The office of US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse just put out this release:

“Five years ago, President Bush told America its mission in Iraq was accomplished. Today, four thousand American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars later, our country is mired in a war this Administration refuses to end, a war that has damaged our security, our prosperity, and our standing in the world. 

 

“Rhode Islanders are tired of watching this Administration stubbornly follow its misguided strategy in Iraq, at the expense of the lives, health, and well-being of our servicemembers and their families. It’s time to bring our troops home.”

This from the RI Community Coalition for Peace:

Beneficent Church in Providence to bring the “Winter Soldier” testimony to Rhode Island. From March 13 thru 16, in Silver Springs, MD,  members of  Iraq Veterans Against the War(IVAW) spoke publicly and candidly of their service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although this remarkable testimony was typically ignored by the mainstream media, two RI video journalists, Paul Hubbard and Robert Malin, have produced a DVD that captures the spirit of the Winter Soldier event and allows voices of veterans to be heard.

 

The forum will begin with some background remarks from the producers. The 75 minute video of the Winter Soldier Testimony will then be shown followed by a question and answer period. The testimony has been conscientiously vetted for accuracy by the IVAW. The public is, however, cautioned that this testimony deals with the realities of these wars, not the complacent denial so prevalent in the usual reporting. 

 

All are welcome to then stay for good conversation and socializing over pot luck dinner fare. This event has been organized by the Rhode Island Spring Mobilization Committee.  Endorsers of this event include: the American Friends Service Committee(SENE), the Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace, MoveOn(East Bay), the International Socialist Organization, Green Party of RI, the Progressive Democrats of America, the Workers International League, and the East Bay Citizens for Peace.

One of the more unusual professional turns is the one pursued by Josh Rushing, a former Marine captain who is now the Washington correspondent at Al Jazeera. At 5:30 pm today, he's the keynoter for a Roger Williams University colloqium, entitled Intellectual Freedom in the Middle East: Perspective and Opportunities.

A former U.S. Marine captain with 15 years of service, Mr. Rushing served as spokesperson at Central Command in Doha, Qatar, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Unbeknownst to Mr. Rushing, the 2004 independent film “Control Room” captured his efforts to communicate the American message on Al Jazeera and became a critical hit after it was released at the Sundance Film Festival.

 

Since resigning his commission, Mr. Rushing has become the face of Al Jazeera in America. The change of career has come with a price—his loyalty to his nation, once unquestioned as a Marine officer, has been assaulted on Internet blogs, including death threats and hate mail. Yet Mr. Rushing's mission remains unchanged. He unflinchingly believes the United States is in a protracted world war partially fueled by misperception and misunderstanding on both sides of the cultural divide—and Al Jazeera bridges this informational fracture.

 

The purpose of the University’s “by invitation only” Middle East colloquium—to be held April 16 and 17— is to engage in civil discourse about the “Arab perspective” and the issues of intellectual freedom and freedom of the media.

 

Mr. Rushing’s lecture is free and open to the public. The rest of the colloquium is closed to the public. The lecture will begin at 5:30 p.m. and will be held in the University’s Recreation Center Gymnasium located on the Bristol Campus at One Old Ferry Road. To reserve tickets to Mr. Rushing’s event, the public should call (401) 254-3067.

On a related note, Viviana Hurtado, formerly of WPRI-TV, Channel 12, left that station a while back to take a job with Al Jazeera, as it tried to build credibility, although she has since taken a job with ABC in Washington, DC.

As the price of gas hits a local high, a coalition of groups plans to make a point tomorrow -- April 15, of course -- about the high cost of the war in Iraq. We at the Phoenix have previously written about that subject here.

Activists from American Friends Service Committee, the Campaign for Rhode Island's Priorities, Declaration of Peace Campaign RI, and Ocean State Action will speak out on the high cost of war to Rhode Island taxpayers. The groups will kick off a day of collective action with a brief press conference scheduled for 11:30 am at the state's main post office on Corliss Street, Providence. 

 

Throughout the day, activists, advocates and local taxpayers will organize late tax filers at post offices throughout the state, inviting them to take action by calling on lawmakers to fix the upside-down priorities of both the Bush & Carcieri administrations. 

 

Martha Yager, of American Friends Service Committee states, "Rhode Islanders have spent $4.3 billion on the war in Iraq.  With that money, we could have avoided the state's deficit; funded Head Start, health care and education, and have been ready to help families hit hard by the state's recession. Instead, the death-toll in Iraq continues to rise and we face even worsening human cost at home as our human needs programs get slashed." 

 

WHAT:            Post office action to call for end of war in Iraq and expensive tax breaks for the wealthy in order to re-invest in Rhode Island's future

WHO:              Martha Yager, American Friends Service Committee; Representative Art Handy; Senator Josh Miller; Andrew Saud, Declaration of Peace RI; Jac Amoureux, Military Families Speak Out; and John Glasheen, Unitarians for Social Justice and member of the Campaign for Rhode Island's Priorities   

WHEN:            April 15, 2009, 11:30 am

WHERE:         Corliss Street Post Office, Providence

Bob Herbert's view:

The U.S. seems almost paralyzed, mesmerized by Iraq and unable to generate the energy or the will to handle the myriad problems festering at home. The war will eventually cost a staggering $3 trillion or more, according to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. When he was asked on “Democracy Now!” about who is profiting from the war, he said the two big gainers were the oil companies and the defense contractors.

This is the pathetic state of affairs in the U.S. as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Whatever happened to the dynamic country that flexed its muscles after World War II and gave us the G.I. Bill, the Marshall Plan, the United Nations (in a quest for peace, not war), the interstate highway system, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the finest higher education system the world has known, and a standard of living that was the envy of all?

Maureen Dowd went to yesterday's US Senate hearing:

It’s hard to follow the narrative of our misadventure in Iraq. We went in to help the Shiites that we betrayed in the first Gulf War shake off their Sunni tormentors. But then, predictably for everyone except the chuckleheaded W. and Cheney, the Shiites began tormenting the Sunnis. So we put 90,000 Sunni Sons of Iraq — some of the same ones who were exploding American soldiers — on our payroll so they’d stop shooting at Americans and helping Al Qaeda. Our troops have gone from policing a Sunni-Shiite civil war to policing a Shiite-Shiite power struggle, while Osama bin Laden plots in peace as Al Qaeda in Iraq distracts us and drains our military resources.

Even some senators got confused.

John McCain seemed to repeat his recent confusion over tribes, mistakenly referring to Al Qaeda again as a “sect of Shiites” before correcting himself and saying: “or Sunnis or anybody else.”

And Joe Biden theorized that “The Awakening,” made up of Sunnis, might decide to get into a civil war with Sunnis, presumably meaning Shiites.

But Senator Biden asked a trenchant, if attenuated, question of Mr. Crocker about Al Qaeda: “If you could take it out, you had a choice, the Lord Almighty came down and sat in the middle of the table there and said, ‘Mr. Ambassador, you can eliminate every Al Qaeda source in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or every Al Qaeda personnel in Iraq,’ which would you pick?”

Given the progress beating back Al Qaeda in Iraq, the ambassador replied, he would pick the hiding place of bin Laden.

“That would be a smart choice,” Mr. Biden noted.

Senator John Warner asked the essential question — the one that makes it clear that W. and Cheney hurt the national interest: Is the war making us safer here at home?

Earlier this year, there was a TV report from Afghanistan in which a correspondent from one of the big networks was traveling with US troops. As it happened, a favored officer among the Americans was shot dead in an ensuing firefight with Taliban forces, and it was hard to not empathize with the soldier's distraught comrades. More to the point, this close view of combat seemed unusually rare for an American news broadcast, particularly considering how the war with Iraq has been going on since 2003.

So while the lack of a draft goes a long way in explaining the disconnection that most of us have from the war, the media and its coverage (or lack thereof) have also played a prominent role.

I was reminded of this while reading Scott MacKay's look back at 1968, a tumultous year in which TV brought Vietnam into people's living rooms, and, as MacKay writes, "in which 500 US soldiers were now losing their lives each week."

For Iraq, the counterpart to the famous photo above would be, who knows? -- perhaps some of the images from Abu Ghraib. Yet for most Americans, thanks to media shortcomings, Iraq has been a big instance of out of sight, out of mind.

As part of the ongoing publicity rounds for his new book, Linc Chafee taped WPRI-WNAC's Newsmakers this morning. The show will be broadcast Sunday, at 5:30 am on Channel 12 and at 10 am on Fox 64.

Here's a short version of some of the highlights:

-- Why aren't people more upset about the Bush presidency? Chafee points to the lack of a draft and the lack of appetite for dissent following 9/11.

-- Chafee says he's been having conversation with Ken Block of the Moderate Party.

-- In response to those who criticize him for not being more vocal, earlier on, in his criticism of the Bush White House, Chafee said he was getting "roasted" and facing accusations of being a modern-day Neville Chamberlain just for questioning the White House line following September 11.

Miguel Sanchez-Hartwein, executive director of the Center for Hispanic Policy & Advocacy (CHisPA), also appears on the show, taking part in some spirited dialogue about the ever-popular immigration issue.

Early on during the war in Iraq, there was talk of how Americans officers were checking out The Battle of Algiers, a movie about the Algerian insurgency against the French in the 1950s, for clues about the politics of insurgency and counter-insurgency. Not that it seems to have helped much. Anyway, the Watson Institute at Brown is screening the movie tomorrow.

April 1, TUESDAY  6:30pm

 

FILM: The Battle of Algiers. This film reenacts the story of the urban insurgency against French rule in Algeria in the 1950s. Released in 1967, it attracted student audiences who, in a time of leftist activism, shared the director’s sympathies with the Algerian guerrillas. In 2003, the film was screened at the Pentagon, and advertised with the following: “How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film.” What was all the fuss about? See the film and hear from Brown faculty. Presented by the Occupation/Liberation/Collaboration Film Series and the Global Media Project. Location: Joukowsky Forum.

 As has been reported, Colin Powell took aside President Bush before the US invaded Iraq and told him about the Pottery Barn Rule. In other words, you break it, you own it.

We recently looked at some of the impacts of the war:

[There's] a tab in the trillions, tens of thousands dead, US troops being sent into battle without proper equipment, veterans getting shabby treatment, America's global standing seriously diminished, terrorists strengthened, and no end in sight . . .

And yet those who thought Bush is getting ready to pass this mess off on his successor seem absolutely right.

From yesterday's New York Times:

Mr. Bush announced no final decision on future troop levels after the video briefing by the commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and the diplomat, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. The briefing took place on the day when the 4,000th American military death of the war was reported and just after the invasion’s fifth anniversary.

But it now appears likely that any decision on major reductions in American troops from Iraq will be left to the next president. That ensures that the question over what comes next will remain in the center of the presidential campaign through Election Day.

The presumptive GOP nominee should be riding high, but . . .

1) One of his campaign aides has been suspended for promoting a "racially charged video," as Halperin calls it, to call Obama unpatriotic.

2) The Arizona senator is supposed to have a strong suit in national security, but he needs Joe Lieberman whispering in his ear to keep straight the differences between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq and Iran.

3) Closer to home, he's well off the mark in claiming that the US has the best health-care system in the world.

UPDATE: Another Protest (today).

From the RI Community Coalition for Peace:

On March 19, Rhode Islanders will mark the beginning of the sixth year of the war on Iraq with a march through downtown Providence followed by a rally on the mall side of the State House. At 4:00 pm, participants will gather at Burnside Park, where the march will form and move toward the headquarters of weapons manufacturer, Textron. The march will also pass two military recruiting offices.

 

These actions are sponsored by the RI Spring Mobilization Committee, a coalition of community, faith-based, and political groups. Members of the Committee are willing to share their views on the war and the March 19 actions. Some will deliver brief statements at the rally after the march. The following comments capture some of the reasons for this protest.

 

“The cost of just one day of the occupation of Iraq is obscene by any measure,” notes Martha Yager, Director of the American Friends Service Committee(SENE). “When we consider that basic human needs are going unmet right here at home, we should all be saying “no more” to five years of war and occupation.”

 

“With over one million Iraqi deaths, millions more displaced, and close to four thousand U.S. military dead, this immoral war is a senseless tragedy,” observes John Gallagher of the RI Community Coalition for Peace, “and since it’s all based upon lies it’s blatantly criminal.”

----

From the Providence chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, which plans to gather at noon tomorrow, at the Beneficent Church, Empire and Weybosset streets.

On March 20th, 2008 the world will mark the 5th anniversary of the illegal and unjust War in Iraq. While Providence SDS supports and plans to take part in the Providence anti-war march on the 19th, we feel that simply taking the streets is no longer adequate action in the face of the continuing crimes against humanity perpetrated by our government in Iraq and Afghanistan. On March 20th SDS and fellow anti-war activists will take direct action and engage in civil disobedience to challenge and resist the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and the military machine that makes them possible.

 

The US Military is being used as a tool of illegal aggression and unwarranted occupation.  With 4,500 American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani lives lost it is more than past time to stop employing the US military as a tool of violence and murder. As politicians make, at best, wavering commitments to end the occupations and after a year of broken promises of withdrawal, Providence SDS is no longer willing to wait for politicians to take action.  With no end in sight we are now prepared to take direct action against US imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rest of the bloated US military, are an unfathomable drain on the US economy and on our capacity to provide a just standard of living for all people in this country.  The cost of the two wars alone already stands at over 700 billion dollars. This is on top of an annual Department of Defense budget that averages over 400 billion dollars as well as additional spending on nuclear arms and research in the Department of Energy budget. If veterans' benefits are included in these figures 54% of the US budget in the 2009 fiscal year will be spent on the military.  When millions of people in America are losing access to or remain without homes, medical care, education or other basic needs, such spending is not only wasteful, but indefensible. Rhode Islanders are forced to contribute over 400 million dollars a year to financing the occupations, a number that is striking in its resemblance to the current state deficit, which causes much pain and deprivation to the people of Rhode Island. . . .

 

In order to raise local awareness of these issues and their impact on the Providence and Rhode Island community and resist their ongoing existence, Providence SDS and fellow anti-war activists will engage in direct action and civil disobedience on Thursday March 20th at 12:00pm. We invite and encourage the press to attend in the interest of reporting on world issues that intersect with local events.

 

Providence SDS is composed of Brown SDS, RISD SDS, Providence Area High School SDS, as well as other members of the Providence community.

Isn't there something a bit striking in how Obama's minister problem has come to a head at the same time as the fifth anniversary of the Iraq?

I mean, yes, some of Jeremiah Wright's statements are not the kind of thing to which you want to hitch your cart when you are running for president of the United States. And for those inclined to view this stuff in the dimmest possible light, it won't make a whit of difference that making fiery pronouncements fits squarely in the tradition of a particular style of preaching in the black church.

But say you want to have an elective war, with a tab in the trillions, tens of thousands dead, US troops being sent into battle without proper equipment, veterans getting shabby treatment, America's global standing seriously diminished, terrorists strengthened, and no end in sight?

No problem!

A few months back, I was watching one of the network evening news broadcasts. A reporter was traveling with US forces in Afghanistan, and when at least one of the soldiers was killed during an ensuing encounter with the Taliban, the emotional reaction of his comrades offered a visceral sense of what can come with life in a combat zone. Suffice it to say, however, that such footage has been remarkably rare on American television in the post-9/11 age.

Instead, we more typically get things like Lester Holt crowing, in introducing a piece last night about John McCain's trip to Iraq, about the dramatic reduction in violence there since the start of the surge. This reduction is relative, of course. As Joseph Stiglitz pointed out in his interview with the Peter Kadzis, the violence in Iraq has diminished only to the level of 2006.

In writing a sidebar for the Stiglitz Q&A, Vanessa Czarnecki makes this point:

This month, as Americans mark the fifth anniversary of the first large-scale military engagement of the Information Age, we are faced with the certainty of never before having waged a modern battle with so little idea of what is going on.

Even if the men and women stationed abroad have a more complete picture, their private knowledge is unlikely to reach those at home. This past May, the Department of Defense blocked 13 popular Web sites, including networking and media-sharing portals MySpace and YouTube, from computers on Iraq bases due to “bandwidth” concerns. (The military, however, has launched its own channel on the latter site, featuring videos of gunfights and gift-bearing troops.) In February, the Air Force announced that nearly every independent site with the word “blog” in its URL would also no longer be accessible. All servicemen and women who wish to publish a blog have long had to seek approval to do so; all content is pre-approved.

Perhaps the government has learned its lesson, having lost the info wars in Vietnam. Wisdom has trained it to thwart investigation. But public ignorance of the Iraq War is not the fault of the government alone.

For all the roadblocks that have been erected, numerous media outlets — including the McClatchy Company, which hosts the excellent Inside Iraq blog, written by local correspondents — have provided harrowing, violent, honest accounts of the war. Independent Iraqi bloggers have borne witness to raids, vanished neighbors, and devastating shortages of electricity and running water. Yet unfortunate — or worse, unknown — circumstances have silenced many of them, often before the public took note.

Now, even though much of the media was far too credulous in the march to war, TV is less interested than ever in reporting the Iraq story.

If you listen to John McCain, or Bob Watson, his man in RI, they will tell you that the Surge is working in Iraq.

Yet political progress remains elusive, and, as the New York Times reported yesterday, a diminished level of violence is the same thing as a lot of ongoing violence:

BAGHDAD — Newly declassified statistics on the frequency of insurgent attacks in Iraq suggest that after major security gains last fall in the wake of an American troop increase, the conflict has drifted into a stalemate, with levels of violence remaining stubbornly constant from November 2007 through early 2008.

The new figures, presented Tuesday at a Senate hearing in Washington by David M. Walker, the top official at the Government Accountability Office, emerged a day after eight American soldiers were killed in bomb attacks, five in downtown Baghdad and three in Diyala Province. And the trend appeared to continue Tuesday, as bombings and small-arms attacks led to casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces in or near at least eight cities.

In the deadliest of those attacks, a roadside bomb between the southern cities of Nasiriya and Basra struck a bus full of Iraqi civilians, killing at least 16 and wounding 22, Iraqi police officials said. But Iraqi security forces also reported deadly attacks in Hilla, Karbala, Baquba, Mosul, Kut, Baghdad and Dulia, just north of the capital.

In a report presented to the Senate Appropriations Committee, Mr. Walker, the comptroller general, acknowledged that the insurgent attacks tallied by the American military had decreased to an average of about 60 a day in January, in the latest available count, from about 180 a day in June 2007.

But that lower number, which is roughly equivalent to the levels of violence in the spring of 2005, has remained essentially unchanged since the last significant decrease between October and November.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, the author of The Three Trillion Dollar War: the True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, is the subject of a Q+A in this week's Phoenix:

Let’s start at the beginning: why did the Bush Administration go to war in Iraq? And why did Congress and the American people go along with it?
Those are hard questions to answer. The alleged reasons don’t make any sense. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There were not, until the United States invaded, any connections with Al Qaeda. Anyone familiar with the highly secular nature of Hussein’s Baathist regime would have known that a connection with Al Qaeda would have been inconsistent with Saddam’s political views. The irony, of course, is that while we were worrying about weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist in Iraq, North Korea became a nuclear power. While we were focusing on a country where there was no connection with 9/11, things went terribly wrong in Afghanistan, a nation strongly connected to the New York and Washington attacks. . . . .

By some measures, Bush’s so-called surge appears to be working. Combat deaths are down. The once-hot insurgency appears to have cooled. Senator John McCain, the republican presidential nominee, says this is the road to victory. Cynics, such as myself, see the surge as a way to ensure that the next president will be forced to continue the fight. What’s your view?
I am a bit inclined to your view. The question, I guess, is what lessons can we infer? First, you say the level of violence is down. One has to put this into context. The level of violence is still extraordinary high. And it’s just down from the peaks that it attained at the beginning of 2007. It’s still at the level of 2006. It is not exactly peace and stability.

Secondly, the objective of the surge was to create room to create a viable, stable, political solution to the civil conflict. It hasn’t worked. The political solution has not emerged. So, going forward, you have to ask this: “Are we supposed to maintain our forces there forever? For the 80 to 100 years McCain has talked about?” . . . .

Several days ago, a White House spokesman dismissed your findings with the following words: “people like Joseph Stiglitz lack the courage to consider the cost of doing nothing and the cost of failure. One can’t even begin to put a price tag on the cost to this nation of the attacks of 9/11. It is an investment in the future safety and security of americans and our vital national interests. $3 trillion? What price does Joe Stiglitz put on attacks on the American homeland that have already been prevented? Or doesn’t his slide rule work that way?” How do you respond?
There are so many problems packed into those five-or-so sentences. It is interesting that he was commenting on my book before he had a chance to read it. He was just responding to the bottom line without knowing or understanding the analysis that prompted the conclusions. I would suggest that the administration lacks the courage of its convictions. Democracy is more than periodic elections. It’s about having an informed citizenry participate in the decisions that affect their lives. The critical word here is “informed.” The administration refuses to talk about what the costs of the war are. It’s an important dimension. Americans should be able to make the decisions about what the benefits and costs are. They may differ about the benefit side, but at least they should know what the costs are.

We document the way the administration has been trying to hide and mislead the American people about the cost of the war. Senator Charles Schumer of New York has asked the Bush administration to testify about those costs. The administration so far has refused. It refuses to engage with critics. The administration is still trying to hide behind the 9/11 smoke screen. The fact is that, because of the war, America is less — not more — secure. According to a recent survey of senior military officers, our military forces are depleted. We are less prepared for a new attack than we were five years ago.

Tonight, at Machines With Magnets in Pawtucket, there's an opening for an art show related to the Iraq war. Here's Jim Macnie's writeup from this week's Phoenix:

WALLS OF PROTEST
The fugazi that is the war in Iraq shows no sign of ending, even though a sizable chunk of American voters now want our troops to be hauled home. It’s a key subject of the current presidential campaign, and artists across the nation have put it front and center, too. Did I say nation? I meant globe. “EXPERIENCING THE WAR IN IRAQ,” a 70-piece show, had hundreds of submissions from around the world. From contact sheets of lost soldiers to sculptures made from grenades and ammo to inkjet prints of explosions and firestorms to ghostly drapings of frayed fatigues, the work is provocative. Pieces were submitted by civilians and soldiers alike. Machines With Magnets, 400 Main Street, Pawtucket, gives it a home for a while; pieces are also hanging at the adjacent Pawtucket Armory, 172 Exchange Street. The opening reception at Machines is from 6 to 8 pm, followed by live music by Black Pus, Baba Yaba, and Riders Against the Storm beginning at 9 pm | 401.475.2655 | reconnectus.org.

Writing in this week's New Yorker, Paul Kramer reveals how, long before the waterboarding controversy, American forces in the Phillippines used a similar form of water torture, more than 100 years ago, to pry information from insurgents:

Many Americans were puzzled by the news, in 1902, that United States soldiers were torturing Filipinos with water. The United States, throughout its emergence as a world power, had spoken the language of liberation, rescue, and freedom. This was the language that, when coupled with expanding military and commercial ambitions, had helped launch two very different wars. The first had been in 1898, against Spain, whose remaining empire was crumbling in the face of popular revolts in two of its colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. The brief campaign was pitched to the American public in terms of freedom and national honor (the U.S.S. Maine had blown up mysteriously in Havana Harbor), rather than of sugar and naval bases, and resulted in a formally independent Cuba.

The Americans were not done liberating. Rising trade in East Asia suggested to imperialists that the Philippines, Spain’s largest colony, might serve as an effective “stepping stone” to China’s markets. U.S. naval plans included provisions for an attack on the Spanish Navy in the event of war, and led to a decisive victory against the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in May, 1898. Shortly afterward, Commodore George Dewey returned the exiled Filipino revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo to the islands. Aguinaldo defeated Spanish forces on land, declared the Philippines independent in June, and organized a government led by the Philippine élite.

During the next half year, it became clear that American and Filipino visions for the islands’ future were at odds. U.S. forces seized Manila from Spain—keeping the army of their ostensible ally Aguinaldo from entering the city—and President William McKinley refused to recognize Filipino claims to independence, pushing his negotiators to demand that Spain cede sovereignty over the islands to the United States, while talking about Filipinos’ need for “benevolent assimilation.” Aguinaldo and some of his advisers, who had been inspired by the United States as a model republic and had greeted its soldiers as liberators, became increasingly suspicious of American motivations. When, after a period of mounting tensions, a U.S. sentry fired on Filipino soldiers outside Manila in February, 1899, the second war erupted, just days before the Senate ratified a treaty with Spain securing American sovereignty over the islands in exchange for twenty million dollars. In the next three years, U.S. troops waged a war to “free” the islands’ population from the regime that Aguinaldo had established. The conflict cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos and about four thousand U.S. soldiers.

Within the first year of the war, news of atrocities by U.S. forces—the torching of villages, the killing of prisoners—began to appear in American newspapers. Although the U.S. military censored outgoing cables, stories crossed the Pacific through the mail, which wasn’t censored. Soldiers, in their letters home, wrote about extreme violence against Filipinos, alongside complaints about the weather, the food, and their officers; and some of these letters were published in home-town newspapers. A letter by A. F. Miller, of the 32nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment, published in the Omaha World-Herald in May, 1900, told of how Miller’s unit uncovered hidden weapons by subjecting a prisoner to what he and others called the “water cure.” “Now, this is the way we give them the water cure,” he explained. “Lay them on their backs, a man standing on each hand and each foot, then put a round stick in the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose, and if they don’t give up pour in another pail. They swell up like toads. I’ll tell you it is a terrible torture.”

The ProJo's Mark Arsenault asked Hillary Clinton yesterday about her vote for the war in Iraq:

The New York senator’s former Senate colleague, Rhode Island’s Lincoln D. Chafee, is highly critical of Clinton and other members of Congress who voted in 2002 for the resolution that gave President Bush the authority to attack Iraq. Chafee, who supports Obama, has suggested in his coming book that a vote for the resolution should be a career-ending lapse in judgment.

So why is Chafee wrong?

“I’m not going to contradict his personal opinion,” Clinton said. “That’s certainly his to hold. But I think there’s a lot of revisionist history going on here. At the time, it was very clear that we were hoping to rein in Saddam Hussein and determine what, if any, remaining weapons of mass destruction he had. Because the facts are, he had them when we went in after the first Gulf war.”

Clinton said she supported the threat of force to compel Saddam to accept inspections, and blames President Bush for abusing the authority extended by the resolution. “It was a sincere vote by me at the time, and if I had known what he would do with the vote, I would not have voted for it.”

Chafee, during a broadcast yesterday of 10 News Conference with Bill Rappleye, repeated his view that getting the Iraq vote wrong was a key leadership failure.

As I reported yesterday, demonstrators were on hand yesterday at RIC to protest Hillary's support for the war. I received some pix, but can't post them due to a tech issue.

In reference to my earlier post, I've received pictures depicting demonstrators greeting Hillary's appearance at RIC. I will post the pictures tomorrow morning, with the delay being due to a technical issue.

UPDATE: Where were they?

I didn't see any sign of demonstrators before, during, or after Hillary's address.

---

I plan to cover two one of Hillary's three local events today and will report back later.

In the interim, Matt has the details on plans for a protest to greet Clinton at RIC:

In the wake of Ian Donnis' story on the connections between Hillary Clinton and the RI military contractor who bribed Saddam Hussein - TEXTRON, anti-war activists will be protesting Sen. Hillary Clinton's appearance today at 130pm at Rhode Island College and demanding that she return $2,000 in contributions from TEXTRON. 

Led by Brown's anti-war group, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the protestors will start gathering at RIC at 1130am.  I received this press release via email:  

ELECTED OFFICIALS AND ACTIVISTS DEMAND CLINTON RETURN DONATIONS FROM ROGUE MILITARY CONTRACTOR
Textron bribed Saddam Hussein’s regime, and manufactures cluster bombs

Providence, RI: Various elected officials and anti-war activists are calling on Hillary Clinton to return campaign contributions from Textron, Inc. Textron is a Rhode Island-headquartered Fortune 500 conglomerate, from whose PAC Clinton took money in 2005 and 2006. Textron bribed the Hussein government during the lead-up to the Iraq war, and is a major manufacturer of cluster bombs, which yield high rates of civilian casualties.

BRIBERY OF SADDAM HUSSEIN’S REGIME:
Last August, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice fined Textron more than $4.6 million dollars as punishment for more than $600,000 in bribes that the company’s David Brown subsidiaries paid to Saddam Hussein’s regime from 2001-2003. Textron paid the bribes to Hussein to obtain contracts within the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program. [1] The SEC found that Textron’s corporate leadership either knew about the bribes or was negligent in not knowing about them.

In the fall of 2002, Hillary Clinton voted to authorize military action against Iraq, saying of Hussein, “Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who has tortured and killed his own people, even his own family members, to maintain his iron grip on power.”

In 2005 and 2006 she accepted at least $2,000 dollars from Textron’s PAC, whose bribes would serve to further entrench Hussein’s despotic regime and facilitate its ability to perpetrate atrocities against its own citizens and coalition forces. (The amount received from Textron’s employees, and employees of its many subsidiaries could not be determined.)

Providence City Councilman Miguel Luna (D) said, “I find appalling the double standard that allows her to vote for war with Hussein, and also take money from a corporation that was bribing him.” He added, “By taking money from Textron and those who profit from war, she’s committing herself to continuing a foreign policy based on war, and not on dialogue.”

As the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama intensifies in advance of Rhode Island’s March 4 presidential primary, some local Obama supporters are criticizing Clinton for having accepted at least $2000 in 2005 and 2006 from the political action committee of Textron, the Providence-based conglomerate.

While the contributions represent an iota in the context of campaign fundraising, Obama supporters point to the issue in differentiating between the two Democrats.

In a news release, state Representative David Segal (D-Providence), whose district includes Textron and who asserts that the corporation produces cluster bombs, calls Textron’s conduct “starkly opposed to the values of most Democrats and Americans. Nobody who takes their money can legitimately claim to be against this war [in Iraq], or the horrors of war more generally.” (Following a March 2007 protest outside its Providence office, Textron denied that it or its subsidiaries manufacture cluster bombs.)

Christine Heenan, Rhode Island communications director for the Clinton campaign, declined to comment on the news release and the issues it raises after N4N furnished her with a copy of it.

Last August, the US Securities and Exchange Commission fined Textron more than $4.5 million as a sanction for more than $600,000 in bribes paid by its David Brown subsidiary to Saddam Hussein’s regime from 2000 to 2003.

In the news release, which calls on Clinton to return the PAC money from Textron, Providence City Councilman Miguel Luna, an Obama supporter, says, “I find appalling the double standard that allows her to vote for war with Hussein, and also take money from a corporation that was bribing him . . . . By taking money from Textron and those who profit from war, she’s committing herself to continuing a foreign policy based on war, and not on dialogue.”

Last October, in an examination of campaign contributions in 2007 from employees of major defense industry contractors, Thomas B. Edsall wrote on the Huffington Post that “Senator Clinton took $52,600, more than half of the total going to all Democrats, and a figure equaling 60 percent of the sum going to the entire GOP field. Her closest competitor for defense industry money is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R), who raised $32,000.”

Critics have previously rapped Clinton for voting in 2006 against Senate Amendment 4882, which would have banned the sale of cluster munitions for use in heavily populated areas.

Acknowledging that $2000 in PAC money is a minor amount in the scheme of campaigns, Segal, in an interview, nonetheless says that he is an Obama supporter “substantially because of the difference in his and Clinton’s behavior relative to issues like this.”

Textron’s work for the defense industry has a controversial past. In 2001, for example, the Phoenix reported on how peace activists questioned how the conglomerate, whose impending $4.5 billion sale of military helicopters to Turkey was under fire from human-rights groups, was chosen Outstanding Philanthropic Corporation for that year by the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

From the PPL:

The Providence Public Library and WRNI (1290AM & 102.7FM), Rhode Island’s NPR news station, present “A Conversation about Iraq” with NPR Pentagon Correspondent Tom Bowman on Wednesday, February 13 from 6:30-7:30 pm at Central Library, 150 Empire Street (Lippitt Hall), Providence. Bowman most recently visited Iraq in October and November, 2007. He will be speaking about his ground experience in the country as well as the media’s coverage of the Iraq War.

 

Bowman’s nuanced NPR coverage reflects his years of experience on his current beat. Before coming to NPR in April 2006, Bowman spent nine years as a Pentagon reporter at the Baltimore Sun. His familiarity and knowledge of the people and issues connected with the Pentagon, he says, are great assets to his coverage.

 

During his 19 years at the Baltimore Sun, Bowman also covered the Maryland Statehouse, the United States Congress, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the National Security Agency (NSA). His coverage of racial and gender discrimination at NSA led to a Pentagon investigation in 1994. Bowman also co-wrote a six-part series on NSA, “No Such Agency,” which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1995.

 

Bowman has been honored with several awards for news writing and features from the New England Press Association and the Maryland Press Association. He is also a co-winner of a 2006 National Headliners’ Award for stories on the lack of advanced tourniquets for U.S. troops in Iraq.

Matt has the details on tomorrow's scheduled visit by John Roberts, chief justice of the US Supreme Court, and an expected protest:

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is scheduled to visit Rhode Island this Tuesday Feb. 12th to help celebrate the centennial of the federal courthouse in downtown Providence.

BeloJo: The event will mark the first time a sitting Supreme Court chief justice has come to the state since Charles Evan Hughes was here in 1937, said Senior Circuit Judge Bruce M. Selya, a Rhode Islander who is the liaison for Roberts’ visit. 

Roberts will give the opening remarks at the celebration at 1100am in Courtroom 1 on the third floor.  The public is invited to attend.  (On a side note, before this public event, over 100 Roger Williams law students, including myself, will be having a "Conversation with the Chief.")

Outside of the courtroom at Burnside Park (in Kennedy Plaza), starting at 1030am, a broad coalition of RI community, religious, and political groups will hold a protest. According to the press release: 

The purpose of this action is to bring attention to the following critical demands: close the Guantanamo gulag, end all U.S. involvement in torture, end illegal spying, and restore the Bill of Rights.

Although all three branches of the Federal Government have acted to debase the very concept of justice, ordinary citizens will peacefully and solemnly gather to assert their civil liberties and invoke principles to counter the empty, congratulatory posturing behind the Roberts visit. “Since the Chief Justice is a stalwart neocon,” notes Sam Smith of East Bay MoveOn, “we fear that the Supreme Court will legitimize the roll-back of civil liberties wrought by the Bush administration”.

“As a citizen of the U.S. and member of the world community,” adds Kathy Lessuck of the RI Community Coalition for Peace, “I am saddened, sickened, and embarrassed by our practice and promotion of torture, as well as the continued existence of Guantanamo and other secret U.S. prisons throughout the world.”

UPDATE: Shocker: RNC calls Dems weak on defense.

On one hand, we have the AP reporting on the strains faced by our military abroad.

“The well is deep, but it is not infinite,” Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We must get Army deployments down to 12 months as soon as possible. People are tired.”

Yet despite that, and despite the details below, the RNC has rolled out a video on YouTube to call Clinton and Obama liberal wusses. Might that be a bit myopic?

---

Although it played on the bottom of the front of Wednesday's New York Times, this story doesn't seem to have gotten much wider attention, what with Super Tuesday and the pursuit of possible suspects in the death of Natalie Holloway.

It nonetheless points to how the war in Iraq has taken the focus away from what seems like the main threat to America. And it's our own government that is saying this.

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda is gaining in strength from its refuge in Pakistan and is steadily improving its ability to recruit, train and position operatives capable of carrying out attacks inside the United States, the director of national intelligence told a Senate panel on Tuesday.

The director, Mike McConnell, told lawmakers that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, remained in control of the terrorist group and had promoted a new generation of lieutenants. He said Al Qaeda was also improving what he called “the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.” — producing militants, including new Western recruits, capable of blending into American society and attacking domestic targets.

A senior intelligence official said Tuesday evening that the testimony was based in part on new evidence that Qaeda operatives in Pakistan were training Westerners, most likely including American citizens, to carry out attacks. The official said there was no indication as yet that Al Qaeda had succeeded in getting operatives into the United States.

The testimony, in an annual assessment of the threats facing the United States, was the latest indication that Al Qaeda appears to have significantly rebuilt a network battered by the American invasion of Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks.

It follows a National Intelligence Estimate last summer that described a resurgent Al Qaeda, and could add fuel to criticisms from Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates that the White House focus on Iraq since 2002 has diverted attention and resources from the battle against the Qaeda organization’s core.

In recent weeks, fresh concerns about the threat posed by Al Qaeda have prompted senior Bush administration officials to travel to Pakistan to seek approval for more aggressive American military action against militants based in the tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan.