Dead in Custody: Three Reported Suicides at Guantanamo

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - There have been hunger strikes, and dozens of attempted suicides among the "enemy combatants" indefinitely incarcerated at America's prison complex at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Today, just hours after the White House announced it would accelerate its repatriation of Saudi, and other suspects, to their respective countries' infamous prison systems, three successfully ended their lives.

www.PEJ.org

Dead in Custody:
Three Reported Suicides at Guantanamo

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
June 10, 2006


American authorities assure, the bodies of the dead men were treated "with the utmost respect." Better treated in death apparently than they were in life. The "treatment" of those held at Guantanamo has included: No hope of a fair trial; barred communication with their families; religious persecution; denial of the guarantees afforded Prisoners of War, as defined by international law and the Geneva Convention.

Of the reported 460 men and boys languishing, some more than four years, despite little, or no evidence of any connection to the Taliban, or the Afghan resistance to the U.S. invasion of their country in 2001, only ten have been charged, while none have had their day in court.

The bombing campaign and subsequent occupation of Afghanistan was an illegal act, under international law, but that mattered little to the United States and its "coalition of the willing," those nations, including Canada, that have worked hand in glove to prosecute a 'War on Terror' predicated on Taliban involvement in the 9/11 attacks of 2001; allegations never tried, based on suspect assertions made by the Bush administration.

Irregardless of the Taliban's relationship with the alleged mastermind of 9/11, Saudi national, Osama bin Laden, America's invocation of United Nations' Article 51, a nation's right to retaliate against foreign attack, was a thin justification for what followed, and continues for those deemed neither soldiers, nor civilians deserving legal representation, or the basic human rights the U.S. and its coalition partners willingly ratified, but now ignore.

George W. Bush opined yesterday, he understood "concerns" about the prison expressed by the leaders of nations, like Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, currently on a State visit to Washington, saying he; "assured him [Rasmussen] that we would like to end Guantanamo."

But, it's clear; "ending" Guantanamo will not mean an end to the unjust ordeal these men and boys have endured.

For some, it means being delivered into the hands of America's willing collaborators, singular noted in some quarters for their agreement with America's number one law man, and architect of the legal language allowing Guantanamo, Bagram, and the plethora of secret "prison facilities" currently serving surrogate for America's endless 'War on Terror,' Alberto Gonzales, that international law, and Geneva specifically, are "quaint" notions better left to the dustbin of history.

Left behind to moulder in neglected history tomes too, the reminders of another regime that observed no law, and is remembered best today as a criminal enterprise whose monuments attest mass unprovoked war against its neighbours, and the systemic murder of millions behind the barbed wire of their network of concentration camps.




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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Dictating the News: Woes of a One-Paper Town

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Subscribers to the Times Colonist newspaper, Victoria's sole daily, and representative of the Toronto-based CanWest Global media monolith, were treated Friday, June 9, 2006 to a close-up front page image of the face of a corpse. The image is of a man, clearly beaten, eyes closed, dead. The dead man's face is artfully framed between 'Old Glory,' in its star-spangled splendour, and a photo of two American soldiers in battle fatigues.

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Dictating the News:
Woes of a One-Paper Town

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
June 11, 2006


The Times Colonist would have its readers believe, the dead man pictured was the infamous terrorist mastermind, a veritable Scarlet Pimpernel of the Iraq "insurgency," Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, reputed leader of the sinister 'al Qaida in Iraq.' Of course, there's absolutely no reason to believe anything emanating the presses of CanWest.

The organ of Winnipeg's Asper family is avowedly unabashed in its determination to serve Canadians not fair and balanced news coverage, but rather slanted propaganda to serve the interests of Israel, and its radical Likud faction, currently responsible for so many unreported atrocities against the peoples of the Middle East. The media empire's former number one, the late Israel "Izzy" Asper said as much shortly after the family business went global, gobbling up remnants of Lord Black's once mighty Hollinger Inc.

CanWest revealed its stripe just last month, with another odious Friday edition. On Friday, May 19, 2006, through the agency of the CanWest print flagship, The National Post, aspersions were cast against the Iranian government. In 18 point high letters, above the photograph of two German (Polish?) Jews, circa 1940's, each sporting the mandatory yellow Star of David, sewn onto their overcoats, (please see: 'Creating Kristallnacht: Hate-Baiting at the National Post'), The Post accused Iran of following the Nazi lead, requiring religious minorities in their country to too be made to affix their clothing with coloured designators.

Naturally, that "story" was a complete fabrication, dreamt up by Neo-con fellow travellers at the Washington PR firm, Benador and Associates. You may recall some of Benador's previous efforts, tales of Kuwaiti babies ejected incubators, abandoned to die on the "cold, cold hospital floors" that helped stoke the fires for war in Iraq I? Base nonsense, to be sure, but serving a greater, and nefarious purpose.

As the Kuwaiti incubator fiction was a doggerel aimed at the public in the west, while the leaders prepared for a massive killing spree based on lies and deception in Iraq in 1991, the May 19th rubbish too was aimed at public opinion, hoping to bolster leaders bent on a massive killing spree based on lies and deception for Iran. So it is with last Friday's Zarqawi faerie tale; another piece of shoddy propaganda, serving the leaders conducting these serial blood baths abroad.

Trumpeted around the globe as the greatest victory for the American military in its self-declared 'War on Terror,' (a claim perhaps easier to believe, would it have come from any source other than CanWest), the rise and fall of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi makes for a gripping story.

No doubt the movie will be a block-buster.

As were the reputed instruments of his demise: Literally, as pair of 500 lb "smart bombs" delivered to the house "Zarqawi" was believed hiding in, destroyed much of the neighbourhood. But, a good bad man is hard to kill. Now the story is: Super Zarqawi survived the blast. That would explain why the picture on the Times Colonist's Friday front page is of a recognizably human victim, and not, as one would reasonably expect, considering the sledgehammer employed to kill this fly, an image of a smudge amongst the rubble.

Who that dead man on the front page is is an open question; the official story has already been revised several times.

The Times Colonist says what they say, and maybe some still believe them, but Kurt Nimmo, an intrepid, dedicated, and honest reporter, featured often at PEJ News, has a slightly more believable take on the circus surrounding the recent demise of the dead man on the front page, here.



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.

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The Neo and Improved Hyper-Holocaust © - It's Not Just for Jews!

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - I don't have to sell Hyper-Holocaust © to Americans; they're already hooked. Already, every day they buy it; America literally lives by the grace of the creation and sustenance of a death's head apparatus, a paradigm demanding the erasure of lives at a staggering, and accelerated rate. But for those yet conscience-capable, the ones whose hearts still bleed for the horror and destruction of life this model exacts, pray let me take my foot from the door, and come inside that I may enlighten.

www.PEJ.org

The Neo and Improved Hyper-Holocaust ©
It's Not Just for Jews!

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
June 9, 2006


What was it?

Some organized bunch or other came out some time back with statistics regarding the number of foreigners immolated in the furnace of the Post-WWII economic miracle. The millions America sacrificed on that altar, they said, now surpassed the numbers of dead, widely disseminated, of those finished off in the Nazi death camps; a more or less 6 million killed that the greater many would prosper.

Though largely regarded as a great tragedy, and the nadir of human history, their sacrifice was actually, in some philosophies, the greatest philanthropic demonstration ever seen. In their imprisonment, execution, and removal, the blood of the dying sustained grand economies, creating whole industries of labourers dedicated to both continue the doctrine, and cease it.

Now, that's sacrifice!

It wasn't just Herbert Walker Bush, and the Harriman's making a killing. Think of it: Someone has to build those concentration camps. Masons, carpenters, electricians, pipe-fitters, gravediggers; wiping out mass numbers of people takes a village, so to speak. Thousands upon thousands diligently at work creating the infrastructure; millions managing the upkeep; not to mention economic spin-offs, coffee shops, strudelariums, etc.

Holocaust is good for the economy. The sacrifice of the few millions for the benefit of the many dragged Germany, America, Europe, and the rest of the Banking world from the brink of financial apocalypse then, and created the sunshine existence the west has largely witnessed since.

And it is still, only more so

Despite the stunning success of Nazi Germany in dispatching the reputed six million "Jews," (to be fair, one must include the myriad socialists, communists, fags, gypsies, retards, etc., sacrificed too) that we would benefit. It is an accomplishment still undervalued; actually, it was the blood of some forty millions more that greased the gears of that awesome machinery.

As great as that effort of Yore was, it pales besides the visionary scope of what we see today.

Though the mensch destroyed yet, measured in piddling hundreds of thousands in Iraq, are acknowledged for their current contribution, the nature of this new, Neo and Improved Hyper-Holocaust © dwarfs the efforts of past giants like Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Mao. Today, we can expect billions contributing their blood to oil the mechanisms emplaced for the improvement of a future greater humanity for some. And, it's a sacrifice guaranteed to keep on sacrificing, as the effects of depleted uranium kill and kill, creating a massive problem someone is going to have to address. Cleaning that up is a 4.5 billion year contract!

Of Fools and Placards

Yes, I've seen them too. Idiots bent on "Peace."

Economics morons that would cut the throat of the economy without understanding its underpinnings. Do they realize what "Peace" would mean? Can you imagine, the storehouses, surrounding every major city of North America and elsewhere, where the product of diligent industry is kept waiting to serve the greater good were suddenly rendered useless?

Can you imagine an economy without war, and its attendant sacrificial lambs?

The massive fortunes accumulated through this by the few aside, it is now our all's reality, we profit this. Yes, George W. Bush's family makes a fortune daily through the destruction of infants in far-flung lands, and has done for generations. Yes, it's true business has never been better for they and their coterie, but who among us cannot honestly claim advantage?

And, the future looks bright on the killin' front.

Hitler and the rest could hardly ken the "German efficiency" of today's Neo and Improved Hyper-Holocaust ©. Imagine that they had nuclear weapons. And, not just the staid old city erasers of Hiroshima days, but more subtle "mini-nukes," and bullets capable of irradiating the ground and water, recreating apocalypse in perpetuity?

As good as they were, the Nazis of old would have to concede to their progeny's ability.

Those still unsold this opportunity, Canadians exempt, due to tithed tribute exacted by your government through the State pension fund, (more on that later), the underlying principle of this is simple: the suffering of the few for the prosperity of the many. Mr. Spock could not say it more clearly.

Sacrifice

Holocaust, in its literal translation is: Sacrifice. That the surviving Juden would choose that moniker to encapsulate their horrific shared experience under the fascists has always struck me strange. A sacrifice is, after all, a triumph of the will. So, who's will was at work then, in their view?

And, more importantly, who's will will be at work now, creating and sustaining the necessary Neo and Improved Hyper-Holocaust ©? And how broad will their scope be?




Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and host of Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria every Monday between 5-6 pm pacific time. You can check out the GR Blog here.

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Other People's Blood

Other People's Blood

By BOB HERBERT

06/08/06 "New York Times" -- - For the smug, comfortable, well-off Americans, it doesn't seem to matter how long the war in Iraq goes on - as long as the agony is endured by others. If the network coverage gets too grim, viewers can always switch to the E! channel (one hand on the remote, the other burrowing into a bag of chips) to follow the hilarious antics of Paris, Britney, Brangelina et al.

The war is depressing and denial is the antidote. Why should ordinary citizens (good people, religious people, patriots) consider their role in - and responsibility for - the thunderous, unending carnage? Enough with this introspection. Let's go to the ballpark, get drunk and boo Barry Bonds. The nation is in deep denial about Iraq. For years the president and his supporting cast of arrogant, bullying characters have tried to put the best face on this war. They had no idea what they were doing when they ordered the invasion of Iraq, and they still don't. Many of the troops who were assured that the Iraqis would welcome them with open arms are now dead. And there's still no plan.

Paul Wolfowitz, who fashioned the phony intellectual underpinnings of this catastrophe, told us that Iraqi oil revenues would cover the cost of reconstruction. He was as wrong about that as the president was about the weapons of mass destruction. (And as wrong as Dick Cheney was last June when he said the insurgency was in its last throes.)

Here are the facts: The war so recklessly launched by the amateurs in the Bush White House has already taken scores of thousands of lives, and will ultimately cost the United States $1 trillion to $2 trillion.

No one has been held accountable for this. While Mr. Bush's approval ratings are low, the public has been largely indifferent to the profound suffering in Iraq. This is primarily for two reasons: Because most Americans have no immediate personal stake in the war, and because the administration and the news media keep the worst of the suffering at a safe distance from the U.S. population.

The killing of American troops is usually kissed off with a paragraph or two in the major papers, and a sentence or two, at best, on national newscasts.
(Imagine if someone in your office, sitting at a desk across from you, were suddenly blown to bits, splattering you with his or her blood. You wouldn't get over it for the rest of your life. This is what happens daily in Iraq.)

The many thousands of Iraqis who are killed - including babies and children who are shot to death, blown up, or incinerated - remain completely unknown to the American public. So not only is there very little empathy for the suffering of Iraqis, there is virtually no sense among ordinary Americans of a shared responsibility for that suffering.

Despite the frequently expressed fantasies expressed by President Bush and some of the leading politicians of both parties, the idea of a U.S. victory in Iraq is an illusion. The nightmarish violence is rising, not receding. Iraq is not being pacified. A suicide bomber blew himself up in a bustling market in Basra over the weekend, killing 27 and wounding scores. On Sunday,
20 people were stopped and pulled from their vehicles on a highway near Baquba and shot to death.

John Burns, writing in yesterday's New York Times, told us: "The death toll in one of the most grisly recent attacks, in the village of Hadid, near the Diyala provincial capital of Baquba, rose to 17 on Tuesday when the police delivered nine severed heads to the Baquba morgue in the fruit boxes in which they were found in the village."

Eight other heads had previously been found.

Instead of beginning to pull our troops out of Iraq, we are sending more in. The permanent Iraqi government, which was supposed to be the answer to everybody's prayers, is a study in haplessness. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's man in Iraq, remains at large. (As does Osama bin Laden, somewhere in Pakistan.)

As was the case with Vietnam, the war in Iraq is a fool's errand. There is no clear mission for American troops in Iraq. No one can really say what the dead have died for. And yet the dying continues.

When it all finally comes to an end (according to President Bush, on somebody else's watch) we'll look around at the hideous costs in human treasure and cold hard cash and ask ourselves: What in the world were we thinking?

Terror Land North: Canada Becomes America's New Next Threat

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Content, as is their wont south of the 49th, to convict "terrorists" in the court of public opinion, "public" only as "opinions" are defined in the corporate media, Washington's electioneering blowhards on Capitol Hill are using the arrest of 17 men and boys in Toronto last week to push legislation through Congress demanding Canadians entering the U.S. be required to produce special passports.

www.PEJ.org

Terror Land North:
Canada Becomes America's New Next Threat

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
June 8, 2008

It's a measure the Harper government, and its predecessors, have lobbied hard to prevent, taking the position Canada is not a safe harbour to fanatical Islamists, bent on attacking America. Ironically, the Canadian media's eagerness to trade jurisprudence for juicy headlines in the alleged plot to "decapitate" the Prime Minister, and perform a host of other, equally implausible schemes may prove the end of the Canadian lobby.

Canada's position is that the legislation, drafted through the Department of Homeland Defense, and due to go into force in 2008, will cripple the economies of both countries, who now enjoy the largest bilateral trade flow in the world. It's always been a profitable, if uneven relationship, one successive Canadian governments have bent over backwards to preserve; but, none have bent so far as the current minority Conservatives under Stephen Harper.

In the past, Canada has turned a blind eye on its self-avowed belief in human rights, ignoring its famous high ideals, remaining mum as our good cousins ran roughshod throughout the third world, leaving a rising tide of blood and misery in their wake. Fearing upset in the south, a parade of second rate Canadian politicos kowtowed to Washington, some going so far as to labour from the boardrooms of Bay Street, and the backrooms of Ottawa to further the interests of their friends along the Potomac. Some too being recruited to fight for those interests from the floor of the Parliament.

But, none have gone so far as this current claque of collaborators.

Preceding the media extravaganza staged last week in Toronto, the Harper government transcended its long disdain for Canadian culture, went beyond contempt of "socialized" medicine and the rights of citizens, irregardless of whose beds they choose to spend their nights in, and stabbed at the heart of the nation's self-understanding, however hypocritically practiced, as a land respecting the rule of law at home and abroad.

Parroting George W. Bush's "legal" councillor, since elevated to that sorry republic's Numero Uno law man, Alberto Gonzales, Stephen Harper's government says now they too will deny the Geneva Convention, refusing to grant the growing number of prisoners taken in Afghanistan the protections those documents guarantee. Through the same legal double-speak, Harper's mob now refers to those unfortunates, taken from their beds, bound, hooded, and delivered to torture chambers in Bagram Air Base, and God knows which other Hell holes, as "enemy combatants."

It seems now, acquiescence is not enough, silent complicity insufficient; the ravenous murderers ruling the south now require more than we Canadians share in the blood bath that has become Iraq and Afghanistan, Colombia, and elsewhere, but must now do so openly, flaunting both decency and international law.

We must too become war criminals.

And tonight, Peter Mansbridge, manning the bridge of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's flagship, The National, repeated the sensational claims made by the RCMP concerning the arrests made last week, disregarding both the paucity of their case, and the broader implications the current course of Canadian politics portends.

As for passports to visit America; all who would go there deserve all the harrassment the American police state can afford.

[For Ms. Doocey, and any others that would direct hated response: please, read my response to Ms. D.

thanks for your attention to the site, Ms. Doocey; we welcome feedback, but insist it rise above what passes in your sad republic for discourse. If you wish to further offer your opinions, please be aware; we demand respectful analysis, devoid of personal attacks, and ad hominem slurs. If you have a serious and thoughtful comment to make, please feel free to contribute.

cheers
chris cook
senior editor

p.s. As you appear interested in this issue, please see: Terror Land North at: http://tinyurl.com/p7un9

And, for more on Alberto Gonzales, please see Chris Floyd's insightful piece, here. - lex]


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

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Bilderbergers Do Ottawa

Secretive, powerful Bilderberg group meets near Ottawa

ALEXANDER PANETTA

Canadian Press

Ottawa — It's like Woodstock for conspiracy theorists.

A serene suburban setting has been transformed into a four-day festival of black suits, black limousines, burly security guards — and suspicions of world domination.

On the outskirts of the nation's capital, a tony high-rise hotel beside a golf course is hosting the annual meeting for one of the world's most secretive and powerful societies.

It's not the Freemasons.

Forget those fabled U.S. military men who tucked away UFOs in the Arizona desert.

These guys, you've probably never even heard of, and if you believe the camera-toting followers who attend all their meetings, they control the world.

They're called the Bilderberg group.

They include European royalty, national leaders, political power-brokers, and heads of the world's biggest companies.

Those who follow the Bilderberg group say it got Europe to adopt a common currency, got Bill Clinton elected after he agreed to support NAFTA, and is spending this week deciding what to do about high oil prices and that pesky fundamentalist president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Some people say that I advocate a conspiracy theory. That's not true. I recognize a conspiracy fact,” said James P. Tucker.

The 74-year-old American journalist has been following the Bilderberg group for decades, has written extensively about it, and recently published his Bilderberg Diary. He follows the group to its annual meetings and stands outside describing to other journalists details of his privileged access to their inner workings.

He is not alone.

Daniel Estulin snapped photographs of every vehicle that approached the concrete-and-glass complex Thursday. He says Mossad — Israel's spy agency — is paying attention.

Away from the golf course, there are no grassy knolls in the industrial zone outside Ottawa's Brookstreet hotel, the site of this week's meeting, but the scene does nothing to dissuade conspiracists.

Ottawa police officers are standing guard outside a dozen metal gates that serve as security checkpoints a half-kilometre from the hotel.

But Ottawa's finest are clearly not in charge here.

To approach the hotel property, even these uniformed police officers are required to show their credentials to the half-dozen black-suited men working for Globe Risk, a private security firm.

“This is pretty unusual,” one Ottawa cop said.

Another said they were hired to be there in their off-duty hours and weren't told much by their superiors: “They just told us, ‘These are important people. It's a private meeting.' ”

A small crowd of curious onlookers snapped photos of black-windowed sedans stopping at the checkpoints. It was impossible to see who was sitting inside.

But it's fun to imagine.

The Bilderberg group is a half-century-old organization comprising about 130 of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people. The group is named after the Dutch hotel where it held its first meeting in 1954.

But don't expect to find that information on the group's website. They don't have a website.

Nor was there any Bilderberg logo anywhere to be seen Thursday, except for those nondescript white placards stamped with the letter ‘B' and tucked under the windshield of all those tinted sedans.

A journalist calling the Brookstreet hotel asked to leave a message for the Bilderbergers.

“Sure,” a hotel employee said. “Your name and number?”

The journalist then asked whether the employee could confirm whether the Bilderberg Group was actually meeting there.

“I don't know,” she replied.

Even members of the hotel gym were barred from the premises. A sign was slapped on the gym door earlier this week informing them the facilities would be closed for four days. All other hotel guests were asked to check out by Thursday morning. Any vehicles remaining in the parking lot would be towed.

Bilderberg says the privacy of its meetings helps encourage freewheeling discussion.

An unsigned press release, sent by fax, confirmed this year's meeting would deal with energy issues, Iran, the Middle East, terrorism, immigration, Russia, European-American relations and Asia.

“The meeting is private to encourage frank and open discussion,” said the release.

“There will be no press conference.”

The release included a list of participants at this year's event.

The 2006 group includes David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Queen Beatrix of Holland, New York Gov. George Pataki, the heads of Coca-Cola, Credit Suisse, the Royal Bank of Canada, cabinet ministers from Spain, Greece and a number of media moguls, including Globe and Mail newspaper publisher Philip Crawley. However, Bilderberg followers say that media moguls whose outlets report leaked details from the meetings will see themselves banned in the future.,

The group also includes a pair of prominent figures involved in planning the U.S. invasion of Iraq — Richard Perle and Ahmad Chalabi. Fellow White House power-players Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, now head of the World Bank, have spoken to the group in the past.

But Bilderberg is not exclusively a right-wing body, by any means. Bill Clinton's right-hand-man Vernon Jordan, was also in attendance Thursday, as was his Mideast negotiator Dennis Ross.

The prime ministers of Britain and Canada — Tony Blair and Stephen Harper — have addressed the group before, as have former Liberal prime ministers Pierre Trudeau, Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien.

Mr. Harper spoke to Bilderberg in Versailles, France, in 2003 but his office said he would not attend this year's conference.

Canada remains well represented, however.

The Canadian contingent at this year's event also includes Power Corp. boss Paul Desmarais, Indigo books CEO Heather Reisman, and former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna.

Canada Following Down the Rabbit Hole: Harper's Succession

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The tales emanating the estimable "intelligence" agencies in Canada tonight inform of the thwarting of a plot to no less than: decapitate the nominal Head of State, destroy the Parliament Buildings, and take over the head offices of the State media, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Ambitious plans for a gang of young adults, and five teenagers. But, they had help, in the form of the best terrorist experts around, the very ones that made the huge bust; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

http://www.cbc.ca/includes/promos/
promo/images/toronto-bombplot_190.jpg

www.PEJ.org

Canada Following Down the Rabbit Hole:
Harper's Succession

C. l. Cook

PEJ News
June 6, 2006

Though the CBC hasn't included that kernel of truth in their latest reportage on-line, to their credit, CBC Radio has reported on this, and the fact the families have been denied visitation of the incarcerated "terrorists;" bail too "deferred." Thankfully, the Toronto Star newspaper thought the pre-raid involvement of Federal law enforcement something worthy of a line, or two. The fact that the reported raids, carried out by "400+" armed agents against the 17 accused suggests a high level of intelligence activity prior to the alledged plot(s) is something too absent from CBC on-line coverage. Disappeared now from most State and corporate versions is the nature of the RCMP's involvement, and their changed story.

Friend Kurt Nimmo, writing from Another Day in the Empire, is well familiar with "Black Flag" covert intelligence operations, and has worked to expose the dubious claims of Government in Britain, the Untied States, Spain, Italy, and of course, Iraq. Invariably, these plots hatched from the deepest recesses of State power, are proven gross attempts to manipulate the popular mind; an effort to instil a desire amongst the "electorate" to bolster both the responsibilities and budgets of said "intelligence" agencies.

In a country like Canada, with its devout self-belief it operates within the parameters of justice and fair play, it's a politically dicey thing to play a card already seen laid in the U.S.A., (with such disastrous effect) to terrify Canadians. It stinks of the South. Harper's southern counsel may yet be unaware: Canadians ken media more sharply than their cousins do. This likely a result of generations prior casting a dubious eye to their gargantuan neighbour.

As the saw here says: "When the mouse and the elephant go to bed, the mouse gets little sleep."

One Would Think

As though Canadians have lived in a vacuum these last years, the Harper regime repeats verbatim, ad nausea, messages taken straight from the stale repositories of the American PR enablers of post-9/11 reversals of democracy at home and international law abroad, not bothering even to change the script. Now, Canadians are told they must "fight vigilant" the deleterious effects of "Activist Judges," bent the story goes, on perverting our nation's purity. This while the State is saying, as in America, they're not interested in following the law, and inform they will be devoting greater percentages of the national budget to buck-up defence, policing, and lading the rich with tax breaks, to ease the Creme's discomfort with investing in the nation.

In essence, America 'Land of the Brave,' these last years proving anything but, is the new exemplar the Conservative challenge would offer Canada. Will you, Canada mine, fold to the Goebbels-esque campaign, determined to undermine Canadian democracy here as it has in "America?"

True North

Now, back to the heroics.

Depending on who you believe: 17 were "taken down" by a joint force of the RCMP, CSIS, etc. Five of those appear to be juveniles. Whether these will be "transferred" to Syria, Guantanamo, Bagram, or any of the other myriad torture facilities currently working overtime to abate the destruction of western society is uncertain, though Canada's minority, and clearly compromised "government" did announce last week, they thought 'Geneva,' as in conventions, quaint too.

As George before them, it seems [sic] Canada will free its forces to enjoin the slaughter with impunity of dusky foreigners, kicking in their windows, and breaking down their doors; as their "American" leaders do.

And now, Canada.

What Nimmo discloses is an uncomfortable coinciding of western spy networks in efforts to thwart "terrorist attacks" targeted against, primarily honest citizens, who have an interest in truth and peace, democracy and the political and physical environment we must share. Worse though, he reveals how bombings, and other outrages use civilians victims to "justify" draconian "legal measures" in the countries where these nefarious deeds succeed. These measures are ostensibly needed to "protect the citizenry."

That these measures erode the essence of democracy is at the crux of the geopolitical shift witnessed these last tragic years. It's a global phenomenon, effectively erasing what we've come to know as "democracy."

The peoples of the Americas, Europe, and the World, are suffering a veritable propaganda barrage, across the burgeoning media spectrum. It's a battle for the hearts and minds to be sure, but really only for insurance. The Powers ruling today care little for either public opinion, or jurisprudence. If enough of the herd can be convinced to play along, along the path to apparent ruination, so much the better.

Or at least, so much the easier.

Stephen Harper's pedigree is amply available on-line; not least some of which here at PEJ News, and other places. It's clear, Mr. Harper does not like "Canada," as defined by the majority of its citizens, and indeed others around the world. Harper doesn't like "socialized" medicine, something of a point of pride for millions of Canadians. The creation of guaranteed, affordable medical treatment to all citizens was, and is, seen in most quarters of this country as a seminal social achievement. And not won easily.

Likewise, the Social Insurance, taken from all, so that the few would not in old age be reduced to dog food, or choosing between the medication and the rent, Stephen Harper and his predecessor governments would have our elders supine, wondering where their next meal is coming from; they would support the extension of copyright protections, protections that ensure generic palliatives can't trickle down to the poor, and sick. He and his party would have the nation reduced to a plenary not seen since the 19th Century.

War on the Poor

Signally, among the myriad outrages PM Harper would heap upon the heads of us, we Canadians, is averred in his stolid determination to bring God, and the force of the prison-industrial complex North to Canada. This of course, through "get tough" seminaries, replete with media magnification.

Tonight, 12 men and five boys wait and wonder what 'Canadian Justice' holds for them. They know already of the secret complicity the nation is guilty of. They know of others, held in horror camps around the world, delivered by the agency of "their" government. They doubtless too have heard Canada's new leadership proclaim objections to 'Geneva,' and might wonder what that may mean for them.

But, behind the media circus, left largely unattended, is: What does this mean for the rest of us?

While Harper hunts, or ensnares domestic “terrorists” what privations of law and rights are Canadians willing to accept? Will this country too fall victim to Public Relations, and finally succeed the South now?

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

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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.

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

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."

www.PEJ.org

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

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

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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.