Demonstrate Against Police Spying!/Doctor Laments Brush-Off of Iraqi War Dead

Demonstrate Against Police Spying!

Monday, October 27
5:30 PM
MD State Police Headquarters
1201 Reisterstown Road, Pikesville, MD 21208

Documents obtained by the ACLU from the MD State Police earlier this year revealed an extensive undercover surveillance program that spied on peaceful anti-death penalty and anti-war protest groups.  Despite never finding any evidence of illegal activity, the unconstitutional program continued for over a year.

At a recent legislative hearing investigating this scandal, it was revealed that some 53 of the targeted activists were entered into the police database as terrorists.  Now, the MSP is arrogantly refusing to provide these innocent people with copies of their files, offering only a one-time viewing at police headquarters, and even barring the presence of a lawyer.  What are the police trying to hide?

At a press conference in the days following the hearing, we demanded that this insulting situation be corrected.  One week later, the police have failed to even acknowledge our call.  They claim they will destroy the files on November 1st.

As more of the 53 have been notified and come forward, we know the list of "terrorists" spreads far beyond the anti-death penalty and anti-war movements.  In an age when dissenting voices need to be heard on many issues, we must have a complete accounting of the MSP's surveillance activity.  Join us to push for people to gain access to their bogus "terrorism" files and a full investigation of this outrageous spying campaign.

Call 443-386-8097 for more information.

Sponsored by: Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore, International Socialist Organization, Montgomery Peace Action, Defending Dissent Foundation, Chesapeake Citizens

 

Published on Friday, October 24, 2008 by Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Doctor Laments Brush-Off of Iraqi War Dead

by Tom Paulson

 

SEATTLE, WA - Dr. Les Roberts risked his life a few years ago to get some numbers that some people fiercely attack as inaccurate or misleading and that many, many more probably pay little or no attention to.

Roberts, a physician and prominent public health scientist at Columbia University, believes there is solid evidence that something like half a million people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Iraq war. His statistics are about 10 times higher than the estimates put forth by the Bush administration and Pentagon.

An Iraqi woman peeps inside a blood stained car of two women allegedly shot dead by private security guards in central Baghdad in 2007. In 2004, Roberts and colleagues sneaked into Iraq with dyed beards and dressed in robes to conduct a series of mortality "cluster point" surveys in various communities while the war raged on.(AFP/File/Ali Yussef)

But a much bigger problem than the numerical disparity, Roberts said, is the simple fact that so few even ask.

"I think it's important that every American understand the true magnitude of this tragedy," said Roberts. Unfortunately, he added, few in the media or in government appear to want to draw attention to the deaths that have so severely altered the life of nearly every Iraqi.

In 2004, Roberts and colleagues sneaked into Iraq with dyed beards and dressed in robes to conduct a series of mortality "cluster point" surveys in various communities while the war raged on. His team initially estimated the civilian death toll as at least 100,000 (two to three times the official estimate) but later analysis caused him to raise the estimate to be 95 percent certain to be in the range of 400,000 to 950,000 - or a mean of about 650,000 deaths. The findings were reported in the British medical journal the Lancet in 2006.

"To help people understand this, given the population of Iraq, this would be like New York City having two 9/11 attacks every week over a period of three years," Roberts said. Things have gotten less violent in Iraq, he said, but nobody should be lulled into thinking that things are good.

Another report, issued in January, estimated that 151,000 Iraqis died from violence between March 2003 and June 2006. The estimate was based on projections by the Iraqi government and the World Health Organization.

"Gen. (David) Petraeus testified earlier this year about how few deaths we're seeing in Iraq, but his numbers suggested that life in Baltimore was more violent than in Iraq," he said. He said he wrote e-mails before the hearing to ask members of Congress to challenge the statistics, but nobody spoke up. No reporters he contacted challenged Petraeus' statistics either, he added with evident frustration.

"Everybody wants to believe things are getting better because Republicans want to declare victory and Democrats want an excuse to get out," Roberts said. Meanwhile, he said, the media continue to ignore the issue.

"My professional life and purpose is based on the belief that valid data, most of the time, lead toward truth and that truth can lead toward justice," Roberts said.

© 2008 Hearst Newspapers

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs