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Fallujah Under Siege: US Begins Massive Assault as Iraq Declares
Martial Law
Arafat's Wife: Palestinian Leaders Trying to "Bury Arafat
While He is Still Alive"
The E-Vote Factor: Kerry Conceded But Did He Really Lose?
15 To Life: Painter, Prisoner and Author Tony Papa Tells
How He Painted His Way to Freedom
Fallujah Under Siege: US Begins Massive Assault as
Iraq Declares Martial Law
The U.S. invasion of Fallujah has begun. After weeks of
daily bombings, U.S. forces have begun to move into the Sunni
city seen as the center of the Iraqi resistance. We speak
with independent reporters Rahul Mahajan and Lamis Andoni
in Jordan.
The U.S. invasion of Fallujah has begun. After weeks of daily
bombings, US forces have begun to move into the Sunni city
west of Baghdad seen as the center of the Iraqi resistance.
U.S. planes and artillery fiercely bombarded Fallujah today
ahead of a full-scale ground offensive. Reuters reports eight
air strikes rained down on the city in one 20-minute period.
Four 500-pound bombs were dropped before dawn. Thick black
smoke covered the sky.
For over a week the US has been carrying out daily bombing
raids on the city. On Saturday the US bombing leveled the
Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the center of the city. A nearby
medical supplies storeroom was also damaged as were dozens
of houses.
On Monday, U.S. troops fought their way into the western
outskirts of the city, seizing a hospital and two bridges
over the Euphrates River but they have not entered deep into
the city. Six battalions of US Marines, backed up by Army
tanks and newly trained Iraqi troops are massed outside Fallujah
after sealing it off midday Sunday.
Groups of civilians waving white flags were seen leaving
on the outskirts of the city. The BBC is reporting more than
half of the city"s population of 300,000 has already
fled.
The attack on Fallujah is expected to be the biggest engagement
since 1968 when the U.S. captured the Vietnamese city of Hue.
In that battle the US lost 142 men and killed thousands of
Vietnemese.
The Washington Post is reporting Sunni leaders have put forth
a peace plan for Fallujah that the US had ignored and are
now threatening to boycott January"s election if Fallujah
is invaded.
US-backed prime minister Ayad Allawi declared a state of
emergency in most of Iraq on Sunday, giving his government
extraordinary powers to crush a violent resistance that left
more than 60 people dead over the weekend.
At a press conference in Baghdad this morning, Allawi addressed
reporters about the Fallujah offensive.
- Iyad Allawi, appointed Iraqi prime minister speaking
to reporters in Baghdad, November 8, 2004.
- Rahul Mahajan, independent journalist who was in Fallujah
during the siege on the city in April. He has traveled twice
to occupied Iraq and is the author of "Full Spectrum
Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond" (Seven Stories).
He is also publisher of the weblog
Empire Notes
- Lamis Andoni, independent journalist who has been covering
the Middle East for 20 years. She has reported for the Christian
Science Monitor, the Financial Times and the main newspapers
in Jordan. She joins us on the line now from Amman.
Arafat's Wife: Palestinian Leaders Trying to "Bury
Arafat While He is Still Alive"
Controversy erupts over whether senior Palestinian leaders
would be allowed to visit Arafat in France when his wife,
Suha Arafat, tried to block the visit claiming they were attempting
to "bury Arafat while he is still alive." We go
to Amman, Jordan to speak with independent journalist Lamis
Andoni.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is reported to be in stable
but very serious condition in a military hospital in Paris.
A controversy erupted yesterday over whether senior Palestinian
leaders would be allowed to visit Arafat in France. Arafat's
wife, Suha Arafat, tried to block the visit claiming they
were attempting to "bury Arafat while he is still alive."
Today the officials, including Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei
and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas, are expected to arrive in France
to see Arafat. Suha is one of only a handful of people who
have seen Arafat since he was hospitalized 10 days ago. There
have been rumors that Arafat has fallen into an irreversible
coma but his wife has denied this.
Meanwhile conflicting reports are coming out of Israel as
to where Arafat's funeral will be held. Yesterday, the government
said Arafat would be buried in the Gaza Strip. But today news
reports are claiming that the official funeral will take place
in Cairo followed by a private ceremony in Gaza.
- Lamis Andoni, independent journalist who has been covering
the Middle East for 20 years. She has reported for the Christian
Science Monitor, the Financial Times and the main newspapers
in Jordan. She joins us on the line now from Amman.
The E-Vote Factor: Kerry Conceded But Did He Really
Lose?
Serious questions are being raised about the use of electronic
voting machines in the 2004 presidential election. In an Ohio
county, Bush mistakenly received some 3,900 extra votes. We
speak Johns Hopkins University professor Aviel Rubin and investigative
reporter Bev Harris.
President Bush arrives back in Washington today after spending
a 3-day weekend at Camp David. Since John Kerry conceded to
Bush last Wednesday, the president and his advisers have talked
extensively about what they call Bush's strong mandate to
govern following the November 2 election. But as the rumor
mill swirls about a reshuffling of Bush's cabinet and John
Kerry returns to the Senate, there are many people who are
not willing to simply move on from last Tuesday's election.
Many of John Kerry's supporters were stunned last Wednesday
when their candidate conceded the presidency to Bush. Just
hours earlier, his running mate John Edwards told a rally
of their supporters in Boston that they would not stop until
every vote was counted, a reference to the hundreds of thousands
of provisional ballots in the key state of Ohio that some
Democrats believed could have tipped the balance. But it's
not just the provisional ballots.
Even though Kerry has stopped fighting for the presidency,
serious questions abound about the use of electronic voting
machines. Take this story: In a voting precinct in Ohio's
Franklin County, records show that 638 people cast ballots.
Yet, George W Bush got 4,258 votes to John Kerry's 260. In
reality, Bush only received 365 votes. That means Bush got
nearly 3,900 extra votes. And that's just in one small precinct.
This in a state that Bush officially won by only 136,000 votes.
Elections officials blamed electronic voting for the extra
Bush votes.
Meanwhile, a number of Congresspeople are asking the General
Accounting Office to investigate electronic voting and the
2004 election and the nonprofit group Blackbox Voting has
begun the process of filing the largest Freedom of Information
Act request in history.
- Bev Harris, investigative reporter and author of the
book "Black
Box Voting." She has announced plans to file the
largest FOIA action in history by seeking the internal logs
from voting machines from every county that used electronic
voting machines.
- Aviel Rubin, professor at Johns Hopkins University and
co-author of the report "Analysis of an Electronic
Voting System" the initial study of security flaws
in voting machine software. He served as an election judge
in Baltimore County on November 2nd.
15 To Life: Painter, Prisoner and Author Tony Papa
Tells How He Painted His Way to Freedom
We speak with painter and anti-drug-war activist Tony Papa
about his new book, "15 To Life: How I Painted My Way
to Freedom" which tells the story of how he spent 12
years in prison for his first and only criminal offense.
As much of the attention of the nation and in the media focuses
in on the US offensive in Fallujah, there is another war that
has been raging in the US for decades and that is the war
on drugs.
Newly-released data from the Justice Department shows the
number of women in state and federal prisons has topped 100,000
for the first time. The new figures show the incarceration
rate is growing much faster for women than men. Meanwhile
the overall prison population is continuing to increase, despite
a drop or leveling off in the crime rate in the past few years.
Longer sentences - especially for drug crimes - and fewer
prisoners granted parole or probation are main reasons for
the expanding U.S. prison population.
The new data comes a week after New York voters in Albany
elected David Soares as the county's new district attorney.
Soares gained national attention for campaigning on a platform
of reforming the state's harsh Rockefeller drug laws. The
Drug Policy Alliance hailed Soares victory as a sign that
candidates can run and win on a platform that calls for sensible
drug law reform.
We are joined today by celebrated anti-drug-war activist,
author, painter and ex-convict Tony Papa.
He has a new book out called "15 to Life: How I Painted
My Way to Freedom." It tells the story of how Tony Papa
agreed to deliver an envelope of cocaine in a police sting
operation in return for $500. His first and only criminal
offense cost Papa a 15-year sentence to Sing-Sing, New York
State's maximum-security prison. He began painting in prison.
When one of his works was selected for exhibition at the Whitney
Museum, Papa received intense media attention. After 12 years
of hard time, he was granted clemency by Governor Pataki.
Since his release, Papa has become a noted activist against
draconian drug laws. He joins us in our studio today.
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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