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In the wake of the successful pushback against the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood, the Obama administration should listen to the majority of Americans: The United States, including Catholics, is strongly pro-choice.
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Part 2: "Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away with Murder": New Book Ties Johnson Admin to Che Death
In an extended interview, co-authors Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith discuss the life of Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and the chilling story behind his murder by the Bolivian military. In their book, "Who Killed Che?" Ratner and Smith draw on previously unpublished U.S. government documents to argue the CIA played a critical role in the killing. [includes rush transcript]
Watch a 2011 interview with Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón, who is on trial in Spain after right-wing groups objected to his investigation of atrocities committed by supporters of the dictator Francisco Franco. Garzón is known for seeking to indict members of the Bush administration for their role in torturing prisoners.
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Saddam Hussein Pleads Innocent in Trial Over 1982 Shiite Massacre
We speak with writer Larry Everest on how many of Saddam Hussein’s war crimes occurred when Iraq was backed by the United States and the upcoming Bush Commission in New York where a group of academics and attorneys plan to accuse the Bush administration of war crimes in Iraq. [includes rush transcript]
AMY GOODMAN: An Iraqi mother Um Ahmed is one of those whom may give evidence in the trial. She remembered what happened in 1982.
UM AHMED: One week after the assassination attempt they came and rounded us and detained all of us. The children and the elderly and even my sister-in-law who was two months pregnant then. They took us to the intelligence department first where they tortured us and after that they moved us to Abu Ghraib prison. They kept us there for several months after separating us from our brother. We don’t know where they were. They kept the women separately. They imprisoned us. They imprisoned my mother, a 70-year-old blind woman, with us and my sister and my stepmother, too. All of us. Even my two little brothers. They took our family and imprisoned us all. They executed my seven brothers and I caught asthma while in prison. I want to see justice done for my seven brothers. That means having Saddam executed seven times over. I support the death penalty.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Larry Everest, author of the book, Oil, Power and Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda. He writes frequently for the Revolutionary Worker Newspaper. Your response to the trial of Saddam Hussein?
LARRY EVEREST: I think the thing that strikes me most is the enormous hypocrisy on many different levels of the United States government. Saddam Hussein has been accused of killing 300,000 Iraqis, a horrible crime. The fact of the matter is that the United States was directly complicit in his worst crimes including encouraging him to invade Iran, supplying and facilitating his use of chemical weapons, directly calibrating chemical acts — attacks during the 1980’s. In fact, one month before the Dujail massacre, Ronald Reagan signed a secret finding urging the United States to help prevent an Iraqi loss.
The other thing that strikes me is in terms of the incredible hypocrisy of this is the fact that while the United States is accusing Saddam of crimes against humanity it is committing crimes against humanity right now as we speak in Iraq. This week, 70 people including many civilians were killed in what can only be described as a revenge attack and collective punishment in the city of Ramadi.
We have new reports of torture that that had been brought out in which soldiers are saying they’re going on a cross-Iraq that will make Abu Ghraib pale in comparison. People’s feet being smashed with axes and so on. And I heard this testimony firsthand in Istanbul. What stands out to me is that it’s the Bush administration that should be brought to trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Our understanding is that you are organizing now a commission of inquiry here in the United States on the war?
LARRY EVEREST: That’s correct, Juan. This Friday in Manhattan at 6:00 at the Manhattan Center, we’re opening our first session with a special message from Howard Zinn addresses by Mark Raskin, and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Right. We’ll have presentations by Barbara Olshansky, testimony from people like Denis Halliday. We’re going to be inquiring into Bush crimes on the war, on torture, on the devastation of the global environment and on its response to the AIDS pandemic. And if people want to give us —- find out much more, I urge them to go to our website, www.bushcommission.org. We’re also—-
AMY GOODMAN: Larry, I want to thank you. I’ve got to cut you off here, but I want to thank you for being with us. We’ll make links on our website at democracynow.org. Larry Everest, author of Oil, Power and Empire. This is Democracy Now!.
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