Washblog

[Front paged: NM]

Why are both national and local media censoring the involvement of the Washington Joint Analytical Center (WAJAC) from reports about the resolution of the Seattle ferry 'mystery men' case?  UFPPC's Jim O. Madison continues his exploration of the little-known system of "fusion centers" that are sprouting around the country like mushrooms after a heavy rain.....  

[Front paged: NM]

This week's terror-preparedness drill in the Pacific Northwest involves a lot more than what South Sound papers are reporting, and so far the papers in Seattle are ignoring the exercise all together.  An investigation by UFPPC's Jim O. Madison has turned up quite a bit of information about Washington State's little-known "fusion center," WAJAC -- a developing national security facility that (unless we're mistaken) has never been been described by the media.  

[WA state issue worth front page attention - LR] The announcement this month that a Washington State National Guard unit back will redeploy Iraq did not occasion much comment, though it coincided with the fifth anniversary of the invasion.  This piece reviews a few news articles about the redeployment and connects the news to a number of discussions of the use and misuse of National Guard troops over the past several years, including a recent book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and the October 2006 law giving the president the authority to commandeer National Guard troops over the wishes of the state governor to respond to "a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident, or catastrophe," vague language that could cover almost any circumstance.[1]  Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007), warned last year about the latter change in an article entitled "Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps."  Given this background, the low-key treatment that the mainstream media gave to the news of the National Guard redeployment may be a bad omen.  

On Wednesday, in Tacoma, WA, a judge dismissed 13 of the 23 cases still outstanding against Tacoma port militarization resistance (PMR) antiwar protesters arrested in March 2007.  Mark Jensen of UFPPC attended the hearing.  He reports on what happened at the hearing and reviews the background and significance of the PMR movement....

Those looking into the background of the Jun. 12 immigration sweep at the Fresh Del Monte plant in north Portland, Oregon, are turning up some interesting connections.  Who would have thought that it would be so easy to show that the profits from the work of the undocumented workers in north Portland who are now detained at the Northwest Detention Center on the Tacoma Tideflats appear to have been finding their ways into the pockets of Bush and bin Laden families?  What is ironic, UFPPC's Mark Jensen points out, is that "these hard-working individuals are represented as a threat to the national security of the United States, when the real threat is from the corrupting influence on American society of Saudi petrodollars."

On Friday, port militarization resistance (PMR) protesters were back in court in Tacoma for a pretrial hearing.  Tacoma Municipal Court Judge Pro Tem Karl D. Haugh made a number of rulings favorable to the defendants, and said he was "troubled" by some aspects of the City of Tacoma's case.

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Front paged and edited for formatting and copyright issues. NM. Mark Jensen is a member of United for Peace of Pierce County, where this article is crossposted, and of the faculty of Pacific Lutheran University.

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The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) has thought fit to publish a bland, even merry report on a "warfighters' symposium and expo" that opened this week at a convention center in Tacoma, Washington.

Officially titled "the SpecOps West 2007 Expo," this event has a variety of specifically unsavory aspects, in addition to being exemplary of a privatized militarism posing a gathering danger to American democracy. Not that you'd know it from reading the News Tribune.

Tacoma's hometown paper has long been oblivious of such things, which concern it as much as do the icecaps of Mars. In a commentary, UFPPC's Mark Jensen examines the News Tribune's coverage and wonders:  Could Tacoma's paper having its own muzzle deep in the Pentagon trough possibly affect its attitude toward protesters?  --  D'ya think?

Meanwhile, while American businesses turned their profits ("American companies are enjoying the most sumptuously profitable period in the [Fortune] 500's 53-year history," Fortune reported in April), the deaths of two more Stryker soldiers from Fort Lewis were officially announced Monday, AP reported. Spc. William J. Crouch, 21, of Zachary, LA, and Spc. Romel Catalan, 21, of Los Angeles, CA, were both 21 years of age. They were the first deaths of Fort Lewis personnel in June; twenty soldiers from Fort Lewis died in May, making it the worst month in the long history of the Iraq war and occupation.

[Front paged N.M. On the blurring of corporate and government lines in the military - and in the news media -- in light of recent events at Fort Lewis. Cross-posted at United for Peace of Pierce County. The Fulbright Scholar referred to in the article is Dan Guttman, quoted in the Virginian-Pilot.]

The name of one of the military contractors discussed below is, significantly, "International Military and Government."  --  UFPPC's Mark Jensen explores what's behind a $60 million Army program to modernize U.S. military tactical vehicles that Fort Lewis soldiers are currently involved in.[1]  --  The story was reported by the Associated Press on Thursday,[2] and was the subject of a longer Northwest Guardian piece a week ago.[3]   --  But both these accounts miss a significant development, one that's a part of the legacy of Donald Rumsfeld: the opening up of defense contracting to "Cooperative Research and Development Agreements," or CRADAs.  --  As a Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University's Washington Center for the Study of American Government warned recently, with CRADAs, "only contractors know what is going on." ...

RIA Novosti reported a week ago (on Mar. 19) that according to the Russian weekly Agourmenty nedeli, a 12-hour American attack on Iran "will unfold during the first week of April, before the Catholic and Orthodox Easters (this year they are celebrated on the 8th), when 'Western opinion' will be on holiday. . . . The code name of the operation is at present 'Bite.'  About twenty Iranian installations are supposed to be hit.  Among them, uranium-enrichment centrifuges, research institutes, and laboratories.  But the main block of the Bushehr nuclear reactor will not be hit.  On the other hand, the Americans will neutralize anti-aircraft defenses, sink several Iranian ships of war in the Gulf, and destroy key command posts of the armed forces."[1]  --  The Bremerton-based USS John C. Stennis would be involved in the attack, according to RIA Novosti....

Bill Moyers, 72, was supposed to be retiring from television journalism to write a book about his experiences with President Lyndon Baines Johnson, but an anguished civic concern about the development of American democracy keeps calling him back to more direct engagement.   --   On Apr. 25, Moyers will return to PBS with a weekly program called "Bill Moyers Journal."   --   In this speech, delivered on Feb. 7 at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Moyers warns that "[o]ur political system is melting down" and says that "We seem to be holding our breath today, trying to decide what kind of country we want to be.   But in this state of suspension, powerful interests are making off with the booty."[1]   --   The signs are manifest, Moyers says, that American élites are withdrawing from society and protecting their own interests according to a pattern analyzed in Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail.   --   In other words, American society is choosing to fail.   --   Moyers's speech attacks the "oil barons, banking tycoons, media moguls, and weapons builders" who have co-opted American institutions.  --   His address is a clarion call to those fighting "to save democracy." ...

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5971/

This video (link below) is worthing watching more than once.  --  It demonstrates a determined and impressive commitment to nonviolence by protesters in the port militarization resistance movement at the Port of Tacoma, despite aggression that some are calling a police riot.  --  The video is by Joe La Sac, and was posted Sun., Mar. 11.[1]  --  La Sac's videography has gained him minor celebrity during the port protests, and this, too, is excellent work.  --  The footage was taken in the early morning hours of Sat., Mar. 10, several minutes before the earlier videos that are already well-known (see links below).  --  It begins with protesters chanting "Whose port?  Our port!"  --  Forty-six seconds after protesters begin to chant "Shame on you!" at the police in response to something that cannot be seen in the video, and just as the situation seems to be calming down, police open fire and advance into the crowd firing rapid-fire weapons.  --  One man is seen shot in the head.  --  Protesters are clubbed.  --  The firing at the unarmed, unresisting protestors goes on for almost 25 seconds.  --  Intrepid videographers stand there, filming the scene.  --  As the shooting stops, one riot police officer continues stand over a wounded young  women and prevents others from coming to her assistance for 30 seconds.  --  "Can you can help her?  She's down! . . . Get her!  Get her!" they scream, in an appeal to the police to allow them to come to her assistance, and then a collective decision to do it themselves.  --  But a police officer waves his weapons menacingly at demonstrators, keeping them away from the injured woman.  --  One brave young soul comes to her aid anyway, advancing in the direction of a weapon pointed at her, in order to help her friend.  --  The police hold their fire, and others also come to her assistance.  --  Protesters help the wounded woman away, and the police officer backs away slowly.  --  The video concludes by showing wounded protesters lying on the ground being helped by medics.  --  It is notable the police violence provoked no violence in return.  --  Protesters returned, and minutes later were sitting down and singing "Give Peace a Chance."  --  It was then that they were shot at again and tear gassed as well.  --  See here (http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5905/) and here (http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5909/) and here (http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5914/) for videos showing those events.  --  An investigation is needed to determine whose decision it was to fire on these nonviolent protesters.

[Front paged, N.M. Author Mark Jensen provides in-depth coverage at United for Peace of Pierce County, an organizer for the protests.]

As the port militarization resistance movement at the Port of Tacoma entered its eleventh day, hundreds of riot police continued to surround Sitcum Waterway, where the loading of Stryker equipment for the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division goes on. --  So far 31 people (AP says 32) have been arrested, and the war resistance movement continues to grow.  --  If police thought the violence they unleashed last weekend would keep protesters away, Monday evening proved them wrong.  --  The turnout was one of the largest yet.  --  Some joined in the movement for the first time, saying they were outraged at videos showing police violence unleashed on peaceful protesters that are circulating on the internet.  --  Mark Jensen of UFPPC describes what he saw at the Port between 11:00 p.m. and 12:40 a.m.

[Front paged and video embed, N.M. Author Mark Jensen provides in-depth coverage at United for Peace of Pierce County, an organizer for the protests. Also see 3/13/07 Update.]

STRYKER PROTEST -- VIDEO: 'Give Peace a Chance -- Tacoma Police Riot' STRYKER PROTEST -- STATEMENT: 'A protest in the best American tradition' STRYKER PROTEST -- NEWS: Loading begins; TacPMR organizer arrested STRYKER PROTEST -- PROPAGANDA & REALITY: Ft. Lewis soldier says 'glad you were there'

Film: "Give Peace a Chance -- Tacoma Police Riot" by Joe La Sac, Indymedia journalist, Tacoma Styrker protests, 3/10/07