BRAVE NEW FILMS – In The Media

More than two-thirds of injured or sick workers in a recent survey feared employer discipline or even losing their jobs if their injuries were reported, a new study from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed today.

The GAO surveyed more than 1,000 occupational health practitioners and found:

• More than two-thirds observed worker fear for reporting an injury or illness.
• A third said they were pressured by employers to provide insufficient treatments to workers to hide or downplay work-related injuries or illnesses.
• More than half of practitioners said they were pressured by an employer to downplay an injury or illness so it wouldn’t be reported to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s official log that tracks workplace injuries and illnesses.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the GAO report confirms what rank-and-file workers, local union safety activists and workplace safety professionals have long said:

Employer policies and practices that discourage the reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses are widespread and are undermining the safety and health of America’s workers….These destructive and discriminatory practices must be stopped.

Injury and illness records help OSHA allocate its resources, accurately target its inspections and evaluate the success of efforts to improve workplace health and safety.  Employers underreport injury and illness rates because lower rates likely lead to fewer inspections, improve their competitiveness when bidding for new contracts and lower their workers’ compensation costs.

By Katrina vanden Heuvel at The Nation

…That investigative reporting was on full display here in the last week, as Reporter Aram Roston (supported by The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute) revealed that money is flowing from the Pentagon to insurgents in Afghanistan, including the Taliban. We’re literally paying insurgents to let our supply lines pass, so that our soldiers have supplies to fight insurgents. It’s an outrage, and it demonstrates once again the folly of escalation in the region as President Obama nears his fateful decision. Here’s MSNBC’s Ed Schultz and Brave New Film’s Robert Greenwald discussing the story:

 http://youtu.be/paL4dzxyUrM

Robert has been outspoken in his effort to encourage America–and the Obama Administration–to “Rethink Afghanistan.” We appreciate his work, and the efforts of Schultz, The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill, MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan, and leading newspapers around the world (including The Guardian) who have helped move Aram Roston’s story into the mainstream in the Afghanistan strategy debate.

By Mike Copass at Liberty One Media

SAN DIEGO — While the Administration mulls four different levels of troop escalation in Afghanistan, the California Democratic Party today presented a very different position, as the party took a step towards rejecting any further U.S. military expansion in the war-torn Central Asian republic. On Saturday, a committee of the party’s executive board voted in support of a resolution which calls for an end to the 8-year military intervention in Afghanistan, including demands for a cessation of the aerial bombing campaign.

This stance represents the first significant opposition to the Administration’s current Afghanistan military policy from within the President’s own political party.

Noting that polls “show a majority of Americans are increasingly disturbed about the toll” of wounded and traumatized American troops, the resolution renews the call for a time-table for a withdrawal of U.S. combat forces, adding a demand to “end to the use of mercenary contractors, as well as an end to the air war on civilian populations, and urges our President to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid.” (full text can be found here.)

The testimony of war veteran Rick Reyes was seen by many as instrumental to building broad support for the policy position. The former U.S. Marine Reyes declared his concerns that the policies of the last eight years have failed. “There is no military solution in Afghanistan. The problems in Afghanistan are social problems that a military cannot fix.”

Reyes, who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, told the committee:

“We dishonor the patriotism and the sense of justice of our brave men and women by sending them to fight, proclaiming that they sacrifice for democracy and national security when really they struggle and die in support of nothing more than a proven criminal regime.”

After his testimony to the Democratic Party’s executive board, Corporal Reyes spoke to the Progressive Caucus, citing his recent experience meeting with legislators in Washington D.C. The 29-year old former Marine urged members of Congress to rethink their Afghanistan positions before approving any further emergency appropriations. Reyes’ lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill were joined by former female Afghanistan Parliament member Malalai Joya.

A native of Los Angeles, Reyes served tours of duty in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. Reyes had previously testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 2009 — precisely 38 years to the date after a young Vietnam veteran named John Kerry posed his own question to the Senate, “How do you ask a person to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Reyes is motivated by his concerns for the safety and well-being of his fellow Marines. “Congress must hear more voices like ours before escalating this war any further. More veterans need to speak out.”

The Afghanistan resolution’s co-authors are prominent members of the Democratic Party of California, and include Progressive Caucus Chair Karen Bernal and Congressional Candidate Marcy Winograd. Joined by the party’s Women’s Caucus, Bernal and Winograd held a forum called “Exiting Afghanistan,” featuring clips from the new Robert Greenwald documentary “Rethink Afghanistan.” Resolution co-author and journalist Norman Solomon also recounted his experience meeting with displaced Afghanis living in a wretched refugee camp outside of Kabul. Solomon, a Sonoma County resident, served as a delegate for Barack Obama at the party’s 2008 nominating convention in Denver.

Having passed through the resolutions committee successfully, the timely Afghanistan de-escalation resolution now goes to a Sunday floor vote of the Democratic party’s executive board.

By KPFK

Listen to this segment | the entire program

After months of meetings, President Barack Obama is expected to announce a decision to increase troop numbers in Afghanistan. There is some speculation as to how many troops he will add, but according to a senior military official quoted by the Wall Street Journal, a likely number is 30,000-35,000 extra US troops. Ten thousand of those troops could be used to train the Afghan National Army with the idea of transferring military control to them eventually. However, the recent election debacle in Afghanistan has called into serious question the legitimacy of the central government and President Hamid Karzai who has been implicated in serious counts of fraud. Further, Karzai’s brother is a suspected druglord, and according to the New York Times, receiving millions of dollars from the CIA. US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry has reportedly urged Obama not to send any more troops until the central government regains credibility, according to news reports of a leaked cable transmission this morning. Matthew Hoh, a former Marine Corps captain, recently became the first known US official to resign over his opposition to the Afghan war. In stepping down from his Foreign Service position in Zabul province, Hoh publicly expressed his frustrations that the war was viewed by most Afghans as an unwelcome occupation. Hoh’s statements are reminiscent of a man who most famously went public over his opposition to a similar war more than 35 years ago.