The first week in May brought a new leader in France and new prospects for same sex couples seeking marriage. But at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia, attended by 11,000 psychiatrists, it was the same old same old. Instead of listening to the public outcry about overmedicated children, soldiers, elderly and everyday people watching too many drug ads, the psychiatry group re-affirmed its resolve to pathologize healthy people and even rolled out new groups to target.

This is the year the APA puts the finishing touches on DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a compendium that determines what treatments insurers will cover, what disorders merit funding as “public health” threats and of course, Pharma marketing and profits. Some question the objectivity of a disorder manual written by those who stand to benefit from an enlarged patient pool and new diseases. Furthering the appearance of self-dealing is the revelation that 57 percent of the DSM-5’s authors have Pharma links.

No kidding. Present at this year’s meeting were former APA president Alan F. Schatzberg, MD and Charles Nemeroff, MD, both investigated by Congress for murky Pharma income. Schatzberg and Nemeroff are co-editors of the APA-published Textbook of Psychopharmacology whose 2009 edition cites the work of Richard Borison, MD former psychiatry chief at the Augusta Veterans Affairs medical center who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a $10 million clinical trial fraud. Also present was S. Charles Schulz, MD, who was investigated for financial links to AstraZeneca believed to alter his scientific conclusions.

Even though Assistant Secretary of Defense Jonathan Woodson sent a memo to all branches of the military in February about overprescription of antipsychotic medications like Seroquel and Risperdal for PTSD, military figures closely linked to that overprescription were also listed in attendance at the APA meeting.

Elspeth Ritchie, MD, told the Denver Post that AstraZeneca’s Seroquel was “very useful for the treatment of anxiety and combat-related nightmares,” though it was (and is) not approved for such treatment while she was medical director of the army’s Strategic Communications Office in 2008, participated in many symposiums. Ritchie, who is now chief clinical officer for the District of Columbia’s department of mental health, appeared in an AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly funded webcast for the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Academy in 2008 in which she lauds the use of “sophisticated” psychiatric medicines “on the battlefield.”[i]

Seroquel earned AstraZeneca nearly $6 billion in revenue last year, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. “IMS Health, a healthcare information and services company, said that in the 12 months ending in February of this year, 14.1 million Seroquel prescriptions were written, more than any other antipsychotic,” it reports.

Also participating in the military and PTSD content at the APA meeting was Matthew Friedman, MD, Executive Director of the VA’s National Center for PTSD who reported, “I received an honorarium from AstraZeneca in the past year,” in a 2009 government slide show called “Pharmacological Treatments of PTSD and Comorbid Disorder.” Friedman also served as a Pfizer Visiting Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina College of Medicine last year yet is listed in the APA meeting guide as having no “significant relationships to disclose.” APA officials have not responded to several requests for comment.

Of course disorders that Big Pharma has helped monetize like bipolar (which was termed “under diagnosed” and emerging in the elderly at the meeting) and “mood disorders” (once called “life”) were well represented. But an alarming amount of attention also went to the apparent new Pharma profit center of alcoholism and drug addiction.

Addiction specialists have known for more than 70 years that the only “treatment” for drug addiction and alcoholism (after patients are detoxed) are anonymous, self-help programs that are also free. In fact medicine is as powerless to understand or treat drug addiction and alcoholism as alcoholics and drug addicts are over their addiction.

Still the National Institutes of Health, in conjunction with Big Pharma, continues to spend millions, some say billions, developing “animal models” of addiction and vaccines to “cure” them. Nora D. Volkow, MD director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, says she seeks a vaccine to treat those at risk of alcoholism and drug addiction on the basis of “biological and environmental factors,” before they get sick. (See: treating those “at risk” for psychosis or depression or bipolar disorder on the basis of their family histories with no symptoms evidence.)

It is pretty fair to say Volkow is not an alcoholic or drug addict. Any of them could tell her they don’t seek “help” until they’re out of options–and even then not from a doctor but from each other. In fact, if Pharma, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the American Psychiatric Association think they can treat a disease caused by drugs with a drug, that’s pretty insane. In fact, one of the treatments suggested for alcoholism at the meeting was quetiapine, also known as Seroquel.

By Steve Horn

Environmental victories are so scarce these days that you can’t blame eco-activists for trumpeting any good news — even when the news turns out to be mostly smoke and mirrors.

Take the latest sequel to Japan’s March 2011 FukushimaDaiichi nuclear disaster, which was deemed the “most serious nuclear crisis since Chernobyl” by NewScientist.  To this day the city of Fukushima is surrounded by a 20-kilometer (12.4mile) dead zone.

On May 4, in an action hailed by anti-nuclear activists around the world, Japan announced that it was putting its last remaining operational nuclear power plant, located in the northern city of Tomari, on “recess.” The next day, five thousand demonstrators in Tokyo celebrated what one participant called a “historic” victory, in a country where some 30 percent of electrical power had been provided by nuclear reactors.

While pressure from activists undoubtedly influenced the government’s decision, a closer look at Japan’s nuclear power industry raises serious questions about the extent of the victory.

Japan Announces Big Nuclear Deal with Kazakhstan

Unmentioned by all but two news outlets was the fact that a day before the announcement, the Japanese government signed a deal with Kazakhstan’s state-owned nuclear giant, KazAtomProm, to begin supplying Japan with more nuclear fuel starting in 2013.

“Japan will take part in the implementation of 40 projects in Kazakhstan,” explained the Kazakh state-run news outlet, CaspioNet. “This applies to cooperation in the nuclear industry, mining and met allurgical complex, high technology, as well as mechanical engineering and gas-chemical industry.”

As for “projects” in Japan itself, the picture is a little murky, perhaps intentionally so. “The Japanese government never actually said it was going to turn off the lights on the nuclear industry at any point in time,” the Netherlands-based Nuclear Campaigner forGreenpeace International, Aslihan Tumer told WhoWhatWhy in an interview.

“What the Japanese government has been saying is that they’re going to restart it, eventually, once the safety checks are done, once they take local concerns into consideration,” said Turner. “So, they are not saying it is off the table right now.”

Japan’s newly strengthened ties to Kazakhstan come on top of the major foothold Japanese multinational energy corporations already have in that Central Asian country, which is four times the size of Texas.

Japan’s Nuclear Alliance with KazAtomProm

Known for its massive reserves of Caspian Sea oil and natural gas resources, Kazakhstan also possesses roughly 15 percent of the world’s known uranium supply, accounting for roughly one-third of current global production, according to the World NuclearAssociation (WNA).

With no uranium resources of its own Japan, the world’s third biggest economy, has relied on the global market to fuel its nuclear reactors, trading mainly with Australia, Canada and, increasingly, Kazakhstan, according to WNA. In 2010, three Japan-based nuclear fuel corporations, Kansai Electric Power Company, Sumitomo, and Nuclear Fuel Industries Ltd, signed a deal with KazAtomProm to supply its plants with uranium.

A complex web of agreements across national borders links many of the biggest players in the nuclear industry. For example, in October 2006, the Japanese multinational corporation Toshiba purchased a 77-percent share of the U.S. nuclear company Westinghouse Electric for $5.4 billion. Two other companies were involved in the deal: Japan’s IHI Corporation, and U.S. multinational Shaw Group. Later, in July 2007, KazAtomProm paid $486.3 million for 10 percent of Toshiba’s stake in the jointly owned corporation, meaning it now owns 7.7-percent of the corporation formerly known as Westinghouse.

As a result of such deals Kazakhstan has a direct tie to the Fukushima meltdown. Investigative reporter Greg Palast explained in a March 2011 story: “One of the reactors dancing with death at Fukushima Station 1 was built by Toshiba. Toshiba was also an architect of the emergency diesel system.”

Eerily enough, Kazakhstan is still recovering from a nuclear tragedy of its own. The city of Semey, near the country’s northeastern border with Siberia, was formerly known asSemipalatinsk. From 1949 to 1989, a secret complex 93 miles west of the city was the site of the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons tests.

History Repeating Itself?

“After a wave of popular protests, the Semipalatinsk site was closed in 1991. It had carried out 456 secret nuclear tests,” explained EuroNews. “However, the closure could not reverse the environmental damage to the region, which has more than a million inhabitants, most of which are villagers.”

“Local oncology centers are screening tens of thousands of patients, trying to detect and treat tumors at early stages…Infant mortality here is five times higher than the average or developed countries. Embryonic defects are widespread, and cancer strikes teenagers as well as adults,” the report continues.

The nuclear tragedies at Chernobyl, Semipalatinsk and Fukushima have not proved a deterrent to the global nuclear industry’s ambitions. “Japan hasn’t used the Fukushima disaster as an opportunity to push for renewable energy or energy efficiency,” said Tumer. “Instead, it has used the time since the disaster to push for the restart of nuclear reactors.”

Written by Jessica Mason Pieklo for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

The state of Arizona is near the top of states looking to dramatically expand religious privileges as a means of curtailing women’s reproductive rights and redefining the relationship between women and the law. Earlier this month, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed into law two controversial bills, HB 2625 and SB 1365. HB 2625 expands the number of businesses that can deny access to insurance coverage for contraception and has garnered the most attention on the heels of the nationwide battle over access to prescription contraception.

But it is SB 1365 that poses the greatest risk to the women of Arizona.

SB 1365 prohibits the state from denying, revoking, or suspending a professional or occupational license based on any action deriving from a person’s religious convictions. It’s a broad expansion of the state’s conscience clause that already allows pharmacists, doctors, or other health care workers to refuse to perform abortions or to prescribe emergency contraception (though it is contraception, not an abortifacient) based on religious objections. Now, any licensed professional can deny services to anyone by declaring that their “sincerely held” religious belief is in conflict with otherwise prohibited and discriminatory conduct and be insulated from professional repercussions for doing so. That means, for example, that attorneys can now decline to represent health care workers facing complaints related to the delivery of reproductive health care, or they can refuse to represent an individual simply because she happens to be gay.

Supporters of SB 1365 insist the bill does nothing more than clarify that constitutional religious freedom protects a person’s professional license even as they acknowledge there are no known incidents of faith-based discipline in the state. Once again, the religious right offered up a solution in search of a problem.

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Why would the esteemed Ohio University host a talk by the likes of Roger Ailes? Maybe we should ask one of the talk’s patrons, Charles Koch.

Ailes, of Fox News fame, is giving his talk today. The guy who invited him says the point was to get “perhaps the most influential newsman in America” to spark a discussion about “free speech and the media,” particularly given OU’s “first-rate school of journalism.” But Roger Ailes isn’t a newsman and doesn’t do journalism. He does political advocacy that’s (very) thinly disguised as journalism. As Eric Boehlert of Media Matters says, “places of higher learning shouldn’t help perpetuate the Fox myth while turning a blind eye to the lasting damage Ailes’s enterprise is doing to journalism and to our national discourse.”

Might this act of selling out have something to do with the fact that the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation serves as an underwriter of the George Washington Forum, which is the OU group hosting the speech? As detailed in my film Koch Brothers Exposed, Charles Koch is a billionaire industrialist and one of the leading financiers of the American Right. He is known to meddle in educational institutions, infamously attaching strings to university donations by insisting he be able to veto a school’s hiring decisions. Students and faculty at schools like Florida State University are fighting this corruption valiantly, but the encroachment on academic integrity and freedom remains a threat.

In the case of Ohio University, the full extent of Koch’s donations to the George Washington Forum isn’t known. But we do know that Koch specifically underwrote a talk the Forum hosted by John Yoo, author of the Bush torture memos (belying Charles and his brother David’s claims that their ideological activism is restricted to economic issues). We also know that through the Forum, the Charles Koch Foundation awards grants to students “interested in studying free market ideas” under an OU professor who researches conservative politics and economics. Students applying for the grant in the past have had to write an essay about a book by libertarian Henry Hazlitt. Is it just me, or does it look like Charles Koch is paying the university to spread his right-wing ideology?

Not that Koch is the only problem. Indeed, Ailes himself is a big donor to (and alum of) Ohio University. If an institution of higher learning is willing to take money from an anti-journalist like Ailes for its communications programs, it will inevitably spread his message to students, one way or another.

Today, as Ailes takes the mic at OU, those who believe in education should redouble our efforts to stop the slow erosion of academic integrity. This erosion is reflected in the influence wielded by wealthy ideologues like Charles Koch and his political bullhorn, Roger Ailes.

Written by Kirsten Moore for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

They lied to state legislators about flame retardants. They distorted the science about the effectiveness of flame retardants. They manipulated firefighters, some of our most trusted public servants. And they have harmed the reproductive health of women and families.

Who? The Chemical Industry.

It might seem like hyperbole, but the egregious behavior of chemical companies in the service of preserving and expanding the market for flame retardants is documented in a jaw-dropping investigative series from the Chicago Tribune, detailing deeply disturbing practices at the heart of the chemical industry.

Flame retardants are associated with reductions in fertility, poor sperm quality, neuro-development delays in children, and cancer. And because the chemical industry has been so deceptive and successful, flame retardants are found in strollers, nursing pillows, couches, chairs, cell phones, TVs, computers, and automobile cushioning – just to name a few places. In fact, 97 percent of Americans have flame retardants in our bodies. Even baby belugas in the arctic have flame retardants in their bodies!

Why should reproductive health, rights, and justice advocates care about baby belugas and poor sperm quality? It’s simple. We care about women’s health and we value each woman’s reproductive decision-making.

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Written by Jenny Dodson for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

The vicious attacks on women’s health to which we’ve grown so accustomed on the national and state stages are trickling down to the local level, as municipal and county governments get in on the action. Thankfully, time and again, local citizens have mounted fast and furious responses, resulting in the type of swift and satisfying victories that sometimes feel unimaginable on the national stage.

Local officials around the country have been using the “no taxpayer-funding for abortion” mantra to quietly turn away money for family planning programs that provide vital services for their neediest constituents. These attacks tend to follow a pattern: a program that has been funded without debate for years is suddenly pegged by a politician as “controversial.” Fellow politicians fall in line and vote to defund the program before residents and public health officials have time to react.

But in a few instances, community members are stepping in to stop them once word gets out.

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Written by Sharon Stapel for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

See all our coverage of the 2012 VAWA Reauthorization here.

There’s a big secret about the bill to address the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, introduced by Representative Sandy Adams (R-FL), that’s no longer so secret: it’s racist, elitist, homophobic and anti-victim. The bill, which purports to support “true victims” of domestic and sexual violence while excluding lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) survivors, forcing immigrants to tell their abusive partners where they are and gutting protections for Native women. So, using my secret decoder ring, I have to assume that “true victims” equals heterosexual, non-transgender, non-immigrant, non Tribal, non-people of color victims. Or, to remove the negatives, “true victims” equals straight, white women.

The Adams bill (H.R. 4970) is in sharp contrast to the recently passed Senate bill (S. 1925) which had 68 bipartisan votes last Thursday. Senate Bill 1925 covers all victims of violence, including LGBT survivors; maintains confidentiality protections for immigrants; and provides protection for Native women in Tribal courts. That bill, championed by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) reached across the aisle and focused on what survivors of domestic and sexual violence need to stay safe instead of partisan politics. We are in an extraordinary political climate when fights over the passage of VAWA in Congress is news: prior to this year, VAWA had sailed through both the Senate and House with bipartisan support that addressed the real needs of victims of violence. That we can no longer assume that our legislators would support protections for victims of violence is shocking. That we have to decode their messaging to figure out which victims they will support is offensive.

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A powerful, cultic religious order whose founder and clergy are accused of sexually abusing minors; admissions of children born out of wedlock… As often happens, Talk To Action articles written years ago are now suddenly relevant to the news cycle.

Back in June 2009, TTA contributor Frank Cocozzelli wrote a story titled CBS’s Go To (Rightwing) Catholic Guy–about Thomas D. Williams, the far-right Catholic spokesperson who has just announced (as covered in the NYT and the Catholic News Agency), that he is leaving public ministry after admitting to fathering a child out of wedlock.

From early 2008 into late 2009, Father Williams, author of such works of religious moralism as Knowing Right From Wrong (2008, Thomas Nelson, Inc.), made multiple appearances on CBS with Katie Kouric, Jeff Glor, and Maggie Rodriguez, on the Early Show. As Cocozzelli described,

“The go to guy at CBS News for all-things Catholic is one Father Thomas D. Williams.  Never heard of him?  Well, if you watch The Morning Show’s Maggie Rodriguez or the CBS Evening News’s Katie Couric you may very well see Fr. Williams appear live via satellite from Vatican City. But “the Tiffany Network” will also probably fail to disclose that Fr. Williams is also a member of the Legion of Christ, a reactionary order that is squarely aligned with American movement conservatism and that espouses the most conservative of Catholic views on bioethical issues such as LGBT equality, abortion and stem cell research.

[...]

…[T]he Legionaries of Christ is a secretive, ultra-conservative order with a troubling past and an uncertain future.  Its activities have been restricted or it has been banned outright in at least eight American dioceses for practicing cult-like control over its members. Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore was going to expel the organization until the Vatican stepped in and asked that that he instead engage in a dialogue with the group’s superior general. Still suspicious of the group’s activities (Archbishop O’Brien has accused the Legionnaires of  ”blind allegiance, lack of “respect for human dignity for each of its members,”" as well as “heavily persuasive methods on young people”), the Baltimore archbishop keeps the Legionnaires on a very tight leash.

And then there are the sex scandals of the Legionnaires’ founder, Father Marcial Maciel. Maciel had been accused of pedophilia since the 1950s and again in the 1970s. Originally to have been found innocent of the earlier charges, the Vatican reopened the investigation to the later incidents. In 2006 the Vatican forced Maciel into retirement addition and subsequently died in 2008.  A year after his death the news surfaced that he had also fathered a child.

The group’s influence is significant in part because it targets wealthy and influential individuals for recruitment.”

The bigger scandal here isn’t so much the issue of the sexual transgressions of powerful Catholic religious order members but, rather, the fact that far-right wing religious pundits, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or from other religious traditions, who show deep disrespect for pluralism, have been getting widespread exposure through mainstream media.

This tracks a more general trend in media bias, as evidenced in a 2011 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting study which showed that 70% of Sunday morning guests on ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox news shows were registered Republicans.

In a subsequent story on Thomas D. Williams, CBS, Rev. Thomas D. Williams and the Theoconning of America, Cocozzelli examined that issue, writing,

“Last week I discussed the disturbing worldview of  CBS’s go-to rightwing Catholic guy, pundit Rev. Thomas D. Williams, a member of the far right Legion of Christ. This is part of a larger trend that merits further discussion.

Neoconservatives and their theocon allies have had considerable success in getting us to see the world through their eyes; and each other as solely as all good or all bad; enemy or friend. These distortions often contribute to grotesque distortions of fact being presented as given truths.

This Manichean framing has infected the news media, which in turn functioned as a carrier of the disease…

[...]

…Rev. Williams believes that the only truth that should prevail is traditionalist Catholic orthodoxy, and that this worldview should be favored by and reflected in government.

Williams is a perfect example of the way that pundits pass for reporters, telling us what to think and how to act, while democracy is packaged for us as entertainment. The spectacle of media gladiators and bloviators is glorified over the participation of an informed citizenry. While this critique is not new, less well developed is the increasing role of religious right framed presentation of the news, and the risk of discounting the centrality of religious pluralism as a key to constitutional democracy. One consequence of the creeping theoconism in the media is that we often fall prey to historical revisionism — the weapon of choice of the Religious Right. Naturally, the narrative that emerges from this history of convenience attacks the very tenets of liberalism, such as religious pluralism as being sinister and evil. Faith and reason are not synonymous, but antithetical entities.”

Talk To Action contributor Frank Cocozzelli is author of what may be the longest running and most extensive series of articles available Internet or in print, 221 thus far, on the Catholic Right.

A grossly exaggerated and noxious brand of faux-patriotism has had the United States in its grips since at least September 11, 2001. The nefarious engine of this jingoistic phenomenon is uber-patriotic, religion-infused exceptionalism. Nowhere is this unconstitutional sickness clearer than on the grounds of the once-prestigious institutes of higher learning under the command of the United States Department of Defense.

It is on these campuses that an insidious blend of abject racism and fundamentalist Christian supremacy, sometimes subtle and sometimes explicit, warps the minds of the servicemen and women who are being groomed to lead present and future generations of American war fighters. Indeed, by PowerPoint and by lectern, the future leaders of the U.S. military are being inculcated in a deranged martial spirit which sees the nuclear bombing of civilian populations as not only justified, but consecrated by a grotesquely distorted, weaponized version of Jesus Christ. The course material similarly commands the unquestioning application of internationally infamous Abu Ghraib-like interrogation tactics more befitting an aggressive, marauding military dictatorship than a Constitutionally-grounded democracy.

“This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.” These vile and genocidal words were taught at the venerable Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC) in Norfolk, VA by faculty member and instructor Army Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley in a course entitled “Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism.” Dooley also taught officers from all four branches of the military that the U.S. should take “war to a civilian population wherever necessary,” applying the precedents of “Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, [and] Nagasaki” to the two foremost holy cities in the Muslim world, Mecca and Medina. Such statements from this United States military officer, under the colorable authority and aegis of the prestigious JFSC, are beyond the pale of acceptability and their consequences will be extraordinarily severe.

Ominously, slide 15 of  Dooley’s “Counter-Jihad Op Design Model” called for the eventual “elimination” of any influence that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) may have within the United States. CAIR, an NGO headquartered in Washington, D.C., have almost single-handedly advocated on behalf of the Muslim community in the face of widespread Islamophobic hysteria and incitement. The fact that such words as “elimination” are being spoken in regards to domestic civil liberties groups by the most lethal killing machine devised by mankind, i.e. the U.S. military, brings to mind Pastor Martin Niemöller’s prescient warning which may perhaps be updated to reflect the present climate: “First they came for the Muslims…”

The course materials truly depict a sinister picture. An anonymous whistle-blowing soldier, who provided one of the two presentations to Al Jazeera, truthfully remarked that it was the work of “this bigoted conspiracy cabal [which] is both disgusting and so deeply un-American.” What comprises this bigoted conspiracy cabal? An unholy alliance of fundamentalist evangelicals, neoconservatives, and sectarian bigots imported from the Middle East.

Reports indicate that the anti-Muslim curriculum at JFSC was prepared by the Arlington, Va.-based non-profit Strategic Engagement Group, Inc. (SEG), a virtual one-stop shop for modern-day “Crusaders” among the highest echelons of our military, intelligence, and civilian law enforcement bodies. SEG was formed in 2010 for what it claims is “the purpose of exposing and defeating efforts to subvert the United States Constitution and subjugate the American People,” referring to what they claim is “Shariah Law.”

John Guandolo, a disgraced former FBI agent and current Vice President with SEG, has spoken at Christian Fundamentalist conferences in Murfreesboro, TN, in support of local Christian extremists’ efforts to halt Muslim-Americans’ efforts to practice their constitutionally assured right to construct a mosque. Guandolo had previously told an anti-“Sharia” gathering in Nashville that “Muslims do not have a First Amendment right to do anything,” and that regional mosques are front organizations for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another VP with SEG, Major Stephen Coughlin (US Army Reserve), is described on the group’s website as “the leading expert in the United States on Islamic Doctrine.” He has also personally spoken before the JFSC in his capacity as a one-time intelligence analyst for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Coughlin’s “expertise” boils down to a wildly conspiratorial world outlook wherein Muslims are hell-bent on a quest to “destroy western civilization from within.” In 2008, Coughlin was let go from his position when the Pentagon caught wind of the pathologically Islamophobic paranoia evident throughout the entirety of his work. The Washington Times, the right-wing newspaper owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, described Coughlin as “one of the first casualties in the war of ideas with Islamism.”

SEG’s President, Edward Kimball, previously served as Foreign Policy Counsel to US Congresswoman Sue Myrick (R-NC), a member of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Myrick has in the past acted as Stephen Coughlin’s personal guardian angel following calls for the Pentagon to relieve him of his duties. Myrick gained nationwide notoriety after making the ridiculous claim that Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps agents were learning Spanish in Venezuela for the purpose of infiltrating the United States while disguised as undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Latin America (see video here). Myrick has also signed documents supporting allegations that CAIR is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian Hamas.

According to correspondence obtained by WikiLeaks and the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, Myrick has recently joined forces with James F. Smith, former director of the notorious dominionist mercenary outfit Blackwater, and Walid Phares, a shady character with a history of collaboration alongside the fascistic Israeli-backed Christian militias of the Lebanese Civil War. Phares, who frequently appeared on Fox News and the Christian Broadcasting Network as a “terrorism expert,” currently co-chairs Mitt Romney’s Middle East advisory group.

“Bigoted conspiracy cabal” indeed. These characters’ bizarre concoctions make the wildest Cold War-era “Reds Under the Beds” tales seem almost like Bible truth.

While Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dempsey feigns shock regarding this “news” of rabid Islamophobia emanating from the Pentagon, we at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) don’t buy it. Gen. Dempsey could merely have switched on his television set five years ago to see the bigoted filth issued forth from the JFSC instructors’ podiums. In June 2007, Brigitte Gabriel spoke at JFSC as a guest “expert” on Islam in a lecture broadcast by C-SPAN. Gabriel, a Lebanese Maronite Christian and career sectarian, stated that the average “practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America.” She also disgustingly stated, as C-SPAN cameras rolled, that the Muslim-American community is “good at nothing but complaining about every single thing instead of standing up and working with us in fighting the enemy in our country.”  Like her compatriot Mr. Phares, Gabriel is a professional mountebank. As such, she is a member of the Hasbara Fellowships, an Israeli propaganda and apologist front with ties to Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party. The Hasbara Fellowships, who specialize in training street-level PR cadres on behalf of the most aggressive sections of the Israeli establishment, played a crucial role in the mass distribution of the virulently anti-Muslim DVD, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. “Who pays the piper, calls the tune.”

Throughout the media, blogosphere, and security conference circuits these figures buttress one another’s narratives, cover each other’s flanks, and add pieces of fabric to a carefully woven patchwork quilt depicting a vast Islamic plot of violent insurgency and overthrow. And so, as details emerge in this “Bigoted conspiracy cabal,” the plot of unadulterated shame grows thicker still.

While 2004’s hellish photos from Abu Ghraib seem almost like ancient history, eight years later the extrajudicial detentions and incidents of torture and abuse still remain a matter of course for those held at Guantanamo Bay and at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. These outrages, among countless others, are the direct outcome of dehumanizing curricula which are produced by the Islamophobia industry and eagerly lapped up by both the military and civilian bureaucracy.

This latest revelation from JFSC constitutes an open call for the genocide of over a billion and a half men, women, and children. An “elect nation” arrogance, wrought from the insuperable alloy of fundamentalist Christian extremism and American exceptionalism, systemically bathes the halls of the Pentagon, military academia, and our approximately 1,000 military installations scattered around the world in about 150 countries. Let us call it what it is: a racist, bigoted repugnance. It catalyzes a ubiquitous doctrine within the U.S. military which dictates that Muslims around the globe, be they combatant or civilian, should be viewed as simply less than human. We have been here before. Many times. We have seen the oceans of blood that flow from this abyss of base prejudice. Who or what is the source for this pernicious and criminal posture towards one of the world’s largest religions and its mosaic of men, women, and children practitioners? The answer is clear: the enormous, sinister force which is fundamentalist Christianity.

What can be done to make amends? Besides the actual aggressive and expeditious trial by courts martial of Lt. Col. Dooley and all others who knew or should have known of the blood libel he was “teaching,” DoD Secretary Leon Panetta can do two more things. He must immediately issue formal written apologies to all U.S. service personnel who were forced, as students at the JFSC, to listen to Lt. Col. Dooley’s vile, Islamophobic rantings. Lastly, it is his clear duty to invite them back to JFSC to be “retrained” on American-Islamic issues, absent the blood-drenched calls for genocide via PowerPoint and lectern.

Written by Mony Ruiz-Velasco for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center provides legal services under the Violence Against Women Act to hundreds of victims and their children each year. We are appalled at the immigration provisions that the judiciary committee in the House of Representatives passed in HR4970. This bill erodes protections available to immigrant victims.

Abusers frequently use immigration status as a weapon against their undocumented victims by threatening to have the victim deported or refusing to complete an application for status. A VAWA self-petition allows a victim of violence to apply for lawful status on her own behalf, without relying on her abusive spouse, if she can show that she has been a victim of violence at the hands of her husband who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. HR4970 eliminates important confidentiality protections that are critical to ensure the victims’ safety. Immigration officials would notify abusers that the victim is seeking protection from the abuse. This is particularly dangerous for victims who are still living with their abusers or have children, as many immigrant victims have very limited options to leave an abusive situation until they obtain legal status. To seek protection, the victim will also reveal her whereabouts even if she managed to escape.

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