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Re: Rundown 4-2-03
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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
“Until this administration it had been possible to
believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was
also upholding the interests of the American people and the
world. I believe it no longer”: former U.S. diplomat
John Brady Kiesling on why he resigned from the State Department
Civilian casualties mount in Iraq: We talk with Iraq Peace
Team member Cliff Kindy who just left Baghdad
“Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You”:
A discussion with media critic Norman Solomon
State of Texas to overturn 39 drug convictions in Tulia:
In 1999 one white detective arrested 15 percent of the town’s
African-American population in drug sweep
8:01-8:10 Headlines
8:10-8:1 One Minute Music Break
8:11-8:20 “UNTIL THIS ADMINISTRATION IT HAD BEEN POSSIBLE
TO BELIEVE THAT BY UPHOLDING THE POLICIES OF MY PRESIDENT
I WAS ALSO UPHOLDING THE INTERESTS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
AND THE WORLD. I BELIEVE IT NO LONGER”: FORMER U.S.
DIPLOMAT JOHN BRADY KIESLING ON WHY HE RESIGNED FROM THE STATE
DEPARTMENT
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign
Service of the United States and from my position as political
counselor in US Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so
with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included
a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service
as a US diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand
foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians,
scholars, and journalists, and to persuade them that US interests
and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country
and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic
arsenal.
So begins a letter from career diplomat John Brady Kiesling
to Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell.
Kiesling goes on to write:
Until this administration it had been possible to believe
that by upholding the policies of my president I was also
upholding the interests of the American people and the world.
I believe it no longer.
The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible
not only with American values but also with American interests.
Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander
the international legitimacy that has been America's most
potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of
Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and
most effective web of international relationships the world
has ever known. Our current course will bring instability
and danger, not security…
That was the resignation letter John Brady Kiesling wrote
to Powell. It was republished in the Washington Post and New
York Review of Books. He has been profiled on the front page
of the Wall Street Journal. He has become an in-demand speaker
at peace events. And he became the first of three U.S. diplomats
to resign in the past few weeks over the Bush Administration’s
handling of the Iraq crisis.
- John Brady Kiesling, 19-year Foreign Service veteran
who resigned over the Bush Administration’s handling
of the Iraq situation.
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:35 Civilian casualties mount in Iraq: We talk with
Iraq Peace Team member Cliff Kindy who just left Baghdad
US forces have begun a major attack against Iraqi Republican
Guard divisions surrounding the Iraqi capital.
The Associated Press reports B-52 bombers carpet-bombed
Karbala throughout the night. 3rd Infantry units surged past
the strategic city without entering it.
In the nearby farming town of Hilla, the local hospital
director said 33 people were killed and more than 300 wounded
in a bombing raid yesterday.
A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross
told the Agence France Presse: "There were dozens of
smashed corpses" at the hospital.
The London Guardian reports unedited TV footage from the
Babylon hospital showed horrifically injured bodies heaped
into pick-up trucks. Relatives of the dead accompanied them
for burial. Bed after bed of injured women and children were
pictured along with large pools of blood on the floor of the
hospital.
An Edinburgh-trained doctor at the hospital Nazim al-Adali,
told the Guardian: "All of these are due to the American
bombing to the civilian homes. He said there were not any
army vehicles or tanks in the area.
One stunned man who lost his whole family said: "God
take our revenge on America."
An AFP reporter saw what appeared to be the component devices
from cluster bombs covering a large area in the town.
This comes as the Washington Post reports today U.S. military
commanders have shed their early caution in striking some
targets in Baghdad and have embarked on more aggressive air
attacks that run the risk of larger numbers of civilian casualties.
The change in tactics appear to reflect a judgment that winning
the war against Iraq will require more aggressive air attacks.
An AFP reporter also encountered a civilian sitting among
15 coffins at the Babylon hospital. Razek al-Kazem al-Khafaji
said the coffins contained the bodies of his wife, six children,
his father, his mother, his three brothers and their wives.
They were killed Monday night when a US helicopter gunship
fired on the family’s pickup truck. The family was fleeing
fierce fighting in Nasiriyah. US Central Command said it is
investigating the report.
A survivor of the Iraqi family who lost 11 members when
U.S. soldiers opened fire on their vehicle at a checkpoint
near Najaf said his family was fleeing toward U.S. lines because
they thought a leaflet dropped by US helicopters suggested
they do so. This according to Knight Ridder.
Bakhat Hassan lost his daughters, ages 2 and 5, his son,
3, his parents, two older brothers, their wives and two nieces,
ages 12 and 15.
Hassan’s wife Lamea recalled: ``I saw the heads of
my two little girls come off.'' She repeated herself in a
flat, even voice: ``My girls -- I watched their heads come
off their bodies. My son is dead.''
The Hassan family fled from Karbala, which has come under
heavy US bombing. Helicopters dropped leaflets on the town:
a drawing of a family sitting at a table eating and smiling,
with a message written in Arabic. Sgt. 1st Class Stephen Furbush
said the message read: ``To be safe, stay put.''
But Hassan said he and his father thought it just said,
``Be safe.'' To them, that meant getting away from the helicopters
firing rockets and missiles.
The family of 17 packed into its 1974 Land Rover, so crowded
that Bakhat, was hanging on to the backdoor outside on the
rear bumper. Everyone else was piled on one another's laps
in three sets of seats.
Hassan said US soldiers at an earlier checkpoint had waved
them through as they drove away from their home village. As
they approached another checkpoint, they waved again at the
US soldiers. Hassan said through an Army translator: ``We
were thinking these Americans want us to be safe.'' The soldiers
didn't wave back. They fired.
Hassan's father, in his 60s, wore his best clothes for the
trip through the American lines: a pinstriped suit. Hassan
said he wanted to look American. But Hassan's father died
at the Army hospital later, bringing the death toll to 11.
Navy Captain Frank Thorp said initial reports indicate the
soldiers at the checkpoint had acted properly.
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard
Myers yesterday expressed “regrets” to the families
of the dead Iraqis. But then he blamed the Iraqis, adding:
"The climate established by the Iraqi regime contributed
to this incident."
US marines today shot dead another unarmed driver and badly
wounded his passenger at a roadblock in the southern town
of Shatra, south of Baghdad.
Well to talk about the latest in Iraq we are joined by Cliff
Kindy who was recently expelled from Iraq.
- Cliff Kindy, a member of the Iraq Peace Team and the
Christian Peacemaker Team who was recently expelled from
Iraq
8:35-8:50 STATE OF TEXAS TO OVERTURN 39 DRUG CONVICTIONS
IN TULIA: IN 1999 ONE WHITE DETECTIVE ARRESTED 15 PERCENT
OF THE TOWN’S AFRICAN-AMERICAN POPULATION IN DRUG SWEEP
Remember the story of Tulia Texas where in 1999, more than
15 percent of the town’s African-American population
was rounded up in a massive drug sweep. In all, 46 people
were arrested, 39 of them African-American. They were jailed
on cocaine and crack charges.
One undercover detective, who was white, made all of the
arrests and provided all of the evidence none of which could
be corroborated. Still harsh sentences were handed down. One
man was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Thirteen of the Tulia residents remain in prison despite
international protests over the sweep. While a handful of
cases had already been dismissed, it now looks like the remaining
cases will be overturned.
Yesterday a Texas judge agreed with the prosecutors, and
defense lawyers, that the courts should vacate 38 convictions
arising from the drug sting, including those in which the
defendants pleaded guilty.
- Jeff Blackburn, Tulia Legal Defense Project
- Randy Credico, director of the William Moses Kunstler
Fund for Racial Justice
- Mattie White, mother of Kareem Abdul Jabar White, who
was sentenced to 60 years for selling cocaine to an undercover
agent. Three of her other children were also arrested.
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:50 “TARGET IRAQ: WHAT THE NEWS MEDIA DIDN'T
TELL YOU”: A DISCUSSION WITH MEDIA CRITIC NORMAN SOLOMON
“Two months ago, when I wandered through a large market
near the center of Baghdad, the day seemed like any other
and no other. A vibrant pulse of humanity throbbed in the
shops and on the streets. Meanwhile, a fuse was burning; lit
in Washington, it would explode here.”
So begins a recent column by Normon Solomon titled“Media
War: Obsessed With Tactics and Technology.”
“Now, with American troops near Baghdad, the media
fixations are largely tactical. "A week of airstrikes,
including the most concentrated precision hits in U.S. military
history, has left tons of rubble and deep craters at hundreds
of government buildings and military facilities around Iraq
but has yielded little sign of a weakening in the regime's
will to resist," the Washington Post reported on March
26.
“Shrewd tactics and superlative technology were supposed
to do the grisly trick. But military difficulties have set
off warning bells inside the U.S. media echo chamber. In contrast,
humanitarian calamities are often rendered as PR problems,
whether the subject is the cutoff of water in Basra or the
missiles that kill noncombatants in Baghdad: The main concern
is apt to be that extensive suffering and death among civilians
would make the "coalition of the willing" look bad.
“
- Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for
Public Accuracy and author of “Target Iraq: What the
News Media Didn't Tell You” with Reese Erlich
Links: Institute for Public Accuracy: www.accuracy.org
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
9:00-9:01 Billboard:
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard opening arguments in two
landmark cases that may decide the future of affirmative action:
We’ll have our own debate today between Attorney Kirk
Kolbo, who argued against affirmative action before the high
court, and Miranda Massie a lead attorney for the University
of Michigan students who backs the preservation of affirmative
action.
An embedded reporter comes home after a stint in Iraq
9:01-9:10 Headlines
9:10-9:11 One Minute Music Break
9:11-9:45 Yesterday the Supreme Court heard opening arguments
in two landmark cases that may decide the future of affirmative
action: We’ll have our own debate today
With thousands of protesters outside, the Supreme Court
began hearing arguments on two landmark cases that will likely
decide the future of affirmative action.
The stakes are high. The court could prohibit affirmative
action programs at all universities, public and private, across
the country. The court could allow the programs to continue.
Or, the court could pronounce new standards for evaluating
programs on a case by case basis.
The New York Times reports it appears based on yesterday’s
proceedings that affirmative action will survive its most
important test in 25 years.
Most notably, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who is
widely viewed as holding the likely swing vote in the decision,
raised a series of skeptical questions to the lawyers arguing
against affirmative action.
The Court is hearing a pair of cases involving the admissions
policy of the University of Michigan. The case names are Grutter
v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger.
Grutter is a challenge to the university's law school admissions
program, which gives African American, Latino and Native American
applicants a loosely defined special consideration to ensure
that there is a "critical mass" of such students
in each new class.
Gratz is a challenge to the university's undergraduate admissions
policy, which tries to ensure a "critical mass"
of African American, Latino and Native American enrollments
by giving such applicants an automatic 20-point bonus on the
school's 150-point "selection index."
Let’s begin by hearing some of yesterday’s arguments.
This is an excerpt of Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony
M. Kennedy quizzing Kirk O. Kolbo, the attorney for the plaintiffs
in Grutter v. Bollinger, which challenges the University of
Michigan Law School's affirmative action program. [Tape begins
with Kolbo]
Tape: Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy
quiz Kirk O. Kolbo, the attorney for the plaintiffs in Grutter
v. Bollinger, which challenges the University of Michigan
Law School's affirmative action program.
- Kirk Kolbo, lead counsel for the Center for Individual
Rights who argued against affirmative action in front of
the Supreme Court yesterday
Link: www.cir-usa.org
- Miranda Massie, lead attorney for the student defenders
in the University of Michigan Law School Case.
- Agnes Aleobua, University of Michigan student who attended
yesterday’s mass protest outside the Supreme Court
9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break
9:21-9:40 Affirmative Action
9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break
9:41-9:58 AN EMBEDDED REPORTER COMES HOME AFTER A STINT
IN IRAQ
It’s a new term that has now become a household phrase
in America — “embedded journalists” —
reporters who are traveling with US forces as they move through
Iraq.
There are currently more than 500 “embeds” in
Iraq and Northern Kuwait. More than 1200 other journalists
are covering the war as what the Pentagon calls unilaterals
— journalists not with US forces or not officially accredited
by the Defense Department.
Many of the “embeds” are now deep into Iraq
with divisions of the US military and it is very difficult
for them to leave what the Pentagon calls the theater of operation.
But our next guest is one of the few“embeds” that
have left the frontlines and returned home to the US.
- Cholene Espinoza, former U2 pilot and military jet instructor
who just returned from Iraq where she was working as an
embedded reporter for Talk Radio News Service
9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie
Karran, Ana Nogueira and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo
is our music maestro and engineer.
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