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"They
Lied And Deceived The Young And The Innocent" - Mother
of Slain Soldier Blasts Iraq War After Disrupting Laura Bush
Speech
Widespread Torture of Iraqi Prisoners Feared as Reports Emerge
of Prisoner Abuse By U.S. In Mosul
Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in Pursuit of a Neocon
Utopia
Occupy, Resist, Produce: New Documentary "The Take"
Takes on Globalization
"They Lied And Deceived The Young And The Innocent"
- Mother of Slain Soldier Blasts Iraq War After Disrupting
Laura Bush Speech
We speak with Sue Niederer, the mother of U.S. Army Lt.
Seth Dvorin, 24, who was killed in Iraq in February. Niederer
was arrested Thursday after disrupting a speech by first lady
Laura Bush while wearing a T-shirt that bore a picture of
Seth with the caption "President Bush You Killed My Son."
Police have dropped charges against the mother of a slain
soldier who was arrested on Thursday when she interrupted
a campaign speech by first lady Laura Bush.
At the rally, Sue Niederer of Hopewell, New Jersey, wore
a T-Shirt that read "President Bush You Killed My Son"
The shirt bore a picture of her son Army Lt. Seth Dvorin who
was killed in February while trying to disarm a roadside bomb.
He was 24 years old.
Sue Niederer interrupted the first lady to ask why her son
was killed in Iraq. She was quickly boxed in by Bush supporters
who began chanting "Four more years!" Secret Service
agents surrounded her and escorted her away. Once outside,
she began speaking to reporters about what she said to interrupt
Laura Bush.
- Sue Niederer, speaking to reporters after being escorted
outside Laura Bush's speech.
Soon after she began speaking to reporters, Sue Niederer
was handcuffed, placed in a police van and charged with trespassing.
The charges against her have since been dismissed.
- Sue Niederer, her son, Army Lt. Seth Dvorin was killed
in Iraq on February 3, 2004 while trying to disarm a bomb.
Widespread Torture of Iraqi Prisoners Feared as Reports
Emerge of Prisoner Abuse By U.S. In Mosul
Allegations have emerged from the northern Iraqi city of
Mosul that American troops are routinely torturing Iraqi detainees
there. We speak with the British lawyer who says he received
statements from two Iraqis describing the abuse by U.S. soldiers.
[includes rush
transcript]
Months after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal shocked
the world, allegations have emerged from the northern Iraqi
city of Mosul that American troops are routinely torturing
Iraqi detainees there.
British attorney Phil Shiner says he has statements from
two Iraqis who said they were hooded, stripped naked, beaten
unconscious and doused with cold water. One was threatened
with sexual assault.
The U.S. government has maintained abuse of prisoners in
Iraq was mainly confined to a few rogue soldiers at Abu Ghraib.
Abuse by US soldiers in Baghdad and Basra has been well-documented,
but these new claims from the north of the country are renewing
fears that torture in US prisons in Iraq has been systematic
and widespread.
- Phil Shiner, a British lawyer who says he had uncovered
evidence that U.S. troops have tortured detainees in the
northern Iraqi city of Mosul. He is an attorney with the
Birmingham-based Public
Interest Lawyers.
Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in Pursuit of a
Neocon Utopia
We speak with journalist and author Naomi Klein about privatization
and reconstruction in Iraq which is the subject of her new
article in Harper's Magazine called "Baghdad Year Zero:
Pillaging Iraq in Pursuit of a Neocon Utopia." [includes
rush
transcript]
A militant group in Iraq beheaded three Iraqi Kurdish hostages
over the weekend, showing the killings in a videotape posted
on a Web site Sunday,
A statement accompanying the video of the beheadings was
signed by Ansar al-Sunna, a group that said it had killed
12 Nepalese hostages in August. Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera broadcast
a brief videotape showing gunmen surrounding what it said
was a group of Iraqi national guardsmen. A previously unknown
organization calling itself the Brigades of Mohammed bin Abdullah
threatened to kill the men within 48 hours unless Iraqi authorities
released an aide to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr.
U.S. and Iraqi security forces arrested the aide during a
raid Sunday morning. Al-Sadr's office released a statement
saying it opposed the kidnappings.
Meanwhile, the group that kidnapped two US citizens and a
British man in Iraq say they will kill the men today unless
all Iraqi female prisoners are released from the US-run prisons
at Abu Ghraib and Um Qasr. The deadline was announced in a
videotape posted on the internet Saturday by the group, which
the US charges is linked to alleged al Qaida militant Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi.
The US military says no women are being held in those prisons,
saying the two women it has in custody worked on Saddam Hussein's
weapons programs. The group holding the men has claimed responsibility
for scores of bomb attacks in Iraq since the fall of Saddam
Hussein, and has allegedly been behind the beheading of several
hostages including U.S. telecommunications engineer Nicholas
Berg in May and South Korean driver Kim Sun-il in June. The
group released Filipino captive Angelo de la Cruz in July
after Manila bowed to its demands to pull its troops out.
More than 135 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq over
the past year. Many of them have been contractors working
with corporations supporting the occupation. The kidnappings
of contractors is one of the realities of occupied Iraq that
journalist and author Naomi Klein writes about in a feature
article in Harper's Magazine called "Baghdad Year Zero:
Pillaging Iraq in Pursuit of a Neocon Utopia."
- Naomi Klein, award-winning journalist and author of Fences
and Windows: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Globalization
Debate and No
Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. Her latest piece
in Harpers Magazine is called "Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging
Iraq in Pursuit of a Neocon Utopia."
Occupy, Resist, Produce: New Documentary "The
Take" Takes on Globalization
We spotlight a new documentary by Canadian journalists Avi
Lewis and Naomi Klein called "The Take" which looks
at how workers in Argentina took back their factory after
the country's spectacular economic collapse in 2001. [includes
rush
transcript]
This week, New York will play host to dozens of heads of
state from across the globe as the United Nations General
assembly convenes. Iraq's unelected Prime Minister Iyad Allawi
will be making his first visit to the country. Tomorrow, Argentina's
president Nestor Kirchner will be addressing the general assembly.
In a moment Naomi Klein, in a moment we are going to be looking
at your new film, which you produced with Avi Lewis, "The
Take" - which looks at Argentina.
"The Take" premiers this week in New York at the
Film Forum on Wednesday night, where it will run for 2 weeks.
It already took Venice by storm, but not so much at the official
Venice Film Festival, where the film was in competition. "The
Take" headlined a counter-festival called "The Global
Beach" that took place not far from the official film
festival. It was held on a beach occupied by squatters and
activists and featured films with a social-justice feature.
The motto of the film is "Occupy, Resist, Produce"
and it looks at Argentina after its spectacular economic collapse
in 2001 when Latin America's most prosperous middle class
finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass
unemployment. In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed
auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out
sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start
the silent machines. But, as the filmmakers say, this simple
act - the take - has the power to turn the globalization debate
on its head.
- Avi Lewis, award-winning journalist. For years, he was
host of Canada's premiere debate show, Counterspin on the
CBC. With Naomi Klein, he produced the new documentary The
Take, which premiers in New York on Wednesday.
- Naomi Klein, award-winning journalist and author of Fences
and Windows: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Globalization
Debate and No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. Along
with Avi Lewis, she produced the new film "The Take",
which premiers in New York on Wednesday.
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 Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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