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66% Oppose Routine "SWAT" Drug Raids in Zogby Poll

Stop the Deadly "No-Knock" Raids

Following are detailed recommendations from StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet) on policy reforms we believe are needed to stem the epidemic of reckless police raids in America. For those who want to learn more about this issue, we recommend the 2006 report Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America, by former Cato Institute analyst and current Reason Foundation writer Radley Balko. Also, click here for an archive of relevant coverage on this web site; and view complete results from the recent Zogby poll question that we commissioned here -- preview: 66% of likely American voters want it stopped. Please check back at this page for additional resources to be posted during the coming weeks.

Aggressive tactics include, but are not limited to:

*unannounced "no-knock" entries;
*entries that are announced in name only (e.g. do not allow a reasonable amount of time for a resident to answer the door);
*use of battering rams;
*use of flash-bang grenades;
*unnecessary brandishing of weapons;
*carrying unnecessarily heavy weaponry (e.g. assault rifles);
*unnecessary shouting;
*wearing of ninja-like, all-black uniforms, masks, or hoods;
*unnecessarily scheduling raids very early in the morning or very late at night when residents are most likely to be startled or terrified;
*unnecessary restraining or use of force against people or animals.

All of these should be prohibited for use in most non-emergency situations. Steps to restore the necessary arms-length relationship between police and the military should at a minimum include:

*termination of direct military/police cooperation in drug enforcement;
*termination of the provision of retired military surplus equipment to police forces, with at most rare and carefully-considered exceptions; and
*recommitment to the separation of our military from our police forces that held for more than a century of our nation's history, and to that end the repeal or rescinding of Acts of Congress and Executive Orders that have diluted it.

The following criminal justice reforms, at a minimum, are needed to address the dilution of ethical standards that plagues today's criminal justice system:

*requiring that officers conducting knock-and-announce warrants wait a reasonably sufficient time for a person inside to answer the door before executing a forced entry;
*termination of per-arrest funding schemes for drug enforcement or per prisoner incarcerated, instead allocating enforcement resources based on academically-sound measures of overall public safety need;
*abolition of federally-funded and multi-agency drug task forces, which have an extensive record of corruption and racial bias, and which undermine standards of accountability;
*improving evidentiary standards to require corroborating evidence beyond the unsupported word of police officers or informants before any charges are brought or convictions obtained, or before a no-knock warrant may be issued except in very rare circumstances (but also recognizing that no-knock warrants should only be carried out in very rare circumstances);
*requiring statutorily that evidence obtained through illegal searches be inadmissible in court;
*requiring that presenting officers sign a sworn statement attesting that the warrant has not been brought before a judge before and declined, or if it has then providing documentation from the previous judge or judges as to why;
*reforming asset forfeiture law to protect individuals who have not been convicted of the crime in question, and accruing all forfeiture proceeds to the general treasury of the state or federal government rather than the law enforcement agency or local government;
*require that federal law enforcement agencies adhere to the ethical and procedural requirements that states and localities have put in place for their own agencies, in addition to federal requirements;
*forbidding state or local police agencies from using federal or other multi-agency partnerships to circumvent the will of the legislatures that govern them;
*limiting the immunity from civil damages that police agencies may enjoy in police raid cases;
*for the sake of basic justice, establishing that persons who reasonably believe they or their families may be under deadly attack by criminals, and who take actions to defend themselves, are not considered to be guilty of crimes; and reviewing cases such as those of Edwin Delamora, Cory Maye and Eugene Barrett, who are currently incarcerated because of such circumstances; and
*for victims of wrongful, mistaken or inappropriately conducted police raids to be entitled to financial compensation commensurate with their loss and suffering.

So that official bodies charged with overseeing our police agencies can effectively do their job, and for the sake of openness in the policy debate on these important issues, we call for:

*the establishment of publicly-accessible databases of detailed information relating to search warrants and their manner of execution, omitting only the names of confidential informants;
*for all law enforcement agencies to annually report key statistics related to search warrants (especially when they result in police killings) to state and federal justice agencies, which shall annually publish them;
*for the jurisdiction of citizen police review boards to include the total circumstances of incidents, not only police officer misconduct;
*for full information on incidents to be provided to review boards; and
*for persons targeted by raids that resulted in injury, or of which the propriety has been questioned, and public advocates to have the right to unseal relevant warrants.

For more info see http://stopthedrugwar.org/policeraids

Protest Karl Rove at Duke University

Monday, Dec. 3, 2007
6:00pm
Page Auditorium at Duke University
Durham, NC


To carpool/caravan from Charlotte, email bringthemonhome@yahoo.com with "Protest Rove" as the subject.

Hodding Carter III to Moderate Impeachment Debate between Bruce Fein and Michael Tomasky

December 11, 2007
7pm
Chapel Hill Town Hall, NC


In the tradition of the Lincoln/Douglas Debates, Coalition for the Constitution (www.CoalitionForTheConstitution.com) will host a Debate on Impeachment between Republican Bruce Fein (pro-impeachment) and Democrat Michael Tomasky (anti-impeachment). The Debate will be held on December 11, 2007, at 7pm, at the Chapel Hill Town Hall and will be moderated by UNC Professor of Leadership and Public Policy, W. Hodding Carter III, and hosted by Orange County Commission Chairman Moses Carey.

Impeachment is mentioned six times in the United States Constitution, including most clearly in Article II, section 3, which reads:

“The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Recently, privileged resolution HR 333, Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney, was introduced on the floor of the House.

To help the public better understand the pros and cons of impeachment, the organizers have lined up two well-known political pundits to debate and answer those questions. Admission is free and all citizens are encouraged to attend.

Bruce Fein is a lawyer, specializing in constitutional and international law, who served as an associate deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan. He has recently been a strong advocate for the impeachment of current U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney and President George W Bush. Fein graduated from Harvard Law School in 1972. In March 2007, he founded the American Freedom Agenda with Bob Barr, David Keene and Richard Viguerie. Fein is counsel to Ron Paul's campaign for the 2008 Presidential nomination. One of his most scathing indictments of Dick Cheney appeared in his article for Slate.com entitled, “Impeach Cheney, The Vice President has run utterly amok and must be stopped.” http://www.slate.com/id/2169292/

Michael Tomasky, is a progressive journalist who has recently written an article about impeachment, entitled, “The Dumbest Move the Dems Could Make” which has been cited by the Democratic Leadership, and 4th District North Carolina Congressman, David Price, as the reasoning behind their refusal to support impeachment. Tomasky has served as the executive editor of The American Prospect and is the author of Left for Dead: The Life, Death, and Possible Resurrection of Progressive Politics in America (1996), a study of the intellectual collapse of the American left. Here is a link to his article “The Dumbest Move the Dems Could Make”: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080201767.html

Hodding Carter III served as Assistant Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter. For additional information, please visit: http://www.knightcommission.org/about/kciamember/hodding_carter_iii/

Fein v. Tomasky Debate
7 pm, December 11, 2007
Chapel Hill Town Hall

Anti-Annapolis protests held in several U.S. cities

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News, Nov. 28, 2007

Several cities across the U.S. on Tuesday witnessed demonstrations against the Annapolis conference, each demanding that the world leaders gathered behind closed doors address the basic rights of the Palestinian people.

Protests against the summit took place in Annapolis, Boston, Los Angeles, and Charlotte.

At least five groups held protests in Annapolis itself, including Neturei Karta, an orthodox Jewish group that is opposed to the state of Israel for religious reasons and supports the human rights of the Palestinian people to exist on their own land.

Demonstrators say their reason for protesting against the summit is a firmy-held belief that is has more to do with covering the Bush administration's failures in Iraq and Afghanistan than it does with seeking a just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Gaza Strip: Disengagement two years on

Kris Petersen, The Electronic Intifada, Nov. 24, 2007

Two years ago, Israel completed its unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. We all remember the intense media campaign shamelessly portraying the settlers as dispossessed victims of a bold move for peace. Among others, Harvard economist Sara Roy argued that Israel's version of disengagement would bring disaster to an already desperate Gaza. Today, we are witnessing emergence of an unparalleled economic catastrophe in the Gaza Strip and with it, the evaporation of the last remaining hopes for a Palestinian state.

Disengagement and control

The original draft of Israel's disengagement plan intended to create a situation in which "no permanent Israeli civilian or military presence" would remain in the evacuated areas and there would "be no basis for the claim that the Gaza Strip is occupied territory." [1] The reference to Gaza's legal status as "occupied territory" inferred the termination of Israeli responsibility for Gaza's population. Yet, because Israel never officially recognized the Gaza Strip as occupied, [2] this phrasing was excised, leaving the definitive draft stating (somewhat ambiguously): "completion of the plan will serve to dispel the claims regarding Israel's responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." [3] That Israel planned to release itself from any legal responsibility for the Palestinians in Gaza is uncontroversial; Ariel Sharon stated as much on multiple occasions, specifically stressing the need for international recognition of the occupation's expiration.

After the evacuation of Jewish settlers in Gaza Israeli soldiers finally left the strip on 12 September 2005. [4] Before exiting through the gates of Kusufim Crossing, the head of Israel's mission in Gaza, Brigadier General Aviv Kochavi, remarked, "The responsibility for whatever takes place inside falls upon the [Palestinian] Authority." [5] Later that evening, Major-General Dan Harel signed a declaration nullifying the 6 June 1967 decree, which had established Israeli military rule in Gaza. With this final act of legislation, Israel wanted the world to believe that its 38-year occupation of Gaza had come to an end.

However, Israeli control in Gaza two years after disengagement is total; indeed, the very text of the disengagement plan explicitly provides for much of the current strangulation, ensuring that "Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza air space, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip." [6] In this way, Israel has fired upon Palestinian fishermen, has blocked the reconstruction of Yasser Arafat International Airport, and continues to exercise authority over all border regimes (upon which a blanket closure has been in effect since June 2007). Beyond this level of control, there is an abundance of academic and legal evidence indicating the continuation of Israel's "effective control" in Gaza and thus, a continuation of the occupation under international law.

Yet the greatest evidence of Israeli power in Gaza lies in its power to wreak economic devastation as a matter of policy. Despite the disengagement plan's pretensions to improve the Palestinian economy, its intentions to the opposite are all too clear. Two years after disengagement, the already abysmal economic conditions in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated in virtually all aspects -- in large part because of the economic boycott imposed by the Quartet and spearheaded by the US after Hamas seized control of the strip last June. Since that time, any semblance of a manageable economy attempting to break through unfavorable conditions has been killed by the total closure of Gaza's borders imposed by the Israeli authorities.

Pre-disengagement

Israeli influence over Gaza's economic development prior to the disengagement was total in virtually all aspects. Palestinian reliance upon Israeli employment, favorable standards of trade, dispersal of tax revenues and permission to enter trade markets, conduct business, or travel outside of the occupied territories rendered Gaza vulnerable to the whim of Israeli bureaucracy. Sixty-five percent of Gaza's population lived under the poverty line at that point and 35 percent of the workforce was unemployed. Israeli military actions had fragmented any emergence of semi-functional economic structures prior to the second intifada and virtually erased domestic private investment. The Palestinian Authority was dysfunctional and weak, suffering from internal divisions and external challenges to its authority -- most immediately the Islamic-nationalist movement. It was upon this backdrop of deterioration, intractable economic depression and "de-development" that Israel withdrew its presence from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Post-disengagement

As Israel was preparing to evacuate its forces from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the World Bank issued a report predicting that the economic benefits for Gaza post-disengagement would be "very limited" without a change in Israel's control over border regimes. The mild adjustments derived from increased freedom of movement within Gaza and the return of land formerly occupied by Israeli settlers, the Bank reported, "would not deliver significant economic benefits" to the Palestinians. [7] In comparison, Israel's disengagement plan promised "a better security, political, economic and demographic situation" in declaring Israel's support for "the reform process, the construction of institutions and the improvement of the economy and welfare of the Palestinian residents." [8] It is unclear how the plan intended to address these economic developments. Addendum B10 reads, "In general, the economic arrangements currently in operation between the State of Israel and the Palestinians shall remain in force." These arrangements include "the entry and exit of goods," "the monetary regime," "tax and customs envelope arrangements," and "the entry of workers into Israel." [9] In fact, the plan's only alteration of Israeli economic policy in Gaza was the gradual reduction of "Palestinian workers entering Israel to the point that it ceases completely." [10] The intentions of the plan then become painfully obvious, allowing Israel to maintain the status quo in Gaza, while ignoring the centrality of its own repressive policies in creating Gaza's economic crisis.

Studies considering the collapse of Gaza's economy after Israel's withdrawal often ignore the great deal of effort aimed at revitalizing Gaza's economy in the aftermath of the disengagement. The World Bank, leading a team of economists and various experts, met with Palestinian and Israeli officials in 2004 to discuss the potential "modernization" of military checkpoints to better accommodate trade activity. A Middle East Quartet Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement was appointed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for which purpose world leaders pledged a substantial budget at the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. International businesses began to take interest in Gaza's market potential -- especially investment in land recently evacuated by Israeli settlers. The subsequent collapse of Gaza's economy would seem counterintuitive in this context; scholar Mohammed Samhouri observes, however, that the animus to revitalize the Gazan economy was primarily external and little motivation to capitalize on the pull-out plan could be found among the Palestinian and Israeli parties. [11]

Any possibility of economic recovery on Gaza's behalf, according to the World Bank, was ultimately contingent upon two crucial factors: (1) the easing of Israeli closure policies by implementing technologically advanced border trade strategies and (2) unobstructed access to international markets. [12] Neither of these factors were discussed in the disengagement plan and neither were implemented; rather, there is evidence to suggest that Israel was and is actively working against these factors by obstructing the travel of labor and goods and frequently disturbing the normality of Palestinian life by launching regular military incursions. These policies will ultimately spell Gaza's economic and political isolation from the West Bank (virtually already the case today), posing serious challenges for the realization of a contiguous Palestinian state in these territories.

Beginning of the End

The status of Gaza's economic decline since the disengagement has been described as the "worst economic depression in modern history" [13] and standards of living have similarly suffered. Life in Gaza is now described as "miserable and dangerous," [14] "intolerable, appalling and tragic" [15] -- even "heading down the tubes." [16] Unemployment, after having stabilized in 2003 has increased dramatically; estimates by a Harvard 2005 study predicted that 135,000-162,000 new jobs would have to be created to substantially reduce unemployment within Gaza. [17] Everywhere I go in Gaza, it seems there are scores of recently-graduated students unable to find work, yet barred from leaving Gaza to seek work elsewhere.

In March 2006, adding to the depth of the crisis, Israel began to withhold tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority in protest of the Hamas government and halted much of the bilateral aid, grants and loans provided by the IMF, World Bank and other international institutions. Recently, Israel has called upon the World Bank to cease operations entirely in the strip. Actively working against the recommendations of international experts, Israel has maintained strict control over all border regimes in place prior to disengagement, ignored a US-backed plan to ease restrictions on movement, and began construction of a new perimeter fence around Gaza's border. Moreover, numerous economic development projects have withered on the vine. Israeli bulldozers and Palestinian looters destroyed the remaining sections of the Eretz Industrial Estate, which had previously earmarked for renovation, and frequent closure policies caused the much-touted Palestinian greenhouse project to end in failure. [18] Today, all border crossings but the Erez Checkpoint on the Israeli-Gazan border have been sealed, blocking the transfer of all but "essential" goods. Given that only a handful of Palestinians are permitted to leave Gaza through Erez, the closure has effectively imprisoned 1.4 million people. Israeli policies have deliberately counteracted many of the hopes for economic recovery in Gaza.

Israeli Attacks

The normality of Palestinian life has also been jeopardized by intense episodes of Israeli assault since the disengagement, prolonging the economic crisis with unfavorable periods of unpredictability. The chronology of military events cannot be interpreted in isolation and should be considered in coordination with two significant events that occurred soon after the disengagement plan was implemented, namely the ascent of Hamas to the Palestinian Authority in January 2006 and the cross-border abduction of an Israeli soldier by Hamas-affiliated militants the following summer. Over the course of five months, Israel launched Operation Summer Rains, firing 200-250 artillery shells into Gaza daily and launching over 200 air strikes, which killed over 400 Palestinians combined. [19] In contrast, Palestinians fired an average of nine homemade rockets into Israel daily during the same period, killing four Israeli soldiers and six Israeli civilians. [20] Despite a tentative ceasefire in December 2006, fighting continued sporadically and eventually culminated in Israel's reinvasion of the strip in May 2007 and the persistence of almost daily incursions ever since. The recent decision to brand the Gaza Strip an "enemy entity" would have been laughable, had it not so appallingly revealed Israel's intentions for the Gaza Strip.

Prior to this, the High Court of Israel approved the controversial "targeted killings" of Palestinians affiliated with terrorist organizations; because Israel classifies Hamas as such an organization, the ruling effectively granted permission to target any member of the fledgling Palestinian government. [21] In its effort to topple Hamas, Israel has detained 60 Palestinian Authority officials for being "members of a terrorist organization," i.e. Hamas. [22] These policies, along with American and Israeli support for the Fatah movement during the internecine clashes Gaza experienced last June, served to eliminate Fatah's presence in Gaza and created the environment for Hamas to seize control. The instability this has caused further diminishes Gaza's hopes for economic recovery by encouraging serious elements of unpredictability and providing Israel with a pretext to enthusiastically continue its draconian policies. Again, all of this acts counter to Israel's professed desire -- as stated by the terms of disengagement -- to promote economic growth in Gaza.

Implications for the community

Israel's assault on the Hamas government's stability coupled with the stark reality of Gaza's economic downturn has prevented the local authorities from operating basic infrastructure facilities, e.g. sanitation and sewage treatment. In one instance, the Beit Lahia sewage treatment plant "reached a critical point" in 2005 and flooded neighboring areas with sewage, affecting 800 households. When members of the Coastal Municipal Water Utilities attempted to clean up contaminated areas, they were prevented by IDF artillery fire. The same sewage treatment plant overflowed again in 2007, killing five people. [23] The lack of public money has led to strikes among sanitation personnel, causing garbage to literally pile up in the streets of Gaza City; it is not necessary to describe the immediate health risks of this situation. Energy shortages have adversely affected Gaza's hospitals, which have now ceased vital immunization services in three of Gaza's districts. The danger to public health in Gaza is compounded by the fact that the Gazan Ministry of Health (MoH) no longer possesses the funds to acquire critical medicines and other medical supplies; the MoH currently lack 140 essential medicines and essential medical items (syringes for example). Households experienced recurring power shortages -- at least one of which was caused by the IDF having targeted a Gazan power station with artillery fire -- which then impeded water supplies. [24] Even as I write this, Israel is launching a series of gradual cuts in Gaza's fuel supplies -- a "diet" as some in Israel have gleefully described it.

Two years after disengagement, the Gaza Strip is poorer, more isolated, and more disillusioned than ever before. My own attitude will remain one of profound cynicism as long as the international community tolerates Israel dealing with Gaza as a zookeeper would his animals. With the West Bank isolated from Gaza and Gaza isolated from the world, the situation looks depressingly dismal. As we fast approach the Annapolis summit next month, it seems to me that Palestinians are at their weakest politically since Oslo -- and we all know how that went.

Kris Petersen is a graduate student currently conducting research in the Gaza Strip. He runs a news/commentary blog at www.harmonicminor.com. Jonas Ecke contributed to this article.


Related Links
BY TOPIC: Coverage of the Gaza "Disengagement" process (August 2005)

BY TOPIC: Background: Sharon's "Gaza Disengagement Plan" (early February 2004)


Endnotes
[1] Sections of the original draft were published in "The Sharon Unilateral Disengagement Plan," Journal of Palestine Studies 33, no. 4 (2004): 85-107. See also: BY TOPIC: Sharon's "Gaza Disengagement Plan".
[2] Historically, Israel has preferred to refer to the territory as "administered" and not "occupied."
[3] Israel, Office of the Prime Minister, "Cabinet Resolution Regarding the Disengagement Plan," 6 June 2004, Addendum A1.
[4] BBC, "Israel Completes Gaza Withdrawal," 16 August 2005 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4235768.stm).
[5] Aviv Kochavi cited in Yuval Shany, "Faraway, So Close: The Legal Status of Gaza After Israel's Disengagement," International Law Forum of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Research Paper no. 12-06 (2006): 3.
[6] Israel, "Cabinet Resolution," add. A3.
[7] World Bank, sec. 2, par. 14-15
[8] Israel, "Cabinet Resolution," add. A1. Emphasis added.
[9] Ibid., add. B10.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Mohammed Samhouri, "Gaza Economic Predicament One Year After Disengagement: What Went Wrong?" Middle East Brief 12 (2006): 3.
[12] World Bank, sec. 3
[13] Sara Roy, "The Gaza Strip," Counterpunch, 4 October 2006, (http://www.counterpunch.org/roy10042006.html, accessed 30 October 2007).
[14] John Ging cited in Samhouri, 1.
[15] John Dugard cited in Haaretz, "UN Human Rights Envoy Says Gaza a Prison For Palestinians," 26 September 2006, (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/767510.html, accessed 19 May 2007).
[16] John Ging cited in Samhouri, 1.
[17] Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR), "Population Projections For Socioeconomic Development in the Gaza Strip," Working Paper no. 1 (2006): 15. Total employment would require the creation of 166,000-197,000 new jobs.
[18] The project had originally promised to create 3,000 new jobs and raise $50 million annually. See Office of the Special Envoy for Disengagement, "Periodical Report," 17 October 2005, par. 6.
[19] United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA), "Gaza Strip: Situation Report," 27 July 2006, 2.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Daniel Izenberg, "Supreme Court Allows Conditional Targeted Killing," The Jerusalem Post, 14 December 2006, (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?
pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1164881889047, accessed 12 April 2007).
[22] Anne Barnard and Sa'id Ghazali, "Israeli Arrests Hamas Officials," Boston Globe, 30 June 2006, (http://www.boston.com/news/world/
middleeast/articles/2006/06/30/israelis_arrest_hamas_officials/ accessed 30 October 2007.
[23] See Haaretz, "Flood of Sewage in Gaza Strip Village Kills at Least 5 People," 27 March 2007 (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/842574.html accessed 30 October 2007).
[24] OCHA, 2.

A Culture of Crime, Racism and Privilege

On the Road to the Torture School
By JOE DeRAYMOND, Counterpunch, Nov. 27, 2007

There are about 900 miles of interstate highway between eastern Pennsylvania and Columbus, Georgia. Route 78 runs east-west to Route 81 along the south slope of the Blue Ridge, 81 slides south and west through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and then through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia for over 200 miles till you hit Route 77 over the mountains into North Carolina to Charlotte then west on 85 to Atlanta slicing south finally on 185 to Columbus, Georgia. 185 runs right into our destination, Fort Benning, one of the largest military installations in the world, within which lies the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the School of the Americas (SOA). I have been making this trip on the weekend before Thanksgiving since 1998, to join thousands of others in protesting the SOA. This year I was accompanied by Sarah Snider, Tim Chadwick, and Art Landis, on his first visit to Columbus. The trip has become, in life span terms, a metronome, a click-click of a road trip that marks the Fall of the year.

The interstate road trip culture of gas stations, convenience stores, and bad food seduces one into the illusion that you haven't really arrived at a different place, especially when the destination is Columbus, Georgia. Modern Columbus is an extension of the strip mall, fast food, automobile culture of the interstate, an expanse of concrete and four lane highways, shopping malls, pawn shops, cheap motels, military equipment stores and strip bars.

This year, I was aware of another Columbus, the Columbus of the Old South, of the culture that was defeated in the Civil War and that still clings to the Noble Myth of a South that was unjustly ground down by the marauding armies of the Union. I was introduced to this Columbus by David Rose's recent book,"The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice".

The "Big Eddy Club" traces the thread of Columbus history from before the Civil War to the present through Rose's investigation of a series of murders called "The Stocking Stranglings". Seven elderly Columbus women were raped and murdered over a nine- month period of 1977 in the most elegant, rich, white part of Columbus, known as Wynnton. Five of these women were members of The Big Eddy Club, an exclusive all white social club that sits on the Chattahoochee River overlooking an area known as Oliver Lake, created by a hydroelectric dam just north of Columbus.

To turn off busy Buena Vista Road into Wynnton is to enter the old Columbus that was created for the rich owners of the industrial plants along the Chattahoochee River, one of which has now been rebuilt into a Convention Center that is occupied by the workshops and programs presented on this weekend for and by Latin America activists networking for the next years work. Wynnton contains rich stone houses; the roads are framed with tall pines, the foliage and lawns are lush. It is a quiet haven within the rush and bustle of Columbus.

The Big Eddy Club is at the terminus of a road that winds along Oliver Lake, past million dollar homes, the most opulent of which lie opposite the entrance. Sarah and I did not linger in either neighborhood. As outsiders without portfolio in a beatup 1994 Olds 88, we felt sufficiently edified with a drive-through look.

David Rose recounts the history of racism in Columbus, the slavery, the lynchings, the years of discrimination and segregation, and links it to the arrest, trial and conviction in 1986 of Carlton Gary for the Stocking Stranglings. Carlton remains on Georgia's death row. His trial and conviction were a travesty of due process, and evidence continues to be discovered that points to his innocence. He is a black man, convicted of a crime by a police department badly in need of a suspect after a botched investigation. Carlton was a defendant who could be easily convicted by a Columbus jury, before a Columbus judge.

Those who have followed the struggle of Roy Bourgeois and the School of the America's Watch will remember the first judge on the Gary case, the segregationist Robert Elliot, known as "Maximum Bob" for his inclination to inflict on convicts the maximum sentence allowed by law. David Rose's interview with Elliott is chilling, as the aged jurist would only recount to him one thing--his memory of a rally he attended in Nazi Germany.

Elliott sentenced many SOA protesters to months and years in prison for their non-violent protest. He set the tone for his successor, Federal magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth, who continues to pronounce prison sentences for nuns and priests, grandmothers and grandfathers, and anyone else who may presume to question the existence of a school of torture and assassination on US soil, including myself. I spent three months in federal prison in 2006 for my minimalist protest, after being denied a jury trial and summarily pronounced guilty by Judge Faircloth.

This year, between 11,000 and 25,000 people were at the gates of Fort Benning, demanding a close to a school that provides aid and training to the most repressive and terrorist militaries of the world. Torture and assassination techniques have been taught at SOA/WHINSEC, as proven by the disclosure of manuals used in courses during the 1980's and 1990's. In August of this year, news reports appeared that Colombian graduates and instuctors of SOA/WHINSEC have been implicated in recent murders of US drug interdiction teams in Colombia, and have been providing protection for a Colombian drug lord, Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez, alias "Don Diego".

WHINSEC continues to put forward a brave public relations front, with protestations that they are teaching human rights and democracy. Columbus closes ranks behind Fort Benning, and holds a Fort Benning Support Day on the same weekend as our rally. There was music, professional wrestling, games and toys for the kids, and the mandatory appearance of about 10,000 soldiers from the base. The Columbus newspaper and television dutifully report on the sad affair, trying to generate a pulse of excitement in this manufactured patriotism.

My friend Art Landis, of Perkasie, Pennsylvania, crossed the line this year, and will face Judge Faircloth in January. When asked why he took this stand to protest the SOA, he says, "The SOA is a terrorist camp and terrorism and torture and killing are things I don't approve of, whether we do it or our friends do it or it's done in other parts of the world."

Art will likely go to jail for crawling under a fence with 10 other protesters. Trespassing is a serious crime in the eyes of the US courts, which use it to quell any protest that truly seeks to demand accountability by making a human presence on the empire's sacred ground.

The rally at the gates of Fort Benning this year was dedicated to the life of Rufina Amaya, the sole survivor of the 1981 El Mozote massacre, committed by the SOA-trained Atlacatl Battalion. She hid in bushes and listened to the final moments of her children's lives being impaled on the bayonets of the soldiers. She died in February, 2007, and her testimony and calm dignity will be remembered with our hopes.

My thoughts this year at the rally plotted the connections between WHINSEC/SOA and the massacres it supports and supported to the culture that now houses and defends the school/institute--an elitist, racist culture that has never let go of its privilege, and that also needs to be called to justice, as nooses appear in schoolyards and innocent black men are sent to death row, and retrograde fear permeates our days and lives and the violence extends to the occupation of Iraq, the subjugation of Palestine, the war in Colombia, the femicides of Mexico and Guatemala

Such are the turns of the mind on Route 81 at 2 AM, fueled by gasoline and caffeine, screaming north at 85 mph through the Shenandoah Valley, across West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

Joe DeRaymond lives in Freemansburg, PA. He can be contacted at jderaymond@rcn.com

Bush to stay on sidelines of Mideast talks

President won't pressure Israelis and Palestinians or force any timetable at Annapolis conference, aide says.
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 26, 2007
"But this year, Rice and other senior administration officials have appeared to shift to a belief that progress on the Mideast conflict could help in a variety of ways in a region that has become increasingly hostile to the United States. They have come to view peace negotiations as a way to build Arab support for their efforts to isolate Iran, and help stabilize Iraq after years of violence following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

They believe progress would help Palestinian leader Abbas in his efforts against the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and is allied with Iran."

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's national security advisor said Sunday that the president would not adopt a more activist role in Mideast peace negotiations that start today, even though many observers believe the United States must step up its direct involvement if the effort is to succeed.

On the eve of a U.S.-convened conference in Annapolis, Md., launching the first formal peace talks in seven years, Stephen J. Hadley said Bush believed Washington's role should be to aid and encourage Israelis and Palestinians, not "lean on one side or another and jam a settlement through."

"History has suggested that those efforts to jam have not worked," Hadley said in a conference call with reporters. "We have said from the beginning -- the president has said -- that it is the parties themselves who have to make the peace."

The president's position is likely to reassure Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is politically weak at home and fearful that tough concessions could bring about his government's collapse. But it will almost surely disappoint the delegation headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, which has been hoping American pressure could force Israeli concessions.

The U.S. stance also is likely to displease many of the Arab and European governments attending the conference that have been urging a more active role.

Many Arab and European diplomats say they believe Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants to make progress toward peace in the Middle East, but they fear that Bush does not fully share her views and has at times limited her role.

Meanwhile on Sunday, the Syrian government, whose attendance in the conference had been uncertain, announced that it will send its deputy foreign minister. That means all of Israel's key Arab neighbors will attend, though some have indicated that they are lukewarm about the event's potential.

For most of his two terms, Bush has carefully circumscribed America's role in the conflict, believing that the efforts of President Clinton and others to broker a deal were unfair and doomed to fail.

But with his term ending, and the new round of talks offering the possibility of a diplomatic success, many observers wondered whether Bush would adjust his approach. The question had become one of the principal sources of suspense in the run-up to the conference, which will be held tonight and Tuesday.

But Hadley's comments Sunday laid the question to rest with an emphatic no. He said U.S. officials would provide the two sides with whatever help they needed, but would not push for any specific outcome or try to build pressure by setting a deadline.

"The president's view has always been not to impose a negotiation on the party, and we are not going to impose a timetable on the parties, just to reflect American politics or anything else," Hadley said.

And although he acknowledged that there was a need for American diplomacy, he said the president would not be "sitting down and trying to negotiate a border. I think that is something you won't see the president doing."

Although Bush will make it clear at the conference that a peace settlement is "a top priority" for his government in its final year, any role the United States plays will be up to the two sides to decide based on what they think is useful, he said.

Hadley suggested that the precise U.S. role will emerge after the conference, depending on what the two sides decide they need when the talks get underway.

Rice, asked Wednesday whether the conference signaled a new commitment by Bush, said that the president strongly supports the new effort to bring about a peace settlement.

"All I can tell you is that I wouldn't be doing it if he weren't deeply committed to it. . . . And I am quite certain that as it moves forward he will do whatever it takes to get this concluded."

Even so, Bush's positions suggest there may be a gap between his views and those of his chief diplomat, who has labored for years to indicate there is no daylight between them.

Rice has said that she wants to wrap up negotiations before the president's term ends. But Hadley said the administration is not, in fact, setting that date as a deadline.

Completing the deal within a year was "an idea that the parties have articulated," Hadley said.

The conference, with about 50 nations and groups invited, is intended to give international blessing to a new series of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. But the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority are both politically weak and there are concerns that negotiations could quickly collapse, possibly spurring new violence in the region.

Those who have been advocating stepped-up U.S. involvement include Daniel C. Kurtzer, who was Bush's ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005 and Clinton's envoy to Egypt.

In a new book on Middle East peace efforts, "Negotiating Arab Israeli Peace," Kurtzer and co-author Scott B. Lasensky say Bush has "effectively moved to the sidelines" since taking office.

They write that although "there was activity . . . being busy is not the same as being actively engaged and moving the process forward. . . . The United States did not increase the pressure on the parties to reach their own solution. Instead, the divide between Arabs and Israelis widened."

Bush has been disdainful of Clinton's last-ditch efforts at the end of his second term to resolve the core issues of Jerusalem, borders, refugees and settlements.

Bush told aides he didn't want to squander his political capital on what he regarded as a long shot diplomatic effort. During his first term the prevailing view among most senior officials was that they could reach Jerusalem through Baghdad -- in others words, bringing democracy to Iraq and the region would eventually help solve the 60-year-old standoff.

Some Israeli officials have hailed Bush, who has been unwilling to tell Israel what to do on matters that concern its national security, as the most pro-Israel president.

But this year, Rice and other senior administration officials have appeared to shift to a belief that progress on the Mideast conflict could help in a variety of ways in a region that has become increasingly hostile to the United States. They have come to view peace negotiations as a way to build Arab support for their efforts to isolate Iran, and help stabilize Iraq after years of violence following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

They believe progress would help Palestinian leader Abbas in his efforts against the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and is allied with Iran.

Hadley insisted that Bush had been active throughout his presidency in pushing for Mideast peace, citing his role in developing the 2003 plan known as the "road map," which includes support from the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.

In a statement, Bush said his commitment remained firm.

"I remain personally committed to implementing my vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security," he said.

The statement said that the agreement by about 50 countries and international organizations to attend "demonstrates the international resolve to seize this important opportunity to advance freedom and peace in the Middle East."

paul.richter@latimes.com

Bush Ally Defeated in Australia

By TIM JOHNSTON, New York Times, Nov. 25, 2007

SYDNEY, Australia, Nov. 24 — Australia’s prime minister, John Howard, one of President Bush’s staunchest allies in Asia, suffered a comprehensive defeat at the hands of the electorate on Saturday, as his Liberal Party-led coalition lost its majority in Parliament.

He will be replaced by Kevin Rudd, the Labor Party leader and a former diplomat. “Today Australia looks to the future,” Mr. Rudd told a cheering crowd in his home state of Queensland. “Today the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward.”

Mr. Howard’s defeat, after 11 years in power, follows that of José María Aznar of Spain, who also backed the United States-led invasion of Iraq, and political setbacks for Tony Blair of Britain.

Mr. Howard conceded nearly two hours after the last polling booths closed in the west of the country.

“A few moments ago I telephoned Mr. Kevin Rudd and I congratulated him and the Australian Labor Party on a very emphatic victory,” Mr. Howard told a roomful of emotional supporters.

“I leave the office of prime minister with our country prouder, stronger and more prosperous than ever,” he said.

Returns for a small number of seats are yet to be compiled, but analysts estimate that over all the Labor Party gained 28 seats to win a comfortable 22-seat majority in the 150-seat lower house of Parliament, where governments are formed. Official results are expected within the next day or two.

Mr. Howard may suffer the indignity of losing his own seat in the Sydney suburb of Bennelong, which he has held for 33 years, to a former television anchor and rookie politician. He would be the first sitting prime minister to lose his seat since 1929.

It was a bruising campaign, and the Liberal Party has said it will challenge some results on the grounds that the Labor candidates had broken electoral law by failing to resign from government jobs before running for office. The Labor Party said it had broken no laws.

Mr. Rudd, 50, campaigned on a platform of new leadership to address broad concerns about the environment, health and education. He has said his first acts as prime minister would include pushing for the ratification of the Kyoto agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and negotiating the withdrawal of Australia’s 500 troops from Iraq.

Analysts said the leadership change was unlikely to bring a radically new foreign policy, although they expected a shift in emphasis in the relationship with the United States, Australia’s closest ally. “Australia will remain a close ally of the United States, and Rudd remains committed to the alliance,” said Michael Fullilove, of the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney. But he noted that “if there is a Democratic administration elected next year, to some extent they would become closer.”

Mr. Howard has a strong personal relationship with Mr. Bush that is based on a similar socially conservative philosophy and a shared outlook on terrorism.

Australian opinion polls have shown that although Australians remain strong supporters of the so-called Anzus alliance — the security pact among Australia, New Zealand and the United States — they do not approve of Mr. Bush or the Iraq war.

The attempts by Mr. Howard’s coalition to stress its economic record apparently failed to impress voters. The Australian economy has had 17 years of continuous growth, lately driven by Chinese demand for Australian iron ore and coal. Mr. Howard had warned voters that a Labor victory would endanger the country’s prosperity.

But despite the coalition campaign, there was little distance between the two parties on economic policy, and the defining characteristics came down to the personalities of the leaders. In addition, Mr. Howard was running for a historic fifth term in office, and many voters said they were ready for a change.

“Howard is out of touch,” said George Varvaressos, 52, who voted in eastern Sydney on Saturday morning. “It’s the arrogance of being in power for too long — he hasn’t been listening.”

If Australia’s strongest military and political alliance is with Washington, the fuel for its economy is coming from China. Mr. Fullilove says Mr. Rudd’s ability to manage the relationship between Canberra, Washington and Beijing would be crucial.

Mr. Rudd, 18 years younger than Mr. Howard, has a reputation as a cerebral student of policy, as opposed to the Liberal leader’s image of a hardened and aggressive political animal.

“He seems more personable, approachable. He doesn’t seem arrogant — yet — and I have respect for him,” said Marcelle Freiman, who voted for Mr. Rudd in eastern Sydney on Saturday.

Mr. Rudd’s dry image was altered by the news that he had visited a strip club during a trip to New York in 2003.

He served as a diplomat in Beijing and speaks Mandarin. He impressed many with a fluent address to Chinese President Hu Jintao when Mr. Hu visited Australia in September.

Mr. Fullilove said Mr. Rudd’s experience regarding China is unlikely to make a significant difference to Australia’s relationship with the United States. “I would counsel against people assuming that because Kevin Rudd speaks Mandarin there would be a big rebalancing of the relationship in favor of Beijing,” he said.

Political crisis deepens in Lebanon

By ZEINA KARAM, AP, Nov. 24, 2007

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanon awoke a republic without a president Saturday amid mounting worries over a power vacuum that has intensified the nation's yearlong political turmoil.

The capital was calm and shops opened for business as usual the morning after a tumultuous day that saw President Emile Lahoud depart without a successor after announcing he was handing over security powers to the army.

Lahoud's final announcement saying the country is in a "state of emergency" was rejected by the rival, pro-Western Cabinet of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.

The government rejection created fresh confusion in an already unsettled situation, which many Lebanese fear could explode into violence between supporters of Saniora's government and the pro-Syria opposition led by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

"Lahoud's term ends in a republic without a president," read the headline of Lebanon's leading An-Nahar newspaper. Another daily, Al-Balad, printed an empty photo frame on its front page, symbolizing the political vacuum.

The departure of Lahoud, a staunch ally of the Syrian regime during his nine years in office, was a long-sought goal of the government installed by parliament's anti-Syria majority, which has been trying to put one of its own in the presidency.

Hezbollah and other opposition groups have blocked legislators from electing a new president by boycotting ballot sessions, leaving parliament without the required quorum.

The fight has put Lebanon into dangerous, unknown territory: Both sides are locked in bitter recriminations, accusing the other of breaking the constitution, and they are nowhere near a compromise on a candidate to become head of state.

The army command refused to comment on the developments. The military, under its widely respected chief, Gen. Michel Suleiman, has sought to remain neutral in the political chaos, and Lahoud's statement did not give it political powers.

Even before the president's vague announcement, the military was in place to guard against the two sides' supporters taking the conflict to the streets. On alert for days, hundreds of soldiers stood with tanks, armored personnel carriers and jeeps in the area around the downtown parliament building as well as on roads leading into Beirut.

Lahoud stepped down when his term expired at midnight.

Before getting into his car to go, he blasted Saniora's government, calling it "illegitimate and unconstitutional. They know that, even if (President) Bush said otherwise."

In the capital, some 2,000 government supporters gathered in a Sunni Muslim neighborhood cheered his departure, setting off fireworks, beating drums and shouting, "Lahoud Out!"

His departure left the presidency vacant after parliament failed again to convene earlier Friday to vote on a successor.

Lahoud's vaguely worded final statement, two hours before midnight enflamed tempers with his reference to a "state of emergency" in Lebanon.

The constitution requires the cabinet to approve any state of emergency, and Saniora's government quickly rejected the announcement as "worthless."

Saniora signaled earlier that his government planned to assume the powers. His top ally, the United States, said Friday that was the proper path.

The anti-Syria camp has sought to capture the presidency to seal the end of Syria dominance of Lebanon, which lasted for 29 years until international pressure and mass protests forced Damascus to withdraw Syrian troops in 2005.

Hezbollah, which is an ally of Syria and Iran, and its opposition allies have been able to stymie the government's hopes by boycotting parliament, as they did Friday afternoon.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is aligned with the opposition, scheduled another session for Nov. 30 to give the factions more time to try to find a compromise candidate — something they failed to do in weeks of talks mediated by France's foreign minister and others.

PM: Poland to end Iraq mission in 2008

By VANESSA GERA, AP, Nov 23, 2007

WARSAW, Poland - Poland's new prime minister outlined ambitious plans for the next four years in his inaugural address Friday, saying he plans to withdraw troops from Iraq next year but also push for stronger relations with NATO.

In a three-hour speech to parliament, Donald Tusk laid out a vision for the country that includes more capitalism — privatization, tax cuts and simplifying business laws — to bolster the economy of this ex-communist country.

While Tusk and his Civic Platform party want to continue the strong friendship with the U.S., he gave a taste of plans that, taken together, would suggest that the country plans to assert more independence in its relations with Washington.

Tusk said that, by the end of next year, Poland would withdraw its 900 troops from Iraq, where it leads an international contingent of about 2,000 soldiers from 10 nations in the south-central part of the country.

"We will carry out that operation with the conviction that we have done more than what our allies — especially the U.S. — had expected from us," he said.

Tusk's call for a pullout came as no surprise. He campaigned on promises to end the unpopular mission, clashing on the issue with his opponent, then-incumbent Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who argued that withdrawing would amount to desertion.

His twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, who is the armed forces' commander in chief, supports staying in Iraq longer and has the power to authorize foreign military missions. But he cannot unilaterally extend a mission the government wants to end.

Poland's mission in Iraq has the president's authorization until the end of the year. Tusk and the president will have to hold talks to decide when and how to end the mission.

Tusk said he planned to keep Poland's 1,200-member force in Afghanistan next year.

U.S. State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez said Friday that the U.S. had been discussing the issue with the new Polish government and was grateful for Poland's contribution.

"Poland had indicated that it will consult fully with the United States and other allies when conducting their withdrawal to ensure that there is not any reduction in stability in the area they are leaving," Vasquez said.

Tusk also said he will resume talks with the U.S. on accepting a U.S. missile defense base in Poland — but only after consulting with NATO and other neighboring countries — signaling a greater hesitancy over the plan than the previous government.

"NATO is the main pillar and guarantor of Poland's security," Tusk said.

U.S.-Polish talks on the missile shield plan began earlier this year under Kaczynski's government, which strongly supported hosting a site as a way of bolstering the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Russia has sharply opposed U.S. plans to deploy missile defense installations in Poland and the neighboring Czech Republic, saying it would destabilize the balance of power in the region.

Many of Tusk's points were met by applause in the chamber, although the sheer length of his speech — the longest by a prime minister since the fall of Communism — was clearly an annoyance to some.

Some lawmakers could be seen rubbing their eyes or dozing off, while an opposition lawmaker slammed Tusk's long speech as reminiscent of long-winded Communists.

"Donald Tusk is the Fidel Castro of Polish politics," said Zbigniew Girzynski, a lawmaker with Law and Justice.

Tusk, who was sworn in a week ago, spent the largest part of the policy speech on domestic issues. He vowed to lower taxes, reduce the state deficit and put the country on the path to adopt the euro currency "as soon as possible." However, he gave no date.

Tusk pledged to simplify business regulations and speed up privatization. He said less government interference was needed to stimulate private enterprise in Poland, which shed Communism in 1989.

He also said a priority of his government would be to modernize the dilapidated road system and the outdated railways.

Tusk's party ousted Jaroslaw Kaczynski's nationalist, conservative government in Oct. 21 elections but failed to gain a parliamentary majority on its own. It then forged a coalition with the centrist Polish People's Party.

_____

Associated Press writers Monika Scislowska and Ryan Lucas contributed to this report.

Transport Workers in France End Strike; Student Protests Continue

France train services near normal
BBC News, Nov., 23, 2007

Travel networks in France are returning to normal following major disruption caused by a nine-day strike.

High-speed TGV services from Paris are running as usual. In the capital, metro services were being restored, though few lines were back to 100% operation.

"The worst of the crisis is over," presidential aide Raymond Soubie told radio station Europe-1.

But reports suggest the unions could return to strike action next month if current talks fail to reach a deal.

The unions oppose plans to scrap the "special" pension system that allows some 500,000 transport and utility workers to retire early, bringing them in line with other state employees.

'No compromise'

The government has signalled it is willing to discuss how the reforms are implemented, but President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed not to compromise on the core of the changes - and Mr Soubie reiterated this stance on Friday.

"We have always said that there are some principles of harmonisation which we would not give up.

"We have not given them up. We won't give them up," he said, though he added there were many "perfectly legitimate" issues to be discussed.

On Thursday most local union committees voted to return to work while talks with the government continue.

The number of trains running on the state-owned national rail network SNCF and the Paris underground was returning to normal on Friday.

While TGV high-speed services from Paris were near normal, regional services continued to experience only 50-70% of usual service levels.

On the Paris metro, some lines were back to normal while service on others remained extremely patchy.

Buses were running about 80% of normal service, while trams were nearly back to normal.

Both the SNCF rail and RATP metro companies say they will offer refunds to holders of season tickets and travel passes in light of the prolonged disruption caused by the strike, which began on 13 November.

Talks between the unions, rail managers and government representatives, which began on Wednesday, are expected to continue for at least a month.

Most unions have told members to go back to work, with only the militant Sud Rail urging members to stay out.

But train drivers warn they could be back out on strike in mid-December if no deal is reached.

Trouble elsewhere

Although the government says it will stay firm on the reforms, it has suggested it could offer incentives of salary rises and a top-up scheme for pensions.

Unhappy rail workers are not the only obstacle Mr Sarkozy faces in implementing his reforms programme.

On Tuesday, civil workers went on strike.

On Thursday, the Unef student union said 48 out of France's 85 universities were totally or partially blocked by protesters demonstrating against what they say are Mr Sarkozy's plans to privatise top universities.

Those student protests were reportedly continuing at some universities on Friday.

Call Off Bush’s phony Annapolis ‘peace meeting

A Call for Protest
FOR JUSTICE & PEACE, U.S. OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST
Across the Country--Protest on November 27 & 28


Endorse | Donate | List your local activity

We call on the anti-war movement to organize and demonstrate on November 27 & 28, during President George W. Bush’s phony “peace meeting” at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

In New York City at Times Square on Nov. 27 at 5:00pm.
In Charlotte, NC at 7th St & Pecan Ave. on Nov. 27 at 6:00pm

List of actions across the U.S. in formation. See www.TroopsOutNow.org

It is a monumental insult to the people of the Middle East and all justice-minded people that war criminal Bush would dare to convene a “peace meeting” while Washington continues to bring occupation, genocide and devastation to Iraq and Afghanistan, destabilization to Palestine and Lebanon, and constant threats to Iran and Syria in its quest for oil and colonial empire. This phony meeting should be called off.

As an anti-war movement, we must ask ourselves: Can we allow the war criminals, who time after time have callously ignored the anti-war majority in the U.S. and globally, to get away with this outrageous farce?

Some may be confused about the purpose of the Annapolis meeting, so let’s speak plain truth: It isn’t really about peace and justice for the Palestine–it’s about deception, occupation and war. It’s about isolating popular forces and countries that reject U.S. rule. It’s about attempting to force new concessions on the Palestinian people, while attempting to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments with Israel. All while Tel Aviv continues its all-out assault on the Palestinian people. And it’s about preparing for a new war.

At this moment, Palestinians in Gaza are being deprived of food, fuel, medicines and other basic necessities by an economic embargo imposed by Israel and backed by the U.S. Meanwhile, more Israeli settlements, roads, walls and checkpoints are being set up in the West Bank each day. Palestinian, Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S. have also been subjected to a war of racist repression and need our support

Beyond pretending to be a “peace broker,” Bush hopes that the Annapolis meeting will:
* Divide and weaken the just struggle of the Palestinian people;
* Prop up the unstable Israeli occupation regime;
* Legitimize and strengthen the illegal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and U.S. plans for colonization of the whole Middle East;
*Help prepare for aggression and war against Iran.

Representatives of the Israeli apartheid regime will be in Annapolis, along with some Palestinian and other Arab forces that are under severe pressure from Washington or are willingly in its orbit. Those who refuse to tow the line have not been invited or chosen to boycott the meeting.

We must not be silent when the war criminals in the White House and Pentagon are talking peace - while waging war and planning new wars. This is the time for anti-war forces to take a strong stand!

END THE WAR NOW
* Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan NOW
* Stop preparations for war under the guise of “peace,” from Iran to Syria, Palestine and Lebanon
* Free Palestine – Support the Right to Return and self-determination
* End the blockade of Gaza
* Occupation is a crime, from Iraq to Palestine


Initiated by: Troops Out Now Coalition

(Endorsers List in formation)
Action Center For Justice, Charlotte, NC
Arab American Union Members Council
Al-Awda - Palestine Right To Return Coalition, NY & Omaha
American Iranian Friendship Committee
Artists and Activists United for Peace
All India Anti-imperialist Forum
Asia-Pacific Action
All Peoples Congress
Ahmad Kawash, Palestine American Congress, Executive Board, Boston
Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor of Pan-African News Wire
Angeles Maestro, former MP, Spain, Corriente Roja
Amr El-Bayoumi, Alexandria Association of Human Rights Activists (Egypt)
Alexander Moumbaris, Les dossiers du BIP (Editions Démocrite)
Bisphop Filipe C. Teixeira, OFSJC, Northeast Diocese of St. Francis of Assisi, CCA
Bernadette Ellorin - BAYAN USA*
Brenda Stokely - NYC Labor Against the War*
BRussell's Tribunal
Campaign for Healthcare Not Warfare
Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat
Chuck Turner - Boston City Councilor
Elena Everett, GPAX*, North Carolina Green Party*
Gloria Pérez Berrocal - TV producer, Spain
F.I.S.T.-Fight Imperialism Stand Together
Haiti Support Network
Harlem Tenants Council
International Action Center
Isma'il Kushkush, Journalist
Javier Maqua Lara - Film writer and director, Spain
Jersey City Peace Movement
Joachim Guilliard, Irak Koordination Germany
Kamau Franklin, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement-NY*
Lenora Foerstel, Women for Mutual Security
Lynne Stewart
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Oakland Chapter
Millions for Mumia
New England Human Rights Organization for Haiti
NJ Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine
NY Committee to Free the Cuban Five
Pakistan-USA Freedom Forum
Pam Africa, Internat’l Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Peoples Video Network
Queers for Peace & Justice
Spanish Campaign to end the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq
Stop War On Iran Campaign
Susan Abulhawa, Author (Scar of David)
Womens' Fightback Network

* for identification purposes only

Troops Out Now Coalition
55 W. 17th St. #5C
NY NY 10011
www.TroopsOutNow.org
212.633-6646

************************
Action Center For Justice
www.CharlotteAction.org

Message from Iraq War Vet: The anti-war phonies

By JOHN BRUHNS, Philadelphia Daily News, Nov. 19, 2007

I came home from Iraq in February 2004 and since then have fought tooth and nail for an end to the war.

I did so because I believe the war is immoral and illegal. I aligned myself with some high- profile lobbying organizations who
I believed would have the most significant impact on ending the war. In doing so, I detached myself from the people of this country who are honestly committed to ending the war.

I traded my convictions for "special interest" groups who sometimes seem to be in place simply to smear those who disagree with their political agenda. But the agenda is not anti-war. The war is used by these organizations as ammunition against political foes - primarily Republicans. They are the enemy despite the fact that many Democrats vote the same way.

It was very hard for me to go "off the reservation." I didn't want to face the fact that these anti-war groups had other aims.

We watched as legislation that had no substantial impact on ending the war was debated. There ARE anti-war resolutions still floating out there that call for a real end to the war, but the groups I worked for wouldn't spend one dime to promote legislation considered out of the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

Any genuine anti-war message was filtered through media consultants who provide politically correct "talking points" to veterans for them to carry out a phony message that is beneficial to the campaign.

We threatened Republicans with "political extinction" if they didn't change their votes on Iraq. It was a partisan tactic that got us nowhere fast.

When I worked with these organizations, I did nothing to actually stop the war. I only put on a good show that would catch the attention of the media. We focused on America's desire for entertainment rather than the core issue of ending the war.

Our troops are still being killed on a daily basis and the main agenda of these well-financed anti-war groups, I think, is nothing short of the prolonged character assassination of all those who disagree with their message. In my eyes, it's just as bad as those who fight for a continuation of the war, and I'm no longer able to distinguish between the two sides.

I was not honest when I walked away and pursued the "lone wolf" route. Instead I painted a rosy picture of my departure in order to preserve my credibility and longevity within the establishment. This confession is the only way to restore my integrity. So I can go on to continue to fight against the war in Iraq with a clear conscience.

I didn't commit eight years of honorable military service to this country to be an indirect proxy of one political party. I saw the damage done to our country for most of the last seven years with the Republicans in control of the executive, legislative and judicial branches. There was no political balance whatsoever to keep our democracy pure. That's why we are so divided as a nation, and I'm not about to fight for the same partisan domination for the Democrats - even though that is my party affiliation.

THE Democrats promised they would bring change if given a majority in Congress. It didn't happen, and I'm not going to be fooled again. There are many courageous Democrats who vote to end the war in Iraq. But there are many who do not.

Republicans in Congress, for the most part, would follow George W. Bush to the gates of hell. And because of their unity, they are able to keep prevailing despite being in the minority of both houses of Congress.

If any candidate wants my vote, they first and foremost need to convince me that they will end the war in Iraq. *

John Bruhns is a writer and anti-war activist in the Philadelphia area.

Hundreds of thousands of workers strike in France

French civil servants join strikes
By ELAINE GANLEY, AP, Nov. 20, 2007

PARIS - Schools closed, flights were delayed, trains again weren't running, and newspapers weren't printed as civil servants joined transport workers in strikes Tuesday to challenge President Nicolas Sarkozy's program of sweeping reform for France

A defiant Sarkozy said voters gave him a mandate for reform when they elected him in May, adding: "We will not surrender and we will not retreat."

"France needs reforms to meet the challenges imposed on it by the world," he told a meeting of mayors.

Sarkozy previously had remained uncharacteristically silent about the transit strikes that have hobbled the national rail network and transport in and around the capital for a week.

He said the walkout must stop before it brings "the economy to its knees."

"You have to know how to stop a strike," said the conservative. "You have to think of all of those who have to go to work."

He reiterated his determination to press ahead with the pension reform that prompted labor leaders to call the open-ended strike. But he also suggested that he is not looking to crush unions in the reform process.

"I do not want a winner and loser," Sarkozy said.

The walkouts looked increasingly like the last gasp of a protest movement that started with train drivers but seems to be losing some punch after a week of major travel disruptions.

Talks with transport unions are to start Wednesday and the government said it would take part.

Tuesday marked the seventh full day of the transit strikes against pension reforms.

Hundreds of thousands of civil servants — teachers, customs agents and tax inspectors — also stayed off the job to press for pay raises and job security. Sarkozy has promised a slimmed-down and reformed civil service, France's largest employer with more than 5 million workers.

Although civil servants and transport workers have different demands, together their protests stood as the biggest test since Sarkozy took office with a determination to revamp France through reforms and cost-cutting.

More than 300,000 teachers — about 40 percent — were on strike Tuesday, the Education Ministry said, and some schools were forced to close. Flights also were delayed and postal services were affected.

National newspapers were absent from kiosks as printers and distributors joined the walkout. Strike-hit France-Inter radio broadcast music and a message of apology instead of its regular programming.

National weather service Meteo France, which has 3,700 employees, said a third of the staff members were on strike.

Thousands joined protest marches in Paris and other cities. The Paris demonstration had a picnic atmosphere, with music, roasted sausages and balloons marked "Public Service is a Public Good." The demonstrators marched across the Left Bank to the gold-domed monument at Les Invalides, site of Napoleon's tomb.

About one in seven employees at France's main energy utilities, Electricite de France and Gaz de France, were on strike, the companies said.

Striking air traffic controllers caused delays averaging 45 minutes at Paris' two airports, Charles de Gaulle and Orly, affecting both short domestic routes and long-haul flights.

Despite the pressure on Sarkozy, the government has stood firm. Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Monday that reforms must move forward.

The transit strike has caused massive disruption on the national rail network and in Paris' Metro and commuter lines.

The government says the transit walkout is costing France's economy between $440 million and $513 million a day and could dent economic growth if it lasts.

Train drivers are protesting Sarkozy's plans to extend their retirement age. The government has insisted that for talks to start, unions must move toward a return to work. It also says the core of the reform — that all workers must work for 40 years to qualify for full pensions — is nonnegotiable.

Sarkozy was elected on promises to reform France — from its courts to its creaking university system, its army of civil servants to rail workers whose special retirement privileges he vowed to eliminate.

Campuses are also bubbling with discontent. Knots of students have been blocking classes at dozens of France's 85 state-run universities to protest a law allowing them to seek nongovernment funding. Critics fear the change will mean schools closing their doors to the poor and scrapping classes that can't attract private funding.

___

Associated Press Writers Jean-Marie Godard, John Leicester and Elizabeth Ryan contributed to this story.

US Hopes to Recruit Pakistani Tribes Against al-Qaeda

By Eric Schmitt, Mark Mazzetti and Carlotta Gall
New York Times, Nov. 19, 2007

Washington - A new and classified American military proposal outlines an intensified effort to enlist tribal leaders in the frontier areas of Pakistan in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as part of a broader effort to bolster Pakistani forces against an expanding militancy, American military officials said.

If adopted, the proposal would join elements of a shift in strategy that would also be likely to expand the presence of American military trainers in Pakistan, directly finance a separate tribal paramilitary force that until now has proved largely ineffective and pay militias that agreed to fight Al Qaeda and foreign extremists, officials said. The United States now has only about 50 troops in Pakistan, a Pentagon spokesman said, a force that could grow by dozens under the new approach.

The proposal is modeled in part on a similar effort by American forces in Anbar Province in Iraq that has been hailed as a great success in fighting foreign insurgents there. But it raises the question of whether such partnerships, to be forged in this case by Pakistani troops backed by the United States, can be made without a significant American military presence in Pakistan. And it is unclear whether enough support can be found among the tribes, some of which are working with Pakistan's intelligence agency.

Altogether, the broader strategic move toward more local support is being accelerated because of concern about instability in Pakistan and the weakness of the Pakistani government, as well as fears that extremists with havens in the tribal areas could escalate their attacks on allied troops in Afghanistan. Just in recent weeks, Islamic militants sympathetic to Al Qaeda and the Taliban have already extended their reach beyond the frontier areas into more settled areas, most notably the mountainous region of Swat.

[The Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, recommended late Sunday that the Election Commission call for parliamentary elections on Jan. 8, but he did not say whether emergency rule would be revoked beforehand, Reuters reported early Monday.

"Inshallah, the general elections in the country would be held on Jan. 8," the official Associated Press of Pakistan news agency quoted Musharraf as saying late Sunday.]

The tribal proposal, a strategy paper prepared by staff members of the United States Special Operations Command, has been circulated to counterterrorism experts but has not yet been formally approved by the command's headquarters in Tampa, Fla. Some other elements of the campaign have been approved in principle by the Americans and Pakistanis and await financing, like $350 million over several years to help train and equip the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force that has about 85,000 members and is recruited from border tribes.

Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration has used billions of dollars of aid and heavy political pressure to encourage Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, to carry out more aggressive military operations against militants in the tribal areas. But the sporadic military campaigns Pakistan has conducted there have had little success, resulting instead in heavy losses among Pakistani Army units and anger among local residents who have for decades been mostly independent from Islamabad's control.

American officials acknowledge those failures, but say that the renewed emphasis on recruiting allies among the tribal militias and investing more heavily in the Frontier Corps reflect the depth of American concern about the need to address Islamic extremism in Pakistan. The new counterinsurgency campaign is also a vivid example of the American military's asserting a bigger role in a part of Pakistan that the Central Intelligence Agency has overseen almost exclusively since Sept. 11.

Small numbers of United States military personnel have served as advisers to the Pakistani Army in the tribal areas, giving planning advice and helping to integrate American intelligence, said one senior American officer with long service in the region.

Historically, American Special Forces have gone into foreign countries to work with local militaries to improve the security of those countries in ways that help American interests. Under this new approach, the number of advisers would increase, officials said.

American officials said these security improvements complemented a package of assistance from the Agency for International Development and the State Department for the seven districts of the tribal areas that amounted to $750 million over five years, and would involve work in education, health and other sectors. The State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs is also assisting the Frontier Corps with financing for counternarcotics work.

Some details of the security improvements have been reported by The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. But the classified proposal to enlist tribal leaders is new.

"The D.O.D. is about to start funding the Frontier Corps," one military official said, referring to the Department of Defense. "We have only got a portion of that requested but it is enough to start."

Until now, the Frontier Corps has not received American military financing because the corps technically falls under the Pakistani Interior Ministry, a nonmilitary agency that the Pentagon ordinarily does not deal with. But American officials say the Frontier Corps is in the long term the most suitable force to combat an insurgency. The force, which since 2001 has increasingly been under the day-to-day command of Pakistani Army units, is now being expanded and trained by American advisers, diplomats said.

The training of the Frontier Corps remains a concern for some. NATO and American soldiers in Afghanistan have often blamed the Frontier Corps for aiding and abetting Taliban insurgents mounting cross-border attacks. "It's going to take years to turn them into a professional force," said one Western military official. "Is it worth it now?"

At the same time, military officials fear the assistance to develop a counterinsurgency force is too little, too late. "The advantage is already in the enemy hands," one Western military official said. Local Taliban and foreign fighters in Waziristan have managed to regroup since negotiating peace deals with the government in 2005 and 2006, and last year they were able to fight all through the winter, he said. Militants have now emerged in force in the Swat area, a scenic tourist region that is a considerable distance inland from the tribal areas on the border.

The planning at the Special Operations Command intensified after Adm. Eric T. Olson, a member of the Navy Seals who is the new head of the command, met with General Musharraf and Pakistani military leaders in August to discuss how the military could increase cooperation in Pakistan's fight against the extremists.

A spokesman for the command, Kenneth McGraw, would not comment on any briefing paper that had been circulated for review. He said Friday that after Admiral Olson returned from his trip, he "energized the staff to look for ways to develop opportunities for future cooperation."

A senior Defense Department official said that Admiral Olson had prepared a memorandum on how Special Operations forces could assist the Pakistani military in the counterinsurgency, and shared that document with several senior Pentagon officials.

Four senior defense or counterterrorism officials confirmed that planning was under way at the command headquarters.

One person who was briefed on the proposal prepared by the Special Operations Command staff members, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because the briefing had not yet been approved, said it was in the form of about two dozen slides. The slides described a strategy using both military and nonmilitary measures to fight the militants.

One slide included a chart that categorized one to two dozen tribes by location - North Waziristan and South Waziristan, for example - and then gave a brief description of their location, their known or suspected links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and their size and military abilities.

The briefing said United States forces would not be involved in any conventional combat in Pakistan. But several senior military and Pentagon officials said elements of the Joint Special Operations Command, an elite counterterrorism unit, might be involved in strikes against senior militant leaders under specific conditions.

Two people briefed on elements of the approach said it was modeled in part on efforts in Iraq, where American commanders have worked with Sunni sheiks in Anbar Province to turn locals against the militant group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni extremist group that American intelligence agencies say is led by foreigners.

The success of these efforts, together with the consensus in military and intelligence circles that the grip of the original Al Qaeda in the tribal areas continues to tighten at a time when the Pakistani government is in crisis, led planners at the Special Operations Command to develop the strategy for the tribal areas.

A group of Pakistan experts convened in March by the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that empowering tribal leaders could be an effective strategy to counter the rising influence of Islamic religious leaders and to weaken Al Qaeda. But a report on the session found that such successes "would be difficult to achieve, particularly in the north (Bajaur) and south (North and South Waziristan)."

One person who had been brief on the proposal cautioned that whether a significant number of tribal leaders would join an American-backed effort carried out by Pakistani forces was "the $64,000 question."

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Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti reported from Washington, and Carlotta Gall from Islamabad, Pakistan.

US-led troops kill Afghan civilians

Aljazeera.net, Nov. 12, 2007

A woman and two children were among 18 people killed by US-led troops in an operation in the south of Afghanistan, the US military has said.

The raid in the Garmser district of Helmand province on Sunday also led to the deaths of 15 anti-government fighters.

The US military said in a statement on Monday that its soldiers had thrown a grenade that destroyed a house.

The woman and children were found dead in the rubble of the building which collapsed during the assault.
Fatal assault

The troops were raiding compounds suspected of housing bomb makers in Garmser when fighters attacked them with heavy fire, according to the statement.

The soldiers responded with small-arms fire, killing several fighters, it said.

"During one of the engagements, several militants barricaded themselves in a building on the compound and engaged coalition forces with a high volume of gunfire. Coalition forces used a single grenade which killed the attacking militants," the statement said.

"The building the militants were fighting from collapsed."

After the clash, troops recovered the bodies of a woman and two children from the collapsed building, along with several fighters and their weapons, it said.

It was not possible to verify the multinational-force claims.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said that only three fighters were killed during the battle and 15 other victims were civilians.

Rising toll

Taliban fighters attacked a police checkpoint in the central Afghan province of Ghazni, killing the officers and wounding two others.

Two Nato soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were killed in a roadside bomb blast on Monday, close to the Pakistani border, that brought to 11 the number of international soldiers slain in Afghanistan in the past week.

"Two ISAF soldiers were killed in an IED (improvised explosive device) attack. One soldier was wounded," Major Christine Nelson-Chung, International Security Assistance Force spokeswoman, said.

She refused to give further details, including the nationality of the casualties or the location of the blast.

But Farooq Sangari, the deputy provincial police chief of the province of Paktika, said the blast struck a Nato vehicle in Bermal district and that an Afghan interpreter was also killed.

The attack came three days after six Nato troops and two Afghan soldiers were slain in an ambush in northeastern Afghanistan.

Elsewhere in the country, four police officers were killed in an ambush on Sunday.

IAC Statement on the crisis in Pakistan

Statement from the International Action Center, Nov. 9, 2007

The International Action Center condemns the ongoing U.S. support for the brutal military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan.

Musharraf, who first seized power in a 1999 coup, has declared martial law in a desperate attempt to bolster his faltering dictatorship. Opposition leaders have been arrested. Peaceful political meetings have been raided. All international and private news channels have been shut down, with only the state-owned stations allowed to remain on the air.

Musharraf’s attempt to silence dissent has failed. Every day, more and more of the people of Pakistan are taking to the streets, despite the ominous presence and brutality of the U.S.-armed troops.

Meanwhile, Washington is desperately exploring its options to maintain control over the government of Pakistan. For eight years, the U.S. government has depended on Musharraf as an ally in Washington’s crusade to dominate the region and crush national liberation movements.

But now, with the resistance in Iraq continuing and with the refusal of Iran to bow to the demands of Washington, popular movements opposing the U.S. agenda have gained new confidence. Musharraf now faces the real possibility of being overthrown by forces who oppose his collaborationist policies.

Some in the Bush Administration may be looking to Benazir Bhutto as a solution to their problem. Before the declaration of martial law, the U.S. attempted to force Musharraf to accept a power-sharing deal with Benazir Bhutto, a billionaire former prime minister who was ousted for corruption. This deal was engineered, in part, by National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and one of the people responsible for the death squad campaigns against the people of El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980’s.

The International Action Center calls for the immediate end of all U.S. support for the brutal Musharraf dictatorship. We call for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the region, including neighboring Afghanistan.

We join with working people all over the world in expressing our solidarity with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the U.S.-imposed dictatorship.

Stop U.S. Aid to Musharraf!

Hands Off Pakistan!

U.S. Out of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq!

No End In Sight film screening

Saturday, Dec. 1, 2007

6:00pm

Charlotte Energy Solutions

337 Baldwin Ave.
Charlotte, NC 28204

Watch the trailer:


Find out more about No End In Sight, click here.

For more info on this screening email bringthemonhome@yahoo.com or call (704) 333-4358.

SiCKO film screening & discussion

Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007

7:30 pm

Charlotte Energy Solutions

337 Baldwin Ave
Charlotte, NC 28204

Join us this Saturday, Nov. 10 at 7:30pm to watch Michael Moore's latest, greatest film SiCKO, followed by discussion. You will also have the opportunity to get involved in the movement for universal health care here in the U.S.

About SiCKO:

Writer/producer Michael Moore interviews Americans who have been denied treatment by our health care insurance companies -- companies who sacrifice essential health services in order to maximize profits. The consequences for the individual subscribers range from bankruptcy to the unnecessary deaths of loved ones.

Moore then looks at universal free health care systems in Canada, France, Britain, and Cuba, debunking all the fears (lower quality of care, poorer compensation for doctors, big-government bureaucracy) that have been used to dissuade Americans from establishing such a system here. The roots of those health care systems are explored, and our failure to establish free health here care is traced to a) President Richard Nixon's deceptive support of the then-emerging HMOs pursuing huge profits and b) subsequent pressures for Congress to sacrifice sound health care in favor of corporate profit.

A group of Americans who became ill from volunteering at 911 Ground Zero, but were refused health coverage for their illnesses, are ferried by Moore to Cuba, where they receive the top-rate, free care one would hope they'd get here at home.

In his interviews, historical reportage, and typical sarcastic wit, Moore soundly condemns American health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the politicians who have been paid millions to do their bidding. He makes the case that there is something wrong with Americans that we cannot learn from the successes of other countries in providing better quality-of-health than we enjoy in the USA.

Watch the DVD trailer at http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/dvd/trailer.html

Sponsored by Charlotte Energy Solutions & Action Center For Justice. For more info email bringthemonhome@yahoo.com.