Author and journalist, Dahr Jamail, will be speaking at the University of Alaska Anchorage Monday evening. Here's the campus newsletter announcement:Monday, Nov. 16, 7 p.m.
Social Sciences Building, Room 118
Dahr Jamil's new book is called "The Will to Resist," and a book signing will follow his talk. Jamail's visit is sponsored by the Gene Sharp Lectureship on Nonviolent Action, UAA Political Science Department and the UAA Campus Bookstore. For more information, contact Rachel Epstein at (907) 786-4782.
Last weekend, in a post titled Senate Homeland Security Committee Head Lieberman Wants to Investigate "The Worst Terrorist Attack Since 9-11", I posted a transcript I made of part of Dahr Jamail's interview nine days ago with Shannyn Moore on KBYR-AM. I also linked to Steve Heimel's Talk of Alaska segment with Jamail earlier the same week.
Jamail's two books are:
- The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. 2009. Haymarket Books.
- Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq. 2007. Haymarket Books.
This will be an important talk and I recommend it highly. Here is Dahr Jamail last week, being interviewed by Thom Hartmann:
In an article today by Turkana at DailyKos, about the huge percentage of infants being born in Falluja with birth defects - 15 times the Iraqi average - is covered in detail. Dahr Jamail is quoted extensively, as he covered both Fallujah battles, perhaps better than any other journalist alive:
The U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report.
"Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah," 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. "They used everything — tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground."...
"They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud," Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. "Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them."
He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. "People suffered so much from these," he said.
I'm looking forward to meeting Dahr tomorrow.
Update - 8:30 p.m: A video on the increasing birth defects in Falluja, by The Guardian:
Firedoglake has more.