The American Historical Association met in Chicago in January. Historians from more than forty colleges and universities agreed to form a new national network, " Historians Against the War." A committee was appointed to draft the following statement, which has been circulated for other historians to sign.

We historians call for a halt to the march towards war against Iraq. We are deeply concerned about the needless destruction of human life, the undermining of constitutional government in the U.S., the egregious curtailment of civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad, and the obstruction of world peace for the indefinite future.

Nearly 1500 historians of all sorts have signed the HAW statement, and a press release on the statement has been widely distributed.

They are forming their own contingencies to march on Feb. 15 - 16 as part of the United for Peace protests. If you are a historian, or even if you aren't, go check them out. This is great grass roots stuff.

As expected, convicted "Shoe-bomber" Richard Reid has arrived at the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado to begin serving his life sentence. Here is some information about Supermax, officially called the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility ( ADX ) in Florence:

Inmates call it the Alcatraz of the Rockies. Advocates call it unfortunate but necessary, given an increasingly violent prison population. Critics call it a concept that didn't work in 19th-century America and is in danger of overuse now. In the arid, remote high desert, the triangular, two-story, high-tech ADX is almost invisible, as are its 417 male inmates. Many spend 23 of every 24 hours double-locked in an 8-by-12-foot cell behind a steel door and barred grate. Some spend the day's remaining hour alone as well, exercising in a small concrete recreation area and subjected to strip searches upon leaving and re-entering their cells. Except for the guards, there is no direct human contact.

Here is some more, from this article on a classroom website:

Unparalled in America, it is the only prison specifically designed to keep every occupant in near-total solitary confinement, rarely allowing inmates to see other prisoners.

....The ADX has a three-year program that keeps inmates in their cells 23 hours a day for the first year, then gradually ``socializes'' them with other inmates and staff. In their last year, prisoners can be out of their cells from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and eat meals in a shared dining room, rather than having food shoved through a slot in their steel cell door.

...The average sentence is 36 years....

It is spent, typically, in a 12-by-7- foot cell. Beds, desks and stools are made of poured concrete. Toilets have a valve that shuts off the water if an inmate tries to flood his cell by stopping it up. Sinks have no taps, just buttons -- inmates used to unscrew the taps and use the plumbing parts as shanks.

A 42-inch window, 4 inches wide, looks out on a one-man concrete recreation yard, which prisoners with good behavior can eventually use.

The ADX goes to great lengths to bring everything into the cells -- books, food, television -- so that inmates never need to leave. A 12- inch black-and-white TV in each cell shows closed-circuit classes in psychology, education, anger management, parenting and literacy. Religious services of numerous denominations are piped in from a small chapel, where prison officials display for the videocamera the religious objects appropriate for a given faith.

Haney, the Santa Cruz psychologist who has testified as an expert witness in cases involving supermax confinement, said the effect of isolation in places like Florence is dramatic. Prisoners ``become extremely depressed and lethargic -- sleeping, lying on their bunks, staring at the ceiling, declining to go out and exercise,'' he said. They begin to lose memory, can't concentrate and suffer severe panic attacks, he said, or become uncontrollably enraged over insignificant things.

Here's an article about prisoner abuse by guards at the Florence Supermax.

Here's an analysis of Supermax prisons by Human Rights Watch

Here's the link to the Campaign to End Control Unit Prisons

Here's how the Bureau of Prisons describes supermax prisons.

Here are some of the more infamous inmates ADX Florence has housed:

Foreign Policy In Focus, has a Global Affairs Commentary by Phyllis Bennis, Powell's Dubious Case for War.

Daily Kos wasn't buying it either, see his post, Powell's 'Adlai' Moment.

Republican Congressman Howard Coble of North Carolina said on a radio show yesterday that the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was appropriate.

Coble is the chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.

He said, among other things, ''We were at war. They (Japanese-Americans) were an endangered species. For many of these Japanese-Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street.''

Update: Don't miss Orcinus ( Journalist David Neiwert) on the prospect of Arab-American or Muslim-American internment camps and on Congressman Howard Coble's remarks on the Japanese WWII internment camps. Look for his article on the Japanese camps and the Korematsu decision to appear any day in Salon. We've already read it and it's terrific.

[comments now closed]

Ward Harkavy in the Village Voice did some numbers crunching and came up with some statistics for casualties in the Iraq War, as compared to previous wars.

Here's some of them:

Number of American soldiers poised for attack at the borders of Iraq: 100,000

Number of Iraqis and Americans who, doctors say, might die in the next war: 48,000 to 260,000

Number of additional deaths expected from the civil war within Iraq following an invasion: 20,000

Number of additional deaths expected from "post-war adverse health effects": 200,000

Number of total deaths if nuclear weapons are used: 3,900,000

[link via Cursor]

The World Court today ordered the United States to stay the executions of three Mexican nationals on death row due to Vienna Convention violations.

"Mexico argues that U.S. authorities systematically breached its rights and those of its nationals under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which obliges local authorities to inform an arrested person without delay of his right to speak to consular officials from his country."

Mexico sought the stay for 51 of its citizens on death row in the U.S. The court granted a stay for the three with close execution dates, who might not still be around by the time the Court decides the case on its merits.

The World Court is formally known as the International Court of Justice. It is a U.N. court that is used to resolve disputes among nations. It does not have enforcement power over it's rulings, and the United States has disregarded its decisions in the past.

Bump and update:
Received this today from our friends at the Marijuana Policy Project:

Please visit us for news coverage. And, more importantly, please use this Web page to fax a pre-written letter to your three members of Congress. The whole process of typing in your address and selecting a pre-written letter takes less than two minutes. We here at the Marijuana Policy Project are trying to build on the momentum from California and New York to persuade dozens of members of Congress to introduce legislation to remove the "gag" that the government is placing on medical marijuana defendants in federal court. But our lobbying efforts will not be successful if members of Congress do not hear from their constituents. Would you please visit our action page today?

If there's anyone reading who isn't already familiar with Ed Rosenthal and his conviction for pot cultivation last week, start here, then go here, or do a google search. Also, Green-Aid continues to have the most comprehensive coverage, including daily trial reports, beginning here and working backwards.

Update: Here is NORML's Action Page from which you can send a letter about medical marijuana to your elected officials as well.

Five jurors and an alternate in the Ed Rosenthal marijuana trial held a press conference today. They demanded the Judge grant Ed a new trial. And as expected, they apologized to Ed -- one at a time.

The jurors said they had been unaware that the defendant, Ed Rosenthal, was growing marijuana for medicinal purposes, allowed since 1996 under California state law, when they convicted him on three federal counts of cultivation and conspiracy. He is to be sentenced in June and faces a minimum of five years in prison. "I'm sorry doesn't begin to cover it," said one of the jurors, Marney Craig, a property manager in Novato. "It's the most horrible mistake I've ever made in my entire life. And I don't think that I personally will ever recover from this."

The group said that two other juror members agreed with them. They were joined by the San Francisco district attorney and two members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

"In good faith, we as jury members allowed ourselves to be blindfolded to weigh the evidence before us," the statement said. "But in this trial, the prosecution was allowed to put all of the evidence and testimony on one of the scales, while the defense was not allowed to put its evidence and testimony on the other scale. Therefore we were not allowed as a jury to properly weigh the case."

In a nutshell, here was the problem:

The judge in the case, Judge Charles R. Breyer of Federal District Court, had barred Mr. Rosenthal's defense from mentioning the state law because he was indicted under federal law, which does not allow the growing of marijuana for any purpose.

When he was arrested last February, Mr. Rosenthal was cultivating starter plants in a warehouse that were to be distributed to seriously ill patients by medical marijuana clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mr. Rosenthal, who lives in Oakland, was acting in his official capacity as "an officer of the city" under Oakland's medical marijuana ordinance, Oakland officials said....

"In good faith, we as jury members allowed ourselves to be blindfolded to weigh the evidence before us," the statement said. "But in this trial, the prosecution was allowed to put all of the evidence and testimony on one of the scales, while the defense was not allowed to put its evidence and testimony on the other scale. Therefore we were not allowed as a jury to properly weigh the case."

In other words, Mr. Rosenthal's actions were legal under California law but not under federal law. The Judge ruled that because the trial was in federal court, state law was inadmissible and could not be used as a defense. Thus, the jurors never heard Ed's actions were authorized by the city of Oakland.

Lots of other bloggers are talking about the case, and thankfully, the mainstream media is picking up on it. In the end, we predict it will become one more black mark against Attorney General Ashcroft, at whose insistence the prosecution was launched. We hope he is ridiculed for it as he has become a caricature for non-tolerance and interference with all of our civil liberties.

Update: GlennReynolds.com , aka Instapundit, weighs in for Rosenthal. " Meanwhile, the Ashcroft Justice Department — which I thought was supposed to be protecting federalism, and chasing terrorists — needs to explain why it’s wasting time and tax dollars chasing people who are no threat to anyone, and who are doing things that are legal under their own state’s laws. I’m waiting. . . ."

Update: The grand jury transcripts are out in the case--Don't miss Dan Forbes article , "A Peek Behind the Rosenthal Grand Jury Veil: Manipulation Rampant."

A new Los Angeles Times poll finds that re-election support for President Bush in 2004 has dropped below 50%.

"The share of Americans favoring President Bush's reelection in 2004 has fallen below 50%, while Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts have emerged as the leaders for the Democratic nomination...."

"...the new results suggest that the close partisan balance that defined American politics before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is slowly reasserting itself. The fall in the percentage of voters committing to support Bush's reelection parallels a decline in his job approval rating since last fall and the return of sharp divisions along party lines about his performance."

And the best news of all..."Former Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado, who is exploring a candidacy, and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards tied for third, each with 8%."

The losers: "Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, who has said he is likely to enter the Democratic race, and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who will formally announce his candidacy later this month, drew 6% each. Trailing the pack were African American activist Al Sharpton, with 2%, and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, with 1%."

For more on the poll analysis, read "Bush is Not the Stealth Candidate He Was After 9/11," here. Excerpts from the polling data are here.

64 cities and counties have passed anti-war resolutions, according to the Institute for Policy Studies and Cities for Peace News. Here is the list.

Former UK Labour Cabinet Minister Tony Benn interviewed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Here is the full text of the interview which was broadcast on the UK's Channel 4 news program.

You can read quotes from the interview here. Saddam denied any link to Al Qaeda, said he did not have weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. and Britain were going to war for control over oil.

The international press is beginning to rip Texas. This from Pravda.RU, written by journalist Richard Waagener in the Netherlands:

Executions Will Rise to 300 in Texas

Death in Texas comes for a lot of men and some woman in the form of an injection needle while they are strapped on a gurney in the death house in Huntsville Texas in the United States. This month the state of Texas expects to dispose itself of its 300th murderer after the reintroduction of the death penalty in 1976. In total in the United States 827 men, woman and children where executed. If the scheduled roster is followed the ‘honor’ will go to Michael Johnson, a man who killed someone at a robbery when he was 19.

You can only wonder how such an occasion is celebrated in Texas. Will governor Rick Perry personally travel down to Huntsville to push the button which will cause the death of Johnson? Or will it be George Bush, the American president, who oversaw the execution of the greater half, namely 152 of these executions, when he was governor of the state of Texas? Probably not. Both declined to witness executions. Even with all the attention action groups, like Amnesty International, and the press are giving to the mechanics of the death penalty the train in Texas rolls on. Currently 446 people are awaiting execution, with eleven executions planned in the next months.

The example set by Illinois where all death penalty’s where commuted because the governor of that state doubted the fairness of has only caused ripples on the surface in Texas. This year alone already six men have abandoned there lives on the ultimate altar of ‘tough on crime’ politicians and hardboiled crime fighters, pushing for more executions.

As flawed as capital punishment was in Illinois, as flawed it is in Texas. International treaties are breached by the state executing foreign offenders, which were not given the assistance of the home country guaranteed under the Vienna convention. The execution of a Mexican last year caused a major diplomatic incident with the neighbors. President Fox of Mexico cancelled a visit to Texas as protest. Seven innocent people are already released after the spent together more than seventy years on death row, according to figures from Amnesty International. Some controversial executions have taken place, where opponents protest the guilt of the executed. The systems also allowed children and people with limited mental capacity to be executed, although steps are taken to mend that.

“Texas' capital punishment system exemplifies the findings that have emerged in recent studies conducted in Maryland and Illinois that reveal that the death penalty is determined by a geographic lottery”, according to press release of Amnesty International.” While Texas accounts for less than ten percent of the US population, it has been responsible for more than one-third of the national judicial death toll since 1976. Furthermore, Harris County prosecutors sentenced 35 of Texas' death row population, yet that county accounts for only 15 of the state's population. If Harris County were a state, it would rank 2nd with Virginia behind Texas in the number of executed inmates in 2002," the organization said. The total number of executions last year in Texas was 33, with 4 from Harris County. Virginia had 4 total executions.”

Meanwhile the pressure on Texas is growing. International investors are more and more concerned about the human rights situation in Texas. The Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty has called for a tourist boycott of Texas and many government leaders asked the United States and Texas to revoke the death penalty and respect Human Rights on this issue. Until their call is heard executions will go one, although more and more people are listening. The United States and Japan are the only modern democracies, which still have this ultimate penalty.

************
A business and tourist boycott of Texas. What a great idea...the politicans may not care about fairness and justice down there, but they sure care about their pocketbooks.