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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
An icon of civilian suffering: Dr. April Hurley, recently
back from Baghdad, speaks about Ali Ismaeel Abbas, the badly-burned
child amputee wounded in a missile strike on his house.
Christian missionary groups head to Iraq to combine aid
with evangelization: A debate between the Southern Baptist
Convention, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and
a professor of religious studies.
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:20 Dr. April Hurley, recently back from Baghdad,
speaks about Ali Ismaeel Abbas, the badly-burned child amputee
wounded in a missile strike on his house.
"Can you help me get my arms back? Do you think the
doctors can get me another pair of hands? If I don't get a
pair of hands I will commit suicide." These were the
words of 12 year-old Ali Ismaeel Abbas who lost his lower
arms, was orphaned and received severe burns when a missile
hit his home 10 days ago.
The wounded Iraqi boy has begun eating food and drinking
normally after recovering from initial surgery at a hospital
in Kuwait City to place a temporary graft over the deep burns
covering his chest, abdomen, and groin.
He is expected to undergo further surgery that will involve
grafting skin from his own body.
The badly burned child amputee has become an icon of civilian
suffering in the US-led invasion of Iraq.
His pregnant mother, father, brother and 12 other relatives
died when a missile obliterated their home.
Ali has received worldwide attention in newspapers and on
television around the world, sparking a flood of fundraising
appeals for war victims in Iraq.
- Dr. April Hurley, visited Ali Ismaeel Abbas in hospital
in Baghdad
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:58 A debate between the Southern Baptist Convention,
the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a professor
of religious studies on Christian missionary groups heading
to Iraq
Christian relief agencies are hot on the heels of the invading
US army to enter Iraq and provide humanitarian aid - as well
as a touch of the gospel.
Some of the agencies planning campaigns in the newly-occupied
country want to do more than just save lives they also
want to “save souls” by making religious converts
among a population that is 98 percent Muslim.
The prospect has alarmed Muslim organizations who see it
as exploitive and politically inflammatory.
Iraq is expected to face a massive humanitarian crisis,
with hunger, homelessness and disease threatening the nation’s
24 million people.
Several groups are already in the area setting up aid operations
in Kuwait, Jordan and the Kurdish-controlled region of northern
Iraq.
Agencies who have announced their intent to combine aid
with evangelization include some whose leaders have proclaimed
harshly negative views of Islam.
Critics say that if groups go into Iraq to seek converts
under the guise of providing aid, they could do enormous political
damage by re-enforcing the view that the invasion has political
and religious roots.
- Mark Kelly, Spokesman for the International Mission Board
of the Southern Baptist Convention
- Abdulaziz Sachedina, Professor of Religious Studies at
University of Virginia and author of ‘The Islamic
Roots of Democratic Pluralism
- Ibrahim Hooper, Council on American-Islamic Relations
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
9:00-9:01 Billboard:
Bechtel Group wins first major Iraq reconstruction contract:
This comes 20 years after Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam
Hussein seeking approval of a Bechtel-owned pipeline to run
from Iraq to Jordan
“The problem of the 20th century is the problem of
the color-line”: On the 100th anniversary of the publication
of ‘The Souls of Black Folk’ a look at the life
of W.E.B. DuBois. We hear from Pulitzer Prize winning historian
David Levering Lewis, DuBois’s stepson and archival
footage of W.E.B. DuBois.
Ghetto Life 101: 24-year-old LeAlan Jones speaks about war
and the radio documentary he made 10 years ago in Southside
Chicago
9:01-9:12 Headlines
9:12-9:13 One Minute Music Break
9:13-9:20 BECHTEL GROUP WINS FIRST MAJOR IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION
CONTRACT
The Bush administration has awarded the Bechtel Group the
first major contract for Iraq’s reconstruction.
The contract could be worth up to $680 million dollars over
the next year and a half for the rebuilding of Iraq’s
electrical, water and sewage systems.
Bechtel has a long history of doing business in Iraq. In
the early 80s, Bechtel negotiated to build an oil pipeline
from Iraq to Jordan. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld traveled
to Baghdad 1983 for a private meeting with Saddam Hussein.
Officially, Rusmfeld was acting as then-President Reagan’s
“peace envoy” and was supposed to discus the Iran-Iraq
war. But a secret State Department cable obtained by the National
Security Archives, reveals Rusmfeld appears to have made little
or no mention of the war, and instead discussed the pipeline
proposal.
The 20-year-old memo was from Rumsfeld to George Schultz
who was Secretary of State. Currently, Schultz is on Bechtel’s
board of directors and chairs the advisory board of the pro-war
Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
Bechtel’s senior vice-president is Jack Sheehan, who
is also a member of the Defence Policy Board.
US taxpayers will the initial costs of the contract. Iraqi
oil is then supposed to pay for much of the reconstruction.
- Jim Vallette, research director for the Sustainable Energy
and Economy Network and author of "Crude Vision: How
Oil Interests Obscured US Government Focus On Chemical Weapons
Use by Saddam Hussein"
9:20-9:21 One-minute music break
9:21-9:40 ON THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PUBLICATION OF
‘THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK’ A LOOK AT THE LIFE OF
W.E.B. DUBOIS.
"Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience
may show the strange meaning of being black here at the dawning
of Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest
to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century
is the problem of the color-line.” That was how writer
and civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois opened his landmark
work “The Souls of Black Folk.
The book, a collection of 14 essays, was published 100 years
ago today.
The Souls of Black Folk brought international recognition
to DuBois who was already well known for becoming the first
African-American to receive a doctorate degree from Harvard.
“Souls” was praised for its literary merit and
for its social commentary. It won the highest praise from
Henry James who wrote that the collection was "the only
'Southern' book of any distinction for many a year.”
In “Souls,” DuBois also began an intense debate
with Booker T. Washington. Dubois criticized Washington’s
philosophy of accepting the status quo in racial matters.
Since the first edition in 1903, “The Souls of Black
Folk” has gone through several printings totaling over
350,000 copies and has had worldwide circulation.
After the publication of Souls, DuBois would go on to help
found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People. He edited the NAACP magazine “Crisis.”
All told he went on to write 20 books, two novels, a play
and numerous articles and essays.
He would become a leading supporter of socialism and pan-Africanism.
He would be targeted by the U.S. for his political views.
And he would eventually leave the U.S. for Ghana where he
died in 1963 on the eve of the march on Washington when the
Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have A
Dream Speech. “
Professors Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates said of DuBois,
"in a sense, it would be true to claim that all black
intellectuals and all of our civil rights leaders are, in
some manner, his heirs.”
- W.E.B. DuBois, recorded in 1951 in Los Angeles
- David Levering Lewis, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning
historian for his two biographies on W.E.B. DuBois. In 1994
he published “W.E.B. DuBois: Biography of a Race,
1868-1919” and in 2001 he published “W.E.B.
DuBois: The Fight for Equality in the American Century,
1919-1963.” He is a professor in the history department
at Rutgers University.
Tape: W.E.B. DuBois, speaking in the early 1960s for Folkways
Records on governmental charges that he was an agent of the
Soviet government.
- David DuBois, stepson of W.E.B. DuBois. He is a visiting
associate professor at the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst. He teaches courses on the press and the Third World
and the history of the African-American press.
9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break
9:41-9:54 DuBois cont’d
9:54-9:58 Ghetto Life 101: LeAlan Jones speaks about war
and the radio documentary he made 10 years ago in southside
Chicago
Ten years ago LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman were given tape
recorders and microphones and a little guidance on how to
use the equipment.
They were two 14 year old boys from Chicago’s South
Side Housing projects.
They captured life in and around the Chicago ghetto. With
National Public Radio producer David Isay they put together
two radio documentaries. Ghetto Life 101 was about the projects
where they lived. Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse was
an examination of the murder of a five-year-old who was dropped
from the window of a building near LeAlan and Lloyd's homes.
For their work, the boys ended up winning broadcasting's prestigious
Peabody Award.
Today he joins us in the studio to read his latest work
on the war.
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, Sharif
Abdel Kouddous, Angie Karran, Ana Nogueira and Elizabeth Press
with help from Noah Reibel. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro
and engineer.
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