| Number 374 | May 25, 2007 |
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This Week: The War Against Terror (The WAT?!)
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Greetings, After the last few issues that went into some depth on values and media and stuff like that, it seems like it's time to do a little catching up on things that have come to my attention recently but have not made it into these pages. This week it's an update on "abstinence-only" sex education, and a couple of pieces on the "War Against Terror" (The WAT?!) Next week it will be (I think) a bunch of other things that I shouldn't really call "odds ‘n ends," because they are too important. But they will be relatively short, and there will likely be quite a number of them. All I know is I have a big stack of newspapers sitting here with marks all over them, and that usually translates into some interesting reading. I appreciate those of you who forward Nygaard Notes to friends and relatives. Word of mouth is how the Notes gets around. Thanks! Until next week, Nygaard |
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From Corporate Crime Reporter, in an article entitled "Corporate Democrats Escalate Attack on Single Payer," comes this: "Senator Ron Wyden [recently] was on the Hill surrounded by his corporate supporters: Steve Burd, CEO, Safeway Inc.; Art Collins, CEO of Medtronic, Inc.; H. Edward Hanaway, CEO, CIGNA; Steve Sanger, CEO, General Mills; and Ronald Williams, CEO, Aetna, Inc. "Wyden has introduced legislation that is similar to that introduced by Republican Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. All claim to create universal health care. None can, do or will. "What's the common denominator between Wyden-care, and Romney-care and Schwarzenegger-care? Individual mandates. The individual must get insured or the individual is violating the law. "As opposed to single payer. Which says to the health insurance companies: Get out. We will take care of our people. If you sell basic health insurance, you are violating the law. Everyone is in one insurance pool. Nobody is out. All are covered. No bills, no co-pays, no deductibles. No losing your health insurance when you change jobs. No escalating premiums when you get sick. Cheaper than the current system. With better outcomes. "One approach sets up a system that outlaws individual wrongdoing. "The other sets up a system that outlaws corporate wrongdoing." The whole article can be found by clicking here.
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From time to time I talk about sex in these pages, and specifically about what to teach our kids about sex. Readers may know that there is a big, ongoing debate in this country on this very issue. On the one side are the "abstinence-only" advocates, who simply want to teach kids that they—and, actually, anyone who is not in a legal, heterosexual marriage—should not have sex. On the other side are the people who believe that our kids need a little more than that in the way of sex education. (I went into this in some detail back in 2005, in my Fantasy vs Reality series, and more recently in "Just Say No To Sex (If You Want Money)" and "The ‘Condom Cartel' Strikes Again!") Since Congress in 1996 passed the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act," the federal government "has allocated $50 million annually for programs that teach abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage as the expected standard for school-age children." Last month a fairly major report came out on the subject, and since it didn't make it onto any front pages, I thought I would let you know a little bit about it. The study, submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., presented "final results from a multi-year, experimentally-based impact study" of the "Abstinence Education Program." In the "program group" were the kids who were "offered ...abstinence education program services." In the "control group," were the kids who "were not offered these services." The study's authors point out that "with random assignment, youth in both the program and control groups were similar in all respects except for their access to the abstinence education program services." Here are just a couple of the more important findings from the 164-page report: "Findings from this study provide no evidence that abstinence programs implemented in upper elementary and middle schools are effective at reducing the rate of teen sexual activity several years later." "Program and control group youth were equally likely to have remained abstinent." "The main objective of [the federally-funded] abstinence education programs is to teach abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage. The impact results from [the programs in the study] show no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence." "Findings on behavioral outcomes [of the programs studied] likewise indicate few statistically significant differences between program and control group youth." In short, "abstinence-only" sex education doesn't do anything, at least not in terms of what it supposedly intends to do. But it's not harmless, either. In the polite words of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, "abstinence-only programs are ethically problematic, being inherently coercive and often providing misinformation and withholding information needed to make informed choices." The whole report is lengthy, but if you want to look at it yourself,
you can read it by clicking here. |
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The FBI on May 8th released a report saying that "A 17-month FBI undercover investigation has led to charges against six men who allegedly tried to amass a small arsenal for a planned attack on soldiers at the U.S. Army base at Fort Dix in New Jersey." The U.S. media erupted with the news. The headline in the New York Times read: "6 Men Arrested In a Terror Plot Against Ft. Dix." National Public Radio referred to the "Fort Dix terrorism plot," while the Washington Post called the six "a group of would-be terrorists." The Seattle Times, in a story headlined, "Fort Dix 6: ‘Good Boys' or Terrorists?" reported that "Federal authorities say they are terrorists." Soon the New York Times established a special section for reporting on the story and headed it "TERROR ARRESTS IN NEW JERSEY." But wait a minute. Mr. Bush says all the time (most recently on April 10th) that "We are at war." And the Associated Press reported, in the wake of the arrests, that Fort Dix has been around for 90 years, but "Recently, Fort Dix has been training soldiers for warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan." And here's the definition of the relevant term from the US Code, which is the official law of the United States: "The term ‘terrorism' means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience." Were these men in New Jersey really doing what the FBI says? Maybe. But, having followed the story a bit, I tend to agree with Mother Jones blogger Jonathan Stein, who said on May 11th that "it looks like they might have been a bunch of bumblers egged on by over-aggressive FBI informants." But even if they did do what the FBI claims—that is, prepare to attack "soldiers" who were training for war—then they weren't really planning to perpetrate any violence against "noncombatant targets," were they? So, while whatever they were doing may have been detestable, it doesn't appear to have been "terrorism." Labels Are Important Is this nitpicking? I don't think so, because these sorts of allegations fit into a frightening pattern. Recall, if you will, the case of Umer Hayat, 47, and his son Hamid, 23, who were arrested by the FBI on June 5th 2005 in Lodi, California, "after it was discovered the son had just returned on a flight from Pakistan." The Associated Press reported at the time that "the younger man allegedly acknowledged that he attended an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan to learn ‘how to kill Americans,' according to published reports." Within days, however, the World Socialist Web Site reported that the case against the Hayats was beginning to "unravel." And, sure enough, jump ahead eleven months, after Hamid Hayat was convicted of offenses that could lead to up to 39 years in prison (the father was released after a mistrial). Here are the first two paragraphs of a report on the Hayat trial that appeared in the May 1st 2006 Los Angeles Times: "The government had no direct evidence. The confession was vague and even contradictory. And the statements about attacking American targets came only after heavy prompting from FBI interrogators. "But what the three federal prosecutors could—and did—show convincingly was that 23-year-old Hamid Hayat of Lodi, Calif., espoused strong anti-American sentiments, supported militant Muslim political parties in Pakistan and had a romantic attachment to the idea of jihad." Read that again, carefully. Hamid Hayat was convicted for his thoughts and feelings. As Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Tice-Raskin put it in his closing comments to the jury, "Hamid Hayat had a jihadi heart and a jihadi mind." What IS a "jihadi heart"? What IS a "jihadi mind"? What IS a "terrorist"? Words matter when they can result in going to prison for 39 years. So I invite you to follow, if you will, the case against the "Fort Dix Six," and to think about how it fits with the case of the Cuban Five, or the San Francisco Eight. George W. Bush said on November 6, 2003, "Successful societies protect freedom with the consistent and impartial rule of law, instead of selectively applying the law to punish political opponents." I couldn't agree more, but there are many "political opponents" in this country, in addition to the ones I just mentioned, who are in custody as I write these words. They are being punished with imprisonment for their beliefs, or to send a message to the public, or because they symbolize something that threatens the State. Whether they are prisoners of conscience, or political prisoners, or simply victims of our punitive "justice" system, their imprisonment transforms the noble words of the "President" from words of inspiration into little more than rank hypocrisy. ** For a brief introduction to the cases of the Cuban Five and the San Francisco Eight, here are a couple of Internet sites that might be helpful. Leonard Weinglass wrote a good introduction to the case for Le Monde Diplomatique. Read it here. Lots more information can be gotten from the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. Ron Jacobs published a good introductory article on the SF8 on ZNet
in February. Read it here. For a more general look, see the website of the Prison Activist Resource Center. |
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Here are some excerpts from an Associated Press story on the father of the "jihadi heart," Umer Hayat, who had been charged with lying to protect his son. This story ran four months after the elder Hayat was released from custody following his mistrial: "Umer Hayat was jailed for a year, branded a liar by federal prosecutors and forced to sell his house to his brother to pay his legal bills. "Still, the naturalized U.S. citizen said he loves his adopted country and harbors no grudge against a justice system he claims was coercive in its pursuit of a terrorism case that could send his oldest son to prison for three decades. "The Lodi ice cream vendor was released from federal custody Friday and spoke to reporters about the federal terrorism case that has left him broke and his family life in turmoil. "‘I lost my house and I lost my job, and right now we're living in the garage with my family, which is difficult for us,' Hayat, 48, said outside the federal courthouse. ‘We lost everything for nothing.' Near the end of its story, the AP reported that, "The U.S. attorney's office said it remains pleased with its prosecution of the Hayats. ‘It continues to be our firm belief that we are a safer region today than we were almost a year-and-a-half ago when the events in Lodi first broke,' said Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Brown." From Lodi, California to Fort Dix, New Jersey, our increasingly-powerful police apparatus carries on its work, responding in part to pressure from "above" to produce some arrests, some evidence, some... SOMETHING to make voters feel that "we are a safer region today than we were." Or, at least, safer than we thought we were before our false innocence was shattered on September 11th 2001. An imperial power—any power, for that matter—finds great use for "enemies" against which it can target its power. The targets at the moment are "insurgents" in far-away lands, immigrants who can be labeled "illegal," people who speak the "wrong" language, or look "suspicious," or love the wrong people, or fit anywhere else on the ever-growing list of threatening "others." As the injured imperial power lashes out in blind rage, ruining the lives of those we know as "collateral damage," resentment is bred and future enemies are born and emboldened. This is the War On Terror, and it is not making anyone more safe.
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