On Friday October 10th, Polar Bears Against Palin – organized by Voices For Animals of Western PA – called on a White Bloc to support them in solidarity with the Alaskan environment and wildlife that Sarah Palin has wreaked damage on in her two years of governorship, joining over 300 other protesters in a near-spontaneous event in downtown Pittsburgh.

This is the most clear shot I’ve seen thus far. It clearly shows that Nick Morgan, and at least two other Veterans were torn to the ground by Riot Police while on the sidewalk (compliant with police orders) before they were trampled by horses.

Please help us in making this video available to the world.

“The Whole World is Watching!”

-Kristofer Goldsmith
Operation Iraqi Freedom III Veteran
“Hempstead 15″

I just scammed a copy of the Clash’s Shea Stadium gig, and I have been dancing around the apartment like an idiot all weekend! Known as a terrific live group, it’s somewhat odd that’s taken 20-plus years for live material to start leaking out. 1999’s From Here To Eternity featured a great deal of tracks with Terry Chimes on drums, as does the Shea Stadium gig and the one great-sounding live bootleg, Kingston Advice. As for the wish list — how about releasing the 1978 London Lyceum gig and 1981’s Bond’s shows in some form? Bits of both performances have officially appeared on both Eternity and Clash On Broadway: so let’s give the Topper Headon-era Clash its due. bit.torrent fans, be sure to hit the download links below for plenty of live Clashness. And don’t forget to check out Mick Jones’s advice for Britney Spears after the break.

[Live At Shea Stadium: here.]
[From Here To Eternity: here.]
[Kingston Advice: here.]

…and he’s serious, people!

Enjoy this videos of Abbie taken from NYC public access in 1980.

For more videos, click: here.

Sunday, October 19th at 3:00 PM:

You are cordially invited to celebrate the release of Vincent Scotti Eirene’s book: The Day The Empire Fell with live music and vegan spaghetti!

Duncan & Porter House of Hospitality and Resistance

1332 Sheffield St. (north side)
Pittsburgh, PA 15233
(click here to see it on Google Maps)

for more info / to rsvp
EMAIL: vincenteirene@gmail.com
PHONE: 412-231-2766

photo by Vincent Eirene

Vincent Eirene, renowned Pittsburgh activist and operator for nearly five years of Blast Furnace Radio, and Geoff Kelly, editor of Pittsburgh’s alt-weekly Pulp, toured Iraq the week of March 14th . The two Pittsburghers, along with a handful of journalists, authors, college professors, and videographers from across the nation, were part of a delegation sponsored by the Global Exchange in San Francisco, in cooperation with International Occupation Watch Center, an alternative media and human rights coalition with offices in Baghdad. During that week a series of hotel bombings rocked the city. Kelly and Eirene talked with TNP reporter Matt Novak about the complex religious, social, and political identities of the Iraqi people, and why the U.S. has lost their good will. This is part II of a two-part series.

Many reports verify that U.S. forces are targeting hospitals as potential asylums for terrorists. What is the health care situation like?
GK: One of the doctors we spoke to said things are much, much worse than before the war. Children die all the time. They don’t have the right medicine. In a city where there was nearly no violent crime, they now have 5-10 gun deaths a day. The auto accidents have increased. Their syringes, you should see them, [they're makeshift], they’re like toys! Nobody should be using them. And of course, people are getting diarrhea from the water, and dying.

Half the time, you can’t even get to the hospital, because roads are blocked, and many people don’t even have a car. After 10 p.m., it’s not safe to be out on the street anyway.

Is that the threat of civilian criminals, or the military?

GK: I did see some cars wheeling around with thieves. But that actually used to be worse; streets were empty after 7 or 8 p.m. Power could go out at any time. But now, everybody has generators, and so the lights stay on until 10 or 11. But it’s still not safe. There is criminal activity, and because there’s criminal activity, you don’t know how the soldiers will react to you.

I read an article in the Guardian, which describes a family—a mother and father, three small children—gunned down by U.S. soldiers at a military checkpoint. The checkpoint was poorly lit, with inadequate signage. The family had a white flag tied to their antenna.

GK: Many civilians are killed. The only justice is a hearing in front of the Military Compensation Board. They can grant up to $2,500 dollars for the death of family member. But that’s never granted, or rarely, because they keep ruling that it was a “combat situation,” granting the soldier impunity. The rules of engagement are not published, so nobody knows for sure, but what they seem to be are, if a soldier feels threatened, he can just spray the street with bullets.

With the Marines, that didn’t happen. People said that they were very respectful and well behaved; some of them even spoke Arabic. But they were exhausted. When the Army came in, they were rude, thoughtless, and much more prone to use their weapons.

What was the attitude of American troops?

GK: The few soldiers that I was able to talk to, all they cared about was going home. Nobody’s saying, “This is an important mission, these people need us to keep them from each other’s throats.” The first conversational item on their agenda was, “I’ve been here a long time, and I don’t like feeling like a target.”

Yet Rumsfeld has committed to tour extensions for 20,000 troops, and will probably be sending more.

GK: Nobody’s going to like Rumsfeld’s extensions, but they have no choice. They’ve stretched themselves so thin. They can’t even protect their borders now. That’s one repercussion of firing the entire Iraqi Army and the [native] border patrol. The borders are like a sieve! You have al Qaeda operatives where you never did before, and more guns and ammo. If we’re waiting for insurgents to run out of ammo, we can forget it!

An occupying force has to ensure water, food, healthcare and medicine, and security. [The U.S.] designed this convention [after WW II]. The fact is, under our watch, security in Iraq has become far, far worse, because we left the borders open for terrorists and guns to come in

What’s the worst failure of the U.S. occupation?

GK: The Iraqis are generally well-educated people. The people know what democracy is, even though they haven’t had it for many years. So when the U.S. came in promising self-determination, they loved it. But three months later, when nothing was happening, six months later…it was like promising food to starving people. They went from hopeful and happy to very, very bitter in a short span of time.

Talking with people, you hear this a lot, there seems to have been a window of about a month or two where things could have gone a lot differently. But the U.S made a lot of bonehead moves. Bremer walked through a delicate situation like an elephant. Frankly, there’s a paranoia among the Iraqis that that was exactly what he was supposed to do: beat them down and humiliate them. There’s a fear that the aim of U.S. foreign policy is to…destroy their culture and way of life. I think it’s a byproduct, and not the singular goal of U.S policy. But the people are threatened, and that’s stupid and dangerous.

Do you see the Iraq war getting better or worse?

VE: People there are tired, beyond our imaginations, of the killings. People are just ready for it to stop. They see Bush as another tyrant. [U.S. forces] are not respecting mosques and holy figures. They’ve formulated a number of excuses for killing civilians

But I’ve never met people more determined. Against all odds, people are out there working everyday, fighting for what contracts remain. I think that is very hopeful.

GK: The last day there. Nobody was sure who they were trying to blow up. One of the hotels was filled with Kurds, and that seemed as good of a guess as any. The breakfast room in our hotel was filled with Pakistanis, who had been brought in by the CPA to work for some company. [Iraq has] 70 percent unemployment, and the outsourcing of contracts to foreign workers becomes a target for bitterness and bombs. I was glad to be getting out of that hotel.

Of all the people you met, who stands out in your mind?

VE: Most startling was the hospitality extended to us by our drivers and the people in the street. They had a respect for us because we were not embedded, and they were able to separate us from our government.

GK: [Talking to] doctors in the hospital was the most dramatic, moving experience. At one point, a doctor giving us a tour took us up to a critical care unit. There was a Sunni sheik, a holy man who had been in bed, paralyzed, for six months. He was in his early 70’s, and had been shot in front of his mosque. Nobody knows why or who it was who shot him. The bullet had lodged in his spine and he was paralyzed.

The operation to fix his disk is a fairly simple one. If it had happened in the States, he probably would have been out in two weeks. But in Iraq, their x-ray machines don’t even work. They have the know-how, just not the means or the supplies.

As the doctor told us the story, he was tearing up. Then he became angry, and as I was one of the few Westerners in the room, the anger was directed at me.

“You are here for a few weeks, then you’ll go home. You’ll have a few talks; you might even start a campaign to get us some medicine, which will be wonderful. But your life will return to normal. This is normal for us. I cannot do anything for this man; my hands are tied. If you cannot do anything for this man, you might as well go home.”

What could I say to that? I agreed.

Describe the tensions between Arab and Kurdish Iraqis.

GK: Kurdistan is in the best situation. Their people have been enjoying autonomy for some time. There’s enough historical racism there, between Kurds and Arabs, but the fact that the Kurds have been favorite to the Americans for some is a cause of great bitterness. There’s a popular belief that the Kurds are trying to reap all the reparations owed by the U.S. Government. It’s rooted in racism, but it’s [also] very real, and it’s probably going to be the cause of a civil war.

[Kurds] are neither fish nor fowl, they’re not Turks and they’re not Arabs. They’ve always tried to remain independent people and they’ve always been persecuted for it. But some of that reputation is justified; the Kurds are not reliable allies. Kurds in Saddam’s army rose to high rank, fought against the Iranians. But they played both sides, came back and slit the Iraqis’ throats. Their aims were to eliminate both powers.

Do you see legitimate comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam?

VE: I think this is a very complex situation of tribal and religious bigotry, and an attempt to replace a dictator with a coalition government that is a historical failure. Since 1990 when international sanctions were imposed on Iraq, it seems like there’s no end in sight. As we used to say during Vietnam, “The light at end of tunnel is light of oncoming train.”

GK: I think the comparison’s valid. It’s a quagmire. No matter how well intentioned, any decision we make will be wrong, because we make it. It’s too late for us to reengender good will; it’s gone. That was true in Vietnam as well. And we can’t win. No occupying force has ever won.

There doesn’t have to be a winner. A lot of people say, “We can’t leave now.” Why the hell not? What’s stopping us? Because things might get bad, if we leave? Things are already bad.

What now?

VE: Right now, I’m hitting the road on a speaking tour, and putting together a booklet of photos and journals. Keeping in touch with my hosts…. Trying to figure out our next plot for peace.

GK: I’ve got to get in touch with the Merton Center, see if I can get that doctor his aid.
Both Kelly and Eirene have been speaking about their experiences in Iraq at various venues around Pittsburgh. Check the TMC calendar for upcoming dates.

Vincent Eirene’s alternative media Blast Furnace Radio, and a diary if his trip, along with helpful links to all kinds of information, can be found at notowar.com.

Geoff Kelly has been writing about his experiences in Pulp, online at pittsburghpulp.com

WRCT / Ebony Spectrum and blast furnace radio
Interview with scott crow, the co-founder of common ground relief
Contributor: vincent / blast furnace radio
License: Non-commmercial Sampling Plus

[mp3 audio: available here.]

Democracy Now! (MP4)

for other audio and video formats, click: here.