tagged w/ US Foreign Policy
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Mark Weisbrot
The Guardian Unlimited, February 18, 2010
See article on original website
In a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia this week, Hillary Clinton said that Iran “is moving toward a military dictatorship” and continued the Administration’s campaign for tougher sanctions against that country.
What could America’s top diplomat hope to accomplish with this kind of inflammatory rhetoric? It seems unlikely that the goal was to support human rights in Iran. Because of the United States’ history in Iran and in the region, it tends to give legitimacy to repression. The more that any opposition can be linked to the United States’ actions, words or support, the harder time they will have.
Second, it is tough for anyone – especially in the region – to believe that the United States is really concerned about human rights abuses. In addition to supporting Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza, Washington has been remarkably quiet as the most important opposition leaders in Egypt were arrested as part of the government’s preparations for October elections. Amnesty International stated that the arrestees were "prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their peaceful political activities."
So what is the purpose of a speech like this? The most obvious conclusion is that it is to promote conflict and to convince Americans that Iran is an actual threat to their security. Americans generally have to be prepared and persuaded for years if they are to accept that they must go to war. The groundwork for the Iraq war was laid during the Clinton presidency. President Clinton imposed sanctions on the country that devastated the civilian population, carried out bombings and publicly declared that Washington’s intention was to overthrow the government. Although, as we now know, Iraq never posed any significant security threat to the United States, President Clinton spent years trying to convince Americans that it did.
President Bush picked up where President Clinton left off; and President Clinton publicly supported his campaign for the war. So did Hillary, and she defended her decision in 2008 even as it looked like it might cost her the presidency.
President Obama is unlikely to start a war with Iran – which would likely begin as an air war, not a ground war – not least because he already has two wars to deal with. But, as in the case of the Iraq war, his Secretary of State is preparing the ground for the next president that may have a stronger desire or better opportunity to do so. There is a strong faction of our foreign policy establishment that believes it has the right and obligation to bomb Iran in order to curtail its nuclear program, and they have a long-term strategy.
The public relations campaign is working. A new Gallup poll finds that 61 percent of Americans see Iran as “as a critical threat to U.S. vital interests,” with an additional 29 percent believing that it is “an important threat.” It is not clear why anyone would believe this; even if Iran did obtain a nuclear weapon, which is still a ways off, they would not have the capacity to deliver it as far as the United States. Nor is it likely that they would want to commit national suicide, any more than a number of other countries that currently have nuclear weapons.
The Obama team’s messaging is not nearly so successful with regard to the issues that the vast majority of the electorate will base their votes on in this year's elections: the most recent ABC News/Washington Post Poll (Feb. 4-8) finds that 53 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy.
For the immediate future, foreign policy concerns will likely rank low, far behind the economy, for the electorate. But the Obama team’s foreign policy will hurt Democrats in the future. If I believed what Hillary Clinton and the Democratic leadership are telling me, I would have to consider voting Republican. If it’s really true that all these people just want to kill us for no reason; that it has nothing to do with our foreign policy or wars; that we can effectively reduce terrorism by bombing and occupying Muslim countries; and that terrorism is the country’s most urgent security threat – then why not vote for the party that looks tougher? This will inevitably come back to haunt the Democratic Party, as it did in the 2002 and 2004 elections.
Meanwhile, U.S. military spending - by the Congressional Budget Office’s relatively narrow definition of the Department of Defense budget – reached 5.6 percent of GDP in 2009. Just before September 11, 2001, the Congressional Budget Office projected this spending for 2009 at 2.4 percent of GDP.
The difference, over 10 years, is more than four times the ten-year cost of proposed health care reform.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He has written numerous research papers on economic policy, especially on Latin America and international economic policy. He is also co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000) and president of Just Foreign Policy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/feb/18/hillary-clinton-iran
picture: http://ashleyb8807.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/propaganda_attackiraq.jpgMark Weisbrot
The Guardian Unlimited, February 18, 2010
See article on original... more
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Engdahl: Geo-physics suggest there could be massive oil and mineral deposits in Haiti
F William Engdahl is an economist and author and the writer of the best selling book "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order." Mr Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively. He is based in Germany.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=360Engdahl: Geo-physics suggest there could be massive oil and mineral deposits in Haiti... more
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US interference in the politics of Haiti and Honduras is only the latest example of its long-term manipulations in Latin America
February 01, 2010 By Mark Weisbrot
Source: The Guardian
Mark Weisbrot's ZSpace Page
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When I write about US foreign policy in places such as Haiti or Honduras, I often get responses from people who find it difficult to believe that the US government would care enough about these countries to try and control or topple their governments. These are small, poor countries with little in the way of resources or markets. Why should Washington policymakers care who runs them?
Unfortunately they do care. A lot. They care enough about Haiti to have overthrown the elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide not once, but twice. The first time, in 1991, it was done covertly. We only found out after the fact that the people who led the coup were paid by the US Central Intelligence Agency. And then Emmanuel Constant, the leader of the most notorious death squad there - which killed thousands of Aristide's supporters after the coup - told CBS News that he, too, was funded by the CIA.
In 2004, the US involvement in the coup was much more open. Washington led a cut-off of almost all international aid for four years, making the government's collapse inevitable. As the New York Times reported, while the US state department was telling Aristide that he had to reach an agreement with the political opposition (funded with millions of US taxpayers' dollars), the International Republican Institute was telling the opposition not to settle.
In Honduras last summer and autumn, the US government did everything it could to prevent the rest of the hemisphere from mounting an effective political opposition to the coup government in Honduras. For example, they blocked the Organization of American States from taking the position that it would not recognize elections that took place under the dictatorship. At the same time, the Obama administration publicly pretended that it was against the coup.
This was only partly successful, from a public relations point of view. Most of the US public thinks that the Obama administration was against the Honduran coup, although by November of last year there were numerous press reports and even editorial criticisms that Obama had caved to Republican pressure and not done enough. But this was a misreading of what actually happened: the Republican pressure in support of the Honduran coup changed the administration's public relations strategy, but not its political strategy. Those who followed events closely from the beginning could see that the political strategy was to blunt and delay any efforts to restore the elected president, while pretending that a return to democracy was actually the goal.
Among those who understood this were the governments of Latin America, including such heavyweights as Brazil. This is important because it shows that the State Department was willing to pay a significant political cost in order to help the right in Honduras. It convinced the vast majority of Latin American governments that it was no different from the Bush administration in its goals for the hemisphere, which is not a pleasant outcome from a diplomatic point of view.
Why do they care so much about who runs these poor countries? As any good chess player knows, pawns matter. The loss of a couple of pawns at the beginning of the game can often make a difference between a win or a loss. They are looking at these countries mostly in straight power terms. Governments that are in agreement with maximising US power in the world, they like. Those who have other goals - not necessarily antagonistic to the United States - they don't like.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jan/29/us-latin-america-haiti-honduras
picture--http://mitchieville.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/honduras-coup.jpgUS interference in the politics of Haiti and Honduras is only the latest example of... more
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Peter Hallward, Danny Glober, and Anthony Fenton contribute to breaking down the media avoidance of Haiti's history of foreign intervention. According to Hallward, Haiti's poverty can be explained as a series of foreign responses to the independence and strength of the Haitian people, but since the media doesn't acknowledge this, they are forced to propose weakness and bad luck as the sources of Haiti's poverty. Glover adds that without the history, we are prone to misunderstanding and the blaming of the victim, which in some cases serves to absolve us of our own responsibility for the situation. Fenton reminds that it's not only the U.S. that has taken part in undermining democracy in Haiti, in recent years Canada has played a very significant role, among others.
Bio
Peter Hallward is a Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University in England. In 2007 he published the acclaimed historical account of post-1990 Haitian politics, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment. He is the editor of the journal Radical Philosophy and a contributing editor to Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.
Danny Glover is a long-time actor and activist. While attending San Francisco State University, Glover was a member of the Black Students Union who along with the Third World Liberation Front led the five month strike. Not only did this help to create the first school of Ethnic Studies in the U.S., but it was also the longest student strike in the history of the United States. He is presently chair of the TransAfrica Forum, "a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the general public — particularly African-Americans — on the economic, political and moral ramifications of U.S. foreign policy as it affects Africa and the Diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin America". Glover is the director of the upcoming movie Toussaint, detailing the life of Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution.
Anthony Fenton is a Canadian-based independent researcher and journalist. He is the co-author of Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority. His work has been published by Asia Times, The Dominion, Foreign Policy in Focus, IPS, Mother Jones, Upside Down World, THIS Magazine, and others.Peter Hallward, Danny Glober, and Anthony Fenton contribute to breaking down the media... more
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Watch the video here:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4715
Zbigniew Brzezinski on Iran
But my view on Iran is that we have to be patient, and that deterrence can work. We don't need to increase the scale of the conflict in the region that we have been discussing, because an increase in that conflict involving the Iranians in a collision with us would make our task in Afghanistan absolutely impossible. It would probably reignite the conflict in Iraq, would set the Persian Gulf ablaze, would increase the price of oil twofold, threefold, fourfold, and Americans will be paying five, six dollars a gallon at the gas stations. Europe will become even more dependent on the Soviet Union for energy. So what is the benefit to us?
...All I'm saying is don't trifle with the silly notion, oh, we'll just bomb them and the problem is solved. It's a false analogy, and historically it's one fundamental lesson we shouldn't forget: Stalin and the Soviet Union was more of a threat than Iran ever will be, and yet we deterred it. Mao Zedong talked of a nuclear war which might kill 300 million people, and so what [inaudible] we didn't have a war with the Chinese. Why should we act like crazies in dealing with Iran?
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=74&jumival=512
(picture: http://www.jewcy.com/files/images/Brzezinski_Zbigniew.jpg)
Zbigniew Brzezinski Zbigniew Brzezinski is a CSIS counselor and trustee and cochairs the CSIS Advisory Board. He is also the Robert E. Osgood Professor of American Foreign Policy at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, in Washington, D.C. He is cochair of the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus and is a former chairman of the American-Ukrainian Advisory Committee. He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council. He was a member of the Policy Planning Council of the Department of State from 1966 to 1968; chairman of the Humphrey Foreign Policy Task Force in the 1968 presidential campaign; director of the Trilateral Commission from 1973 to 1976; and principal foreign policy adviser to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential campaign. From 1977 to 1981, Dr. Brzezinski was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter. In 1981, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his role in the normalization of U.S.-China relations and for his contributions to the human rights and national security policies of the United States. He was also a member of the President’s Chemical Warfare Commission (1985), the National Security Council–Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy (1987–1988), and the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (1987–1989). In 1988, he was cochairman of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force, and in 2004, he was cochairman of a Council on Foreign Relations task force that issued the report Iran: Time for a New Approach. Dr. Brzezinski received a B.A. and M.A. from McGill University (1949, 1950) and Ph.D. from Harvard University (1953). He was a member of the faculties of Columbia University (1960–1989) and Harvard University (1953–1960). Dr. Brzezinski holds honorary degrees from Georgetown University, Williams College, Fordham University, College of the Holy Cross, Alliance College, the Catholic University of Lublin, Warsaw University, and Vilnius University. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. His many books include America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy (Basic Books, 2008), coauthored with Brent Scowcroft and David Ignatius; Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower (Basic Books, 2007); The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership (Basic Books, 2004); The Geostrategic Triad: Living with China, Europe, and Russia (CSIS, 2001); The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic ImperativWatch the video here:... more
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Excerpt:
“They spent a trillion dollars to add more fuel to the fire of the terrorist war. The Americans crushed Iraq and Afghanistan . There are too many people in these two countries who lost their homes, jobs and loved ones because of the USA, and those people are ready to do anything to harm the Americans. Washington will have to pay for this politics. As for the situation in other countries, one may say that there is no country in the world that can defend itself against terrorist attacks. Recent attacks in India’s Mumbai prove that,” the expert said.Excerpt:
“They spent a trillion dollars to add more fuel to the fire of the... more
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In a 'manual' which is officially to be released only to 'students from foreign countries on a case-by-case basis only', the US Army outlines a program of what it now calls 'irregular warfare', in fact US state sponsored terrorism, insurgency, and PSYOPS.
(click on the link for the full article and in-text links)In a 'manual' which is officially to be released only to 'students from... more
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Secret reports, Secret budgets, Secret operations, Secret courts … A Secret Government!
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. — Patrick Henry
As stated by Patrick Henry with conviction and passion, a democratic government will not last if its operations and policies are not visible to its public. The foundation of our democratic republic is supposed to be based on an open and accountable government. Transparency is what enables accountability.
For several decades post 1945, under the guise of the Cold War, with the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency and an aggressive foreign policy based on overt and covert intervention abroad, the seeds of excessive secrecy were planted, aggressively nurtured, and taken to heights not imaginable in our founding fathers’ vision of transparent and accountable government. Although the Watergate Scandal brought a short-lived wave of awakening, and to a certain degree defiance, by getting Americans to question the extent of and the real need for governmental secrecy, the subsequent political movements were eventually halted with no real action ever taken, thanks to a Congress unwilling to truly exercise its oversight authority over the intelligence community.
With the September 11 Terrorist Attacks the establishment had all it needed to take government secrecy to new heights where neither the Constitution nor the separation of powers would matter or be applicable. These new heights could never be reached in a functioning and live democracy, nor could they be sustained and flourish without a home marked by all the characteristics of a police state. Those new heights were indeed reached, and they surely have been not only sustained, but actually increased; notch by notch. Waving the national security flag nonstop, reminding us on a daily basis of some vague boogiemen terrorists who may be hiding under our beds, drilling the words terror-terrorists-terrorism every hour, did the magic; thanks to the US Media.
(much more at link)Secret reports, Secret budgets, Secret operations, Secret courts … A Secret... more
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(This is a playlist of 7 videos - each successive video will launch automatically)
An investigation into the deadly world of germ weapons, Anthrax War begins in New York in the days following 9/11. Anthrax-laced letters, mailed to media and U.S. senators, killed five people and spread fear and panic throughout the nation.
For filmmaker Bob Coen, who was raised in Zimbabwe where the former white regime has been accused of unleashing anthrax against the black population, biological weapons have a deep personal meaning. He embarks on a journey that raises troubling questions about the FBI's investigation of the 21st century's first act of biological terrorism.
Coen's investigation takes him from the U.S. to the U.K. and from the edge of Siberia to the tip of Africa. In a rare interview, Coen confronts "Doctor Death" Wouter Basson, who headed Project Coast, the South African apartheid-era bio-warfare program. Project Coast used germ warfare against select targets within the country's black population.
Anthrax War also investigates the mysterious deaths of some of the world's leading anthrax scientists, including Dr. David Kelly, the UK's top military microbiologist, the Soviet defector Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, and Dr. Bruce Ivins. The FBI claims - despite the doubts of highly ranked U.S. officials - that Ivins was the only person behind the U.S. anthrax murders.
In tracing the 2001 bio-terror attacks in the U.S. to the heart of the U.S. bio-defense program, this film raises an alarm. These attacks that helped prepare a country for war have also spawned a multi-billion dollar bio-defense boom. The line between bio-offense and bio-defense is becoming extremely thin. Biological weapons research is now being conducted by corporations and private labs without effective government oversight. The international treaty prohibiting the development of offensive bio-weapons may no longer be sufficient to keep the world from drifting towards the unthinkable biological warfare.
Anthrax War was written by Harold Crooks and Bob Coen, directed by Bob Coen, shot by Dylan Verrechia, edited by Rosella Tursi and produced by Christine LeGoff and Natalie Dubois. Executive producers are Arnie Gelbart, Yves Jeanneau and Eric Nadler. Anthrax War is a Canada-France coproduction produced by Galafilm and TelFrance/Transformer Films for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Société Radio-Canada and ARTE.(This is a playlist of 7 videos - each successive video will launch automatically)... more
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The poverty in Afghanistan is almost beyond imagining. Thirty Afghans die from TB every day; life expectancy is 43 years; per capita income is $426; only 13% have access to sanitary drinking water; fewer than one in four are literate; access to electricity is among the lowest in the world. Conditions for women are brutal. If Obama plans to address these issues, he's pretty much keeping it secret, points out world poverty expert Jeffrey Sachs. But without addressing them, can stepped-up American military involvement succeed? Or is it bound to fail?
(more at link)The poverty in Afghanistan is almost beyond imagining. Thirty Afghans die from TB... more
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The U.S. military may hand security responsibility in parts of Afghanistan to local leaders and their security men and police rather than President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-trained national army, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday.
The strategy underscores U.S. doubts about Karzai as well as the prospects of training enough Afghan National Army soldiers in parts of Afghanistan to allow for a smooth handover of security responsibilities under a new U.S. timetable.
( read the whole article at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03484377.htm )The U.S. military may hand security responsibility in parts of Afghanistan to local... more
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Osama Bin Laden has been dead for years and the ghost is what the MIlitary Industrial Complex wants you too believe he's still alive!Osama Bin Laden has been dead for years and the ghost is what the MIlitary Industrial... more
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Afghan refugees who fled the war-torn south have claimed they are so neglected by government in Kabul that their children are dying from hypothermia for want of the most basic supplies.
Families that left Helmand, Kandahar and other southern provinces to escape the fighting between US-led forces and a resurgent Taliban say the cold is much more lethal.
Living in a make-shift camp on the edge of Kabul, residents told Al Jazeera's James Bays that no government official has ever come to see how they have been forced to live.
The claim comes as UN officials say Afghan children are suffering disastrous levels of abuse and deprivation.
Rights of the child
At a news conference marking the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child this week, officials said children’s rights were being neglected despite vast flows of Western aid into the country.
“Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world," said yCatherine Mbengue, country representative for the UN children’s fund Unicef.
“Seventy per cent of the population has no access to safe drinking water. Thirty percent of children are involved in child labour. Forty-three per cent of girls are married under-age,” she said.
More than one in four children born in Afghanistan die before the age of five, according to Unicef estimates.Afghan refugees who fled the war-torn south have claimed they are so neglected by... more
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British officials discussed toppling Saddam Hussein in 2001 but rejected a policy of “regime change” as illegal under international law, the Iraq war inquiry has heard.
On its opening day of public hearings, Sir John Chilcot’s public inquiry into the invasion heard that British diplomats heard the “drumbeat” of war emanating from Washington even before the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The inquiry into the war, which cost 179 lives, opened yesterday with a promise from Sir John, a former Whitehall mandarin, to "get to the heart of what happened" and "not shy away" from criticising anyone who made mistakes.
The first day of the inquiry in central London was attended by several relatives of service personnel killed in Iraq. Outside, a small number of protesters gathered, several with fake blood on their hands accusing Tony Blair, the former prime minister of war crimes.
(more at link)British officials discussed toppling Saddam Hussein in 2001 but rejected a policy of... more
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This is a must listen - Interview With Malalai Joya
The Current for November 19, 2009 - CBC -
Hamid Karzai was sworn in for another term as Afghanistan's President this morning. This against the backdrop of explosive news here in Canada that in 2006 and 2007, senior government officials including the prime minister's office and the defense ministry were told Afghan detainees taken by Canadian troops and handed to Afghan officials were subject to beatings and electric shocks.
This morning as Ottawa reels from news that could affect Canadian politics and it's place in international law... a lone Afghan woman is making her way across to Canada arguing that our troops and all foreign forces should get out.
Malalai Joya was 27-years-old when she became the youngest person elected to the new Afghan Parliament. She's now suspended from Parliament for criticizing other MPs and accusing many of being warlords and criminals. She calls Afghanistan's democracy a farce and says her country's liberation is a lie. She has written a book called A Woman Among Warlords. Malalai Joya was in Toronto.
Please wait a moment for audio to load, then press play.This is a must listen - Interview With Malalai Joya
The Current for November 19,... more
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As the White House considers sweeping strategic shifts in the war in Afghanistan, heroin addicts across the nation called on President Obama Monday to stick with the current U.S. policy, which has flooded the world market with low-price narcotics. "There's no need to change nothing, Joe Biden," said addict Reginald "Bones" Dillow, who, when conscious, is an outspoken proponent of the U.S. military strategy that has resulted in a nearly 40-fold increase in Afghan opium production since the end of Taliban rule in 2001. "Everything is so cheap—it's all totally fine like it is, right? Over there, I mean. Why would you want to…do the…[garbled]." Obama is reportedly looking into economic incentives that would both persuade poor Afghans to cease opium cultivation and benefit chemically dependent Americans, the most promising of which involves constructing facilities in the war-torn country for the manufacture of methadone.As the White House considers sweeping strategic shifts in the war in Afghanistan,... more
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Talk by 27-year Veteran of the CIA Ray McGovern on "Why Accountability for Torture Is Crucial for Human Rights, Our Security and Our Souls" given November 12, 2009 at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus in Seattle. Talk sponsored by Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture http://www.wsrcat.org
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Yes, it is a lengthy video, but an important one nonetheless.Talk by 27-year Veteran of the CIA Ray McGovern on "Why Accountability for... more
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Conn Hallinan | November 12, 2009
Before the Obama administration buys into General Stanley McChrystal's escalation strategy, it might spend some time examining the August 12 battle of Dananeh, a scruffy little town of 2,000 perched at the entrance to the Naw Zad Valley in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province.
Dananeh is a textbook example of why counterinsurgency won't work in that country, as well as a case study in military thinking straight out of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
(click on the link for the full story)Conn Hallinan | November 12, 2009
Before the Obama administration buys into General... more
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To combat terrorism, we should address the root causes of poverty, says former "economic hit man" John Perkins.
Excerpt:
I recalled my visits with the Bugi people when I was sent to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in the early 1970s. The Bugi had been infamous pirates since the time of the East India companies in the 1600s and 1700s. Their ferocity inspired returning European sailors to discipline their disobedient children with threats that “the bugiman will get you.” In the 1970s, we feared that they would attack our oil tankers as they passed through the vital Strait of Malacca.
I sat with one of their elders on the Sulawesi shore one afternoon. We watched his people build a sailing galleon, known as a prahu, much as they had for centuries. Like a gigantic beached whale, it was high and dry, propped upright by rows of gnarled stakes that resembled roots sprouting from its hull. Dozens of men hustled about it, working with adzes, hatchets, and hand drills. I expressed the concerns of my government to him, intimating that we would retaliate if the oil lanes were threatened.
The old man glared at me. “We were not pirates in the old days,” he said, his bushy white hair bobbing indignantly. “We only fought to defend our lands against Europeans who came to steal our spices. If we attack your ships today, it is because they take the trade away from us; your ‘stink ships’ foul our waters with oil, destroying our fish and starving our children.” Then he shrugged. “Now, we’re at a loss.” His smile was disarming. “How can a handful of people in wooden sailing ships fight off America’s submarines, airplanes, bombs, and missiles?”
(much more at link)To combat terrorism, we should address the root causes of poverty, says former... more
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Excerpt:
"Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort."Excerpt:
"Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a... more
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