into private charter schools. As Education Secretary, DeVos can leverage national education policy against both the teachers’ unions and organized labor as a whole.

Labor must fight back

The danger posed by Trump brings to mind another U.S. president who presided over a massive employer offensive against Labor: Ronald Reagan. Reagan came to power in 1980 with the full backing of banks, billionaires and corporations. After the economic crisis and stagnation of the 1970s, employers desperately wanted to boost profits, and they saw organized labor as their main obstacle. Reagan set to work immediately by breaking the 1981 Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike. In doing so, he signaled to employers that the federal government would support their campaign to roll back wages and benefits.

Unfortunately, labor finds itself in an even weaker position today than it did under Reagan. In 2015, union membership reached its lowest point since World War II, sitting at 11.1% (14.7 million). The private sector experienced an even worse drop in union membership, going from 16.5% in 1983 to 6.7% in 2015.

But the crisis facing labor goes beyond membership numbers. Most of today's union leaders have abandoned the strike weapon as a tactic for struggle. Only 12 work stoppages involving a total of 47,000 workers took place in 2015 in the U.S. Even in 1981, the same year Reagan busted the PATCO strike, 145 work stoppages involving 729,000 workers took place around the country.

Instead of struggling against employers and contending for working class power on the shop floor, union leaders have favored an approach of collaboration with management. Since this strategy seldom produces better contracts, these same leaders put the union's money, time, resources, energy and reputation into electing politicians, mostly from the Democratic Party, in hopes of passing pro-worker legislation. Put simply, this strategy came crashing down in 2016.

The Trump offensive has the potential to devastate unions and the entire working class if the labor movement continues down the same failed path. Employers hope to break organized labor once and for all under a Trump presidency, and this radical anti-union cabinet of one-percenters intends to lead this effort. It's well-past time for the U.S. labor movement to reclaim its historical legacy of militant, production-halting strikes and resistance.

Dave Schneider is a 26-year-old Teamster shop steward and community organizer from Jacksonville, Florida.

#JacksonvileFL #JacksonvilleFL #Trump #DonaldTrump #Analysis

El uso de puro inglés en las escuelas se esta usando como vehículo para mantener diferentes naciones bajo opresión. Esta es una arma que se ha usado a través de la historia para conquistar y destrozar naciones enteras. Se utiliza reemplazar un lenguaje con otro para borrar el método de comunicación y mejor aprendizaje. Por ejemplo, se sabe que los españoles destrosaron a pueblos enteros reemplazando los lenguajes indígenas con el español.

La educación bilingüe sigue siendo atacada igualmente para los mismos propósitos. Miles des estudiantes siguen siendo negados el derecho de usar su lenguaje natal como base para aprender. La falta de apoyo en un lenguaje que los estudiantes necesitan significa que muchos estudiantes no podran armarse con las herramientas educación les que necesitan para sobrevivir en este mundo. Muchos no están pensando en el futuro de niñas y niños que seguirán bajo condiciones opresivas a causa de que se les niega una educación justa.

La mayoría de los estudiantes Chicanos no están en programas bilingües, solo 30% realmente lo están. El resto, 70% han sido educados en clases de estudio que usan puro inglés con apoyo mínimo. En la Proposición 227, sigue reenforzando ese tipo de genocidio educacional, es por eso que muchos estudiantes batallan con sus materias.

Desilusionados con un sistema que no les enseña adecuadamente y que no se preocupa más que en meternos en clases donde bajo estiman sus habilidades y los tratan como inútiles. Es por eso que el nivel de estudiantes Chicanos, Afro-Americanos, Latino Americanos, y Nativo Americanos y otros grupos opresionados siguen 50% o más del porcentaje que se salen y no terminan sus estudios o no reciben su diploma.

Sin embargo, se le hecha la culpa a los programas bilingües por fallas de un sistema inadecuado en adaptar o tomar en cuenta nuestra cultura y lenguaje.

Además lo mas critico es que se les esta despojando de su identidad y haciéndolos renegar su propio lenguaje, cultura, y por consecuencia sus propios padres. Este tipo de actitudes se refleja en la mentalidad de las niñas y niños por que se crea un ambiente negativo en cual se hace ver el lenguaje de inglés como la única manera de aprender y de “triumfar” en los Estados Unidos.

El inglés se hace ver como si fuera el único lenguaje de ser inteligente. A través del inglés están asimilando los estudiantes y otorgándoles una manera de pensar muy asimilada. En otras palabras los programas que se están usando para reemplazar los programas bilingüe son un proceso de Americanización. Americanización en el sentido de que al cortar el lenguaje natal se corta la cultura, la historia y se reniega de donde vienen sus padres, familia, antepasados y costumbres, reemplazando con ideales individualista que no les ayudara a salir del tipo de opresión mental o físico en el cual se encuentran muchas naciones sujetas a opresión en este día y sociedad.

¡Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

#EstadosUnidos #Analysis #ChicanoLatino #laEducaciónBilingüe #Autodeterminación #LaNaciónChicana #NacionalidadesOprimadas

In the end, an unjust agreement was forced on the Yugoslav government. Kosovo is occupied by foreign troops. British commandos go door to door in Serb villages telling people, “We can't guarantee your survival,” and Yugoslav patriots who resist the occupation are being jailed and murdered.

The Anti-War movement

One response to this criminal war was the construction of a powerful anti-war movement. Tens of millions, in countries around the world said NO to this war. The capitols of Europe were rocked by protests. The U.S. embassy in China was trashed. Sailors in the Greek Navy refused to go into action against Yugoslavia. In Russia and the Ukraine, there were huge demonstrations, and thousands signed up to fight as anti-NATO volunteers.

In our country the anti-war movement can list a number of important accomplishments. By raising a banner of resistance to the war, it was possible to have a real debate about the nature and aims of the war. At the point when the air war ended, that movement was poised to become a more powerful force.

As a part of the international fight against the war, there can also be no doubt that the movement limited the actions of the Western powers. For example, they couldn't introduce ground troops into a “hostile environment” in Yugoslavia.

Serb Americans, who courageously added their numbers and knowledge to the movement, made a critical contribution to the peace movement.

Finally, despite the intense propaganda drive which attempted to give the war a “humanitarian” cover, many people who had not been active in the anti-intervention movement in the past, stepped forward and got involved.

Some Problems

Unfortunately, some people who should know better, were confused and tried to confuse others. As NATO bombs were raining down on factories and farms, they joined the anti-Yugoslavia chorus. Confusing the aggressor with the victims of aggression, these people said that all sides were to blame.

Rather than doing the work to build an anti-war movement, they sat on the sidelines and said silly things like the more we criticize Yugoslavia, the stronger the movement would be. Others showed up at protests calling for “independence for Kosovo,” which in practice means to carve up Yugoslavia and make Kosovo a NATO protectorate.

And the people who called for a “United Nations solution” to conflicts inside Yugoslavia are getting just what they asked for: the U.N. will appoint a government to work hand-in-hand with the occupying NATO troops in Kosovo.

Just as in Iraq, the U.N. solution is the U.S. solution.

More Wars Ahead

The Western powers are competing with each other to extend their political and economic domination over the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Soviet Union. The occupation of Kosovo will speed up their attempts at expansion, and sharpen the competition between them.

The outcome of this will be more wars of aggression by the Western powers. Right now the U.S. is engaged in an air campaign against Iraq. Ships and submarines have been sent to the Yellow Sea for the purpose of threatening people's Korea.

We have entered a period where we can expect more unjust wars. The rich and the powerful in the West are going all-out to seize the land, labor, and natural resources of others. We in the anti-war movement have our work cut out for us.

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #Analysis #Yugoslavia #NATO #Europe

Many crimes against Iraq have been justified by the demonization of Saddam Hussein. Invasion was justified by claims that he possessed ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ had ties to al-Qaeda, and posed a threat to the territorial United States.

The claims turned out to be lies. There were no ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or programs to develop them. There were no ties to al-Qaeda. He did not threaten U.S. territory.

Those who still support the occupation now say it was justified because Saddam Hussein was a ‘brutal dictator.’ One of the main complaints against him is that ‘he killed the Kurds.’ The usual reference is the Anfal campaign of the Iraqi army from Feb. 23, 1988 to Sept. 6, 1988. It is claimed that Anfal was a campaign of genocide. It can now be said that the ‘Anfal genocide’ never happened. It is another lie.

Ironically it is the second of the illegal U.S.-run ‘trials’ of Mr. Hussein in Baghdad that allows this conclusion. The facts and circumstances of the ‘trial’ can be analyzed without any concession to the legitimacy of the ‘court.’ Nor, since it is illegal, is there any reason to wait for the ‘court’s’ findings before reaching one’s own conclusions. Applicable principles of international law are presented in Appendix A.

Certain facts are not in dispute. The campaign took place in the late stages of the Iran-Iraq war. The Iraqi army fought units of the Iranian army in Northern Iraq. Kurdish guerillas, called peshmerga allied with Iran against the government of their own country. In order to suppress the guerillas the Iraqi government displaced large numbers of Kurdish civilians from border areas.

Press reports say the current charge is genocide during Anfal. By any definition the crime of genocide means the extermination of large numbers of people. At first no definite number of civilian fatalities was given in news reports, but in September the ‘prosecution’ was several times reported to say there were 182,000 deaths.

The ‘trial’ on the Anfal charges began on Aug. 21, 2006. There were 13 sessions of the ‘court’ between that date and Sept. 26, at which time it recessed.

In the press reports studied for this analysis no statement or presentation of methodology was reported. No systematic studies were reported. No sworn affidavits were reported. No expert testimony was reported. Evidence of this kind would have been front-page news. It can be concluded that no such evidence was introduced. See Appendix B for the tabulation of articles.

Instead all testimony was anecdotal. As an example, on Aug. 22, the first day of testimony, a witness named Ali Mustapha Hama was heard. He testified to events in the village of Balisan on April 16, 1987. The BBC reported: “Ali Mustapha Hama said there was greenish smoke, and minutes later, a smell like rotten apples or garlic. He spoke of a newborn infant who was trying to “smell life”, but breathed in the chemicals and died. Many others died too, he added. During cross-examination, defence lawyers asked Mr. Hama how he knew the aircraft were Iraqi, and prompted Hama to say he had helped shelter guerrillas in his village.”

The death of an infant is a very bad thing. Still, the number of fatalities definitely averred by Mr. Hama is one. He also admitted that there was guerilla activity in his village. Genocide is a large-scale crime against civilians, meant to exterminate an ethnic group. Thus Mr. Hama’s testimony did nothing to establish genocide. Another witness heard the same day was not even reported to have made any definite statement of fatalities.

Between Aug. 22 and Sept. 26 the news reports speak of 17 witnesses. Definite statements of fatalities came to a total of 43. Some of the fatalities could have overlapped. No attempt to differentiate between civilian and military casualties was reported.

Of the 15 witnesses, three admitted to having been peshmerga guerillas, whereas genocide is a crime against civilians. One of the three former guerillas, Moussa Abdullah Moussa, now lives in Tennessee. Another witness, Katrin Michael, now lives in Virginia.

One of the witnesses, Mahmoud Hama Aziz, testified on Sept. 9 to seven fatalities at an unstated location in 1987, prior to Anfal. The New York Times reported the next day that evidence bearing on Mr. Aziz’s testimony had been found in a mass grave discovered in 2004, whereas the ‘prosecution’ claims investigations have been going on since 1991 (see Doebbler, below.) The timing of the ‘discovery’ is so convenient as to raise still more doubts.

21 of the 43 fatalities, including the Balisan incident, occurred in 1987, before Anfal. That leaves at most 22 during the Anfal period or at times not stated. The question arises as to what happened to the other 181,978 of the 182,000 claimed victims. At this rate it will take about 689 years to account for the alleged fatalities.

Hence in the first month of proceedings the ‘prosecution’ presented no case at all.

The original trial judge was removed for political reasons on Sept. 20 (see below.) Later sessions descended from farce into chaos. Defense lawyers boycotted the ‘trial’ on orders of Mr. Hussein. Anonymous ‘witnesses’ gave testimony behind a screen; documents were stolen from defense attorney Badia Arif Izzat in the courtroom building, and so forth.

The prosecution has had all the time and opportunity needed to formulate a case. The alleged events occurred 18 years ago. Northern Iraq has been out of Baghdad’s control since 1996, when the Clinton administration unilaterally imposed the ‘no-fly’ zones on Iraq.

Nor has there been any lack of investigative expertise and money. The New York Times reported on July 1, 2004 that, “The Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and agents from the Justice Department.” The New York Times also said on July 20, 2005 that the U.S. had spent more than $35 million on the investigations.

In a case as intensely political as this it must be presumed that at the beginning the ‘prosecution’ will present its case at its strongest. It presented a shambles. Moreover the scale of time and resources behind the ‘prosecution’ removes any argument that a case could be made with more effort. There is only one way that is at all plausible, likely, or straightforward to explain the ‘prosecution’s’ failure to even begin to make any case: there was no ‘Anfal genocide.’

Other circumstances support the same conclusion.

The charges are not even clear. None of the cited news reports give more than the word ‘genocide.’ The specification of charges might answer some questions. A moderate effort found a document termed a ‘charging instrument’ for the first ‘trial’ of Mr. Hussein, the Dujail case. It is posted at http://www.law.case.edu/saddamtrial/documents/20060515_indictment_trans_saddam_hussein.pdf. Charges for the Anfal ‘trial’ were not posted at the same site, however. Repeated Internet searches using ‘charging instrument’ and/or other search terms failed to find the corresponding prosecution statement for the Anfal ‘trial.’ Hence the ‘prosecution’ case is not easily available. It is apparent that the Bush administration and the ‘prosecution’ do not want their case to be known to the public.

The most basic and routine of defendant’s rights are violated. Defense attorney Curtis Doebbler writes:

The violations of unfair trial are too numerous to mention here, but include almost every provision in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that could be violated at this juncture of the proceedings. . .

The prosecution alleges to have been collecting evidence since at least 1991 – which, of course, could only be true if it were the United States government doing the collecting – and has at least been doing so since April 2003 when dozens of American lawyers and Iraqis who had not lived in Iraq for years were shuttled in to build a case. The defense lawyers, despite requesting visits with their client since December 2003 when he was detained, have to date not been allowed the confidential visits that are necessary to begin to prepare a defense. No visits were allowed with the most senior lawyers until after the trial had started and at each visit American officials exercise the authority to read any materials brought into the visiting room despite the fact that all meetings remain under close audio and visual surveillance. As if this were not enough, evidence has been withheld from the defense lawyers. They have been denied access to investigative hearings; they have been denied prior notice of witnesses, and they are prevented from even visiting the site of the alleged crime.

From: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/04/farce-of-law-trial-of-saddam-hussein.php

If any sound ‘prosecution’ case were possible these abuses would be unnecessary.

Mr. Hussein’s defense team has been denied physical security despite repeated requests. During the first ‘trial’ three of his attorneys were murdered. During the current ‘trial’ legal assistant Abdel Monem Yassin Hussein was murdered. He was kidnapped on Aug. 29. His body was found five days later. The murders of defense personnel argue further against the possibility of any ‘prosecution’ case.

The blatantly political nature of the ‘trial’ was exposed again on Sept. 20, when puppet Iraqi ‘prime minister’ Nuri al-Maliki removed judge Abdullah al-Amiri from the case. The reason for this outrageous abuse was reported by the New York Times on Sept. 15 as follows:

“One witness, a Kurdish farmer, testified that in 1988 he had pleaded with Mr. Hussein for the life of his wife and seven young children. He said a furious Mr. Hussein shouted, ‘Shut up and get out.’ In court, Mr. Hussein jumped up to defend himself. ‘Why did he try to see Saddam Hussein?’ he asked the judge, referring to himself in the third person, as is his habit in court. ‘Wasn’t Saddam a dictator and an enemy to the Kurdish people, as they say?’ The judge replied: ‘I will answer you: you are not a dictator. Not a dictator,’ he repeated. ‘You were not a dictator.’ Mr. Hussein, smiling, replied, ‘Thank you.’”

Five days later the judge was removed. If the alleged events of 1988 had really occurred it is extremely unlikely that the puppet ‘government’ would again have discredited itself and the ‘trial’ with this shameless interference.

Even more extraordinarily, an AP report on Aug. 21 said that “the trial does not deal with the most notorious gassing – the March 1988 attack on Halabja that killed an estimated 5,000 Kurds. That incident will be part of a separate investigation by the Iraqi High Tribunal.” The report did not say why Halabja is to be treated separately.

The Halabja incident is the biggest thing in the ‘genocide’ case. The ‘prosecution’ has dismembered its own case. It is trying to carry water by knocking the bottom out of its own bucket. The omission strongly suggests that there is no more to the Halabja story than there is to the ‘Anfal genocide.’

\* \* \*

The most serious doubts arise repeatedly that any valid case against Mr. Hussein can be made. Just as in the notorious ‘Downing Street Memo’ minutes of a July, 2002 meeting of the British cabinet, “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

In the United States the burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove its case ‘beyond reasonable doubt.’ The defects of the ‘prosecution’s’ case are so great as to constitute overwhelming doubt. There is no reason at all to believe that genocide was committed in the Anfal campaign. Only one conclusion can be drawn: the ‘Anfal genocide’ never happened.

\* \* \*

In all of the years of its war with Iraq, U.S. imperialism has had only one significant political success: the demonization of Saddam Hussein. The ‘brutal, corrupt dictator’ line is heard across the political spectrum. Investigation would seem unnecessary.

One result is that to a great degree antiwar opinion sees the war in Iraq as no more than a war for oil. It is insufficient to stop without looking at Iraq, but that is what almost always happens.

Firstly, the oil already belongs to Iraq. From its side the war has always been a war for sovereignty, i.e., its rights of national self-determination. Since occupation it has also become a war for independence.

‘War for oil’ also raises further questions. There are many ways to get oil. War is the worst way to get it. The question is why U.S. imperialism has resorted to war. There are many countries that have oil. The United Arab Emirates has almost as much oil as Iraq but nothing is ever heard about it. The question is why Iraq is different.

Again the answer is that modern pre-occupation Iraq always fully asserted its rights of sovereignty. The war is Iraq is an unjust war for oil versus a just war for sovereignty and independence.

The highest questions of any war are questions of historical content and direction, questions of just and unjust causes. Antiwar opinion is most of the time not even aware of these questions. More than anything else it is the demonization of Saddam Hussein that denies the masses a full understanding of the war.

The revolutionary significance of Iraq’s great struggle disappears. The linkage of the struggle in Iraq to that of Palestine disappears. Too often the need to support the just and heroic Iraqi resistance becomes lost; too often the necessity to immediately demand unconditional withdrawal of all foreign forces as objectively the only way to end the war becomes lost.

Very little about Iraq and nothing at all about Saddam Hussein should ever be accepted on the basis of authority. There are no such authorities in the U.S. government. There are no such authorities in the U.S. media. There are no such academic authorities. There are no such authorities in the antiwar movement. Throw away all ‘authoritative’ ideas about Saddam Hussein!

There are only determinations: sound methods, sound concepts, facts and logic, history. On method one can, for instance, look at the Iraqi side directly. Daily accounts of resistance activities are posted in English at http://www.albasrah.net/pages/mod.php?header=res1&mod=gis&rep=rep.

Political statements of the Iraqi Baath Arab Socialist Party and pre-occupation speeches of President Saddam Hussein are posted at http://www.al-moharer.net/qiwa_shabiya/qiwa.html.

The war will end and can only end in the defeat of imperialism and its expulsion from the Persian Gulf. The people of Iraq are stronger than imperialism.

-- October 2006

Appendix A: The ‘trial’ Violates International Law

1. The invasion of Iraq is a violation of international law.

Excerpt from ‘A Farce of Law: The Trial of Saddam Hussein’ by Curtis F. Doebbler

The glaring illegalities of the current process begin with illegal origins. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is widely understood to be illegal. On 5 March 2003, three of the five members of UN Security Council and Germany, which was then a non-permanent member, unambiguously declared that a US-led invasion without further Security Council authorization would violate international law. On 16 September 2004, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reiterated what was by then obvious to almost every international lawyer, that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is illegal. In fact, this is a textbook case of illegal aggression in violation of the prohibition of the use of force by one country against another found in article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations and under customary international law.

The Nuremberg Tribunal described such illegal aggression as ‘essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.’

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/04/farce-of-law-trial-of-saddam-hussein.php

Curtis Doebbler is an American member of Saddam Hussein’s legal defense team and a professor of law at An-Najah National University on the Palestinian West Bank

2. The ‘trial’ of Saddam Hussein violates provisions of international law to which the United States is signatory.

Excerpts from ‘Iraq and the Laws of War’ by Professor Francis A. Boyle

On 19 March 2003 President Bush Jr. commenced his criminal war against Iraq by ordering a so-called decapitation strike against the President of Iraq in violation of a 48-hour ultimatum he had given publicly to the Iraqi President and his sons to leave the country. This duplicitous behavior violated the customary international laws of war set forth in the 1907 Hague Convention on the Opening of Hostilities to which the United States is still a contracting party, as evidenced by paragraphs 20, 21, 22, and 23 of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956).

. . .

This brings the analysis to the so-called Constitution of Iraq that was allegedly drafted by the puppet Interim Government of Iraq under the impetus of the United States government. Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Regulations on land warfare flatly prohibits the change in a basic law such as a state’s Constitution during the course of a belligerent occupation: ‘The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.’ This exact same prohibition has been expressly incorporated in haec verba into paragraph 363 of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956).

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-boyle221205.htm

Francis A. Boyle is Professor of Law at the University of Illinois.

Appendix B: Tabulation of News Reports

#Iraq #Analysis #Trial #Anfal #SaddamHussein #MiddleEast

According to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup/Red Cross poll, 39% of New Orleans families are still split up. People recently interviewed by Fight Back! casually mentioned children and grandchildren living in five different states. Parents with children in school are staying in whatever town they landed in after Katrina, at least through the end of the school year. Then a decision has to be made about uprooting again. According the poll, 15% of New Orleans respondents still don’t know where some of their relatives are.

Over 600,000 people were moved from shelters to hotels by mid-October. As of Oct. 14 over 15,000 people were still in shelters. The U.S. government then closed the shelters, sending people mostly to hotels. FEMA trailers are being set up in Louisiana and around the Gulf. Families have priority for trailers, but the waiting list is already months long – shutting out many families and virtually all singles. Being forced to live in a hotel room is not a vacation. Every aspect of living becomes a logistical hurdle: eating, laundry and basic privacy.

Hundreds of thousands lost their jobs. People who have worked all their lives are stalled. Many of us have experienced the agony of weeks of job search, knowing the jobs aren’t really there. Add to that having to struggle daily for the basics of hygiene, food, housing and transportation and your chances are grimmer. Over 363,000 people filed for hurricane related unemployment – but many are discouraged about even doing that, since its just another snarl of red tape to be navigated.

The federal Opportunity Zones for ‘rebuilding’ the Gulf offer pathetic wages and overturn affirmative action hiring – ironic when one considers 75% of New Orleans residents are non-white. This opens the specter of white-owned companies hiring oppressed nationality people at less than prevailing wage (less than $7 per hour, in New Orleans) to demolish homes of poor Blacks and Latinos to replace those homes with mansions for the rich.

For homeowners, the struggle with insurance companies has begun. For those who are uninsured, ‘underinsured’ – a term that will come as a surprise to many – or who get swindled by greedy insurance companies, rebuilding will be difficult or impossible. Many are being forced, out of sheer financial desperation, to put their family property up for quick sale. Real estate speculators are already circling like vultures to cash in on people’s tragedy.

The most devastated part of New Orleans is the Ninth Ward, which was submerged under floodwaters from Bush’s broken levies. Many residents are trying to come back, after dealing with the continued nightmare of a FEMA and government failure. But it seems like the government is determined to shut out Ninth Ward residents. Bush’s Housing and Urban and Development secretary, Alphonso Jackson, was quoted in the the Houston Chronicle, Sept. 29, “New Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.” The Chronicle said that HUD Secretary Jackson wasn’t sure if the Ninth Ward should be rebuilt at all. 20,000 people are from the Ninth Ward, almost all of them Black and low-income.

On Sept. 27, Bush gave a fancy speech and moved on. The speech and smirking ‘apology’ were designed to lull us into thinking things were OK, but the Katrina evacuees outside the Reliant Center/Astrodome said, “Too little, too late.” The lives of thousands of displaced New Orleans residents were destroyed because of Bush’s deliberate decision to not fund basic maintenance on the levies, followed by his callous disregard for human life.

Over half of homes in New Orleans (which is 67% Black) were rented. Low wages, even for skilled workers, combined with national oppression have made renting a fact of life. A poll conducted in early October said 60% of folks plan to return to New Orleans. It stands to reason many are people who rented. On Oct. 25, many renters were officially evicted. It is essential that repatriation efforts include not just the construction of affordable rental housing and more subsidized housing – but homes to all former renters who want them. Bush’s call relies on private charities – and we know from bitter experience that charities pick, choose and discriminate. Poor people and Black people in New Orleans deserve reparations from the U.S. – a government that killed hundreds of New Orleans people. Housing should be given to all former residents who want it, no questions asked.

These disasters spawned by Katrina and Bush will continue every day. When the government keeps your life turned upside down, it is a hurdle to demanding the justice you deserve. That is why it is crucial for everyone all over the country to keep up the struggle for justice for Katrina survivors – read between the lines of what the mainstream media puts out and think about the people’s lives behind the government sound bites. It is up to us to keep the truth front and center.

The events following Hurricane Katrina show some basic truths about this country: The government and the economic system – monopoly capitalism – serves the very rich and no one else. African Americans face a system of racism and national oppression that robs Black people of equality, land, democratic rights and political power. The shadow of the plantations still hangs over the Gulf region. Black people in the South need political power, liberation and the right to self-determination. A system that lets people die on freeway overpasses has forfeited its right to exist.

#UnitedStates #PoorPeoplesMovements #Analysis #AsianNationalities #AfricanAmerican #ChicanoLatino #HurricaneKatrina #FEMA #OpportunityZones #monopolyCapitalism

East Los Angeles, CA – The streets here were filled with Chicanas and Chicanos of all ages on Aug. 26 to commemorate the Chicana/o people's struggle for liberation and self-determination. Aug. 29 marked the 30th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium.

Aug. 29 is a day to commemorate the 500-plus years of Chicana/o people's struggle. It has been a constant battle of resistance. It reminds the world that we have always been at war, from the invasion and attempted conquest by the Spaniards, followed by the Manifest Destiny plan of the United States, through the Mexican-American War that took away our lands.

We became wage slaves for capitalism.

Our ancestor's families became the wage slaves and suffered brutal exploitation – picking crops they couldn't afford to buy with what they got paid. On top of labor exploitation, these same families suffered a thousand abuses, including tuberculosis and other poverty-caused diseases – just like native peoples who were exterminated by illnesses brought by the western societies.

During the U.S. war in Vietnam, huge numbers of Chicanos were drafted. We went from the fields or unemployment lines, straight to the front lines as infantry. Mexicanos were recruited by offering them citizenship. They were killed in the so-called “War for Democracy” in Vietnam. It was a false citizenship. Chicanos and Mexicanos came back home to suffer wage exploitation or no jobs at all. Chicana's labor was demeaned, after they had been worked to death to maintain the country's war supplies.

In recent years, the type of work Chicana/os, Blacks, Filipinos and Native Americans are forced to do has changed, because of the new industries, but the exploitation has not changed.

What was fought for in the 60's and 70's was quickly lost with the coming of Reagan. No health care, along with welfare cuts, continues to plague communities of color. The current political system has brought new oppressive conditions for Chicana/os and Mexicana/os. We are facing attacks against every member of our families.

With Proposition 187, poverty diseases have returned, as its aim was no health care for the “undocumented”. It goes on, with Proposition 184, “Three Strikes You're Out”, for the adult Chicana/os; Proposition 209 for the dismantling of Affirmative Action to keep us out of education; Proposition 227 abolishing Bilingual Education to get rid of our language and culture, aimed at our children; and Proposition 21, “Baby-Three Strikes You're Out”, aimed to incarcerate our Chicana/o youth. Now youth are brutalized by police as we were by the marines during war times. The police represent the state at home as the army represents the state in the wars abroad.

The use of the propositions maintains these conditions by creating the idea that people of color are not deserving of basic services, without looking at how we sustain the country with our blood and sweat. The Chicanas of the last generation worked traditionally male jobs, contributing labor to the economy. Now as Chicana/os are going to be the majority of the nation, Chicanas are also the targeted to be among the poorest of women because of Welfare Reform.

The political system is a disguised war tactic. Today we are still under the repressive state. Manifest Destiny still exists, as the U.S. has its eye on the other half of Mexico. It has never stopped trying to take the rest of the land. They have continued to exploit and oppress the nation of Mexico through North American Free Trade Agreement – depriving the nation of its self-determination. The U.S. government supports the Mexican government in its attempt to suppress the indigenous nations like Chiapas.

The Chicana/o Moratorium reminds us that not much has changed as we continue at war. It took us 20 years to make some gains, and, in just a little over a decade – half the time it took to fight for them – the gains were gone.

Our second generation hasn't even gotten a taste of the hard struggle of the first generation. The journalist Ruben Salazar was to publish the realities of the Chicana/o peoples thirty years ago and was killed so that he wouldn't expose these realities. He was silenced. Many others have been too.

On Aug. 26, 2000 we marched again to show that our history is alive in the struggle of today. Even though our nation is brutally exploited and oppressed, we have been able to survive and fight.

Uphold the right to self-determination and liberation for the Chicana/o Mexicana/o people.

#EastLosAngelesCA #AntiwarMovement #Analysis #ChicanoLatino #Proposition21 #ChicanoMoratorium #proposition187

In 1967, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. described the economic plight of African Americans: “Let us take a look at the size of the problem through the lens of the Negro’s status in 1967. When the Constitution was written, a strange formula to determine taxes and representation declared that the Negro was 60% of a person. Today another curious formula seems to declare that he is 50% of a person. Of the good things in life he has approximately one-half those of whites; of the bad he has twice those of whites. Thus half of all Negroes live in substandard housing, and Negroes have half the income of whites. When we turn to the negative experiences of life, the Negro has a double share. There are twice as many unemployed. The rate of infant mortality (widely accepted as an accurate index of general health) among Negroes is double that of whites.”

Today, thirty-five years later, the overall economic situation of African Americans has shown little change. While Black family income is now about two-thirds that of whites, many of the ‘negative experiences’ are more than twice that of whites: the unemployment rate for Blacks is more than twice that of whites, the rate of substandard housing and infant mortality for African Americans is about two and a half times that of whites, and the Black poverty rate is almost three times that of whites.

In Dr. King’s time, many tried to blame African Americans for this economic gap. The same is true today, where so-called ‘scholars’ try to blame the Black family, lack of education or even lack of intelligence. But Dr. King saw through these excuses for discrimination: “Depressed living standards for Negroes are not simply the consequence of neglect. Nor can they be explained by the myth of the Negro’s innate incapacities, or by the more sophisticated rationalization of his acquired infirmities (family disorganization, poor education, etc.). They are a structural part of the economic system in the United States. Certain industries and enterprises are based upon a supply of low-paid, underskilled and immobile nonwhite labor.”

So where do we go from here? I for one think that we need to change our economic system from one based on profit, capitalism, to one based on providing for people’s needs – socialism. I cannot say that Dr. King was for socialism. But I do believe that the economic goals that he fought for – a guaranteed job or income for all and economic equality between whites and nonwhites -cannot be achieved under capitalism.

(Both King quotes are from Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community.)

#StPaulMN #CapitalismAndEconomy #PoorPeoplesMovements #Analysis #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #WorkersAndGlobalization #ReverendMartinLutherKingJr #WhereDoWeGoFromHere

We can not wait for politicians to address our needs. We need to continue protesting and organizing. The ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) attacks continue with more raids, more enforcement and heightened vigilance at work sites. Next month companies will have 90 days to correct any discrepancy in documents of their workers, as part of a crackdown announced by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.

The companies that do not correct any kind of errors in documentation and fail to fire undocumented workers will be subject to major fines and possible criminal charges. This is a harsh, direct attack against immigrant workers that will cause unemployment and destruction of the wellbeing and lives of Latino families. We must resist this attack. Congress also approved an amendment to the Homeland Security Act for more money to militarize the southern border with Mexico, hiring more border patrol agents, electronic surveillance and constructing more ICE detention centers.

We need to organize protests against the ICE raids and deportations. The ICE detention centers are full. Our people suffer horrible conditions and abuse. We must protest and demand better conditions and their release. We must support the growing religious immigrant sanctuary movement and support the students who struggle for better education and jobs.

Our tactics need to be more militant – similar to the historic struggles of our Chicano and African American people. For example we should use civil disobedience, like in L.A. on Aug. 15, against the institutions and organizations who attack us and those who are against immigration reform, like the Republican Party. We should also support the economic boycott called by pro-immigrant rights groups in Arizona for Sept. 3-9. Arizona has proposed more racist state laws.

We need to focus pressure against the congress with delegation visits from the community. We can organize mass marches like May 1 and Aug. 18 in L.A. We must develop a long range plan that includes the call for national unity of community groups and activists with a base, unity with groups in Mexico and Central America, a national conference in early 2008, building towards a great labor and economic boycott for May 1 2008. We can build the movement for immigrant rights, by applying pressure on the presidential candidates in the upcoming elections and by participating in the movement against the Iraq war.

Nothing worthwhile comes with out a struggle. There are powerful forces that are working to exploit and oppress the undocumented and to hold down all Latino people. Now is the time to strengthen our movement, to beat back the attacks on the undocumented and to promote full equality and legalization. We can and will win.

#UnitedStates #Analysis #ChicanoLatino #ImmigrationAndCustomsEnforcementICE #detentions

In 1967, exactly one year before Dr. King was assassinated, he made an impassioned plea to stop the War in Vietnam. “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor in Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hope at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”

Dr. King saw the war in Vietnam as a part of a larger problem, saying, “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy and laymen concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.”

Dr. King also supported worldwide revolution when he said, “These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the womb