Clumsy Fuckers, Fly My Prospect!

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Hurrah! It's the Oak Bay Teaparty in Victoria, wherein the well-heeled inheritors of their forefather's occupation of the lands of the dirty indigents celebrate infamy. And, to accentuate that victory, we're today treated to a fly-over of vintage death-bringing machines of the WWII era.

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Clumsy Fuckers, Fly My Prospect!

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
June 4, 2006


Here we are, 51 years past the culmination of the awful war, ostensibly meant to liberate us all. Millions perished, we're told, to bring at last decency to the conduct of global affairs; to end, finally, the baser urges of the human psyche, that would take, and take, and take for itself, irregardless of morality. Emblems, like the Swastika, now banned in its adopted land, of this philosophy survive yet, paraded today out before our gawking kinder in the form of fighter planes.

Watching from my stoop the birds go about their daily business, the skies o'er quaint Victoria are today rent by the roar of the relics of past warfare. They turn, formations of killing efficiency, attempting to delight the groundlings their artistry. While I witness the swallows, sparrows, crow, and yes, the obnoxious starlings sail, above these cranking behemoths of man's ingenuity lumber.

Oh, to have a gun!

Bruce Cockburn, a fellow citizen of this once Canada once wrote:
"If I had a rocket launcher..."

Bruce then spake of the disaster wrought against the indigent South Americans by "America's" legions in the terrible, largely forgotten, Nineteen-Eighties. But, today, as Canada's [sic] blood and treasure are devoted to the 'oldest profession,' become whores, loosed upon the world to kill and be killed in foreign adventure, I comfortably purvey the technological ancestors of today's mayhem as they entertain.

Beneath the testimony to carnage, pedestrian Canada sleep-walks, ne'er a heaven-ward glance as "we" are conscripted to the horrific enacting of war, death, and destruction. All most see is a flying-circus, circumventing our role and responsibility; our collective complicity.

The swallow fly, soaring off my balcony, dodging and weaving, an air show no clumsy spitfire could emulate. As they continue their nature, so unnatural minions of hatred and death drive the nation to oblivion.

I pray you, clumsy bastards:

"Fuck Off!"



Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and host of Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada.

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Happy Hurricane Season!

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - A shout out to the "other" coast! Writing from the great Northwest, where hurricanes are common, but of a different character, greetings to you so'east coasters: tis' the season!

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Happy Hurricane Season!

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
June 2, 2006



They're likely not singing Auld Lang Syne in Florida, Louisianna, Alabama, Texas, or anywhere else that felt the effect of last year's Gargantua, Hurricane Katrina, but the newborn hurricane season marks beginnings, and reminds of Fate's uncertainties.

The wind is blowing hard here tonight. The Pacific has been slow to force her hand against the withering-cold Arctic stream. The swallows fly well through it, those most masterful aviators, but one wonders if they're not thinking they came North too soon. There are few insects worthy to be called a meal able to take to the air with this blow.

And it is too, to the larger animals seeming unseasonal.

The weathermensch predict hurricanes a-plenty for the Gulf this year, some saying New Orleans is the dead-on favourite for another hurricane hit; but, they won't predict of what size. Devastating Katrina has broken the bottle, and now all bets are off. Some worry, the lack of concrete progress made in the rebirthing of the 'Big Easy' over the last nine months leaves it vulnerable again to failing levees, and failing governments, (Ray Nagin's failure to fail to win re-election aside).

What likely will not be predicted in the corporate press, etc. is: When in the Future will the Past be addressed? When will accountability for crimes both of commission and omission be heard? Judging by the course of events these recent sad years past, the smart money says:

"Never - and 10 will get you five."

And, when will the real murder weapon in the case of the murders of New Orleans be identified?

We know, those that shun gloves in summer, for no need of protecting knuckles a-tarmac scraping: 'Climate Change' defined the colossal parameters of Katrina's landfall; Climate Change is real, and it's now.

We know; nothing has been achieved in the interim to lessen the theorized meterological effects seen last year. In fact, the opposite is true. The citizens of the Gulf, some of whom have seen hurricane insurance premiums balloon, tripling and more over the last year, are no better protected today than last year.

Listening to lefties and greenies on enviromental issues is one thing easily dismissed in the press and around the water cooler, but the buttoned down corporate loyalists are putting their money where the word is: They're selling short.

The money says:

"Climate Change is in the mix!"

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are in full flower North of the border. While the nation witnesses this year's glories on the diminishing ice, and listen to 'Don' Don Cherry, the Mafia-esquely dressed clown giving praise Canada's soldiers marching to Empire, (ignoring the new marching orders issued those "heroes" emanate from another Capitol), the world grows a little warmer.

Hell and High water be damned; it's the Finals!

God, She must laugh. The Mistress of Irony laid out, plain as day, before eyes too blind to see a killing joke. And, it seems such with this year's Cup finalists:

the Carolina Hurricanes versus the Edmonton "Oil Town" Oilers.

Big nature v. Big World.

Who do you bet wins?

North America's (unified) political consensus has turned away from Kyoto, and made clear they stand with corporate interest, regardless of their effects on the biosphere. Through George W. Bush, Tony Blair, a cast of Canadian transient politicos, and myriad other enablers across the world, it has been decided:

"Earth Smurth!"

There is a titanic battle to come. Hard combatants, determined they vie for the ultimate trophy. June 6th, Lord Stanley's Cup will again be placed in the middle of the arena, and this year the vyers will be: the Oilers and the Hurricane.

My money is on storms to be.


C. L. Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and host of Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/web/cast from the University of Victoria, the Nation Formerly Known as Canada (NFKAC). You can check out the GR Blog here.

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Madness at War: Iraq Vets Sent Back to Hell

Mentally Unfit, Forced To Fight

LISA CHEDEKEL And MATTHEW KAUFFMAN

The Hartford Courant

May 14 2006

The U.S. military is sending troops with serious psychological problems into Iraq and is keeping soldiers in combat even after superiors have been alerted to suicide warnings and other signs of mental illness, a Courant investigation has found.

Despite a congressional order that the military assess the mental health of all deploying troops, fewer than 1 in 300 service members see a mental health professional before shipping out.

Once at war, some unstable troops are kept on the front lines while on potent antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, with little or no counseling or medical monitoring.

And some troops who developed post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq are being sent back to the war zone, increasing the risk to their mental health.

These practices, which have received little public scrutiny and in some cases violate the military's own policies, have helped to fuel an increase in the suicide rate among troops serving in Iraq, which reached an all-time high in 2005 when 22 soldiers killed themselves - accounting for nearly one in five of all Army non-combat deaths.

The Courant's investigation found that at least 11 service members who committed suicide in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 were kept on duty despite exhibiting signs of significant psychological distress. In at least seven of the cases, superiors were aware of the problems, military investigative records and interviews with families indicate.

Among the troops who plunged through the gaps in the mental health system was Army Spec. Jeffrey Henthorn, a young father and third-generation soldier, whose death last year is still being mourned by his native Choctaw, Okla.

What his hometown does not know is that Henthorn, 25, had been sent back to Iraq for a second tour, even though his superiors knew he was unstable and had threatened suicide at least twice, according to Army investigative reports and interviews. When he finally succeeded in killing himself on Feb. 8, 2005, at Camp Anaconda in Balad, Iraq, an Army report says, the work of the M-16 rifle was so thorough that fragments of his skull pierced the barracks ceiling.

In a case last July, a 20-year-old soldier who had written a suicide note to his mother was relieved of his gun and referred for a psychological evaluation, but then was accused of faking his mental problems and warned he could be disciplined, according to what he told his family. Three weeks later, after his gun had been handed back, Pfc. Jason Scheuerman, of Lynchburg, Va., used it to end his life.

Also kept in the war zone was Army Pfc. David L. Potter, 22, of Johnson City, Tenn., who was diagnosed with anxiety and depression while serving in Iraq in 2004. Potter remained with his unit in Baghdad despite a suicide attempt and a psychiatrist's recommendation that he be separated from the Army, records show. Ten days after the recommendation was signed, he slid a gun out from under another soldier's bed, climbed to the second floor of an abandoned building and shot himself through the mouth, the Army has concluded.

The spike in suicides among the all-volunteer force is a setback for military officials, who had pledged in late 2003 to improve mental health services, after expressing alarm that 11 soldiers and two Marines had killed themselves in Iraq in the first seven months of the war. When the number of suicides tumbled in 2004, top Army officials had credited their renewed prevention efforts.

But The Courant's review found that since 2003, the military has increasingly sent, kept and recycled troubled troops into combat - practices that undercut its assurances of improvements. Besides causing suicides, experts say, gaps in mental health care can cause violence between soldiers, accidents and critical mistakes in judgment during combat operations.

Military experts and advocates point to recruiting shortfalls and intense wartime pressure to maintain troop levels as reasons more service members with psychiatric problems are being deployed to the war zone and kept there.

"What you have is a military stretched so thin, they've resorted to keeping psychologically unfit soldiers at the front," said Stephen Robinson, the former longtime director of the National Gulf War Resource Center. "It's a policy that can do an awful lot of damage over time."

Army officials confirmed that 22 soldiers killed themselves in Iraq, and three in Afghanistan, in 2005. The Army suicide rate was about 20 per 100,000 soldiers serving in Iraq - nearly double the 2004 rate, and higher than the 2003 rate that had prompted alarm. Three Marines also committed suicide in Iraq last year.

The military does not discuss or even identify individual suicide cases, which are grouped with other non-combat deaths. The Courant identified suicide victims through Army investigative reports and interviews with families.

Although The Courant determined that a spate of six suicides occurred within eight weeks last year, from late May to July, there is no indication that the military took steps to respond to the cluster.

While the 2005 jump in self-inflicted deaths was as pronounced as the 2003 spike that had stirred action, Army officials said last week that there were no immediate plans to change the approach or resources targeted to mental health. They said they had confidence in the initiatives put in place two years ago - additional combat stress teams to treat deployed troops and increased suicide prevention programs.

Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the top psychiatry expert for the Army surgeon general, said that while the Army is reviewing the 2005 suicides as a way to gauge its mental health efforts, "suicide rates go up and down, and we expect some variation."

Ritchie said the mental health of troops remains a priority as the war enters its fourth year. But she also acknowledged that some practices, such as sending service members diagnosed with PTSD back into combat, have been driven in part by a troop shortage.

"The challenge for us ... is that the Army has a mission to fight. And as you know, recruiting has been a challenge," she said. "And so we have to weigh the needs of the Army, the needs of the mission, with the soldiers' personal needs."

But The Courant's investigation shows that troubled soldiers are getting lost in the balance:

Under the military's pre-deployment screening process, troops with serious mental disorders are not being identified - and others whose mental illness is known are being deployed anyway.

A law passed in 1997 requires the military to conduct an "assessment of mental health" on all deploying troops. But the "assessment" now being used is a single mental health question on a pre-deployment form filled out by service members.

Even using that limited tool, troops who self-report psychological problems are rarely referred for evaluations by mental health professionals, Department of Defense records obtained by The Courant indicate. From March 2003 to October 2005, only 6.5 percent of deploying service members who indicated a mental health problem were referred for evaluations; overall, fewer than 1 in 300 deploying troops, or 0.3 percent, were referred.

That rate of referral is dramatically lower than the more than 9 percent of deploying troops that the Army itself acknowledges in studies have serious psychiatric disorders.

In addition, despite its pledges in 2004 to improve mental health care, the military was more likely to deploy troops who indicated psychological problems in 2005 than it was during the first year of the war, the data show.

The Courant found that at least seven, or about one-third, of the 22 soldiers who killed themselves in Iraq in 2005 had been deployed less than three months, raising questions about the adequacy of pre-deployment screening. Some of them had exhibited earlier signs of distress.

Also, at least three soldiers who killed themselves since the war began were deployed despite serious mental conditions, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

The military relies increasingly on antidepressants, some with potentially dangerous side effects, to keep troops with known psychological problems in the war zone.

Military investigative reports and interviews with family members indicate that some service members who committed suicide in 2004 and 2005 were kept on duty despite clear signs of mental distress, sometimes after being prescribed antidepressants, including a class of drugs known as SSRIs.

In one case, a 26-year-old Marine who was having trouble sleeping was put on a strong dose of Zoloft, an SSRI that carries a warning urging doctors to closely monitor new patients for suicidal urges. Last April, within two months of starting the drug, the Marine killed himself in Iraq.

Some service members who experienced depression or stress before or during deployments to Iraq described being placed on Zoloft, Wellbutrin and other antidepressants, with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring. Some of the drugs carry warnings of an increased risk of suicide, within the first weeks of their use.

Those anecdotal findings conflict with regulations adopted last year by the Army cautioning that antidepressants for cases of moderate or severe depression "are not usually suitable for extended deployments."

Also, the military's top health official, Assistant Defense Secretary William Winkenwerder Jr., indicated in testimony to Congress last summer that service members were being allowed to deploy on psychotropic medications only when their conditions had "fully resolved."

The use of psychiatric drugs has alarmed some medical experts and ethicists, who say the medications cannot be properly monitored in a war zone. The Army's own reports indicate that the availability and use of such medications in Iraq and Kuwait have increased since mid-2004, when a team of psychiatrists approved making Prozac, Zoloft, Trazodone, Ambien and other drugs more widely available throughout the combat zone.

"I can't imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on SSRIs, when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal," said Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a patient advocacy group. "You're creating chemically activated time bombs."

The military is sending troops back into combat for second and third tours despite diagnoses of PTSD or other combat-related psychological problems - a practice that some mental health experts fear will fuel incidents of suicide and violence among troops abroad and at home.

Although Department of Defense standards for enlistment in the armed forces disqualify recruits who suffer from PTSD, the military is redeploying service members to Iraq who fit that criteria. The practice, which military experts concede is driven partly by pressure to maintain troop levels, runs counter to accepted medical doctrine and research, which cautions that re-exposure to trauma increases the risk of psychological problems.

At least seven troops who are believed to have committed suicide in 2005 and early 2006, and one who has been charged with killing a fellow soldier, were serving second or third tours in Iraq. Some of them had exhibited signs of combat stress after their first deployments, according to family members and friends.

Some soldiers now serving second tours in Iraq say they are wrestling with debilitating PTSD symptoms, despite being placed on medications.

Jason Sedotal, a 21-year-old military policeman from Pierre Part, La., returned home in March 2005 after seven months in Iraq, during which a Humvee he was driving rolled over a land mine, badly injuring his sergeant. After completing his tour, Sedotal was diagnosed with PTSD and placed on Prozac, he said.

Last October, after being transferred to a new unit, he was shipped back to Iraq for a one-year tour. During a short visit home last week, he described being wracked by nightmares and depression and convinced that "somebody's following me." When he conveyed his symptoms to a doctor at Fort Polk in Louisiana last Tuesday, he said, he was given a higher dose of medication and the sleeping pill Ambien and told that he was to go back to Iraq.

"I can't keep going through this mentally. All they do is fill me up on medicine and send me back," he said. "What's this going to do to me in the future? I'm going to be 60 years old, hiding under my kitchen table? I'm real scared."

More than 378,000 active-duty, Reserve and National Guard troops have served more than one tour in Iraq or Afghanistan, representing nearly a third of the 1.3 million troops who have been deployed, according to Department of Defense statistics. That repeat exposure to combat could dramatically increase the percentage of soldiers and Marines who experience PTSD, major depression or other disorders, some experts say.

Recent studies have estimated that at least 18 percent of returning Iraq veterans are at risk of developing PTSD after just one combat tour.

"The [Department of Defense] is in the business of keeping people deployable," said Cathleen Wiblemo, deputy director for health care for the American Legion. "What the consequences of that are, we haven't begun to see.

"This is uncharted territory. You're looking at guys being extended or sent back multiple times into an extremely stressful situation, which is different than past wars. ... I think the number of troops that will be affected, it will be a huge number."

Preserving The Force

Military officials insist they have made aggressive efforts to improve mental health services to troops in Iraq in the past two years. After the spate of suicides in 2003, the Army dispatched a mental health advisory team, which issued a report recommending additional combat-stress specialists to treat troops close to the front lines, and encouraging training and outreach to reduce the stigma associated with mental health problems.

A follow-up report, released January 2005, cited the drop in suicides in 2004 as evidence that the Army's efforts were successful. It also highlighted a decline in the number of soldiers who were evacuated out of Iraq for mental health problems - from about 75 a month in 2003 to 36 a month in 2004. In 2005, an average of 46 soldiers were evacuated each month, Army data show.

Overall, barely more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the 1.3 million troops who have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have been evacuated because of psychiatric problems.

Both advisory team reports recommended that soldiers with mental health problems be kept in the combat zone in order to improve return-to-duty rates and help soldiers avoid being labeled unfit.

"If you take people out of their unit and send them home, they have the shame and the stigma," said Ritchie, the Army's mental health expert.

But with the suicide rate climbing, the emphasis on treating psychologically damaged soldiers in the war zone is raising new questions.

"You think it's a stigma to be sent home from the Iraq war? That might be the line they're using" to justify retaining troops, said Dr. Arthur S. Blank Jr., a psychiatrist who formerly served as national director of the Veterans Administration's counseling centers. "I wouldn't say that."

Mental health specialists who have served in Iraq acknowledge that their main goal, under military guidelines, is to preserve the fighting force. Some have grappled with making tough calls about how much more stress a soldier can handle.

"You have to become comfortable with things we wouldn't normally be comfortable with," said Bob Johnson, a psychologist in Atlanta who counseled soldiers last year as chief of combat stress control for the Army's 2nd Brigade. "If there were an endless supply [of soldiers], the compassionate side of you just wants to get these people out of here. They're miserable. You can see it in their faces. But I had to kind of put that aside."

Army statistics show that 59 soldiers killed themselves in Iraq through the end of last year - 25 in 2003, 12 in 2004, and 22 in 2005. Twelve Marine deaths also have been ruled self-inflicted.

The only confirmed Connecticut suicide is that of Army Pfc. Jeffrey Braun, 19, of Stafford, who died in December 2003. His father, William Braun, told The Courant he still did not have a full explanation of what happened to Jeffrey, but said, "I've chosen not to pursue it or question it. It's over and done with."

Military data show that deaths in Iraq due to all non-combat causes, such as accidents, rose by 32 percent from 2004 to 2005. Of the more than 500 non-combat deaths among all service branches since the start of the war, gunshot wounds were the second-leading cause of death, behind vehicle crashes but ahead of heart attacks and other medical ailments.

While many families of service members who died of non-combat causes say they are not familiar with military deployment policies, some question whether the military knowingly put their loved ones at risk.

Among them are relatives of Army Spec. Michael S. Deem, a 35-year-old father of two, who was deployed to Iraq in January 2005 despite a history of depression that family members say was known to the military. Shortly before Deem deployed, a military psychiatrist gave him a long-term supply of Prozac to help him handle the stress, his wife said.

Just 3½ weeks after he arrived in Iraq, Deem died in his sleep of what the Army later determined was an enlarged heart "complicated by elevated levels of fluoxetine" - the generic name for Prozac.

Family members of some troops whose deaths have been labeled suicides complain that the military has given them limited information about the circumstances of the deaths. Some have had to wait more than a year for autopsies and investigative reports, which they say still leave questions unanswered.

Barbara Butler, mother of Army National Guard 1st Lt. Debra A. Banaszak, 35, of Bloomington, Ill., said she has trouble understanding why her daughter would have taken her own life in Kuwait last October, as the military has determined. She said that while Banaszak, the single mother of a teenage son, was proud to serve her country and had not complained, the stresses of the deployment may have exacerbated her depression.

"She was used to being in charge and being a leader, but never in these circumstances," said Butler. "If the Army is right that she did this, it was nothing she would have done ordinarily. It was that war that brought it about."

Recognizing Trouble

Some autopsy and investigative reports obtained by The Courant make clear that service members who committed suicide were experiencing serious psychological problems during deployment.

In the months before Army Pfc. Samuel Lee, of Anaheim, Calif., killed himself in March 2005, an investigative report says, the 19-year-old had talked to fellow soldiers about a dream in which he tried to kill his sergeant before taking his own life, and of kidnapping, raping and killing Iraqi children. Three times, a soldier recounted in a sworn statement, Lee had pointed his gun at himself and depressed the trigger, stopping just before a round fired.

But two of Lee's superiors gave statements saying they did not realize Lee was having trouble until the day he balanced the butt of his rifle on a cot, put his mouth over the muzzle and fired.

But a number of other reports on 2004 and 2005 suicides indicate that military superiors were aware that soldiers were self-destructing.

Among them was Army Staff Sgt. Cory W. Brooks, 32, of Philip, S.D., who shot himself in the head on April 24, 2004. In sworn statements, a major and first lieutenant acknowledged they had conducted "counseling" with Brooks, and a first sergeant "detailed his knowledge of SSG Brooks' suicidal ideations."

Brooks' father, Darral, said he believes his son's death stemmed from a combination of personal and combat-related stress, and he does not blame the military for retaining him in Iraq.

"Cory was a dedicated soldier. He wanted to be there," he said. "If his captain told him to walk off a cliff, he'd do it."

But in other cases in which superiors retained a soldier who was experiencing mental health problems, families are not so forgiving.

Ann Scheuerman, mother of the soldier who shot himself after his suicide note was discounted by Army officials, said her family has had a frustrating time getting the military to acknowledge mistakes in the way her son was treated.

"We wanted to make sure that whatever protocol they have in place is used, and if it doesn't work, fix it," Scheuerman said. "And to date, we're just not getting anything at all.

"Nothing can bring back my son," she said. "But if something can be done to prevent any more deaths, then if I offend a couple of people, I'll go ahead and apologize up front. Go ahead and come after me, but something needs to be done."

Family members of Jeffrey Henthorn, the Choctaw, Okla., native, are concerned that the Army ignored blatant warnings that Henthorn was suicidal.

An investigative report into Henthorn's death contains statements indicating that Henthorn's "chain of command" was aware that he had tried to harm himself in November 2004 - by slashing his arm "intentionally, in a [horizontal] manner" - in the weeks leading up to his second deployment to Iraq, while he was stationed at Fort Riley in Kansas.

Then, soon after his deployment in December, a distressed Henthorn took his gun into a latrine in Kuwait and charged it, in what fellow soldiers feared was a suicide gesture. Although his superiors at the scene grabbed the weapon away, his platoon sergeant returned the gun the same day, after talking to Henthorn for about a half-hour, according to a sworn statement. The platoon's first lieutenant was notified, but there is no indication that Henthorn was referred for a mental health evaluation or counseling.

Eighteen days later, after crossing into Iraq with his unit, Henthorn finished what he had started.

"If you lock yourself in a latrine for 10 minutes with your gun and threaten to hurt yourself, you don't just get your gun back. You get relieved of duty and sent home," said Henthorn's father, Warren, who is still struggling to understand what happened to his only son.

"It's the same as Vietnam - all they care about is the numbers in the field," he said. "That's all that matters, having the numbers."

Ritchie insisted the military is working hard to prevent suicides, which she said is a challenge, given that soldiers have access to weapons.

"When you go back, in retrospect, there may be warning signs," she acknowledged.

Addressing The Courant's findings, she added, "What you don't see from that are the other cases that perhaps had the same warning signs and were kept in [the combat] theater and went on to do OK in their job."

While they would not comment on particular cases, Ritchie and other military officials said they believe most commanders are alert to mental health problems and open to referring troubled soldiers for treatment. It is commanders, not medical professionals, who have final say over whether a troubled soldier is retained in the war zone.

"I think the majority of our commanders are very receptive," Ritchie said.

But some service members say commanders' sensitivity to mental health issues varies.

"As a practical matter, the quality ... of the military's mental health care professional is uneven," said Maj. Andrew Efaw, a judge advocate general officer in the Army Reserve who handled trial defense for soldiers in northern Iraq last year. "Likewise, the understanding of mental health issues by commanders may also be spotty."

He said commanders weighing whether a service member should be retained have to be mindful of how their troops will perceive the decision.

"Your average commander doesn't want to deal with a whacked-out soldier. But on the other hand, he doesn't want to send a message to his troops that if you act up, he's willing to send you home," Efaw said.

Some troops and their families say the military has not made good on its pledge to make mental health care easily accessible in the field.

Summer Lipford of Statesville, N.C., said she urged her son, Pfc. Steven Sirko, to talk to a counselor in April of last year, after he complained in a phone call from Iraq that he was having nightmares, losing weight and not sleeping.

"I asked Steven, `If you're having dreams that are so [messed] up, why don't you go talk to somebody?'" Lipford recalled. "He said, `Yeah, Mom, like that's gonna happen.' He said it was an act of God to get to see somebody."

Four days later, Sirko, a 20-year-old medic, injected himself with vecuronium, an anesthetic that causes muscular paralysis, and died of an accidental overdose, according to what the military has told Lipford.

Some returning troops acknowledge that their own fear of being stigmatized kept them from seeking psychological help during deployments. Despite the military's efforts to improve mental health care, soldiers' perceptions of a stigma associated with seeking such care remained unchanged between 2004 and 2005, with more than half of the soldiers surveyed by Army teams expressing concerns that they would be viewed as weak.

Matthew Denton, a Camp Pendleton Marine and helicopter mechanic, said he spent most of his six-month deployment in 2005 quietly contemplating his own death aboard a ship in the Persian Gulf.

"My head was in a scary place. I remember thinking, `I can't believe I'm working on a $14 million aircraft. I just don't care about this,'" he said. "When I'd come out of my daze, I was worried about messing up and endangering the life of my guys."

Denton, 30, said his depression was easy to keep secret - pre- and post-deployment health screenings were self-reported, and commanders hustling Marines through six-month rotations never probed his mental state.

Now back home, Denton, who is being treated for depression, isn't sure whether he managed to stay below the radar - or whether there was any radar to stay below.
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

Healthy Mind, Body, Planet Tour

Creating Kristallnacht: Hate Baiting at the National Post

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Canada's National Post broke a sensational story; a story so big, the flagship of the CanWest Global media monolith denied it's nationwide dailies, keeping the scoop to themselves. Today, the Post reported Iran has signed into law a provision requiring Iranian Jews and Christians wear identifying badges declaring their religious affiliation. Below the 18 point high headline, a picture of a man and woman, circa Hitler's Germany, each sporting the infamous Yellow Star of David stitched to their overcoats. It's a stunning development, one that should shock the world, and finally convince all of Iran's despotism. But of course, the National Post story is a complete fabrication; a fact Canwest itself is now "reporting."

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Creating Kristallnacht:
Hate Baiting at the National Post

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
May 19, 2006


It sometimes seems we live in a time of unprecedented corruption, perfidy, and abomination; but, as Shakespeare said: "There's nothing new under the sun."

"Hitler" is a name often invoked in the media these days. The terrors of the Nazi regime, especially referencing its grotesque concentration camps, where State enemies were dispatched after suffering religious humiliation, torture, and God knows what else. The world has witnessed ruthless invasions and occupations, inflicted by a tryannical, rogue nation on its smaller neighbours; in the form of Hitler's Germany, the world watched, horror-struck, a racist, ideologically perverse campaign of global domination, whom's goal was no less than the enslavement of the entire planet.

Yes Bill, verily there is nothing new under the sun.

The story of Jewish suffering under the Nazis, both during the rise of fascism in Germany, through its progression to its inevitable ends behind the barbed wire of the concentration camps, reminds of the gruesome potential of collective barbarity. Even today, more than 70 years from the shocking and aweful ascension of Hitler and his henchmen, the remembrance of the legislated "branding" of German Jews, all made to sew the Star of David on their clothing, is a particularly poignant symbol of totalitarianism, the apposite of human decency, early warning of terrible portent.

It also serves a reminder of how quickly a society can be led into madness, an insanity that would allow the blasphemies, forever recorded in the annals of history. It's a story that demands reverent acknowledgment, repect, and a regular revisiting.

As indeed it is remembered in solemn ceremonies, news media, and motion pictures. It is a lesson hard learned by millions of our predecessors, and not to be treated cynically for political advancement, or commercial interest.

Though that's a message apparently lost on the editors of "Canwest Goebbels," as it's affectionately referred in some circles.

The logical extension of the avowedly pro-Israel media monster's pro-war propaganda-driven "information" dissemination philosophy, (as iterated by its late #1, Israel "Izzy" Asper, on his assumption of much of the former Canadian media magnate, disgraced Lord Black's, crumbling empire) today's Holocaust hijacking presented on the Post's front page nation-wide, and quietly being disavowed even now in its on-line edition, is the flowering of the Hate War waged by Canwest in the service of a greater and possibly perpetual state of war in the world. Canwest proved today worse, with this abortion of truth issued than their most jaded critics would believe.

I can't believe it!

I can't believe it took this long for the Likudite Canwest Global to descend to the eye-poking, nostril-gouging level it has in it's smear assault against "evil" Iran; as sinisterly personified singularly in the person of its president, another Hitler in the making, who given half a chance would create a nuclear-tipped missile to set fire to the world; beginning in Israel.

And he hates Jews, we're daily told; would have them all wear badges, immolate the nation, etc...

Yet, the story is bullshit.

Phoney as Saddam's WMD, the National Post published a pack of lies; lies told at a time when the rally cry to an unprovoked war of conquest and occupation in a far off land is the goal of a furious lobbying campaign in America, and around the world. Fake as the babies thrown from Kuwaiti incubators, abandoned to die on the cold, cold hospital floor, etc... used to "justify" the first Gulf War. The Post's 'Iran Eyes Badges for Jews, Christians?' is an incitement to disgust, fear, and the loathing of Iran, and its people, the ones likely to suffer should another front in the War on Terror be allowed opened.

Hate Crime

Unlike America, Canada has laws against crimes of incitement to hatred of identifiable groups, based on ethnic, gender, or sexual orientation parameters. What are Persian-Canadians, and the greater Muslim population of Canada, to make of the Post's story? What effects might they suffer at the long-knuckled hands of the National Post's misinformed readership? Will hasty on-line retractions of page one libel suffice to defer legal proceedings, or government censure?

Canada's newly arrived prime minister, Harper responded to questions from the Canwest reporter tasked to refute the front page fiasco, saying simply:

"Unfortunately we’ve seen enough already from the Iranian regime to suggest that it is very capable of this kind of action. It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the earth would want to do anything that would remind people of Nazi Germany."

Yes Stephen, it boggles the mind to be sure.

I'll remember to check the recycling for a front page copy tomorrow
to hang beside the yellowed Canwest call to arms for Iraq pinned on my wall.



Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Comments are welcome at: pej(at)info.ca

[I generally highlight links to sources, but as Canwest is apparently in "purge splurge" mode, these below are the raw materials I found as of time of writing. - lex]

CanWEst Goebbles Plays the Holocaust Card
by ape • Friday May 19, 2006 at 07:13 PM

Dismembering the Holocaust

canwestgobbles.gif, GIF image, 210x384

photo http://www.canada.com/scripts/frontpage.aspx?name=National+Post&thumb=false

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=6626a0fa-99de-4f1e-aebe-bb91af82abb3

Experts say report of badges for Jews in Iran is untrue
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A yellow badge worn by Jews in Nazi Germany during the 1940s.(MICHAEL KAPPELER/AFP/Getty Images)
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Font: * * * * Chris Wattie, National Post
Published: Friday, May 19, 2006
Several experts are casting doubt on reports that Iran had passed a law requiring the country’s Jews and other religious minorities to wear coloured badges identifying them as non-Muslims.
The Iranian embassy in Otttawa also denied the Iranian government had passed such a law.

A news story and column by Iranian-born analyst Amir Taheri in yesterday’s National Post reported that the Iranian parliament had passed a sweeping new law this week outlining proper dress for Iran’s majority Muslims, including an order for Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians to wear special strips of cloth.

According to the reports, Jews were to wear yellow cloth strips, called zonnar, while Christians were to wear red and Zoroastrians blue.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre and Iranian expatriates living in Canada had confirmed that the order had been passed, although it still had to be approved by Iran’s “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect.

Hormoz Ghahremani, a spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa, said in an e-mail to the Post yesterday that, “We wish to categorically reject the news item.

“These kinds of slanderous accusations are part of a smear campaign against Iran by vested interests, which needs to be denounced at every step.”

Sam Kermanian, of the U.S.-based Iranian-American Jewish Federation, said in an interview from Los Angeles that he had contacted members of the Jewish community in Iran — including the lone Jewish member of the Iranian parliament — and they denied any such measure was in place.

Mr. Kermanian said the subject of “what to do with religious minorities” came up during debates leading up to the passing of the dress code law.

“It is possible that some ideas might have been thrown around,” he said. “But to the best of my knowledge the final version of the law does not demand any identifying marks by the religious minority groups.”

Ali Reza Nourizadeh, an Iranian commentator on political affairs in London, suggested that the requirements for badges or insignia for religious minorities was part of a “secondary motion” introduced in parliament, addressing the changes specific to the attire of people of various religious backgrounds.

Mr. Nourizadeh said that motion was very minor and was far from being passed into law.

That account could not be confirmed.

Meir Javdanfar, an Israeli expert on Iran and the Middle East who was born and raised in Tehran, said yesterday that he was unable to find any evidence that such a law had been passed.

“None of my sources in Iran have heard of this,” he said. “I don’t know where this comes from.”

Mr. Javdanfar said that not all clauses of the law had been passed through the parliament and said the requirement that Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians wear special insignia might be part of an older version of the Islamic dress law, which was first written two years ago.

“In any case, there is no way that they could have forced Iranian Jews to wear this,” he added. “The Iranian people would never stand for it.”

However, Mr. Kermanian added that Jews in Iran still face widespread, systematic discrimination. “For example if they sell food they have to identify themselves and their shops as non-Muslim,” he said.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, acknowledged that he did not have independent confirmation of the requirement for Jews to wear badges, but said he still believes it was passed.

“We know that the national uniform law was passed and that certain colours were selected for Jews and other minorities,” he said. “[But] if the Iranian government is going to pass such a law then they are not likely to be forthcoming about what they are doing.”

Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, said yesterday that Iran is “very capable” of enacting such a law but could not confirm reports that members of religious minorities must wear identifiable markers on their clothing.

“Unfortunately we’ve seen enough already from the Iranian regime to suggest that it is very capable of this kind of action,” Mr. Harper said. “It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the earth would want to do anything that would remind people of Nazi Germany.”

National Post, with files from Allan Woods, CanWest News Service

© National Post 20Iran Eyes Badges for Jews, Christians?
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House Folds: Harper Lip-Syncing Canada to War

PEJ News - It's fair to say, the honeymoon phase of Stephen Harper's minority government is over, and the bride's none too happy with his less than upright performance. Undeterred, Harper has urged his party rise again to make of Afghanistan the stick to assert his mastery of the House of Commons. Tonight Harper risked his party's newborn power, putting the Afghan Question in the crucible, making of it a test of confidence.

www.PEJ.org

House Folds:
Harper Lip-Syncing Canada to War

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
May 17, 2006


With scant notice given his partners in the Parliament, Harper has put forward a motion to the House proposing legislation to ensure an extension of Canada's commitment to the United States, and a continued supply of troops and treasure for Afghanistan through 2008. He's betting the opposition fears forcing another federal election, the third, should his gambit fail and the government fall, in just more than two years; he's betting Canadian voters would punish such a move, and he thinks the Liberals think so too.

Stephen Harper's short tenure at Sussex Drive has some who supported the Conservative/Reform party union wondering today if they chose their man wisely. From the start, Harper displayed an arrogant willingness to set procedural precedents in a manner more suiting a president than prime minister; that is, if George W. Bush is to be considered the exemplar of presidential behaviour. He's made an enemy of the Ottawa press corp., and now refuses to consider anything, or anyone that falls outside his "stay the course" mantra.

The Harper Doctrine

"We cannot walk away quickly. If we need further efforts or further mandate to go ahead into the future, we will go so alone and go to the Canadian people to get that mandate.'' - PM Stephen Harper tells Parliament



Enjoying a mandate slimmer than the debatable 50% plus one granted Bush in 2004, Harper has shown, in the early days of his government (has it been only four months!), a dogged determination to make of Canada a perfect emulation of his philosophical hero, George W. Bush's America. Today in Canada's Parliament, Harper held forth, accusing any who would oppose his pledge, a blank cheque of blood and money to commit the nation to Bush's disaster in Afghanistan.

Buoyed following the faux debate on the Afghanistan debacle that brought not a single party's censure, Harper's inherited military muscularity must seem to he and his ruling tyros a bullet-proof shield they can hide all manner of "adjustments" to the country behind, and employ as cudgel to wield against the opposition. In his now revealed secret identity, Stephen 'Hawk' Harper is on the offensive, attacking any who would challenge "The Mission," charging they don't "support the troops."

NDP leader, Jack Layton reacted to the prime minister's innuendo, saying:

"This Prime Minister has refused to answer these questions and has said in no uncertain terms that if you question the mission you're against our troops. Well, let me be very clear, Canadians will not be lured into this false trap of the prime minister's borrowed sloganeering."

Layton, who was slow to wade into an Afghanistan debate while the Liberals, the initiators of Canada's calamitous policy there, were in power, has finally found voice, and an easy target in the person of Bush impersonator Harper. But, I doubt Harper's "sloganeering" was borrowed; the kind of spin coming out of Ottawa these days costs. Stephen has been given a professional make-over by the same idealogical flackery practiced south of the 49th that has served George, Tony, and Howard of Oz so well for so long.

One only hopes Harper didn't pay full fare for the over-worn rhetoric and practiced outrage he's currently inflicting the country with. Or, for that matter, full price for his newly elevated head flack, former corporate lobbyist, Sandra Buckler, whose political imagination seems limited to FOX News reruns of the base propaganda that has sustained the war against Iraq, while denying yet the proven fictions that led to it.

Ms. Buckler's resume includes service to De Beers Canada, Coca Cola, and Power Corp. She endeared herself further to the aforementioned miffed Ottawa press gang Monday, coyly insinuating the Harper administration would follow the George W. Bush template not only in its treatment of returned dead and wounded soldiers from foreign adventures, but ape too its methods of managing press access, blithely saying, the Tories were "getting to know the press corp," and discovering "what we like, and what we don't like."

For their part, the press is complaining about lack of access to the government, and an insulated PMO, reticent to inform the press, or the people of what they're getting up to.

Denial

The core of the administrations in the United States, Britain, Australia, and now Canada is the refutation of the popular will by those in power. The majority of Canadians polled on the Afghanistan issue have consistently rejected the country's involvement. Turning the democractic paradigm on its head, the few pulling the levers of public policy deny the will of the majority, deny in fact such a majority exists. As George W. Bush would say (doubtless to be soon echoed by an increasingly embattled Harper) "I don't do focus groups."

Blair can blunder along, keeping the course charted for him by the certifiable Maggie Thatcher, heedless of the hundreds of thousands marching in the streets and his party bleeds white, while John Howard is free to harumph in antipodal agreement, regardless of his fellow citizens. Democracy it seems is meant only for the Iraqi's and Afghans.

And Stephen's schtick?

From the House of Commons today, Harper offers this to Parliament:

"Canadians accept risks when those risks are in the service of a greater good, and we honour those who take risks and make the ultimate sacrifice by staying the course and supporting their mission. The events of September 11, 2001 was a wake up call, not just to Americans but to people in all free and democratic nations. Two dozen Canadians were killed as result of the attacks on the twin towers . . . Canada is not safe from such attack and we will never be safe from such attacks as long as we're a society that defends freedom and democracy."

Harper's hypocrisy is as transparent within the House as without. The prime minister continues to insist Canada's involvement in the occupation of Afghanistan is a United Nations supported, and NATO-run mission, though 'Operation Enduring Freedom' is explicitly and solely an American operation. As does his defence minister, Gordon O'Connor, Stephen Harper must believe Canadians too dim to know the truth of the matter; too stupid to recognize his Charlie McCarthy act on the Rideau.

And maybe he's right in that.

The House voted tonight on Harper's "two year extension" to Canada's commitment to the American-led occupation, winning their effort 149-145. With this landslide mandate, Harper promises to reshape the country, one confidence vote at a time, until molded into a tiny replica of his Republican ideal.

Step One: Ensuring an open-ended, illegal war abroad. Check.
Two: Get Tough on stuff. Check
Three: Fix the laws; create private prison industry at home. Pending.

With this endorsement, Harper needn't worry for at least another two years about "debating" Afghanistan; it's a done deal. How many Canadians will kill and die in those two years is something he will also fail to debate.

As if marking this dark passage, another Canadian soldier died in an offensive against "Taliban elements" west of Kandahar. Capt. Nichola Goddard has now the distinction of being the first Canadian woman in uniform to die in combat since WWII, and the seventeenth Canadian killed in Afghanistan.

Speaking of the fallen woman, Brig. Gen. David Fraser told the cameras, she died:

"Doing a job she liked; she loved."


Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.

A Call to America's Second Loyalists: An Invitation to Americans

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The oft overlooked fact of what became the Confederation of Canada in media coverage of the sometimes fractious, always suspicious, special relationship between the "greatest trading partnership in the world," is the role "Americans" played in the creation of their neighbour north.

ww.PEJ.org

A Call to America's Second Loyalists:
An Invitation to Americans

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
May 16, 2006


Fearing the American Revolution would be more an instrument of enslavement than liberation, thousands fled America. Some of those were welcomed by British administered British North America, themselves desperate to grow the northern population before the inevitable military attempts of the ascending Yankees to annex Canada. And, those invasions would come, and be repelled on four different occasions, culminating in 1812.

I mention it to relieve some of those nervous cousins, on both sides of the line, who may yet eye warily the ancient foe next door. Though the north won the battles, ended so long ago, the south won the war, wearing away the economic sovereignty of what would be become Canada, and with it the nation's political heart. It's been a gradual process, but now in the early years of the twentieth century, that erosion has worn channels where barriers were, and created a pool where Canadians and Americans become indistinguishable, if not in culture in philosophy.

It is to those I reach to, those fearing the American Revolution now promising more to enslave than liberate, to again flee to Canada, adding to the too small, like-minded community of this country, and again prepare to defend the principles of truth, freedom, and the democratic ideals currently threatened in your homeland.

'Poor Man's Friend'

Jesse Winchester serenaded the late Pierre Trudeau, lauding him his leadership in resisting the American administration's efforts to extradite American sanctuary-seekers refusing to enter America's war against Vietnam in the late 1960's and early '70's. Those good people then allowed, through Trudeau's intransigence, inclusion within Canadian society enriched the nation, and today too call to their fellow Americans to resist again the United States' historical impulse to war and empire-building. They call for you to join the next front in the battle to save the democracy, where the need is dire:

"Join the fight to save democracy in North America; come save Canada."

Friend Eric Blumrich, one of your countrymen, lamented to me the spiralling descent into fascism a couple years, and wondered aloud if he should not come to Canada. I said he should leave immediately, but warned, Canada has only two or three years, before becoming an emulation of all he loathed at home then. With Stephen Harper's appointment as Prime Minister marks the finish line. Where once our nation offered shelter to conscientous objection, today Canada routinely would return refugees, be they from the Iraq, or marijuana wars.

Public Opinion be Damned

As in the majority of the nations comprising various 'Coalitions of the Willing,' Canadians repeatedly have rejected the current course of Canada's domestic and foreign policies; under both, the reformed Conservative Party, and their predecessors to power, the Liberal Party. But, the wars go on. And, Canada needs soldiers. People willing to stand on guard for principles we've left granted, in both Canada and America, for too long.

Bien Venue, Americain




Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts the weekly public affairs program, Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.

C.B.C. Israel/Palestine Coverage: A Quiet Complicity in Genocide

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - What does nearly a billion dollars per annum buy on the Canadian media market? If you're a Canadian taxpayer, what you get is: C.B.C. - Radio Canada. For decades of Canadians, that has seemed good value, considering the dismal performance of the commercial alternatives; especially when it comes to covering news. But, in light of the overall decline of the quality, and quantity of the C.B.C.'s television news service, it's perhaps time Canadians reassessed their enforced investment.

www.PEJ.org

C.B.C. Israel/Palestine Coverage:
A Quiet Complicity in Genocide

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
May 13, 2006

"ISRAELI POLICE and PROTESTERS CLASH OVER BARRIER in JERUSALEM" the latest State media banner blares. Yes, the great wall of Israel continues to snake it's way throughout the region once known as Palestine, rending families and infrastructure as it goes, all without so much as a "by your leave" from the steel-fisted rulers of the Holy Land. It's been an ongoing story: Palestinian villages: schools, farms, businesses, and homes torn in twain for the comfort and security of distant Israelis, and enrichment of the few. A theft in broad daylight hardly mentioned in the C.B.C. Here's a sample of their online coverage of this massive injustice to the Palestinian people, and blasphemy against one of the world's most important historical cities.

"Is it legal?" is the rhetorical question posed. And the answer? "According to the Supreme Court of Israel - Yes." Well, that's O.K., I suppose. Moving along.

There have been uncounted protests within Israel and the Occupied Territories over the wall. Some are covered in the Western press, most are not. But, when they are covered, they're given the treatment, standardized as in the C.B.C. piece attached below: On its face, a cool-eyed media assessment, revealing no bias, but a nearer look is revealing.

"Ten of the activists on Saturday were arrested for disturbing the peace, Israeli Army Radio reported."
the C.B.C. records without remark.

Is this as close to the action the C.B.C. intrepids in the field can get?

Consider that, Canada: The news you're getting from Jerusalem is coming straight from the mouth of the Israeli Army. These are the guys doing the killing, now telling you "ten of the activists on Saturday were arrested for disturbing the peace."

The pictures accompanying the story all bear AP (Associated Press) accreditation, so I can't show them to you here for fear of running afoul of copyright laws. Fair is fair. Were the C.B.C. attendant with cameras, I could show their photos to you, because you and I have already paid for the service; but there is no photographic evidence provided. (If you're curious, check this out.)

If you checked out the photo, what you saw was an image of what passes for equality in Palestine/Israel. You see a handful of young Semitic-looking males in the distance, photographed over the shoulders of anonymous soldiers, who are levelling their M-16 rifles at the unarmed youngsters. The photo informs (courtesy C.B.C.) that this is a "clash" between "activists" and "police" in the town of Bil'in, yesterday. Their "activity" seems, from the vantage of the camera, to be limited to the classic "hands in the air" gesture that speaks not a thousand, but two words: "Don't shoot!"

Disturbing the "Peace?"

Speaking to a rally of "activists" protesting America's war against Vietnam, legendary "activist" historian, Howard Zinn said of the riot act just read to them all: "They are not worried about you "disturbing the peace," because there is no "peace" to disturb. They are worried about you disturbing the war."

If the Canadian authorities are worried about this disturbing of the "peace" in Israel today, as reflected in their media arm, the C.B.C., they're less worried about disturbing the wall. When the issue of its legality was raised at the United Nations, and voted an illegal act that must be immediately reversed by a vote of 150-6, the Canadian authorities took the brave stance of abstention.

That was under the Liberals of Jean Chretien. Today, under the bolder leadership of Stephen Harper's reformed Conservative Alliance, the Canadian authorities were first onboard to support the draconian aid cessation to blighted Occupied Palestine as a punitive measure to punish the population their temerity to elect Hamas to government. But, you'll find little mention of that in the article (reprinted complete below), save a single sentence:

"When Hamas formed the government of the Palestinian Authority earlier in 2006, the European Union, the United States and Canada suspended aid payments, which among others things, were used to pay civil servants."

Among Other Things

Among the other things occurring yesterday were reports of protestors shot with "rubber" bullets. Among the injured were a Dane and Australian. Previous demonstrations have included the murder, by Israeli "police" of a Briton, shot in the head by a sniper whilst carrying Palestinian children to safety, and an American woman, run over repeatedly by an Israeli "construction" worker's Caterpillar bulldozer. They were members of the International Solidarity Movement, (ISM), now made targets by the Israeli "police."

Among other things, the Israeli air force paid a courtesy call to Canada during last year's now annual Maple Flag military exercises in Cold Lake, Alberta. There, the IDF heroes instructed Canada's air force on ways best to utilize F-16 fighter jets in enforcing urban occupations. They should know; they who last Autumn, before the election of the Hamas "terrorists," terrorized the Occupied Territories, utilizing those same F-16 fighter jets, flying low-level, supersonic sorties over the heads of the inhabitants, leaving blown out windows in their booming wake. That, among other things is too much to mention for the C.B.C. in providing anything resembling context for the Israel/Palestine "conflict."

Among other things, the people in Palestine are starving. They have no food, no medicine. Among other things, this is a made in Israel disaster, unnatural and catastrophic.

That the C.B.C.'s journalist rarely venture into the Occupied Territories and can forgiven that, given the intransigence of the Israeli government to grant permissions, and proven lethal readiness of the trigger-happy IDF "police" manning the walls of Prison Palestine to shoot journalists, but is it too much to ask they depart the lounges of their comfortable hotels in Jerusalem to do more than make the trip across the street to the Israel Ministry of Information for their news fodder? As the story below indicates, the answer to that is "NO."

Much of that unwillingness to cover the true nature of the Palestinian/Israeli may reflect C.B.C. Toronto's discomfort; journalists in the field know, less news is better news at home when it comes to criticizing Israel. So, why risk a lucrative news career actually covering the news? Any authentic coverage of Palestine instantly reveals the gruesome evidence of a systemic campaign of eradication; a campaign of ethnic cleansing; a genocide, and, no-one in Toronto wants to have that albatross hung about their precious necks.

So, the campaign continues.

The C.B.C. is of course not alone in their cowardice. Western media have consistently massaged the message, buried the truth, and allowed for this monstrous crime's continuity. But, for the most part, those media are commercial interests, free to omit what they wish from their coverage and let the market decide if their product is worthy of attention. The C.B.C. is, on the other hand, paid for by citizen taxes, taxes extracted under threat of imprisonment. If we are to be extorted to support the C.B.C., then is it unreasonable to ask for an alternative to the soap-selling news marketeer's lies, and expect a modicum of reality?

Maybe it's time to can the C.B.C., and divert our tribute to Ottawa to something useful:
Perhaps another fleet of submarines that neither float, nor sink.


Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and host Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.





Israeli police, protesters clash over barrier in Jerusalem
Last Updated Sat, 13 May 2006 13:00:58 EDT
CBC News

At least 10 people were injured Saturday as Israelis and Palestinians rallied to protest against the construction of Israel's security barrier through an eastern area of Jerusalem.

Activists clash with Israeli border police during a demonstration against the barrier in Bil'in on Friday. (Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press)

INDEPTH: Israel and the Palestinians

Police used tear gas against the demonstrators as they tried to march together through the Aram neighbourhood.

Israel began building the mainly concrete-and-steel wall in 2002 to separate Israeli settlements and the Palestinian population in Jerusalem and the West Bank. By its completion, expected in December, it will stretch for hundreds of kilometres.

INDEPTH: Israel's barrier

The barrier has spurred great controversy around the world. Israel says the wall is being built to keep Palestinian suicide bombers in the West Bank from attacking its citizens. The Palestinians have denounced it as a land grab by the Israelis.

Ten of the activists on Saturday were arrested for disturbing the peace, Israeli Army Radio reported.

RELATED: International cash set to flow to Palestinians

4 protesters injured in earlier rally

In a similar protest on Friday, four people were hurt by rubber-coated steel pellets fired by Israel border police in the West Bank village of Bil'in near Ramallah. The injured included two Palestinians, an Australian and a Dane.

Also on Friday, Palestinians started donating money to their government to enable the Palestinian Authority to pay its employees.

At rallies in the West Bank community of Nablus, thousands of Hamas supporters made a show of handing over cheques and valuables such as jewelry to the cash-strapped government.

When Hamas formed the government of the Palestinian Authority earlier in 2006, the European Union, the United States and Canada suspended aid payments, which among others things, were used to pay civil servants.

Hamas supporters donate money and jewelry for the cash-strapped Palestinian government on Friday. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Associated Press)
About 160,000 employees have not received any pay since March.

Western donors have demanded that the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority renounce violence and recognize Israel before they send aid.

India gives $2.2M in aid to Palestinians

The so-called Quartet – the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations – raised Palestinian hopes this week with a proposal to funnel humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank, while bypassing the Hamas-led government.

Members of the Quartet will meet in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss a mechanism that will be responsible for transferring humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians.

In a related development, India announced on Saturday that it would give $2.2 million US in aid to the cash-strapped Palestinians, in the form of medical supplies.

Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.

C.B.C. Israel/Palestine Coverage: A Quiet Complicity in Genocide

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - What does nearly a billion dollars per annum buy on the Canadian media market? If you're a Canadian taxpayer, what you get is: C.B.C. - Radio Canada. For decades of Canadians, that has seemed good value, considering the dismal performance of the commercial alternatives; especially when it comes to covering news. But, in light of the overall decline of the quality, and quantity of the C.B.C.'s television news service, it's perhaps time Canadians reassessed their enforced investment.

www.PEJ.org

C.B.C. Israel/Palestine Coverage:
A Quiet Complicity in Genocide

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
May 13, 2006

"ISRAELI POLICE and PROTESTERS CLASH OVER BARRIER in JERUSALEM" the latest State media banner blares. Yes, the great wall of Israel continues to snake it's way throughout the region once known as Palestine, rending families and infrastructure as it goes, all without so much as a "by your leave" from the steel-fisted rulers of the Holy Land. It's been an ongoing story: Palestinian villages: schools, farms, businesses, and homes torn in twain for the comfort and security of distant Israelis, and enrichment of the few. A theft in broad daylight hardly mentioned in the C.B.C. Here's a sample of their online coverage of this massive injustice to the Palestinian people, and blasphemy against one of the world's most important historical cities.

"Is it legal?" is the rhetorical question posed. And the answer? "According to the Supreme Court of Israel - Yes." Well, that's O.K., I suppose. Moving along.

There have been uncounted protests within Israel and the Occupied Territories over the wall. Some are covered in the Western press, most are not. But, when they are covered, they're given the treatment, standardized as in the C.B.C. piece attached below: On its face, a cool-eyed media assessment, revealing no bias, but a nearer look is revealing.

"Ten of the activists on Saturday were arrested for disturbing the peace, Israeli Army Radio reported."
the C.B.C. records without remark.

Is this as close to the action the C.B.C. intrepids in the field can get?

Consider that, Canada: The news you're getting from Jerusalem is coming straight from the mouth of the Israeli Army. These are the guys doing the killing, now telling you "ten of the activists on Saturday were arrested for disturbing the peace."

The pictures accompanying the story all bear AP (Associated Press) accreditation, so I can't show them to you here for fear of running afoul of copyright laws. Fair is fair. Were the C.B.C. attendant with cameras, I could show their photos to you, because you and I have already paid for the service; but there is no photographic evidence provided. (If you're curious, check this out.)

If you checked out the photo, what you saw was an image of what passes for equality in Palestine/Israel. You see a handful of young Semitic-looking males in the distance, photographed over the shoulders of anonymous soldiers, who are levelling their M-16 rifles at the unarmed youngsters. The photo informs (courtesy C.B.C.) that this is a "clash" between "activists" and "police" in the town of Bil'in, yesterday. Their "activity" seems, from the vantage of the camera, to be limited to the classic "hands in the air" gesture that speaks not a thousand, but two words: "Don't shoot!"

Disturbing the "Peace?"

Speaking to a rally of "activists" protesting America's war against Vietnam, legendary "activist" historian, Howard Zinn said of the riot act just read to them all: "They are not worried about you "disturbing the peace," because there is no "peace" to disturb. They are worried about you disturbing the war."

If the Canadian authorities are worried about this disturbing of the "peace" in Israel today, as reflected in their media arm, the C.B.C., they're less worried about disturbing the wall. When the issue of its legality was raised at the United Nations, and voted an illegal act that must be immediately reversed by a vote of 150-6, the Canadian authorities took the brave stance of abstention.

That was under the Liberals of Jean Chretien. Today, under the bolder leadership of Stephen Harper's reformed Conservative Alliance, the Canadian authorities were first onboard to support the draconian aid cessation to blighted Occupied Palestine as a punitive measure to punish the population their temerity to elect Hamas to government. But, you'll find little mention of that in the article (reprinted complete below), save a single sentence:

"When Hamas formed the government of the Palestinian Authority earlier in 2006, the European Union, the United States and Canada suspended aid payments, which among others things, were used to pay civil servants."

Among Other Things

Among the other things occurring yesterday were reports of protestors shot with "rubber" bullets. Among the injured were a Dane and Australian. Previous demonstrations have included the murder, by Israeli "police" of a Briton, shot in the head by a sniper whilst carrying Palestinian children to safety, and an American woman, run over repeatedly by an Israeli "construction" worker's Caterpillar bulldozer. They were members of the International Solidarity Movement, (ISM), now made targets by the Israeli "police."

Among other things, the Israeli air force paid a courtesy call to Canada during last year's now annual Maple Flag military exercises in Cold Lake, Alberta. There, the IDF heroes instructed Canada's air force on ways best to utilize F-16 fighter jets in enforcing urban occupations. They should know; they who last Autumn, before the election of the Hamas "terrorists," terrorized the Occupied Territories, utilizing those same F-16 fighter jets, flying low-level, supersonic sorties over the heads of the inhabitants, leaving blown out windows in their booming wake. That, among other things is too much to mention for the C.B.C. in providing anything resembling context for the Israel/Palestine "conflict."

Among other things, the people in Palestine are starving. They have no food, no medicine. Among other things, this is a made in Israel disaster, unnatural and catastrophic.

That the C.B.C.'s journalist rarely venture into the Occupied Territories and can forgiven that, given the intransigence of the Israeli government to grant permissions, and proven lethal readiness of the trigger-happy IDF "police" manning the walls of Prison Palestine to shoot journalists, but is it too much to ask they depart the lounges of their comfortable hotels in Jerusalem to do more than make the trip across the street to the Israel Ministry of Information for their news fodder? As the story below indicates, the answer to that is "NO."

Much of that unwillingness to cover the true nature of the Palestinian/Israeli may reflect C.B.C. Toronto's discomfort; journalists in the field know, less news is better news at home when it comes to criticizing Israel. So, why risk a lucrative news career actually covering the news? Any authentic coverage of Palestine instantly reveals the gruesome evidence of a systemic campaign of eradication; a campaign of ethnic cleansing; a genocide, and, no-one in Toronto wants to have that albatross hung about their precious necks.

So, the campaign continues.

The C.B.C. is of course not alone in their cowardice. Western media have consistently massaged the message, buried the truth, and allowed for this monstrous crime's continuity. But, for the most part, those media are commercial interests, free to omit what they wish from their coverage and let the market decide if their product is worthy of attention. The C.B.C. is, on the other hand, paid for by citizen taxes, taxes extracted under threat of imprisonment. If we are to be extorted to support the C.B.C., then is it unreasonable to ask for an alternative to the soap-selling news marketeer's lies, and expect a modicum of reality?

Maybe it's time to can the C.B.C., and divert our tribute to Ottawa to something useful:
Perhaps another fleet of submarines that neither float, nor sink.


Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and host Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.





Israeli police, protesters clash over barrier in Jerusalem
Last Updated Sat, 13 May 2006 13:00:58 EDT
CBC News

At least 10 people were injured Saturday as Israelis and Palestinians rallied to protest against the construction of Israel's security barrier through an eastern area of Jerusalem.

Activists clash with Israeli border police during a demonstration against the barrier in Bil'in on Friday. (Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press)

INDEPTH: Israel and the Palestinians

Police used tear gas against the demonstrators as they tried to march together through the Aram neighbourhood.

Israel began building the mainly concrete-and-steel wall in 2002 to separate Israeli settlements and the Palestinian population in Jerusalem and the West Bank. By its completion, expected in December, it will stretch for hundreds of kilometres.

INDEPTH: Israel's barrier

The barrier has spurred great controversy around the world. Israel says the wall is being built to keep Palestinian suicide bombers in the West Bank from attacking its citizens. The Palestinians have denounced it as a land grab by the Israelis.

Ten of the activists on Saturday were arrested for disturbing the peace, Israeli Army Radio reported.

RELATED: International cash set to flow to Palestinians

4 protesters injured in earlier rally

In a similar protest on Friday, four people were hurt by rubber-coated steel pellets fired by Israel border police in the West Bank village of Bil'in near Ramallah. The injured included two Palestinians, an Australian and a Dane.

Also on Friday, Palestinians started donating money to their government to enable the Palestinian Authority to pay its employees.

At rallies in the West Bank community of Nablus, thousands of Hamas supporters made a show of handing over cheques and valuables such as jewelry to the cash-strapped government.

When Hamas formed the government of the Palestinian Authority earlier in 2006, the European Union, the United States and Canada suspended aid payments, which among others things, were used to pay civil servants.

Hamas supporters donate money and jewelry for the cash-strapped Palestinian government on Friday. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Associated Press)
About 160,000 employees have not received any pay since March.

Western donors have demanded that the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority renounce violence and recognize Israel before they send aid.

India gives $2.2M in aid to Palestinians

The so-called Quartet – the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations – raised Palestinian hopes this week with a proposal to funnel humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank, while bypassing the Hamas-led government.

Members of the Quartet will meet in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss a mechanism that will be responsible for transferring humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians.

In a related development, India announced on Saturday that it would give $2.2 million US in aid to the cash-strapped Palestinians, in the form of medical supplies.

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Completing the Cycle of Usefulness: Harper Doing his Master's Bidding

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Newly forged Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper is peeved with the country's bleeding heart media reports to the people of their fallen fellow citizens overseas. Echoing his philosophical master in Washington, Harper demanded "No pictures, please!" of the sombre casket bearing processions certain to grow only more frequent. Indeed, so frequent are those processions expected to become, Canada's dead young will too pass unmarked by half-mast flags in the nation's capital. Mr. Harper sees no practical use for ceremonies of this nature.

www.PEJ.org

Completing the Cycle of Usefulness:

Harper Doing his Master's Bidding

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
May 7, 2006

Naturally, Stephen Harper is not always miffed at the media, it has proven useful to his [sic] cause for the most part. As Canada's little remarked overhaul of the Canadian Forces under the vacated Liberal government of Paul Martin, the media silence serves still to further Harper's American dream of Canada's [sic] global muscularity, military conquest, and perhaps one day he being referred to as the "Wartime P.M."

As the plan lain out by his Liberal predecessors began to bear its terrible fruit, Canada's [sic] media, led by State television's flagship news program, The National, rushed the breach, inundating the airwaves with tales of the good-hearted intent of our [sic] armed actors sent to Afghanistan. Peter Mansbridge went so far as to obscure the facts of history, reminding Canadians the invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq were due to the 9/11 attacks in America. An extra bit of disingenuousness on Pete's part, no doubt to ensure the continuance of his six figure salary.

Little mention in the media though, that the majority in Canada opposed "The Mission" when it was strictly an American show; opposed it when the U.N. relented, granting the patently illegal retribution bombing campaign a patina-thin imprimatur; opposed when Canadians followed orders and marched into northern Afghanistan to "reconstruct" the country, once affording it "stability;" opposed as our fellow Canadians, since redeployed to the hot zones in the south and west of Afghanistan began killing and dying more regularly; and oppose it still. As the Globe and Mail reported yesterday, (Sat. May 6, 2006), the Globe being one of the few major media players in the country to seriously question Canada's role in the burgeoning quagmire of Afghanistan, "Support Plummets for Afghan Mission." But for the most part, it's been silence from the fourth estate; a useful silence, from Mr. Harper's perspective.

Harper makes no bones about his support of all things Bush. Aping the policies of George W. Bush on media access and flag-dipping for the dead, killed in the wars they share enthusiasm for is not the only similarities der two "leaders" share. Both men reveal a sneering contempt for their respective constituencies, Harper made a career, before his ascension to Sussex Drive, of hammering all things Canadian, and now has the temerity to tell Canadians opposed to the war and continuing occupation of Afghanistan they're too dim to understand the nation's purpose there, and the import of "The Mission."

Harper also shares the Bush's belief that the best place for the citizenry is filling jail cells. Parroting the D.C. Machiavelli, Harper now wants to emulate his spiritual guru's expansion of not only Gulag America abroad, but too in bringing home the benefits of a more broadly criminalized electorate to the corporate interests invested in the so-called 'prison-industrial complex,' in the form of the disastrous "Mandatory Minimum" sentencing policies of the U.S. It's a place, no doubt in Stephen's mind to house an indigent population of slackers, as he characterized the nation when addressing his pals from the U.S.-based, Council for National Policy.

"In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance." - Conservative leader Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, June 1997

Harper's generosity seems less limited when it comes to spending billions of public dollars growing his proposed prison industry in Canada. Neither does he hesitate to send troops across the planet, or in doling out billions more for what Canadian Forces honcho, General Rick Hillier says will be a decade-long mission in Afghanistan for Canada. But when it comes to those nasty, Northern European social programs, his purse-strings tighten faster than a sphincter at a border crossing.

On Medicare a pre-Conservative Harper informed the same gathering: "Then there is the Progressive Conservative party, the PC party, which won only 20 seats. Now, the term Progressive Conservative will immediately raise suspicions in all of your minds. It should... They were in favour of gay rights officially; officially for abortion on demand. Officially -- what else can I say about them? Officially for the entrenchment of our universal, collectivized, health-care system and multicultural policies in the constitution of the country."

Stephen Harper's fifth column tendencies were no secret before his minority-election. With approval ratings only George Bush and Tony Blair could envy, Harper has sallied forward, ramming down the collective Canadian gullet mirror image policies of the above mentioned war criminals both at home and abroad. And he's been able to get away with it so far because a complacent public, complicit media, and non-existent "opposition" allow it.

And, in that we are all Stephen Harper's, and George W. Bush's, and Tony Blair's useful idiots.



Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and host of Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

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Exercise Trident Fury and Other Military Demonstrations

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The military is everywhere in Canada these days it seems. Despite a growing Canadian unease with the country's newly refurbished military doctrine, it's clear the men on both sides of Parliament's aisle are determined to stay the bipartisan military course and make of the nation a footsoldier in America's self-declared War on Terror. This week, Winnipegers are getting to know what living in a military occupation looks like, while quaint Victoria, British Columbia is the foci of a massing of international armed forces, ostensibly gathered to play war games. It was perhaps with an eye to that growing unease that the public announcement of Trident Fury was released only last week.

www.PEJ.org

Exercise Trident Fury and
Other Military Demonstrations

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
May 6, 2006

Today, I accompanied a determined group of Victorians down to the Canadian Forces Base, Esquimalt to deliver a petition to the base commander making him aware the so-called 'Exercise Trident Fury' is in controvention of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. On an unseasonably cold and rainy May day, just more than a dozen people, members of the Victoria Peace Coalition and the Global Compliance Research Project, requested the Base Commander accept and acknowledge the petition.

The petitioners are demanding Parliament and the Department of Defence put a halt to the exercise on grounds the war games constitute a promotional event for militarism. The petition says: "a display of militarism like Exercise Trident Fury by States that are involved in offensive military actions constitutes propaganda for war." Under article 20 SS1 of the International Covenant, "Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law."

Trident Fury joins other international operational exercises staged in Canada whose ultimate aim is, as CF Commodore Girouard said of last year's exercise off the coast of Vancouver Island, to demonstrate the "interoperability" of Canada's military with U.S. forces. It's an "interoperability" successive Canadian governements have also been eager to demonstrate to Washington when considering Canada's new role enforcing America's global militarism; both the ousted Liberal and ascendant Conservative administrations favour a greater role for Canada's military, alongside America, overseas.

Exercise Trident Fury commences Monday, May 8th and is scheduled to run until May 19th. A public vigil is planned for outside the gates of CFB Esquimalt Monday, May 8th at 5pm.

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