There’s no questioning the fact that Israel’s ultimate goal in Gaza is to remove the Hamas led provisional government from power. Hamas doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist, which is, of course, an immense problem with regards to the ability to negotiate – that being, no one will meet with them, let alone negotiate with them.
So what is the answer? Who, in all of this madness, is willing to be courageous enough to employ the sort of timeless wisdom that takes into account the future of ordinary citizens over hatred and mistrust that will only lead to further suffering? Because the time for such wisdom has come, and it will take individuals of peerless vision and courage to pull it off – on both sides. Sending envoys from foreign countries to institute the process won’t ultimately make a difference. It is something that the Israelis and the Palestinians must do themselves, and in good faith, both willing to set aside those immovable positions to which they cling in an effort to make real progress.
Despite what the world sees, it is foolish to think that the majority of Palestinians and Israelis don’t want peace, that their majorities are so ensconced in the tenets of hatred that the possibility of reconciliation is impossible.
For the sake of their children, the embracement of flexibility must be undertaken by both sides, and the communal voice of the majority of both must work to ensure that those who refuse to embrace that flexibility are confronted and disenfranchised. Only then can a true process of reconciliation begin.
Imagine, if at all possible, an Israel in which Palestine and Gaza are Provinces that are afforded equal representative seats in the Israeli Parliament. That the nation embraced two official languages, Hebrew and Arabic, and that its wealth and opportunities were shared amongst its people equally. Imagine no walls, no security fences, equal educational opportunities, and the integration of Israeli and Palestinian youths in the educational system. Imagine if, within the structure of that system, a historical consensus could be reached and that all children would be educated regarding the perils and failures of the past, not presented sides that would pit them against one another. Imagine, if at all possible, calling this new nation Israel And Palestine. Call me an idealist, but imagine a day when a Palestinian might even become its Prime Minister.
If it’s impossible to imagine, then ask yourself why? And in doing so remember that there was a time when even the United States was divided, a reality that can scarcely be confronted by many Americans now without perplexity being that they have only ever know their nation to be united, despite those regional and racial problems that have plagued it.
To ensure peace there are those that labour under the misconception that strength and the inability to compromise are the only true measures that can insure it. Of course, that would be why we live in a world that is perpetually at its own throat.
The common reaction to such a statement is to provide the example of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s inability to see Germany for what it was. There are, of course, other examples as well. But how long will we cling to such examples and forgo the belief that, just maybe, Chamberlain’s intentions were rooted into something altogether noble – the desire to avert war, the results of which his generation possessed first hand knowledge. There are those that might claim Neville Chamberlain guilty of appeasement, though they ultimately overlook that fact that while attempting to act to preserve peace, the government of Adolf Hitler was actively seeking the opposite and would have initiated its plans no matter. Thus, who must ultimately be condemned? A man that attempted to avert war or one that actively sought it? We can condemn Mr. Chamberlain for all time if it helps placate our love affair with militarism that was subsequently adopted and promoted following the Second World War, but the fact remains that peace is not something that should have to rely on the ability to inflict pain and suffering to ensure it.
My whole life has been spent living in an era in which a placebo has come to represent peace. That peace can be ensured simply through the possession of overwhelming military might. It’s ridiculous of course.
Sir John Frederick Maurice once said - “I went into the Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I now believe that if you prepare thoroughly for war you will get it.”.
Truer words were never spoken.
Hate, division, suspicion, mistrust. These are the easiest things in the world to teach and to cling to. They do not require an individual to look beyond themselves, to question, nor compromise. They are safe and comfortable and entirely cowardly. Their principles are universally applicable, and provide comfort to religious extremists of every faith all the way to xenophobes that use patriotism as a blanket of fear and doubt.
To embrace the opposite is another matter altogether, one that is far more difficult, dangerous, exhaustive, and reliant on one of the most degraded practices of our time – the belief in the inherit goodness of others and that, in the end, it will win out.
Ultimately, it is not impossible to imagine a world in which Israeli and Palestinian children play on the same football teams after school, only that finding a way to make that a reality has become something that too many believe is.
Professor Stephen Zunes’ piece posted yesterday at Foreign Policy In Focus entitled My Meeting with Ahmadinejad is definitely worth the read. A brief excerpt…
“This past Wednesday, I was among a group of American religious leaders and scholars who met with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York. In what was billed as an inter-faith dialogue, we frankly shared our strong opposition to certain Iranian government policies and provocative statements made by the Iranian president. At the same time, we avoided the insulting language employed by Columbia University president Lee Bollinger before a public audience two days earlier.
The Iranian president was quite unimpressive. Indeed, with his ramblings and the superficiality of his analysis, he came across as more pathetic than evil.
The more respectful posture of our group that morning led to a more open exchange of views. Before an audience largely composed of Christian clergy, he reminded us that we worship the same God, have been inspired by many of the same prophets, and share similar values of peace, justice, and reconciliation. The Iranian president impressed me as someone sincerely devout in his religious faith, yet rather superficial in his understanding and inclined to twist his faith tradition in ways to correspond with his pre-conceived ideological positions. He was rather evasive when it came to specific questions and was not terribly coherent, relying more on platitudes than analysis, and would tend to get his facts wrong. In short, he reminded me in many respects of our president.
Both Ahmadinejad and George W. Bush have used their fundamentalist interpretations of their faith traditions to place the world in a Manichean perspective of good versus evil. The certitude of their positions regardless of evidence to the contrary, their sense that they are part of a divine mission, and their largely successful manipulation of their devoutly religious constituents have put these two nations on a dangerous confrontational course.
Ahmadinejad can get away with it because he is president of a theocratic political system that allows very limited freedoms and opportunities for public debate. We have no such excuse here in the United States, however, for the strong bipartisan support for Bush’s righteous anti-Iranian crusade, most recently illustrated by a series of provocative anti-Iranian measures recently passed by an overwhelming margin of the Democratic-controlled Congress.
There are many differences between the two men, of course. Perhaps the most significant is that, unlike George W. Bush, Ahmadinejad has very little political power, particularly in the areas of military and foreign policy. So why, given Ahmadinejad’s lack of real political power, was so much made of his annual trip to the opening session of the UN General Assembly?”
Let me first state, unequivocally, that I am by no means a fan of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Personally, I think his victory over Mohammad Khatami in 2005 was a blow for Iran, and that Khatami was the sort of progressive force that Iran truly needed. Khatami’s tenure as President caused numerous clashes with hard line, conservative Islamists; primarily his focuses on the transparency of the rule of law, democratic reforms, and a broader base for public participation in political processes. Unfortunately, because Khatami lost most of his confrontations with the afore mentioned hard line elements in Iran, such as those who control the likes of the Guardian Council (who banned thousands of reformist candidates in the 2004 elections), his Presidency became doomed. Regarded as Iran’s first truly reformist President, he attempted to institute the ‘twin bills’, legislation that would have introduced electoral reform and clearly defined Presidential powers and the ability of the office of the President to confront constitutional manipulations at the hands of numerous state institutions. It should also not be overlooked that Khatami’s Presidency altered Iranian foreign policy to one that was conciliatory, rather than confrontational.
Ahmadinejad has, obviously, not worked to build on the foundations laid by Khatami. His government has, most likely because of the occupation of Iraq, rendered Iran far more isolationist, which has only helped compound international condemnation of Iran’s nuclear goals. That said, it should not be overlooked that when President Bush singled out Iran as a member of the Axis Of Evil, Khatami was still President.
There are numerous beliefs held by Mr. Ahmadinejad that I adamantly disagree with. The most obvious is his position regarding the Holocaust. The second would be that he routinely states that his policies are widely supported in Iran, which isn’t particularly the case, though it must not be overlooked that no matter who is the President of the country, hostile action taken against Iran would most certainly galvanize popular support for his government as a matter of sovereign principle, especially were the United States or Israel its authors.
With regards to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, I have written extensively in the past about why Iran might want to obtain a deterrent. That said, if the IAEA is given complete access to Iran’s facilities and it is determined that the program is being developed for peaceful purposes, I see no reason why they should not be allowed to develop it, just as others have. In my opinion, Pakistan represents no less of a threat when it comes to the possibility of nuclear weapons finding their way into the hands of undesirables, something I have written about at length as being rather far fetched given retaliatory realities. In truth, they possess a military infrastructure that has a past of supporting questionable regimes and organizations, the Taliban being the most obvious.
All of that said, did Lee Bollinger’s opening statement at Columbia University the other day go too far? There is no question that he insulted Ahmadinejad and felt that he was in the right to do so. The question therefore has to be asked – was it his place, as the Dean of a school that had invited Ahmadinejad to speak in an open forum, to be so unprofessional? Don’t get me wrong, there were aspects of his address that I agree with, but he had absolutely no right to employ language such as that he felt the ‘weight of the modern, civilized world’ on his shoulders to express his ‘revulsion’. No matter how you want to spin that, such a statement paints Iran as neither modern nor civilized. Ironically, in the same speech, he praised many Iranians for their intelligence and fortitude.
For the President of an Ivy League school to actually claim Iran an uncivilized nation does a massive disservice to that institution. When Rome was but a far off dream, the Persian culture was one of the most advanced in the known world. To paint it in such a light was, in my opinion, idiotic and entirely counterproductive. It was, in truth, a cowards way of calling the man sitting to his left uncivilized without actually facing him and naming him as such directly. Instead, Dean Bollinger chose to paint an entire people with a singular brush while intimating that the ‘modern, civilized world’ is somehow purer in nature. Coming from a man that heads an institution renowned for its political sciences department, that statement was shocking. Because the last time that I checked, illegally invading and occupying a foreign country, and in the process killing countless innocents, does not constitute the act of a civilized society. Nor does the inability of the populations of such societies to hold those responsible accountable for such actions when based on lies.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s 11th Hour is due out soon, and from watching the trailer for the film I really enjoyed the perspective that it presented. The film addresses the failures of political and corporate leadership, but counterbalances that with a focus on the importance of youth being at the forefront of change, and that they may very well represent, to generations to come, those that acted when action was most crucially needed. It is a fresh new perspective that I think very empowering.
For more information about the film, visit the official website by clicking the link above.
History does not have two sides, despite the fact that it is often presented as such. There is only the truth and then what that truth is warped into to serve certain purposes.
In many cases, history is corrupted to continue legacies of distrust and suspicion, and a very recent example of this that is of paramount importance has just come to light.
In Israel, new history textbooks have been approved for use by the government in Arab-Israeli schools that, for the first time, “presents the Palestinian denunciation of the creation of Israel in 1948”.
Now, I haven’t written this entry to spark a debate about what took place with regards to Israel’s creation and the Arab League’s refusal to recognize the UN mandate that helped create it. The point of this entry is to comment on the fact that while Arab-Israeli children are being taught one version of history, Israeli children are being taught an entirely different version.
Despite the alteration made in textbooks that are to be used in Arab-Israeli schools, those currently in use in Israeli schools will remain the same. This, in no small way, will create greater divisions in a generation that must be viewed as crucial with regards to mending the divisions of the past.
The solution to this problem is self evident. Both groups of youths should be presented both sides of the story, and both ‘versions’ of history should be made permanent parts of the curriculum. In doing so, both will be exposed to the same information without bias, and it should be taught them as such. Only then can inroads be made with regards to mending the distrust and suspicions that have long plagued that region.
If there is one thing that is routine with regards to the emails in my inbox on a daily basis, it’s accusations that this website does little more than “preach to the choir”. That accusation is then commonly followed by suggestions that information and commentary be presented in a far more fair and balanced fashion (where have you heard that slogan before?), and that I should spend less time focusing on the same themes and more time focusing on others because, as it was put to me this morning, …“constantly talking about the war in Iraq is boring. We get it, now move along!”.
It’s true, and I’ll not deny it, I spend a great deal of time blogging about the war in Iraq, and for obvious reasons. The most important being that it’s a complete disaster that many have turned a blind eye to it because they feel the arguments for and against it have become stale. Added to this is the media fatigue that has caused many to simply not care about it as much as they once did, something that I find incredibly irresponsible.
The real importance of the war in Iraq is what it symbolizes with regards to the foreign policy doctrine adopted by this administration, one of the most dangerous in US history. Its effects are far reaching, and certainly reverberate beyond the borders of Iraq. But Iraq remains the quintessential example of the employment of that doctrine, and is therefore of incredible importance. Added to that is the massive loss of Iraqi lives since 2003, the complete crippling of their economy, and the dissolution of their daily lives.
The figures remain the same. Yesterday 78 Iraqis were killed, 75 more wounded, and 2 US soldier were also killed in action.
Boring - because yesterday, and the day before, the numbers were similar, be they slightly higher or lower. The whole thing’s a mess and it’s best to not think about it - unless you’re able to offer a solution as to how to end the war, what’s the point in constantly talking about it?
How about public discourse?
How can the public form opinions or be moved to examine the realities of such things so that they might be moved to counteract them? The reality of the debacle in Iraq is that it must be examined from the top down. It must start with the Office of the President and from there slip and slide its way through the various agencies and departments that allowed the President to justify the war in the first place. Accountability is everything, and while history cannot be altered, and the situation in Iraq cannot be magically solved, we have a responsibility to constantly examine what is happening there and weigh it against the falsehoods presented with regards to the reasons for going to war in the first place.
With regards to the war’s conclusion, I will say that while many believe that the answer lies in the adoption of a timetable for withdrawal, which I do support, or the redeployment of forces, I believe the first step in the process is the impeachment of the President and the Vice President, who represent the the primary apparatus that ensures the war’s continuation.
There are many who will read that and think it folly. Some will argue that to cause such a disruption in government would only ‘empower the enemy’, as the mantra goes. Others believe that, from a legal standpoint, there are no grounds for it. Interestingly, a new book written by former Congresswomen and Brooklyn District Attorney, Elizabeth Holtzman, and Cynthia Cooper, a journalist and lawyer, details five issues on which the President could legally be impeached. They include…
Deceptions into Taking the Country into War in Iraq
Reckless Indifference to Human Life in Katrina and Iraq
Illegal Wiretapping and Surveillance of Americans
Permitting Torture
Leaking Classified Information
There is little doubt that some of these issues apply to the Office of the Vice President as well, especially the first and fifth.
Were both Bush and Cheney impeached, a process that, given the gravity of those charges, may very well result in their resignations rather than them enduring impeachment proceedings, the speaker of the House would become President, perhaps allowing for a broader spectrum of ideas to be floated in Congress with regards to a solution.
This first step is crucial, because no matter the proposed legislation regarding US involvement in Iraq that is sent from the hill to the White House, the President has the ability to use his veto, as he has in the past without hesitation. Given that his administration is in too deep in Iraq, as has been the case with past administrations, primarily that of Johnson and Nixon, the chances of it admitting the truth about how disastrous the war has become is next to none. This is reflected in the removal of those in military leadership positions that have attempted to flat out tell the administration that Iraq is not only a lost cause, but one that will continue to produce pointless American deaths and increase the likelihood of international terrorism. Thus, the administration appoints new commanders who will, for the most part, tell them what they want to hear, while employing various likeminded think tanks to provide them entirely unrealistic option papers that merely buy into their policy objectives. This phenomenon also occurred at the CIA following 9/11 and during the run up the invasion of Iraq, those veteran voices at the agency largely silenced in favour of tenuous and entirely partisan information being provided by a whole new generation within the agency focused more on appeasing the administration that doing their jobs.
That’s not to sat that some haven’t tried to tell the truth. Unfortunately, for the most part, they’ve been quietly removed from their positions for attempting to do so. One of the more important examples of this occurring has to do with the CIA’s initial Baghdad Station Chief who wrote two aardwolfves warning his superiors, and the administration, in 2003 of the growing insurgency and what he viewed as the failures of the invasion and occupation that had to be addressed. After sending his second missive in December of 2003, he was removed from the position.
Like Johnson and Nixon with regards to Vietnam, the United States losing a war is not an option that is on the table. In fact, I believe that it wouldn’t be an option even were a Democrat in the same position right now. It’s important to remember that Johnson was a Democrat and responsible for the escalation of US forces in Vietnam to what, in this day and age, would be viewed as outrageous. In one year alone, 1965, US troop levels went from 3,500 Marines (not including military advisors already in-country) to 200,000 troops. But there again, Johnson was not without his ‘Cheney’s’. In his case it was the Joint Chiefs, who routinely bumped heads with then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Even so, at the end of his first full term, I believe that Johnson’s admission that he would not seek re-election spoke directly to the ‘mistake of Vietnam’ and the fact that Robert Kennedy, who was vastly popular, not to mention against the war, would most likely have secured the 37th Presidency for the Democrats, whereas Johnson’s numbers were so dismal that his re-election was a foregone impossibility.
The importance of impeaching the President and Vice President is that it would create leeway with regards to immediate measures being taken rather than waiting out Bush’s term in office and the disaster being handed off to a new administration that would be forced to languish under the weight of trying to go about disengaging in a way that didn’t hurt them politically. The war itself would become the primary issue of the impeachment, I believe, allowing that leeway to exist.
But even then, that supposes that the President would resign rather than wade through the impeachment process, which would surely last until the end of his second term. Were he to do so, the status quo would, obviously, remain, though it may very well help the following administration’s ability to make important changes a reality and certainly aid in the removal of the Republicans from the White House – and perhaps even the House in greater numbers.
The entirely ambiguous context of The War On Terror is the Bush administration’s trump card, and they play it whenever they can. In the case of impeachment, it would certainly be at the forefront of their argument that such proceedings would only hurt the country and embolden those that they routinely point to as threats. The President has made clear that he firmly believes that if the United States were to abandon Iraqi that ‘the enemy’ would simply find its way onto American soil. Unfortunately for the President, recent occurrences in Great Britain prove that theory to be largely inaccurate.
Being that the rest of the world views the United States as a greater threat to global security than terrorism, impeachment might not necessarily be a bad thing. All that stands in the way of it is, in many ways, the insularity of the American people. And that is precisely why blogging about the war in Iraq on a routine basis is important.
All of that said, and no matter a long term US military footprint, the reality of Iraq’s future, largely because of the invasion and occupation and how poorly they were planned, is most likely a bloody one. At this unfortunate point, that is the harsh reality, and one that I’ll not deny. But that being the case, the continued presence of a foreign occupational force will not, in any way, ensure the pacification of the population. If anything, it will only make matters worse. The need for international interventionism under the strict guidance of the United Nations, with a focus on obtaining the cooperation and/or participation of various militant factions within the country, one that excludes those nations that joined the ‘coalition of the willing’, is, perhaps, the only real vehicle left with which to attempt to contain what might otherwise become one of the most disastrous civil conflicts of our time.
In the end, Iraq may very well return to what it once was under the Ottomans for centuries – three distinct provinces that would, most probably, form nations unto themselves or be annexed, which could very well lead to wider regional conflicts and destabilization. Of course, this too poses problems, the more notable of which involves natural resources, the fact that many parts of central Iraq, and other locations, are inhabited by both Sunnis and Shi’ites, and that the formation of an independent Kurdistan would most likely provide Turkey the justification it so desperately desires to invade it in hopes of deterring any widespread movement calling for the formation of a united Kurdistan.
There’s an old adage – boys will be boys. There’s another old adage – we are products of our environment.
Take for example a recent incident in Gilbert, Arizona. A local parent reported that her son’s yearbook contained bomb threats, one signed by a boy named David and the other by an Iraqi-American boy named Mustafa Abdul Razzaq. After the parent notified authorities, the school was evacuated and the Gilbert police telephoned the Razzaq residence to determine if Mustafa was there, which he was. It being a half day, he had decided not to attend.
In reality, what had occurred was that the comment in the yearbook in question was never written, nor signed, by Mustafa. It had been penned by two other boys who later admitted to it and were taken into custody. The threat was, of course, not real, and the two youths, one 13 and one 14, had charges filed against them.
From the local paper, The Tribune…
“Mustafa, his mother and police discussed the incident in interviews with the Tribune.
The teen and his family call it a religious bias incident that was one of many over the years that have targeted the boy because he is a Muslim. Police say it was just a prank that had unfortunate consequences.”
[…]
“Since the deadly attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, they say this is just one of many times that Mustafa’s classmates have labeled him a terrorist. He says kids have told him to “go hijack a plane and run into a building” verbally and on notes they’ve left on his desk.
Sometimes he’d retaliate and get suspended. Sometimes, he’d ignore them.
But because the whole school was evacuated last week, he’s afraid to return there. He says he’s been getting phone calls and text messages from kids asking if he is guilty even though he’s been cleared by police.
Mustafa is upset with the school.
“Some of the teachers in the junior high don’t care,” Mustafa says of the discriminatory teasing he’s endured. “They don’t want to get into this kind of stuff. That’s why I don’t like Mesquite Junior High School that much.”
Mohammed AbuHannoud, the civil rights director for the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says his organization hears these types of complaints all the time.
“I think Mustafa is an example of what’s going on here after Sept. 11 with a lot of Muslim families,” AbuHannoud says. “I get so many calls, for example, from other parents and they complain, ‘My son is called Saddam, or a classmate called my son Hussein or Saddam Hussein.’ The schools do not do anything serious against that.”
Gilbert police spokesman Sgt. Andrew Duncan says the department is “sympathetic to the serious psychological effects of bias-motivated crimes,” but in this instance, police found the two students meant it as a joke.
Even so, the department took the hoax seriously and submitted juvenile referrals for each boy on charges of interfering with an educational institution, threatening and intimidating, and threatening to damage the school.
On Wednesday night, no one answered the phone at the home of the boy who wrote about Mustafa in the yearbook.
Dianne Bowers, a spokeswoman for the Gilbert Unified School District, says Mustafa’s mother had not contacted the school to report race- or religion-related bias incidents.
However, Bowers tried to address these concerns Wednesday by arranging an appointment for Abdulghafoor to meet with the school’s diversity officer. She also said the school strives to promote tolerance through its Character Counts program, which encourages trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness and citizenship.
Abdulghafoor says she has been in touch with school officials and is disappointed with the lack of response.
She said the first religious bias incident occurred in 2001. Mustafa was in second grade, and one day, her husband got a call from FBI agents. They told him the school had called the bureau after a teacher overheard Mustafa call himself Osama bin Laden. Later, his mother said he told them that kids at school had been calling him by the terrorist’s name.
The FBI could not immediately verify the 2001 incident, but the bureau’s Arizona spokeswoman, Deborah Mc-Carley, says the family’s story sounds plausible. After Sept. 11, any complaints referring to terrorism had to be assessed and taken seriously.
Another incident occurred last year, Mustafa says. He was made fun of when he came to school dressed in traditional Saudi Arabian garb for a class assignment - each student was to come to school representing a different country.
“They tell him again, ‘You are Osama bin Laden,” his mother remembered. “You are a terrorist. Your mom is a terrorist. Your dad is a terrorist. You have to go back to your country.”
His mother learned of the incident after a teacher called the family’s home to report it.”
…“but in this instance, police found the two students meant it as a joke.” Boys will be boys, after all. Not only that…“On Wednesday night, no one answered the phone at the home of the boy who wrote about Mustafa in the yearbook”…we are products of our environment.
From today’s Los Angeles Times…
“LIKE PIRATES, terrorists are supposedly hostis humani generis — the “enemy of all mankind.” So why is the Bush administration letting one of the world’s most notorious terrorists stroll freely around the United States?
I’m talking about a man who was — until 9/11 — perhaps the most successful terrorist in the Western Hemisphere. He’s believed to have masterminded a 1976 plot to blow up a civilian airliner, killing all 73 people on board, including teenage members of Cuba’s national fencing team. He’s admitted to pulling off a series of 1997 bombings aimed at tourist hotels and nightspots. Today, he’s living illegally in the United States, but senior members of the Bush administration — the very guys who declared war on terror just a few short years ago — don’t seem terribly bothered.
I’m talking about Luis Posada Carriles. That’s not a household name for most U.S. citizens, but for many in Latin America, Posada is as reviled as Osama bin Laden is in the United States.
The Cuban-born Posada was trained by the CIA at the School of the Americas in 1961. From Venezuela, he later planned the successful 1976 bombing of a civilian Cuban jetliner (apparently with the knowledge of the CIA). He was arrested for the crime, but he escaped from a Venezuelan prison before standing trial.
Posada later aided Ollie North’s illegal efforts to get arms to the Nicaraguan Contras, tried repeatedly to assassinate Fidel Castro and was behind a 1997 string of Havana hotel bombings. Recently declassified U.S. government documents suggest that, throughout most of his career, Posada remained in close contact with the CIA.
Posada entered the U.S. illegally in 2005. Human rights groups and the Cuban and Venezuelan governments urged that he be tried or extradited for his terrorist activities, but for several months the Bush administration denied that Posada was even in the United States.
On May 17, 2005, the Miami Herald shamed the administration into action by publishing a front-page interview with Posada (who sipped his peach drink on his Florida balcony, described his leisure reading and commented cheerfully that at first he “thought the [U.S.] government was looking for me” but eventually realized that U.S. officials had no interest in finding him). Only then did the administration detain Posada — but on immigration charges, not terrorism-related charges.
Since 2005, the administration seems to have done everything in its power to botch the immigration case against Posada, mishandling it so blatantly that on Wednesday an exasperated federal judge declared herself “left with no choice” but to throw out the indictment. Although a different judge previously ordered Posada deported, Posada can’t legally be extradited to Venezuela because the court concluded that he might be tortured there.
So for now, Posada’s a free man — even though the administration has sufficient evidence to arrest him for his role in either the 1976 airliner bombing or the 1997 Havana bombings. For that matter, Posada easily could be detained under Section 412 of the Patriot Act, which calls for the mandatory detention of aliens suspected of terrorism.”
From The Progressive’s Matthew Rothschild…
“Michael Baker worked for the Lincoln, Nebraska, public schools since 1981.
But after he showed the documentary “Baghdad ER” to his geography class on April 18, his career there was over.
Baker tells The Progressive that he cannot talk freely about what happened because he reached an agreement with the school district. Part of that agreement prohibits him from saying anything “disparaging” about it, he says.
But he does acknowledge this: “The morning after I showed the documentary ‘Baghdad ER’ was my last day in class.”
HBO, which aired “Baghdad ER,” describes it this way: “2-time Emmy® Award winner producer/director Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill capture the humanity, hardships and heroism of the US Military and medical personnel of the 86th Combat Support Hospital, the Army’s premier medical facility in Iraq. Sometimes graphic in its depiction of combat-related wounds, BAGHDAD ER offers an unflinching and honest account of the realities of war.”
Even the conservative magazine the National Review gave it a good review, calling it “refreshingly earnest.”
Baker waxes philosophical about his departure. “Teachers that teach against the grain often have difficulties with school systems,” he says. “What has happened to me is certainly not unusual.”
But his supporters are not so circumspect.
Michael Anderson taught with Baker at East High School for eight years. Now he’s the director of the school of education at the University of Wisconsin at Platteville.
“It’s outrageous,” Anderson says of Baker’s departure.
“I believe there were students who went home and were troubled about what they saw, and there were parental phone calls to the principal, and the next day she walked him out the door because she didn’t have the courage to stand up to the complainers,” he says. Anderson says Baker was first suspended for ten days with pay and then “got the lawyers involved.”
Anderson thinks that the administrators seized on this incident to get rid of Baker.
“What’s obvious is that the showing of ‘Baghdad ER’ was only an excuse to remove a progressive educator from the classroom,” Anderson charges.
Baker has clashed with administrators before. In 2005, they objected to his innovative approach to teaching history, which was to start at the present and work backwards, an approach he’d been using for four years.
But then, the school district forbade him from teaching that way any longer. The school’s consultant said it was “not logical, does not contribute to effective teaching or monitoring of progress, and puts students at a disadvantage” with newly instituted statewide tests, according to a paper on the subject by Professor Nancy Patterson of Bowling Green. Baker appealed but lost, and was eventually
“prohibited from teaching U.S. history,” Patterson writes.“I think they wanted me to become so disenchanted that I would leave,” he told Patterson in an interview in December, according to her paper, entitled “History That Is Made in Our Time: The Backwards Tale of One History Teacher’s Experiences with Reverse Chronology.” He added in that interview: “They are trying to make my life miserable, and they are succeeding.”
Nancy Biggs, the assistant superintendent for human resources at Lincoln Public Schools, gives her account of why Baker no longer teaches there.
“He asked to retire, and we accepted his request to retire,” she tells The Progressive.
Was he suspended for ten days?
“I couldn’t comment on anything related to his employment status,” she says.
Was he disciplined for showing “Baghdad ER”?
“I can’t confirm that, but I have read that in the paper.”
Any other comments?
“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be evasive, well, I am being evasive, and I need to be, so I don’t violate confidential personnel information.”
Baker’s departure has caused controversy in Lincoln. The Journal Star newspaper has posted at least 132 e-mail comments.
Most defended him.”