Global

As a Latin Americanist who has spent not only a lot of time in the region, but lived in Mexico for most of the 90s, I find it interesting that you seek to compare the 2004 US election with Lopez Obrador’s pathetic populist-hero drama.  It would benefit your readership tremendously to explain this in light of the PRD’s tactics that included – preventing the election authorities from carrying out their legitimate tallying activities in pro-PAN states in an effort to delay the arrival of PAN votes in Mexico City; Lopez Obrador’s overt threats to call mass demonstrations if he was not declared the winner; and perhaps most importantly, the rampant corruption of his administration during his Mexico City mayorship last term.  Lopez Obrador is about as manipulative as they get in Latin American populism.

Give the Mexicans a break Bob. Their election has about as much to do with you or the 2004 elections or Chavez as you do with reality.

James T Anderson
Mexico Home Capital Holdings, L.P.

Suzanne Swift's story begins in an all-too-familiar way. A dead-end job, a friendly military recruiter, a promise that signing-up as military police would mean no deployment to Iraq, a broken promise, and a trip to war. Then it takes a less commonly heard of turn, one involving a practice known as "command rape." Suzanne is back in the U.S. and is refusing to return to Iraq. Until a couple of days ago she was confined by the military and threatened with prosecution. The three superiors whom she has accused of various forms of harassment or assault have not yet been charged. Suzanne's mother, Sara Rich, spoke with me about her daughter's ordeal and recorded this 20-minute conversation.

Transcribed by Sandy Smedley:

This is David Swanson, speaking with Sara Rich, the mother of Suzanne Swift:

DAVID: Ms. Rich, how old is your daughter?

SARA: Suzanne is almost 22.

DAVID: Almost 22; and what is her background in the military? How did she get into the service and how long ago was that?

A group of civic organizations filed a lawsuit today seeking to overturn restrictions on voter registration in the state of Ohio. The requirements laid out by the state drastically limit the ability of civic groups to register new voters and threaten individual registration workers with felony charges for minor mistakes handling forms. The rules will limit voter registration, unnecessarily exclude eligible voters from the election process, and suppress the vote in Ohio.

The complaint filed today in United States District Court, Northern District of Ohio, raises several concerns with House Bill 3 and the rules and procedures set forth by the Secretary of State, including:

• In the past, citizens working to register voters were able to turn in the completed forms to a civic group or church that would review the forms for accuracy, turn them into the registrar, and follow up later to make sure the voter was actually registered. Now, workers collecting voter registration forms would be forbidden from doing that and would be subject to felony charges if the forms were to be handed in late or not directly to registrars' offices.

From September 8 to 21, Camp Casey will expand into Camp Democracy in Washington, D.C.

Cindy Sheehan and activists in the growing peace movement plan to establish Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, again this August 16 to September 2.  They then plan to move the camp to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., beginning September 8. 

The camp on the Mall will carry the name Camp Democracy at Fort Fed Up, and details are available at www.campdemocracy.org .  Organizers intend the camp to bring together peace activists and activists for social justice, united in demanding a shift of public resources from war to the needs of people.  Participants will lobby Congress to end all funding of the occupation of Iraq, and will demand that Congress hold the Bush Administration accountable for the falsehoods that launched the war and the abuses of power here at home that have accompanied it.

At the heart of what is often touted as the mightiest empire in world history, it's not a pretty sight at the start of July. After a few chipmunk squeaks from the White House a couple of weeks ago about there being somehow a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq, the news rolls in that it's as bad, if not worse, than ever.

Bomb explosions in Baghdad wipe out scores of ordinary people in a single minute, the motive advertised -- maybe truthfully -- as sectarian hatred, between Shia and Sunni. The entire country, with the exception of the Kurdish provinces in the north, is transfixed with terror, as people flee neighborhoods because they are in the wrong religious faction.

Come to a road block and you don't know whether it's a unit of Iraqi police, a unit of Iraqi killers disguised as police, a group of U.S. soldiers intent on revenge on anyone because one of their buddies just got blown up by a roadside bomb.

Ft. Lewis, WA-Today, July 5, 2006, First Lieutenant Ehren K. Watada was formally charged with three articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: missing movement (Article 87), contempt towards officials (Article 88), and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman (Article 133). If convicted of all charges by a general court-martial, Lt. Watada could be sentenced to four years in a military prison.

Lt. Watada's lawyer, Eric Seitz, said this morning: "We expected the missing movement charge, but we are somewhat astounded by the contempt and conduct unbecoming charges. These additional charges open up the substance of Lt. Watada's statements for review and raise important First Amendment issues. We are delighted that the Army has given us the opportunity to litigate these questions." Most previous prosecutions of Article 88 took place during the Civil War and World War I, and the last known prosecution was in 1965 (Howe vs. U.S.). Lt. Howe was protesting the Vietnam War.

A few days ago the Clean Money Elections bill, AB 583, died a quiet, lonely death in a California State Senate committee. This bill would have given candidates for public office a choice in financing their campaigns: Do what they do now, which is solicit and accept large donations from wealthy individuals and corporations or, they could collect only small, individual donations and receive public financing. More importantly, this bill would have given us voters a choice too. We would have been able to vote for a Clean Money representative able to vote his own conscious or for the usual, Pay to Play politician.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Burma's military regime warned the world's most famous political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi, that her days "are numbered," and she is "heading for a tragic end."

The ominous condemnation on Wednesday (July 5) said Suu Kyi, 61, was in "her final days," and guilty of "betraying the national cause while relying on aliens," including the United States, Britain and the European Union.

Suu Kyi remains under house arrest inside her two-story villa in the former capital, Rangoon, where she has languished for more than 10 of the past 16 years.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party (NLD) won a landslide election victory in 1990, which the regime ignored.

"Attempts to translate into reality the 1990 election results are in vain," the military junta said.

"The days of [Mrs.] Suu Kyi and the NLD are numbered. They are heading for a tragic end," the government said in its official English-language newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar.

For some reason, the grunt's love song made the brass cringe:

"I grabbed her little sister and put her in front of me . . . as the bullets began to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes, and then I laughed maniacally."

Cpl. Joshua Belile had a recording contract and everything, but, uh-uh. No singing Marine's gonna be regaling America with the sadistic pleasures to be had in occupied Iraq, no sir, not with all the atrocity investigations going on these days, and the dirty truth of our Middle East adventure oozing into the coverage of even the most administration-sympathetic media outlets.

For the past ten years the C.I.A.'s "Alec Station" unit's sole purpose was to hunt, track down and kill or capture Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants. But in a story first broken by NPR this week, the Busheviks late last year closed the operation, reassigning agents to other divisions. While agency officials dismiss claims that the closure weakens the United States' effort to find Al Qaeda's leaders, others voice serious concern. Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official and the first head of the division, said the move reflected a view within the agency that the threat from bin Laden had subsided, and warned that that view was mistaken. "This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals."