Megan Izen
Race Wire

Hill v. Thomas and Sanders v. Thomas: How much has really changed?

It’s bittersweet irony that the most publicized and racialized sexual harassment cases in two decades are now competing for top headlines. Anita Hill appeared on Good Morning America this morning to defend herself once more against Clarence Thomas’s attacks in his newly published memoir where he calls her his ‘most traitorous adversary.’ Hours later, a jury handed down a guilty verdict to New York Knicks head coach Isiah Thomas for sexually harassing former colleague Anucha Brown Sanders.

So what’s changed and what hasn’t? These are loaded discussions that bring to mind the hypersexualization, vilification and harassment of women of color in the workplace and beyond. All of which have deeply rooted historical contexts that won’t fit neatly into a blog post. A 2003 study revealed that women of color are more vulnerable to sexual harassment on the job than white women. What we can claim now that we couldn’t in 1991 is victory—a precedent that makes harassing women of color in the workplace intolerable.

That said, what resonates between both cases and touches the aforementioned issues is the persistent stereotypes of men and women of color in the media. In 1991, we watched in horror as Hill’s character, credibility and motives were picked apart day by day. Sixteen years later, the mainstream media was still stuck on the same tired story with Sanders. But somehow this jury was able to see past the counter-accusations heaped on Sanders and do the right thing. Maybe all these years have made a difference. At least we know that sometimes, if we fight, we can actually win.

Are Presidents Entitled to Kill Foreigners?
by James Bovard

What is the common term for ordering soldiers to kill vast numbers of innocent people?

A war crime.

But not when it is done on the command of the U.S. president.

Killing innocent foreigners seems to be a perk of the modern presidency — akin to the band’s playing “Hail to the Chief” when he enters the room.

Bush is revving up the war threats against Iran. Seymour Hersh reported in the current issue of the New Yorker that the administration is advancing plans to bomb many targets in Iran. British newspapers have confirmed that the Pentagon has a list of thousands of bombing targets. Hardly anyone claims that Iran poses a threat to the United States.

Yet few people in Washington seem to dispute the president’s right to attack Iran. It is as if the presidential whim is sufficient to justify blasting any foreign nation that does not kowtow to the commands of the U.S. government.

Jack Goldsmith, a former top Bush appointee in the Justice Department and now a Harvard Law professor, observes in his new book, The Terror Presidency, “The president and the vice president always made clear that a central administration priority was to maintain and expand the president’s formal legal powers.” And the power to attack foreign nations is one of the most valued prerogatives of today’s Republicans.

Bush’s top advisors — and especially the vice president — are devoted to a Nixonian view of absolute power for the commander in chief. After he was driven out of office in disgrace, Nixon told interviewer David Frost in 1977, “When the president does it that means that it is not illegal.” Frost, somewhat dumbfounded, replied, “By definition?” Nixon answered, “Exactly. Exactly.”

This seems to be the attitude of Bush and his war planners towards Tehran. Pentagon Deputy Assistant Secretary Debra Cagan recently told several British Members of Parliament that “I hate all Iranians.” Perhaps Cagan got her position because of such prejudice towards nations that Bush formally designated as “evil.” At the same time that Congress is considering hate-crime legislation, ethnic hatred may be driving U.S. plans to slaughter Iranians.

For Bush, attacking Iran may simply be a question of checking off another item on his final To Do list — or one more wild swing at making himself a legacy. Bush told a biographer that, after he leaves office, he looks forward to receiving “ridiculous” (in his words) speaking fees of $75,000 per talk. He is also looking forward to putting in some time on his “fantastic” Freedom Institute.

The fact that thousands or hundreds of thousands of Iranians might die is irrelevant. Bush appears far more concerned about baseball statistics than the body counts compiled by the U.S. military abroad. The fact that many Americans could also die — either during the attack or from Iranian retaliation on U.S. forces in Iraq — doesn’t appear to be costing Bush any sleep.

No American politician has ever been sentenced to death for ordering U.S. soldiers to kill innocent foreigners. Such orders have gone out many times — from the Philippines in the early 1900s, to Haiti in the 1910s, to Vietnam in the 1960s. There have been many other conflicts in which American presidents rubber-stamped U.S. military rules of engagement that guaranteed carnage among foreign women and children.

Americans cannot expect to have good presidents if presidents are permitted to make themselves tsars. The president and his top officials should face the same perils common citizens face when they are accused of breaking the law. Seeing a president answer for his crimes would be public education at its best. Consider how the subsequent course of American foreign policy might have differed if Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon had been tried, convicted in federal court, and punished for committing war crimes.

Perhaps Bush thinks that starting another foreign war will help boost demand for his speeches among groups that want to see U.S. forces kill more Muslims. But if he cares about freedom as much as he claims, he will cease acting as though he is above the law. And if Bush refuses to restrain himself, Americans should remember the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson: Sometimes the threat of a noose is the best way to keep the peace.

James Bovard serves as a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation and is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, Terrorism and Tyranny, and other books.

Doctors and nurses should not participate in executions ordered by the state in breach of their ethical oath, said Amnesty International in a new report today.

The report, Execution by lethal injection – a quarter century of state poisoning, looks at the legal and ethical implications of the use of the lethal injection across the world.

“Medical professionals are trained to work for patients’ well-being, not to participate in executions ordered by the state. The simplest way of resolving the ethical dilemmas posed by using doctors and nurses to kill is by abolishing the death penalty,” said Jim Welsh, Amnesty International’s Health and Human Rights coordinator.

Since 1982, at least 1,000 people were executed by lethal injection globally – three in Guatemala, four in Thailand, seven in the Philippines, more than 900 in the USA and up to several thousands in China, where executions are a state secret.

In lethal injection executions, prisoners are commonly injected with massive doses of three chemicals: sodium thiopental to rapidly induce unconsciousness, pancuronium bromide to cause muscle paralysis, and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

Doctors have expressed concern that if inadequate levels of sodium thiopental are administered, the anaesthetic effect can wear off before the prisoner’s heart stops, placing them at risk of experiencing excruciating pain as the chemicals enter the veins producing cardiac arrest. Due to the paralysis induced by pancuronium bromide, they would be unable to communicate their distress to anyone.

For these reasons, these chemicals are not used by veterinary surgeons on animals for euthanasia. In Texas, the biggest user of lethal injection in the USA, the same drugs that are prohibited for use on cats and dogs because of the potential pain they might suffer are being used to execute.

Joseph Clark was executed in Ohio in December 2006. It took 22 minutes for the execution technicians to find a vein to insert the catheter. Shortly after the start of the injection, the vein collapsed and Joseph’s arm began to swell. He raised his head off the stretcher and said “it don’t work, it don’t work”. The curtains surrounding the stretcher were then closed while the technicians worked for 30 minutes to find another vein.

“The use of lethal injection does not resolve the problems inherent to the death penalty: its cruelty; its irreversibility; the risk of executing the innocent; its discriminatory and arbitrary application; and its irrelevance to effective crime control,” said Jim Welsh.

“Governments are putting doctors and nurses in an impossible position by asking them to do something that goes against their ethical oath.”

In China, the world’s top executioner, many, executions by lethal injection are carried out in mobile vans. The windowless chamber at the back of the vans contains a metal bed on which the prisoner is strapped down. Once the needle is attached by the doctor, a police officer presses a button and an automatic syringe inserts the lethal drug into the prisoner’s vein. The execution can be watched on a video monitor next to the driver’s seat and can be videotaped if required.

“There is a global consensus within the medical profession that the involvement of health professionals in carrying out an execution, particularly by a method using the technology and knowledge of medicine, is a breach of medical ethics; yet health professionals are participating in such executions.”

“Professional bodies have recently spoken strongly about this abuse of ethics, but governments want to hide the identity of participating doctors to shield them from the scrutiny of professional colleagues,” said Jim Welsh.

Amnesty International calls on world leaders to abolish the death penalty and urges them to take the opportunity to begin with a vote for a moratorium at the current session of the United Nations General Assembly when it is voted on later in 2007.