RADICAL RIGHT -- BACHMANN CLAIMS THAT THE SIX MUSLIM LEADERS DETAINED IN MN IN 2006 WERE ATTENDING ELLISON'S VICTORY PARTY: Last week KSGO 560 AM San Francisco conducted a little noticed radio interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in which the host, Lee Rogers, took issue with the fact that the voters of Minnesota were the first to elect "an openly, avowed Muslim to Congress," Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN). Rogers asked for Bachmann's reaction to the fact that Ellison helped President Obama find qualified American Muslims to serve in his administration. Bachmann blamed the "very liberal new media" in Minnesota for suppressing news of Ellison's efforts. Later, Rogers asked Bachmann about a 2006 incident in which "[s]ix Muslim religious leaders were taken off a US Airways flight in Minneapolis...and detained for several hours after some passengers and crew members complained of behavior they deemed suspicious." As the blog DumpBachmann first noted, Bachmann falsely replied that the religious leaders were in Minneapolis to attend "Congressman Keith Ellison's victory celebration, when he won as a member of Congress." In fact, the six were not attending Ellison's victory celebration. As the New York Times reported after the incident, they were on their way back from a "Minneapolis conference of the North American Imams Federation." Further, there is no evidence in any news reports that the six religious leaders fit the "pattern" of the 9/11 hijackers or that they were "shouting" anti-Bush or anti-American phrases, as Bachmann also claimed in the interview. The group was detained because other passengers on their flight were suspicious because the group was speaking in Arabic to one another and had prayed in the terminal prior to boarding. After five hours of detention and interviews, federal agents released the group finding them not to be a threat.
HUMAN RIGHTS -- AFGHAN WOMEN PROTEST MARITAL RAPE LAW: Yesterday, 300 Afghan women marched two miles through Kabul to deliver a petition to Parliament calling for the repeal of a law that effectively legalizes marital rape. As,they shouted for "equal rights and human rights," they were swarmed by 1000 counter-protesters. The counter-protesters, both male and female, shouted slurs, calling the women "dogs," "whores," and "slaves to the Christians." The law was signed on March 31 by President Karzai as an attempt to mollify Islamic fundamentalists in advance of Afghanistan's August elections. The law, which only applies to the Shia minority in Afghanistan, "negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage and restricts a woman's right to leave the home." President Obama called this law "abhorrent" and Secretary of State Clinton declared that women's rights in Afghanistan are "not marginal." After international outrage -- including a suggestion from British Prime Minster Gordon Brown that the UK could withdraw its troops over the issue -- Karzai began to back down. Earlier this month, he ordered a review of the law and yesterday a government spokesperson emphasized the the proposal was not yet law.
MILITARY -- DEFENSE AND VETERANS DEPARTMENTS UNDER-DIAGNOSE TROOPS' MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS: In an article published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, two Army mental health researchers -- Cols. Charles Hoge and Carl Castro -- say the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs "are overemphasizing mild traumatic brain injury among combat troops at the expense of other medical problems that are going untreated." Castro and Hoge say "the military should scrap screening questions meant to uncover cases of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) among troops returning from combat," as "most troops who suffered a concussion in battle recovered within days of the injury." Their article adds that symptoms blamed on TBI are more likely due to depression, PTSD, or substance abuse. Their article is the latest in a string of recent stories indicating that cases of PTSD are going largely unnoticed by the Pentagon. Last month, the Air Force Times reported that as many as 300,000 troops had PTSD but received inadequate care with only about half of all claims for the condition being approved. Just last week, Salon reported that, according to a secretly recorded audio tape, a psychologist told his soldier patient that many doctors are being pressured to not diagnose PTSD and diagnose anxiety disorders instead. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army's surgeon general, has been convinced by Casto's and Hoge's report and has said that the screening process should be changed.
