‘Repeat After Me: The United States Is Not an Imperialist Country—Oh, and Don’t Get Emotional About War’

Bill Bigelow
Rethinking Schools Blog
Reposted in Commondreams.org
December 29, 2011

You may have seen that an administrative law judge in Arizona, Lewis Kowal, just upheld the decree by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction that Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program violates state law. Judge Kowal found that the Tucson program was teaching Latino history and culture “in a biased, political, and emotionally charged manner.” According to CNN, one lesson that the judge objected to taught that the historic treatment of Mexican Americans was “marked by the use of force, fraud and exploitation.”

Try this “history detective” experiment. Ask the next person you encounter to tell you what they know about the U.S. war with Mexico. More than likely, this will be a short conversation, because that war (1846-48) merits barely a footnote in U.S. history textbooks. The most recent textbook I was assigned when I taught high school history in Portland, Ore. was American Odyssey. In 250 pages devoted to pre-20^th century U.S. history, the book includes exactly two paragraphs on this war. (The district’s new adoption, History Alive! Pursuing American Ideals, doubles the coverage to a whopping four paragraphs.)

And yet this is the war that “gave”—in the words of American Odyssey—California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and part of Colorado to the United States of America. And the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, formally ending the war, ratified the annexation of Texas, which had broken away from Mexico largely because of Mexico’s policies against slavery.

Most Mexicans know that the war against Mexico was another chapter in U.S. imperialism—a “North American invasion,” as it’s commemorated in a huge memorial in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park. But don’t take Mexicans’ word for it. Here’s what Col. Ethan Allan Hitchcock, aide to the commander of U.S. forces Gen. Zachary Taylor, wrote at the time in his journal about the war’s origins: “I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors. … We have not one particle of right to be here … It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses.”

Exactly. President James K. Polk, himself a slaveowner, had ordered U.S. troops into an area claimed by Mexico and inhabited by Mexicans and waited for them to be attacked. And when they were, Polk claimed aggression and the U.S. had its war. The invading U.S. Army actually called itself the Army of Occupation.

The abolition movement regarded the war as a land grab to expand slavery. The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass denounced the Mexican invasion as “a murderous war—as a war against the free states—as a war against freedom, against the Negro, and against the interests of workingmen of this country—and as a means of extending that great evil and damning curse, negro slavery.” Henry David Thoreau coined the term “civil disobedience” in defense of his position that people should not pay taxes to support the war against Mexico. Thoreau argued that a minority can act against an unjust system only when it “clogs by its whole weight.”

Students enrolled in Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program would likely have known this history, because, after all, this is the story of how people living in Tucson no longer live in Mexico. But according to Judge Kowal, the program violates state law. That law bans curriculum that might “promote resentment toward a race or class of people.” And, as mentioned, Kowal complained that the material in Mexican American Studies was presented in “an emotionally charged manner…”

I have not seen the full Mexican American Studies curriculum, although I know it includes important texts like Rudolfo Acuña’s classic Occupied America and Paulo Freire’s A Pedagogy of the Oppressed—a book studied in every teacher education program worthy of the name. But I’m wondering how one can teach about the history of the U.S. relationship with Mexico in a manner that is not “emotionally charged.” You want to talk about “bias”? What about the bias of a textbook that can “cover” a war like that waged against Mexico in two paragraphs, or four paragraphs, and fail to so much as quote a Mexican, an abolitionist, a soldier, a woman, an African American, or a Native American—or fail to describe the death or injury of a single human being? What about the bias of a textbook or an entire curriculum that can discuss invasion and war in a manner that is not “emotionally charged”?

Here’s a U.S. infantry lieutenant who wrote his parents after a U.S. officer named Walker was killed in battle, quoted in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States: “Gen. Lane … told us to ‘avenge the death of the gallant Walker’ … Grog shops were broken open first and then, maddened with liquor, every species of outrage was committed. Old women and girls were stripped of their clothing—many suffered still greater outrages. Men were shot by dozens … their property, churches, stores, and dwelling houses ransacked … It made me for the first time ashamed of my country.” In his memoirs, Ulysses S. Grant wrote that this was “one of the most unjust [wars] ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation …”

The problem with the school curriculum in this country is that it is not emotionally charged enough. Poverty rates are skyrocketing—especially for children of color. People are losing their homes because of the criminal behavior of huge financial institutions—and race has a lot to do with who profits and who suffers. This country’s military is still being sent to invade and occupy—and murder people with silent, invisible drones. The rich and powerful poison our atmosphere, our water, our food, and our children. So, yes, let’s have a curriculum that gets emotional—and that tells a fuller truth than is offered in our textbooks. And let’s stand in solidarity with the teachers and students in Tucson who are demanding to teach and learn about things that matter.  © 2011 Rethinking Schools

Bill Bigelow is curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine and author or co-editor of several Rethinking Schools books: A People's History for the Classroom, The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border and Mexican Immigration, Rethinking Columbus, Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World, and Rethinking Our Classrooms--Volumes 1 and 2. Bigelow lives in Portland, Oregon, and has taught high school social studies since 1978.

*****

Comment: I have always maintained that knowing the details is un-American but I say this out of a sense of sadness not gloat.  Disease travels as you know.

Bill Bigelow is one of those rare educators who pushes the boundaries of what is considered to be knowledge.  So many folks, more than just Americans, are happy to float along unconcerned with the state of the world or the real value what is sold to them as important.

Where is there time to contest reality and knowledge production when news-entertainment  keeps us posted on the really important stuff: the Kardashians, Kendra, Jerseylicious, Lady Gaga and Charlie Sheen?

How are we expected to know that the US invaded Mexico before the end of slavery and stole their land?

It was not on the E! channel was it?

And Darwin thought that we would advance because we getting smarter.  

He was wrong, advancement for the elite few is about making more people just dumber than sh*t.  If we were all equally smart do you think most of us would care who was f*cking Kim Kardashian?

I heard she is back with her old boyfriend now that the sham marriage is out of the way, no?  ;0)

Onward!

"This Christmas" and Sunday Soul

Last night I searched high and low for soulful Christmas music on TV, including satellite radio channels, but came away somewhat dismayed.

No Temptations.  No Sarah Vaughn.  Not even Mariah.  And certainly no old footage of Redd Foxx doing "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire" ... you gotta love that gravelly voice and Fred Sandford stance :0)

What stuck in my head though was a scene from a movie I happened on earlier in the day where Chris Brown is doing a rendition of the Donny Hathaway classic, "This Christmas".   

Can't get the tune out of my head, even as I should be writing elsewhere and not here.  

I like Hathaway's more up-tempo version.  It is the standard.  But I also like the version by The Whispers.  Perhaps more because it is a little more soulful, at least to me it is. 

Oh did I tell you that it is so hot in Kimberley that I wish it would snow.   

Come to think of it, the last white Christmas we had here in South Africa was right before Mandela became president - so that would make it December 25, 1993 :0)

Onward!

Too Good Not to Post: Now That's The Xmas Spirit

CLEAR MESSAGE:  A young Palestinian protester dressed as 

Santa flashes the victory sign as he stands opposite an 

Israeli soldier during a rally in Maasarah, 

near Bethlehem. (Musa al Shaer, AFP)

Onward!

Picture Credit

One Last Funky Friday for 2011

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 

AND MERRY CHRISTMAS 

TO MY CHRISTIAN SISTERS AND BROTHERS

Onward!

Ps. I am taking a break here because I have to.  And Santa Claus better stay the hell away from my momma. For real.

Peace. :0)

Fearless Women of Egypt

Onward!

Credit

Women No More Under Egypt's Military Boot

Onward! to real liberation and freedom my brave sistas ...

Picture Credit

*****

Update: See "Image of Unknown Woman Beaten by Egypt's Military Echoes Around World" by Ahdaf Soueif.

Also, "Deadly Cairo Clashes Stretch into Fourth Day" by Selim Saheb Ettab.

A protester in Cairo today (December 19) carries a picture 

of the woman who was beaten by military police 

last week. (AFP, Mohammed Abed)

Kenya's Criminal Assault on Famine-Stricken Somalia

Truthout
Stephen Roblin
December 18, 2011.

On October 15, Kenya's top security chiefs declared war on Al Shabaab, the loose coalition of Islamist militias that controls southern Somalia. The next day, hundreds of Kenyan soldiers in armored trucks and tanks reportedly "stormed" across Kenya's northern border and into the region with the goal of decimating an Islamist coalition that was originally catapulted to dominance in 2007 consequent to a US-backed Ethiopian intervention.

Since then, Kenyan airstrikes have been clearing the way for Kenyan soldiers and their Somali proxy forces as they move deeper into southern Somalia, a region from which Al Shabaab has waged a bitter war against Somalia's Mogadishu-based Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the African Union (AU) "peacekeeping" mission (AMISOM) that has prevented its collapse. Ethiopian troops have reportedly joined the invasion where they are primarily targeting Al Shabaab strongholds in central Somalia.

Southern Somalia is currently the "epicenter" of a famine that the UN believes could claim up to 250,000 lives in coming months. Famine relief efforts have been crippled by three major factors: Al Shabaab's partial ban on aid agencies, the large-scale theft of food aid by TFG-affiliated militias, and US aid restrictions - the last of which have effectively criminalized humanitarian assistance in southern Somalia since 2008.

The Kenyan intervention now joins the factors cited above as a primary obstacle to overcoming "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today." In fact, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has already found that intervention is limiting humanitarian access and has stated unequivocally that "[t]he hostilities threaten the lives of those in crisis and the ongoing humanitarian efforts to assist them."[1]

Pushing hundreds of thousands of Somalis closer to the brink of starvation, however, has done nothing to deter Kenya, nor its backers, from pursuing what is clearly an illegal intervention.

Read the rest here. 

*****

Comment: It is somewhat delusional to think that Kenya's war on Somalia is about isolated attacks by Al Shabaab.

It is even more delusional to expect that Kenya would prioritize the suffering of starving Somalis in Somalia?

Al Shabaab is not even a coherent militia.  And, there are hundreds of thousands of starving Somali refugees inside of Kenya.

The US is the agitator behind this attack on Somalia.  It has sold dreams and promises to the Kenyans and the Ethiopians (who have joined in).

The strategy is aimed at 'securing' the region which sits adjacent to the theater of middle east interests, and of course, Israel.

Why you think Israel has been 'asked' to help Kenyans fight those crazy Muslims in Somalia?

Nothing new here.  This is old cold war tactics which seek to close failed states and replace them with US-friendly client states.

And by the looks of it, Kenya and Ethiopia are buying the same sh*t.

Inside of this historical imbalance, the humanitarian principle which would have Africans caring about other Africans is set aside for stuff and other promises of more stuff.

And the stuff is not about development mind you.  It is about propping up client states with friendly Toms who care little about democracy, international law, or the fragility of their compromise.

For now, a promise is as good as gold.  It is the politics of imaginary colonial trinkets.  Still.

Onward!

Back on Script in Egypt

No mercy: Egyptian army soldiers arrest a woman protester wearing
the Niqab during clashes near Cairo's downtown Tahrir Square,
Egypt. Activists say the clashes began after soldiers severely
beat a young man who was part of a sit-in outside the
Cabinet building. (AP) Read more

Credit

Do Books "Prime People for Terrorism"?

New Statesman rolling blog
Fahad Ansari (guest post)
December 15, 2011.

This week's terrorism conviction has serious implications for freedoms of speech and thought in modern Britain.

In August 1966, Egyptian Islamist thinker and writer Sayyid Qutb was convicted in Cairo of conspiring against the state. The evidence used to incriminate him consisted primarily of extracts from his book Milestones, a treatise on Islamic governance written by Qutb during a previous stint in prison. For Egyptian President Nasser, the ideas contained in Milestones were as threatening to his position as the birth of Moses was to the Pharaoh thousands of years earlier. Nasser 's solution to his dilemma was little different from that of the Pharaoh. Kill the ideological revolution in its infancy. Qutb was executed in prison on 29 August 1966. All known copies of the book were confiscated and burned by military order, and anyone found in possession of it was prosecuted for treason.

Almost half a century later, on Tuesday 13 December 2011, British Muslim Ahmed Faraz was sentenced to three years in prison in London after being convicted of disseminating a number of books which were deemed to be terrorist publications and thereby "glorifying" and "priming people" for terrorism (despite, as the judge conceded, having had no role in any specific terror plots). One of those books is Qutb's Milestones - which is considered by some to be one of the core texts of the modern Islamist movement and the ideological inspiration for Al Qaeda. In a trial which lasted over two months, jurors had the entirety of Qutb's thoughts and ideas, as expressed in his book, read out to them to decide whether or not such ideas are permissible in 21st century Britain. They concluded that they were not and Milestones has now been deemed a "terrorist publication" and effectively banned in Britain.

Milestones is also published by Penguin Books, who previously found themselves in the dock in 1960 (around the same time that Qutb was writing Milestones) after publishing Lady Chatterley's Lover, the last case of its kind until now. However, the CPS case was that the Milestones special edition published and sold by Faraz contained a number of appendices intended specifically to promote extremist ideology. Yet these appendices consisted of a series of articles about Qutb by contemporary thinkers and writers and a syllabus of three books taught by Hassan al-Banna, the founding ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is on the verge of being democratically-elected in post-Mubarak Egypt.

Other books Faraz was selling which are now also effectively banned include those of Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian scholar who became one of the leaders of the jihad in Afghanistan against Soviet occupation, as well as a teacher and mentor to Osama Bin Laden. Ironically, Azzam's Defence of Muslim Lands and Join the Caravan were ideological and theological texts that were heavily promoted in the Western and Muslim worlds to encourage young Muslims to join the Western-backed jihad against the Soviet Union . Until very recently, both books were readily available to purchase from mainstream booksellers, Amazon and Waterstones, yet neither company seems to have been threatened with prosecution.

Whatever your view of Qutb or Azzam's works, the Faraz case has extremely serious implications for freedoms of speech and thought in modern Britain . In the land of Shakespeare and Wordsworth where more books are published every year than in any other country in the world, books could now be banned and ideas prohibited. Yet a core free speech principle is that the best way to defeat ideas is to debate and discuss them, not prohibit or criminalise them. Perhaps it is for this reason that Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf - the ideological inspiration for the most violent political movement of the 20th century - remains available in bookstores and libraries today. It is probably the same reason that the prosecution's expert witness, US-based terrorism analyst Bruce Hoffman, admitted under cross-examination that none of the books would have been banned in the United States under the first amendment of its constitution.

Many will argue that since Faraz was also convicted of possessing information likely to be of use to a person committing or preparing for an act of terrorism (including military training videos and bomb-making instructions), the books ought to be viewed through this prism. The reality is that over the course of three years, the police seized and examined 19 computers, 25 hard drives, 15,000 books, over 9,000 DVDs and videos and millions of documents, all of which belonged to a busy bookstore. Out of these, they could only find four documents which the jury concluded fell afoul of this specific law and which it could not even be proven had ever been read by Faraz.

The case also has wider implications for political debate inside the British Muslim community. To believe or to even discuss an Islamic mode of governance, the political union of Muslim countries in a caliphate and issues related to military jihad and foreign conflicts seem to have become synonymous with "glorifying" terrorism. Now that the dissemination of books which promote and advocate such ideas is being criminalised, the logical next step may be to try and ban the ultimate source of all Islamic political thought - the Qur'an itself - as Dutch politician Geert Wilders once proposed. (For those who may accuse this writer of scaremongering, journalist Yvonne Ridley was met with the same incredulity five years ago when she announced to thousands of Muslims that the government would try and ban Milestones.)

In Nasser's Egypt , thousands of copies of Milestones were destroyed and burned by the state. In 21st-century Britain , will all of us who possess copies of it now have to burn them ourselves or risk being arrested and prosecuted for possessing "un-British" books and glorifying terrorism?

Comment: What kind of judicial system inside of a democracy can find plausible reason to ban books or ideas contained in books?

This from a country who would have taken to the battlefield to protect Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses in 1988.

There is no place for censorship in a democracy.  In 1988 I was among a small group of Muslims who did not support the banning Rushdie's warmed over nonsense in South Africa or anywhere else.

My argument then was similar to when Zapiro was condemned in 2010 for defaming the Prophet; produce counter narratives, engage ideas and deconstruct that which offends you but don't stick your head in the sand.

In the US the warmongers who are supposedly the gatekeepers of democracy are now waging a war on civil liberties.

The framers of the US constitution must be spinning in their graves like a rotisserie chicken.

The right to a fair trail is soon to be a thing of the past.  Tom has declared war without even involving the congress and it won't end in the near future.

What is it about this time that makes the US and Britain so eager to violate civil liberties?  Who wants to live in a country where material is everywhere and critical ideas are hard to find even banned?

Reminds me of a time when I started looking through a bookstore in Singapore.  What the hell do people read here was my thinking.

Nothing that was even remotely critical of anything was on the shelves.  Singapore bans anything even remotely critical of its authoritarian capitalism.

In Thailand you can go to jail for long periods if you 'insult' the king, even in a book published outside the kingdom!

Now in Britain you have to worry about which books are on your shelves just in case the freedom police show up looking to trump up charges and declare you a terrorist.

In the mid 80s I smuggled a copy of The Communist Manifesto into South Africa.  I tore off the covers and put it in a jacket that had a hidden compartment.

I thought it an important act for freedom and my politics.  If I was caught it may have led to a lengthy prison term under the Suppression of Communism Act.

I would have been a "terrorist" under apartheid and I would be a terrorist sympathizer now in Britain because of the copy of Milestones on my bookshelf here in the dustbin by the hole.

The strange thing about my 'daring' is that I never read the copy I smuggled.  I never distributed it to anyone and have no idea what ever happened to it.

For me the act of acting against banning ideas was more important at the time.  So important that I did not take the next important step and read it very carefully (I had just read selectively before that) until I started taking classes in the US on political theory a year or more later.

It seems very odd to me that Britain would not see the intellectual value of countering ideas with other ideas: a kind of dialectical thinking that the west is always selling as reason.

And even while these books are banned you can read Mein Kampf on any crappy rainy day (almost year round that is) in Britain.

Huh?

So much for their so called "matured democracy".

Onward!

Kenya's Samburu People 'Violently Evicted' after US Charities Buy Land

The Guardian (UK)
Clar Nichonghaile and David Smith
December 14, 2011.

Around 2,000 Samburu families have stayed squatting on edge of disputed territory, says NGO Survival International

The pastoralist Samburu have reported constant harassment 

frompolice with women allegedly raped and animals 

seized. Photograph: Zhao Yingquan/Xinhua

Members of the Samburu people in Kenya have been abused, beaten and raped by police after the land they lived on for two decades was sold to two US-based wildlife charities, a rights group and community leader have alleged.

The dispute centres on Eland Downs in Laikipia, a lush area near Mount Kenya. At least three people are said to have died during the row, including a child who was eaten by a lion after the Samburu were violently evicted in November last year.

The London-based NGO Survival International said the Samburu were evicted following the purchase of the land by two American-based charities, the Nature Conservancy and the African Wildlife Foundation.

The groups subsequently gifted the land to Kenya for a national park, to be called Laikipia National Park.

Survival International said the land was officially owned by former president Daniel arap Moi, although AWF simply said it bought it from a private landowner.

With nowhere to go, around 2,000 Samburu families stayed on the edge of the disputed territory, living in makeshift squats, while 1,000 others were forced to relocate, Survival said.

Jo Woodman, a campaigner for Survival, said the pastoralist Samburu had reported constant harassment from police with women allegedly raped, animals seized and an elder shot as recently as last month.

"There has been an ongoing, constant level of fear, intimidation and violence towards the community, which has been devastating," Woodman said.

A community leader, who did not wish to be named, described police harassment as enormous. He said police beat people, burned manyattas or traditional homesteads and carried out arbitrary arrests during the period leading up to and including the eviction last year. He said they also confiscated many animals and the intimidation has continued.

"The situation has been really bad for a long time," he said. "[The Samburu] have nothing. Things like bedding and utensils were burned."

Kenyan police were not available on Wednesday to comment on the allegations.

Survival has written to the UN appealing for urgent action to put an end to the violence and provide assistance to the Samburu, who have gone to court to establish their right to the land.

"In one incident, a Samburu elder was shot dead by paramilitaries," the group said in its letter to the UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination, dated 7 December.

"The displaced community has nothing but their livestock, thousands of which were impounded – with no reason given – on 25 November 2011. This is an urgent and serious violation of the rights of this community, which has been left squatting beside its land with no amenities," Survival's letter said.

The two conservation groups gifted the 17,100 acres to Kenya's government in November to create a national park to be run by the Kenya Wildlife Service.

However, since then a court has banned the KWS from proceeding with the conservation project until a ruling on the Samburus' legal case.

Both US-based charities indicated they were watching the situation with concern but were unable to comment for legal reasons.

John Butler, director of marketing for the AWF, said: "The African Wildlife Foundation does not condone violence. AWF has a longstanding history of working closely with local communities to ensure that conservation solutions benefit both people and wildlife. Unfortunately, we cannot comment at length on this issue due to a pending court case in Kenya."

Blythe Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Nature Conservancy, said: "The conflict over natural resources across Africa is a serious issue. Everywhere we work in Africa, we're working with local communities to address natural resource issues. We're closely monitoring this situation; unfortunately we can't comment at length due to a pending court case in Kenya."

Kenya has a history of land-grabbing by senior government officials, particularly during Daniel arap Moi's time in power. Land disputes are common as legal documents of ownership are often missing or have been forged.

A request for comment from Kenya's Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife went unanswered. However the minister, Dr Noah Wekesa, was quoted as telling parliament last month that KWS had ceased all activity on the land, which would not be gazetted as a national park until the other legal case was resolved.

The Samburu's legal case was heard in the town of Nyeri on Wednesday and lawyer Korir Sing'Oei said the court confirmed that the KWS had secured registration of the land.

"The court has turned a blind eye to the pleas of the Samburu community and allowed these illegalities to subsist," he said. "The transfer [of the land to the KWS] is totally unlawful and it's in flagrant violation of the interests of the Samburu community."

The court had agreed to give further direction on the matter in January.

Korir Sing'Oei said he intended to address the violations of rights in a separate case.

"Last year, when the community was forcefully evicted from the land ... their homes were burnt down and livestock confiscated in their hundreds and lots of their women were violated," he said.

"Given the powerful actors who have vested interests in the land, this issue has been really hushed up in the local media," he added.

The lawyer said the evicted Samburu had no intention of leaving Laikipia, a popular destination for wildlife-loving tourists and the area where Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton in a rustic lodge.

"Where would they go to? They have absolutely nowhere else to go," he said.

The community elder said running away was not an option.

"That's the place you call your home ... it's where you were brought up and where your children call home. It's an ancestral land."

*****

Comment: Some regulars here might recall that the lawyer in this case, Korir Sing'Oei, and I are working on a book on indigenous rights in Africa.

Korir was part of the legal team who won the 2010 Endorois decision at the AU court of human rights in Banjul.

It was a landmark decision for indigenous rights in Africa.

Korir is also one of the folks who worked on the sections of the new Kenyan constitution that pertains to indigenous rights.

I am happy to see him defending the rights of the Samburu in this case.

It saddens me to see the Kenyan government backtrack on its constitutional duty to protect the rights of indigenous peoples and support their development.

The Endorois decision forces all African states who are members of the AU to respect the sovereignty of indigenous peoples.

The Kenyan government was ordered by the judgment to rehabilitate the Endorois for their losses and suffering.

They have not done so and now are in default of the court's decision.

But hardly anyone will notice.  The Samburu eviction from their own land is just another example of the low priority given to indigenous people in Kenya.

And it is no better elsewhere in Africa.

Onward!

Obama Administration Backs Bill Authorizing Indefinite Military Detention Of US Citizens

WSWS.org
Joseph Kishore
December 15, 2011.

The Obama administration declared Wednesday afternoon that it was abandoning its nominal threat to veto a military authorization bill that explicitly authorizes the indefinite military detention of anyone the federal government declares to be a terrorist or supporter, including US citizens.

The final passage of the bill is now virtually assured by the end of the week. It marks a new stage in the collapse of the most basic democratic rights in the United States and the erection of the framework of a military-police state.

From the beginning, the administration has supported all fundamental components of the bill, while criticizing it largely from the standpoint of defending executive power. In a statement, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that a few cosmetic changes this week ensured that it “does not challenge the president’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate terrorists and protect the American people.”

A few hours later, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation, 286-136, with support from both big business parties. Democrats split 93-93 on the bill, while Republicans voted for it by a margin of 193-43.

The Senate is expected to vote on it Thursday, before it arrives at the president’s desk. Both houses of Congress had already passed earlier versions of the same legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The bill would allow for the open-ended detention of anyone caught up in the “war on terror,” without trial or charges, including US citizens. This is the first explicit legislation to effectively abolish habeas corpus (the right to challenge unlawful detentions) and the constitutional rights to a fair trial (the Sixth Amendment) and due process (the Fifth Amendment).

Another provision requires that such individuals be taken into military custody, with an exception for US citizens. The military seizure of US citizens is left to the discretion of the executive branch. This means the effective abolition of the Posse Comitatus Act, which has restricted use of the military for domestic policing for more than a century.

The main concern of the administration was that the requirement for military custody could hamper actions of other agencies engaged in counterterrorism operations, such as the FBI and CIA. An earlier policy statement from last month outlined the White House position that the requirement on military detention was an “unnecessary, untested, and legally controversial restriction of the President’s authority to defend the Nation from terrorist threats that would tie the hands of our intelligence and law enforcement professionals.”

The White House has cited the extra-judicial assassination of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki (a US citizen) as evidence that there should be no restraints on the form through which executive power is exercised.

In response to White House pressure, House and Senate negotiators on Monday agreed to compromise language that states that nothing in the bill will affect “existing criminal enforcement and national security authorities of the FBI or any other domestic law enforcement agency…regardless of whether such… person is held in military custody.”

Another measure would allow the president to waive requirements on the grounds of “national security.”

The administration also expressed the concern that the explicit authorization of indefinite detention was not necessary, as the White House claims that this power is already incorporated in the Authorization to Use Military Force, passed in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. Its inclusion in the bill could prompt judicial review. Carney’s statement declared, “Though this provision remains unnecessary, the changes ensure that we are merely restating our existing legal authorities and minimize the risk of unnecessary and distracting litigation.”

Commenting on the amended version, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement earlier this week: “The sponsors of the bill monkeyed around with a few minor details, but all of the core dangers remain—the bill authorizes the president to order the military to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others found far from any battlefield, even in the United States itself.”

This assault on fundamental democratic rights has been packaged into a $662 billion military spending bill, including funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill also includes new sanctions against Iran and the renewal of the AUMF, which was passed after the September 11 attacks and used to justify everything from aggressive war to domestic spying.

It incorporates a sweeping definition of those who are subject to the law, including anyone who “substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces” and “any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities.” This language can be stretched to include virtually anyone, including political opponents of US wars justified on the pretext of the “war on terror.”

The battlefield is defined in the legislation to encompass the entire world, including the “homeland”—that is, the United States. A person can be detained “under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities”—that is, forever.

The White House was particularly concerned to ensure that the legislation not restrict the ability of the executive to detain US citizens indefinitely. During the early drafting procedure, it requested that Congress strip out language that would have excluded citizens from the indefinite detention clause.

The entire “debate” within the political establishment over the NDAA testifies to the collapse of any commitment to democratic rights within the American ruling class.

*****

Comment: The US is starting to feel a lot like apartheid South Africa.  

Detention without trial was standard operating procedure for the apartheid security police. 

The military was used to police the citizenry.  And, they locked up political prisoners indefinitely on an island too.

Where are my 'liberal' friends now? 

Are they watching their 'change we can believe in' president whittle away the very constitution they thought he would protect?

I guess most of them conveniently looked the other way when he voted for the Patriot Act.

Now where they gonna look? 

Tom has just joined the crazies and declared war on some of the most important constitutional rights granted to citizens.

The right to be charged.  The right to a speedy and fair trail.  These are part of the foundation of American democracy.

It is more than a slippery slope hey.  They need more than a limp '"Occupation" that's for sure.

And now the ugly truth is known; Obama is no better than Bush, in fact, he is worse.

Onward!

That Time of Selling Again

I like Christmas.  Well, I like it where it snows and there is Egg Nog and some semblance of a festive mood beyond the incessant capitalization (just about hard to miss anywhere these days though).

I grew up appreciating Christmas and respecting what it means to Christians cause my grandma taught me so.

Just a few hours ago I was in a store and they were piping in Christmas tunes amidst the hurry of folks who seem to be on a holiday treadmill.

It is all familiar.  The hurry.  The rush.

And then the let down.  It is inevitable.  You do know that this time of the year more people commit suicide than any other time of the year?

Oh yeah, did I tell you that more people kill themselves here in the Northern Cape than in any other province in South Africa?  And they do so all year round too!

OK, so my rant is really about how capitalists shape Christmas (other holidays too).  It is a holiday so commercialized now that it has lost any spiritual meaning (mostly).

They selling us stuff.  All of us.  And they selling prejudices too wrapped up in feel good crap.

Thought you may like this blast from the not so distant past:

 Does it not just suck?  Bet the other box is a blender!

So Guru, if you planning on buying that make-belief significant other a gift this Christmas, make it a real gift.

Try a microwave for Chinese leftovers.  Or a popcorn maker for game days.

I'm getting my make-belief girlfriend lingerie.  Again.

Onward!

Ps. I wonder if she would rather have a Kawasaki?

Image Credit (Dunno)

Israeli Settlers Attack Mosque in al-Quds

PressTv
December 14, 2011.

Israeli settlers have once against attacked a mosque in the western part of al-Quds (Jerusalem) to terrorize the Palestinian community, residents say. 

The settlers moved to set the mosque ablaze on Wednesday and scrawled anti-Arab graffiti on the walls of the building, AFP reported.

The attackers also set fire to a building nearby, the report said.

"A good Arab is a dead Arab" and "price tag" were spray-painted by the settlers on the exterior walls of the mosque.

Israeli settlers are the main suspects behind "price tag" operations on mosques in the Palestinian territories.

Under the so-called "price tag" policy, Israeli settlers regularly engage in attacks against Palestinians and their properties, in supposed reaction to Tel Aviv's operations against illegal settlements.

Muslim nations have frequently blamed such acts on the Israeli regime, calling them a sacrilege of Islamic sanctities. The Israeli settlers have been heavily armed by Tel Aviv, and enjoy near immunity.

Violence by extremist settlers against the native Palestinian population is routine.

*****

Comment:  And the UN will be doing what exactly to protect Palestinians from these Israeli thugs.

Can we expect Nato to launch an aerial bombardment of Israeli and its settlements until they respect the human rights of Palestinians?

Or, are Palestinians just less than human?

What a sham!  The west kills Gaddafi but it sat on its hands as Israel bombed Gaza to pieces.  Where was the concern for the innocent victims of Israel's inhumane actions (which have never seized).

Bet you hear not a peep out of Tom or Killary on this round of action by Israeli terrorists.

Onward!

Iran rejects US Calls for Return of Spy Drone

Guardian (UK)
December 13, 2011.

Defence minister demands apology from Washington for invading Iranian airspace and says plane is now its property

Iran has rejected US calls for the return of a spy drone captured by its military and instead demanded an apology from Washington.

Tehran last week identified the drone as an RQ-170 Sentinel and said it was captured over the east of the country. The almost-intact aircraft was displayed on state TV and heralded as a victory for Iran in its protracted intelligence and technological battle with the US.

Iran's defence minister, Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi, said: "Their plane invaded Iran and Iranian forces reacted powerfully. Now, instead of offering an apology to the Iranian nation, they impudently ask for the return of the plane."

US officials say the unmanned aircraft malfunctioned and was not brought down by Iran.

President Barack Obama said on Monday the US wanted the surveillance aircraft back and has delivered a formal request for its return, though Iran is not expected to comply.

But Vahidi said the US should instead apologise for invading Iranian airspace. "Iran will defend its stance and interests strongly," he added in remarks carried by the semi-official Mehr news agency.

Hours after Obama's request, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reiterated his minister's comments. "The Americans have perhaps decided to give us this spy plane," he said in an interview broadcast live on Monday night on Venezuelan state television. "We now have control of this plane."

On Tuesday the Iranian legislator Hamid Rasaei told an open session of parliament the drone would remain in Iran, describing it as "war booty". Later, 186 legislators in the 290-seat assembly issued a statement condemning the "invasion" and urging the international community to take a tough stance over the "dangerous act".

Meanwhile, Iranian media said Obama's plea for the drone's return put the US in the role of a "beggar".

There are concerns in Washington that the Iranians may attempt to reverse-engineer the chemical composition of the drone's radar-deflecting paint or the aircraft's sophisticated optics technology that allows operators to identify suspected terrorists from tens of thousands of feet in the air.

There are also fears that the drone's database could be hacked, although it is not clear whether any data could be retrieved – some surveillance technologies allow video to stream through to operators on the ground but do not store much collected data, but if they do, it is encrypted.

Another legislator, Parviz Sorouri, claimed on Monday that Iranian experts were in the final stages of recovering data from the captured drone.

*****

Comment: Should Iran ask the US to return its frozen assets in the US?  

The more I think about this it seems plausible that the US may have 'sacrificed' the drone so as to escalate the manufactured crisis with Iran.

Of course, my assumption credits the US with thinking ahead.

Dunno.

Onward!

Imperialism through the Looking Glass

Dissident Voice
Kim Petersen
December 12, 2011.

Imperialism is Antithetical to the Sovereign Equality of States

How are Westerners to make sense of human precepts that espouse the goodness of sharing with those less fortunate while western corporations plunder the wealth from the land of those in dire need? How is it that Westerners can make sense of the professed desire for peace and love for fellow humans when western militaries wreak violence on smaller nations and blithely explain away civilian deaths as “collateral damage”?

It makes one wonder: on which side of the looking glass are we?

If one wandered to the other side of the looking glass — where up is down and down is up, where left is right and right is left, where good is bad and bad is good — what would one find? How does imperialism look like on the other side of the mirror?

Just imagine what would have been the reaction of the United States if Iran was running a covert spy operation against it and refused to discuss the matter?1

What would have been the reaction if an Iranian drone had been brought down/crashed in the continental United States? One can easily imagine the outcry and indignation. It would certainly be described as a clear-cut casus belli. What if the Iranian reaction to its “lost” drone were merely to deny the authenticity of the drone?2 Or what if it the reaction were to deny its drone had been brought down by the US?3 ,4

What if the reaction were merely to downplay US acquisition of Iranian technology?3 What if the Iranian reaction to the loss of its surveillance craft5 were unapologetic, as if spying on a sovereign nation was its right?6

What if this were one of many preceding drone tresspasses?7

What would the reaction be if Iran built a case against the US based on dollops of disinformation, manipulating international personnel charged with nonproliferation responsibility, and targeted the US economy by pressing for worldwide sanctions8 for failing to live up to many clauses in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty including the preamble which states,

Desiring to further the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery pursuant to a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control…9

In the “real world,” the US has continued to maintain and update its nuclear stockpile in clear contravention of the NPT.10

What if the Iranian president and foreign minister all declared that “no options were off the table” in how to deal with the nuclear threat posed by the United States?11

Imagine if Iran had attempted to shut down nuclear facilities in the US and Israel with a computer virus?12 How would the US and Israel have responded?

Imagine if Iranian black operatives were assassinating nuclear scientists in Israel while denying it all back home “with a smile.”13 Imagine if explosions mysteriously erupted from Dimona?14 What would be the reaction in Israel – especially if a former Iranian head of state security hinted his state was behind it all acting as “the hand of Allah”?15

What if part of the justification for destruction of Israeli nuclear facilities was that Israeli-made drones were used by Iran’s nemesis, the US, to overfly its neighbour state, Iraq?16 ,17

If, as a part of modern historical record, Iran had plotted and helped bring about the overthrow of an elected US government and then replaced it with an authoritarian monarch kept in place with a draconian state security, how would Americans view the Iranian state?18

If everything detailed here has happened mirror opposite against Iran, how then is it that a serial aggressor state like the US19 has any moral clout to denounce Iran? How is that Israel, a serial violator of international law, has any moral standing to pronounce on Iran?

Is the United Nations not based on the “sovereign equality of all its Members” as stated in the UN Charter?20 Why then should the reaction among UN members differ in response to similar provocations?

How does one state justify its possession of weapons of mass destruction while denying other states the same right of possession? What happened to Iraq and Libya when they gave up possessing WMD?

What has happened to North Korea which gained possession of nuclear bombs? What conclusions should the Iranian state reach from all of this?

Does each state not have the inalienable right to self-defense equal to that of other states?21

*****

Comment: If you spend enough time around Americans you will soon realize that most of their identity and world view is based on a violent white exceptionalism.

This is true for most Americans across the racial divides.  White exceptionalism is an imperial mindset and not a skin color.

An example, last night I found myself watching a program about American truck drivers plying their trade in India (somewhere in the Himalayas).

Ummm don't ask why.

It did not take too long for the usual American arrogance that pronounces 'reality' at every second to appear.

One trucker in particular, a good ol' boy from Alabama, took exception to the manner that Indians appear on the streets of their own country.

"These people have no commonsense.  Why do they stand around in thousands on street corners as if they have nothing to do," he said as he tried to negotiate Indian traffic patterns. 

"Why don't they go home and watch cable TV or play Playstation or something," he blurted out rudely over incessant comments about "these people" this or "these people" that.

Somewhere toward the end of the program the fat ass stood around sanctimoniously delivering an assessment of his sanity versus the insanity of Indians.

'I have been to every state in the US (note the world is the US).  All the major roads and the secondary roads too," he pressed with incredulous eyes which offered a western rational gaze for those who need to confirm that whiteness (particularly its American version) can insert its authority at any point in the constructed continuum of the Other.

Alabama red dismissed India.  Its people.  Its layered history.  And he did so based on his experience driving a Tata truck (for a few hours) in Delhi!

The authority of the western white gaze is the critical definition of imperial American exceptionalism.

It is practiced and consumed by those who depend on whiteness to define a reality.

"These people" are a category or consciousness that allows a white fat fool who drives a truck for a living to be a 'rational' signifier of value anywhere in the world.

It is a historical disfigurement and it is violent (always).

Iran, for example, must be bombed to save Iranians from their inherent irrationality and destructiveness.  (Think of how Columbus discovered America when there were folks there already - or how Hegel's rationalism is not drawn from other non-western thinkers because they did not understand rationalism until he explained their theory to them)

This (un)thinking is founded on the exceptionalism that whiteness is the superior (even only) rationalism that stretches across time - even before the garden of Eden (god/Jesus is reason therefore god/Jesus must be white).

Any other rationalism is mere mimicry.  Whiteness is godly and ordained to prescribe value (if Jesus was brown it is the business of whiteness to make him white since he should have known better).

This is true even where whiteness absorbs eastern values and then reorders its value (think of Yoga and its disassociated practice inside of whiteness - yoga as exercise only).

So Iran must be bombed to death in order to save the west from the destruction they signify - with or without nuclear weapons.

The Iranian mind (the racialized Other) is criminally destructive.  Any weapon is nuclear whether it exists or not.  (Kill em before they grow)

Liberal pundits in the west will absolve the excesses of whiteness as mistakes but punish severely any such semblance in the Oriental sphere.

Simply put, whiteness is the imperialism that constructs all western 'reality'.  And whiteness is not a skin color.  It is a disfigured world view backed up by the violent ability to pronounce rationality over all things.

This power to interpret.  Is why the west sees its exceptionalism as 'reasonable and real'.

Iran will be dangerous until it is destroyed.  Like Libya.  Like Vietnam.  Like Somalia. 

In its place the imagined Iran will be imposed to signify the 'reason' of whiteness and its imperialism.

This to the white American mind is not injustice or unreasonable.

It is 'reality' and it comes with a side of fries and a Big Gulp Coke.

And we are not free.

Onward!

Civilian Killings Created Insurmountable Hurdle to Extended U.S. Troop Presence in Iraq

Washington Post
Liz Sly
December 11, 2011.

HADITHA, IRAQ — In the accounting of what was won and lost in America’s Iraq war, this sleepy farming town deep in the western desert will rank as a place where almost everything was lost.

It was here, on Nov. 19, 2005, that a group of Marines went on a shooting spree in which 24 Iraqi civilians were killed. Their patrol had been hit by a roadside bomb and one of their comrades was dead. They ordered five men out of a taxi and gunned them down. Then they went into three nearby homes and shot 19 people, including 11 women and children.

On those facts, U.S. and Iraqi accounts agree. On just about everything else — why it happened, whether it was justified and how it was resolved — they do not.

And in those dueling perceptions, over the killings in Haditha and others nationwide, lay the undoing of the U.S. military’s hopes of maintaining a long-term presence here. When it came to deciding the future of American troops in Iraq, the irreconcilable difference that stood in the way of an agreement was a demand by Iraqi politicians for an end to the grant of immunity that has protected on-duty U.S. soldiers from Iraqi courts.

“The image of the American soldier is as a killer, not a defender. And how can you give a killer immunity?” said Sami al-Askari, a lawmaker who is also a close aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

So the troops are going home this month, leaving a question mark over what had been one of the chief goals of the war — to nurture a strategic ally in the heart of the Middle East.

They leave behind a legacy that will forever be tainted in the minds of many Iraqis by the casualties inflicted by the American military on civilians. It’s the raw nerve that jangles, a sensitivity that grates on both sides even as the troops stream out of the country.

The Iraqi government’s decision “has saved the lives of many Iraqis,” said Yusuf al-Anizi, 38, the embittered brother of one of the Haditha victims. “Otherwise, we would have more tragedies to pile on the many tragedies we have seen.”

Exactly how many Iraqis were killed by Americans may never be known. An analysis last year by King’s College London of 92,614 civilian deaths reported from 2003 through March 2008 by Iraq Body Count — a Web site that monitors civilian casualties — found that 12 percent were caused by coalition forces. Though there is no reliable figure for total civilian casualties throughout the nearly nine-year-long war, most estimates put the overall number of deaths at more than 100,000. According to the Defense Department, 4,474 American service members have died, 3,518 of whom were killed in action.

The vast majority of civilian deaths were the result of Iraqis killing Iraqis, whether in bombings or the sectarian bloodletting that engulfed the country in 2005-07, said U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan.

In most of the incidents of acknowledged violations, such as the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, servicemen and women have been brought to trial, and many are serving prison sentences, Buchanan said.

And in the case of Haditha, there was a thorough investigation, he pointed out. Charges were brought against seven Marines, though they were dropped against six of them and the seventh was acquitted. An eighth Marine will stand trial in January.

“We take all of these things seriously,” Buchanan said. “We do in fact hold trials, and we treat them in accordance with the law. And if they are not found guilty, we’re not going to put people in prison.”

In explaining the breakdown in talks over the immunity issue, the U.S. military blames above all the behavior of private contractors. Buchanan singled out the Nissoor Square incident in 2007, in which Blackwater security guards killed 17 civilians at a busy traffic circle in Baghdad.

‘It’s in the air’
 
While Haditha and Nissoor Square became potent symbols for many Iraqis, just as vexing were the smaller, often untold incidents of civilians shot dead at checkpoints or near convoys by nervous soldiers fearful that they were about to be attacked, said Peter Van Buren, a State Department official who worked with Baghdad’s Provincial Reconstruction Team in 2009-10. When he arrived, he said, he was struck by the disconnect between Iraqi and U.S. perceptions of the war.

“We tried to convince them we were the good guys and that we’d got rid of Saddam, but given all the killings that had happened, that never hung together,” he said, recalling an occasion when he distributed fruit trees to farmers in a rural area. One refused to accept the seedling and spat on the ground. His son had been killed accidentally by U.S. forces, the farmer said, “and you’re giving me a fruit tree?”

“It’s in the air, it’s in the water, it’s the background music to what we do,” Van Buren said. “The Iraqis remember it even if we don’t. It will be a very dark legacy, and it’s one that will follow us around the Middle East.”

Officers who served acknowledge that such killings soured relations but say there’s little that can be done to avoid civilian casualties in urban warfare. In instances such as the Haditha killings, Iraqis “have every right to be bitter,” said retired Col. Peter Mansoor, who commanded a combat brigade in Baghdad in 2003-04 and then returned as executive officer to the top U.S. commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, during the surge of U.S. troops in 2007-08.

“In most cases, the circumstances are a lot cloudier,” he said. “The enemy does not wear uniforms. U.S. forces are taking fire, and they hit civilians. It’s harder to assign blame.”

On two occasions in 2003, soldiers under his command killed civilians by mistake — once when a family of six drove unwittingly into the middle of a firefight with insurgents, and later at a checkpoint when a family rushing a child to the hospital failed to stop.

Troops learned lessons as the war went on, he said. They learned to construct checkpoints in ways that made boundaries clearer. After the surge, when soldiers went to live in Iraqi neighborhoods, they learned to better distinguish friend from foe.

“I’m sure those families will never forgive the killings,” he said of the six civilians shot dead by his soldiers. “But when you look at it from the soldiers’ point of view, it was justified. It’s very hard, and obviously it led to a lot of ill will.”

No welcome for Americans
 
There is no limit to the ill will that envelops Haditha, a pretty, palm-fringed, town of 43,000 bordering a lake in the heart of the desert province of Anbar. Outward signs of the violence that raged have been erased. The bridge over the Euphrates River, on which al-Qaeda in Iraq once publicly beheaded suspected collaborators before it was bombed by U.S. warplanes, has been repaired. The spot where the roadside bomb exploded has been paved over.

The house where seven members of the Hamid family died is empty, and the one where eight members of the Yunis family were killed is occupied by distant relatives.

Only the Anizi family still lives in the squat, dun-colored home in which four male relatives were gunned down in a back bedroom by two Marines. A third kept watch in a nearby room over the brothers’ elderly father, their wives and Khaled, then age 14, the son of one of the men.

Khaled tried to read the names on the Marines’ uniforms when they entered the house, “but they were covered with blood,” he said. “Their hands and vests were soaked in blood. They only wanted revenge. When they came, I could see tears in their eyes. When they left, they were laughing.”

“They are barbarians,” added Yusuf, Khaled’s uncle, the only surviving brother of the victims, who was away at the time.

After the killings were exposed by Time magazine in 2006, the attitude of the U.S. military changed, Yusuf said. The FBI came to investigate. The family received condolence payments of $2,000 for each of the four men. They were promised that those responsible would be brought to justice.

But then the attention faded. Yusuf heard through news reports that most of the charges brought against the Marines had been dropped. The U.S. military left its base in Haditha nearly two years ago, and local officials can’t remember the last time Americans visited the town. They wouldn’t be welcome if they did.

“We wish they never had come,” Yusuf, for whom the withdrawal brings no consolation, no sense of closure said. “The injustice is a bigger crime than the crime itself,” he said. “And now we know for sure justice will never be done.”


Correspondents Uthman al-Mokhtar and Asaad Majeed contributed to this report.

*****

Comment: So many many people lost their lives in Iraq because the US fought a bloody and selfish war that went nowhere but cost the lives of millions.

Is it just me or do some of the commentators above think that stating the obvious kinda absolves them from what was done to the Iraqi people?

You know very well that this war is not over in the American imagination.  Hollywood and media outlets will re-imagine it for America.

That process is well on its way in popular culture renditions of the war and what it represents.

The soldier experience will be highlighted and humanized while Iraqis will play add-ons to the self-obsessed American psyche.

New Rambos and new heroes of the screen will erase this monumental murder that borders on genocide because it is hardly done.

Like Vietnam, we will be fed faked-out interpretations replete with hero-soldiers struggling to make sense of the war and their life back in the US.

Violent flashbacks will contextualize the soldier/US as hero-victim of the good they went to do 'over there'.

All the while Iraqis will be erased.  They will hardly exist.  Written out of their own lives.

We have been here countless times before.

Onward!

Delusional Cameron

Credit

Gingrich: Palestinians An ‘invented’ People

Salon.com
December 10, 2011.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is telling a Jewish cable channel that Palestinians are an “invented” people and that they are really Arabs who chose not to live elsewhere.

The Jewish Channel on Friday released excerpts of an interview in which the former House speaker says there was no Palestine as a state and that the residents there were part of the Ottoman Empire before the creation of the state of Israel.

Gingrich says Palestinians were historically part of the Arab community and that they had a chance to go many places.

Gingrich says the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has been, quote, “delusional.” He says President Barack Obama’s effort to treat the Palestinians the same as the Israelis is actually, as he puts it, “favoring the terrorists.”

*****

Comment: This from the man who is the Republican front-runner for the US presidency.

Is there no end to the idiocy?

Onward!

Rape in the US military: America's Dirty Little Secret

Guardian (UK)
Lucy Broadbent
December 9, 2011.

A female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be attacked by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire

"It was eight years before I was able to say the word that describes what happened to me," says Maricella Guzman. "I hadn't even been in the Navy a month. I was so young. I tried to report it. But instead of being taken seriously, I was forced to do push-ups."

"I can't sleep without drugs," says Kate Weber. "But even then, I often wake up in the middle of the night, crying, my mind racing. And I lie there awake in the dark, reliving the rape, looking for a second chance for it to end with a different outcome, but he always wins."

Rape within the US military has become so widespread that it is estimated that a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be attacked by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. So great is the issue that a group of veterans are suing the Pentagon to force reform. The lawsuit, which includes three men and 25 women (the suit initially involved 17 plaintiffs but grew to 28) who claim to have been subjected to sexual assaults while serving in the armed forces, blames former defence secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates for a culture of punishment against the women and men who report sex crimes and a failure to prosecute the offenders.

Since the lawsuit became public in February, 400 more have come forward, contacting attorney Susan Burke who is leading the case. These are likely to be future lawsuits. Right now they are anxiously awaiting a court ruling to find out if the lawsuit will go to trial. The defence team for the department of defence has filed a motion to dismiss the case, citing a court ruling, dating back to 1950, which states that the government is not liable for injury sustained by active duty personnel. To date, military personnel have been unable to sue their employer.

Whether or not the case goes to trial, it is still set to blow the lid on what has come to be regarded as the American military's dirty little secret. Last year 3,158 sexual crimes were reported within the US military. Of those cases, only 529 reached a court room, and only 104 convictions were made, according to a 2010 report from SAPRO (sexual assault prevention and response office, a division of the department of defence). But these figures are only a fraction of the reality. Sexual assaults are notoriously under-reported. The same report estimated that there were a further 19,000 unreported cases of sexual assault last year. The department of veterans affairs, meanwhile, released an independent study estimating that one in three women had experience of military sexual trauma while on active service. That is double the rate for civilians, which is one in six, according to the US department of justice.

Read the rest here.

*****

Comment: An absolutely despicable situation.  And, this report only deals with rape inside the US military.

What needs to be factored in are the rapes/sexual assaults of civilians where the US military is stationed or at war.

Does the US keep a tally of the number of rapes/sexual assaults inflicted by its military personnel on civilians (women and men) in their so called field of operations?

I can recall high profile cases in Japan in 1995 (Okinawa rape incident) and one in 2008.  But what about Iraqi, Afghan, and other victims?

Another day, another disgusting story about the US military.

Onward!

"Freedom Rider: Black America at the Bottom"

Black Agenda Report
Margaret Kimberley
December 7, 2011.

 

The nation’s economic news is grim indeed, and is the grimmest of all for black Americans. Recently released census data shows that while the median yearly income in this country is $50,000, it is only $32,000 for black people, the lowest of any other racial group in the country. Hispanics had a median income of $37,000, whites $49,000 and Asians $64,000.

Simply put, black Americans are at the absolute bottom of the economic heap in a county still teetering from the effects of a seemingly endless recession. The term recession is something of a misnomer because it does not adequately describe the worldwide crises endemic to capitalism. As western nations take their citizens on a dizzying race to the bottom with various austerity measures, the fate of people already on the bottom grows more precarious by the day.

It is not coincidental that the dismal economic prospects for black people has occurred at the same moment that black politics limps along on life support. Black politics traditionally affirmed a right, indeed an obligation, to speak directly to the needs and aspirations of the masses of people. It has been substituted with feelings of vicarious joy when a black person reaches a high office.

Enter Barack Obama, the beneficiary of both black loyalty and a system which he assessed astutely as being ready for the right black man to come along. He fills the duel roles perfectly, giving good feelings about his presence in the White House but this presence is a result of promising to do nothing that the 1% would find inconvenient.

Sadly, the bloom is not yet off of the Obama rose, with a continuation of bizarre poll results indicating that the group doing the worst has the greatest degree of optimism. But the income and other indicators don’t lie and don’t change because most black people still love the president who looks like them but who goes out of his way to ignore them and their needs.

While phony government figures claim that employment numbers are improving, more than 46 million Americans are now receiving food stamps, a record. As the leaders of European countries struggle to keep the crises of Greece, Italy and Spain from spinning out of control, it is tempting to anticipate the post capitalist world. The thought experiment is interesting, but one thing is clear. When the dust eventually settles, black people will be at the bottom of a destroyed system.

If Barack Obama is re-elected, it is likely that black support for him will also continue, and the downward spiral will continue too. What is the future of a group always living on the cusp of disaster when a huge disaster takes place? No one can predict if the world economy will collapse

Armageddon-like, or whether it too will limp along, under performing and slowly putting millions of people in ever more dire conditions.

It is difficult to imagine a worse scenario, but imagine it we must. The Obama phenomenon has silenced a people who were once the most likely to speak out against inequality and injustice. The death of movement politics has made black people the perfect victims of the descent of their nation’s and the world’s economies.

Barack Obama’s role in exacerbating the crisis goes unnoticed while tangential characters are given needless attention. Every hateful statement from the mouth of Newt Gingrich is dissected and railed against but Gingrich has not been in power in this country for a long time. He played no role in the bank bailout and he did not declare that Social Security would be placed on the budget cutting table. Obama did those things and put an already suffering group further and further behind.

There has been a ray of hope lately provided by the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The group condemned for a lack of focus has focused on neighborhoods with high housing foreclosure rates and acted to put people back into their houses. The Occupy Our Homes actions are doing what movements have always done, forcing the powerful to respond to popular demands.

Black Americans do not have to continue acting like sheep going to the slaughterhouse. They can remember their history of bold action. They do not have to continue being last on the income list, and the political list. If movement politics can be resurrected the group at the bottom now does not have to stay there. There is hope for a different future, if people are unafraid to remember how great changes came about in the past.  (© 2011 Black Agenda Report)

Comment: Surprised?

You shouldn't be, really.  All that Obomber nonsense is a ruse, really.

I was thinking the other day that my disbelief in the presidency of Obama was more about my fear that his presence would deal a severe blow to the struggle against racism.

I was wrong about him not being able to win the White House.  Very wrong as it turned out.

But I was right about my fear.

His presidency is a smokescreen to make it seem as if most blacks and Latinos are reaping equal benefits.  Forget Native folk, they don't exist.

And then the other night Harry Belafonte appears on SABC explaining to South Africans how racism is stopping Obomber from creating that race-free society he bragged about.

There is no such thing as race-free, non-racial, or post-race in a race obsessed state like the US.  Why would anyone even believe such bullsh*t?

And why would a celebrity civil rights veteran like Belafonte make excuses for a Frankenstein ass like Obama?

Is Guantanamo closed?  Black sites still open?  Drone murders still the order of the day?  Prisons full of black and brown?

That Uncle Tom did exactly what rich white folks thought he would.  And he did it without paying mind to blacks, Latinos, and the poor in general.

He is, after all, a construct of white corporate America.  He bailed their asses out with billions of tax money the rich hardly contributed to.  And he left the poor chronically unemployed and scraping life together on food stamps.

That blank check Dr King talked about is still nothing more than a bounced check.  If he was alive today Dr King would turn his back on that monstrosity they erected in DC to supposedly recall his "dream".

Obama ain't a damn dream.  This murderer is a nightmare.  And yet folks of color, most of them, will trot down on election day and vote his ass into office again.

And my white liberal friends will tell me that he is not perfect but he is not Bush, McCain, Caine, or Gingrich.

True.  No doubt.

The f*cker is worse than all of them rolled up together.  At least with those f*ckers we know what we getting.

And what are we left with after a term in office?

This slick corporate weapon has reduced the resistance to "Occupy" gestures.  Even stalwarts of the struggle against racism have fallen for his ploy(s).

One of those, Cornel West, has found his damn senses at last.

The power of Obama is not his ability to make what he says come true.  Truth is he f*cking straight out lied and still folks believe he really occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The power of Obama is his ability to lull people into a deeper false consciousness.  He is one of the greatest sellers of snake oil ever.

So why should anyone be surprised that the usual folks are being screwed?

Same as it ever was.  And we are not free.

Onward!