formerly AfterDowningStreet
U.S. Pursues War, Chaos in Middle East and North Africa
“If there is a substantial military strike on Iran, it is going to create mayhem in the region,” said Dr. Vijay Preshad, director of International Studies at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut. “And that is precisely what the Gulf Arabs and the United States would like to see. The last thing they want is a proper Arab Spring germinate into new, democratic regimes in North Africa and Est Asia.”
McKinney: America Guilty of “Sociocide”
The U.S. is engaged in “sociocide” – the “wholesale destruction of entire societies,” said Cynthia McKinney, the former Georgia congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate. “One can honestly say that sociocide has occurred in Iraq and Libya,” she said. “This is purposeful behavior, to go into these countries and destroy all aspects of the infrastructure.”
Obama Outdoes Bush in Power-Grab
“Obama has claimed vastly more power than Bush did,” said peace activist David Swanson, publisher of the influential web site WarIsACrime.org. “He has gone to great lengths to protect and cover up and provide immunity to his predecessors and, in doing so, claimed greater powers of secrecy than his predecessor ever claimed.” Of 35 article of impeachment drawn up by Rep. Dennis Kucinich against President George Bush, in 2008, 27 would also apply to Obama, said Swanson. “Many of these are offenses that a great many people would be outraged about – if Obama were a Republican.”
DemoPublicans Speak with Forked Tongue
Organizers of the Occupy encampment at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, expect large numbers of protesters to gather for month-long activities in April, including direct actions. In addition to protests, said Dr. Margaret Flowers, “we also need to build something that will replace the power structure.” The Democratic and Republican electoral rhetoric amounts to “a false conversation that’s limited by their corporate funders. The real conversation will be happening in the Occupy movement.”
Stop Stop-and-Frisk
“Spying on communities has got to go, stop-and-frisk has got to go,” shouted Kalfani Nkrumah, leading the chants at a Bronx, New York, demonstration by Stop Stop-and-Frisk. “If our elected officials refuse to stand up for us, then they have to go to, too.”
Michelle Authenticates Obama
Attendees at a recent conference on “African Identities in the Age of Obama,” at Virginia’s George Mason University, “were outright frank about why they voted for Obama, in 2008: “because he was married to a ‘sister.’” Conference organizer and professor of history Benedict Carton said President Obama “didn’t come from a historical trajectory of slavery in Ameriva and post-slavery dynamics.” African Americans “needed to root him through his wife.”
In the Spirit of Lumumba
The election of Patrice Lumumba as prime minister of newly independent Congo, in 1960, was that country’s first and last free election, said Luwezi Kinshasa, secretary general of the African Socialist International and a Congolese. In the spirit of Lumumba, Africans must “struggle to overturn all compromises made with imperialism,” and take ownership of the continent’s resources.
Lynn Stewart’s Appeal
On February 29, imprisoned movement lawyer Lynn Stewart appeals her 10 year sentence on charges of aiding “terrorists” – in her defense of “blind sheik” Obama Abdel Rahman, convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. “If there were the rule of law” in the United States,” said Stewart’s husband, Ralph Poynter, “Lynn would not be in jail.”
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Tuesday at 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.
Iran: A Manufactured Threat
by Stephen Lendman
Iran attacked no other country in over 200 years. It threatens none now. It's neighbors know it. So do Washington and Israel.
Israeli Political Prisoner Khader Adnan Near Death
by Stephen Lendman
Thousands of Palestinian political prisoners languish in Israeli prisons. Virtually daily, more arrests are made. Those incarcerated face torture, appalling prison conditions, and other forms of abuse.
As rhetoric heats up regarding possible military action on Iran, some military officials are advocating the use of a little talked about arsenal in the military's arsenal: marine mammals. Marine mammals such as dolphins and sea lions have already been enlisted, and some are advocating the use of dolphins in the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking to NPR, retired Adm. Tim Keating touted dolphins as part of a strategy for navigating the Strait of Hormuz if Iran were to put mines there:
The U.S. has several options if Iran tried to close the Strait of Hormuz now.
"Laying mines is an act of war, so it would be up to our nation's leaders to determine how aggressive our response would be," says retired Adm. Tim Keating, who commanded the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain during the run-up to the Iraq war.
He says the best way to defeat mines is to spot them.
"We'd likely know immediately, if not very shortly thereafter, which ships did it, where they're coming from, where they're going back to," Keating says.
The surveillance includes sophisticated drone aircraft — and a sophisticated mammal.
"We've got dolphins. ... They are astounding in their ability to detect underwater objects," he says.
The U.S. Navy sent dolphins to the Persian Gulf as part of the American invasion force in Iraq. Keating confirms they were "present in the theater," but he declines to talk about whether the animals were used or not.
The Atlantic Wire notes that while the Navy states that the dolphins would be used to just detect the mines,
the mammals are large enough to detonate a live mine, a prospect that doesn't delight animal rights groups.
The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal program states on its website:
... the U.S. Navy has found that the biological sonar of dolphins, called echolocation, makes them uniquely effective at locating sea mines so they can be avoided or removed. Other marine mammals like the California sea lion also have demonstrated the ability to mark and retrieve objects for the Navy in the ocean. In fact, marine mammals are so important to the Navy that there is an entire program dedicated to studying, training, and deploying them.
The use of these mammals has prompted opposition. Bioethics professor and author Peter Singer wrote that these dolphins are essentially involuntarily drafted soldiers with no rights:
The United States no longer conscripts its citizens to fight its wars. All its human troops are volunteers. But even conscripts have some basic rights. The dolphins have none. [...]
... just when we are starting to realize how gravely we are wronging animals, and to do something about this – like the very welcome European Union ban on standard battery cages for laying hens, which came into effect on 1 January this year – we ought not to be finding new ways to exploit them.
Dolphins have nothing to do with the dispute over Iran's nuclear plans. Whatever the rights and wrongs of taking military action against Iran, let's leave the dolphins out of it.
The Marine Mammal Program isn't new, as Frontline documents:
The Navy's Marine Mammal Program began in 1960 with two goals. First, the Navy wanted to study the underwater sonar capabilities of dolphins and beluga whales to learn how to design more efficient methods of detecting objects underwater, and to improve the speed of their boats and submarines by researching how dolphins are able to swim so fast and dive so deep. In addition to this research component, the Navy also trained dolphins, beluga whales, sea lions and other marine mammals to perform various underwater tasks, including delivering equipment to divers underwater, locating and retrieving lost objects, guarding boats and submarines, and doing underwater surveillance using a camera held in their mouths. Dolphins were used for some of these tasks in the Vietnam War and in the Persian Gulf. The Marine Mammal Program was originally classified, and was at its peak during the Cold War. The Soviet Union's military was conducting similar research and training programs in the race to dominate the underwater front. At one point during the 1980's, the U.S. program had over 100 dolphins, as well as numerous sea lions and beluga whales, and an operating budget of $8 million dollars. By the 1990's, however, the Cold War was over, and the Navy's Marine Mammal project was downsized. In 1992, the program became declassified. Many of the dolphins were retired, and controversy arose over whether or not it would be feasible to return unnecessary dolphins to the wild.
* * *
This video from the U.S. Marine Mammal Program, complete with pleasant music, shows some of the tasks the dolphins and sea lions perform:
Flying under radar control with a B-66 Destroyer, Air Force F-105 Thunderchief pilots bomb a military target through low clouds over the southern panhandle of North Vietnam. June 14, 1966. (Photo: Lt. Col. Cecil J. Poss, USAF)
George Orwell coined the useful term “unperson” for creatures denied personhood because they don’t abide by state doctrine. We may add the term “unhistory” to refer to the fate of unpersons, expunged from history on similar grounds.
The unhistory of unpersons is illuminated by the fate of anniversaries. Important ones are usually commemorated, with due solemnity when appropriate: Pearl Harbor, for example. Some are not, and we can learn a lot about ourselves by extricating them from unhistory.
Right now we are failing to commemorate an event of great human significance: the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s decision to launch the direct invasion of South Vietnam, soon to become the most extreme crime of aggression since World War II.
Kennedy ordered the U.S. Air Force to bomb South Vietnam (by February 1962, hundreds of missions had flown); authorized chemical warfare to destroy food crops so as to starve the rebellious population into submission; and set in motion the programs that ultimately drove millions of villagers into urban slums and virtual concentration camps, or “Strategic Hamlets.” There the villagers would be “protected” from the indigenous guerrillas whom, as the administration knew, they were willingly supporting.
READ THE REST AT TRUTHOUT.
AP: Police investigators say a highly decorated Iraqi war veteran shot and killed his wife before fatally shooting himself in their Daytona Beach apartment.
Authorities found the bodies of 28-year-old Jason Pemberton and his 25-year-old wife Tiffany on Sunday after a neighbor called police about a dog on the couple's balcony. Police say the shootings likely occurred Saturday.
Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood says neighbors told them they frequently heard arguing in the apartment.
Pemberton's uncle, Darrell Pemberton of Evergreen, Ala., told the Daytona Beach News-Journal his nephew earned three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and other medals during three tours of duty. The uncle says he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and received a medical discharge from the U.S. Army in 2009 due to a back injury.
By Dave Lindorff
It’s a relief to know that President Obama’s “preferred” solution to dealing with disagreements with Iran is diplomacy, as he said yesterday in an interview on NBC TV, but at the same time, it’s profoundly disturbing that he is simultaneously saying that, as an AP report on the interview put it: he would “not take options off the table to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.”
If we don't attack them, they'll attack us. If we do attack them, they won't attack us because they have no capacity to do so. Got it? Plus, if we don't launch this mass-murder of Iranians, Israel would be humiliated. (Even though the majority of Israelies oppose it too.) We must have our priorities straight.
By Laura L. Myers | Reuters –
SEATTLE (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has dismissed all charges against the last of five soldiers to face a court-martial in the slaying of unarmed Afghan civilians, officials from their home base near Tacoma, Washington, said on Friday.
Army Specialist Michael Wagnon had been charged with premediated murder in the death of a villager in Afghanistan during a tour of duty in February 2010.
"As of right now, he's pretty much a free man," said Lieutenant Colonel Gary Dangerfield, a spokesman for Joint Base Lewis-McChord. "He is still in the Army but a free man."
Check this out.
Heading for War on Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Washington's longstanding policy is regime change in Iran and Syria. At issue is replacing independent regimes with client ones and securing unchallenged control of valued Middle East resources.
America's Racist Drug Laws
by Stephen Lendman
Sentencing Project Executive Director Marc Mauer's a leading expert on sentencing, race, and criminal justice.
By Michael Hayne, Addicting Info
So you remember how Dick Cheney and company did everything in their diabolical power to hoodwink America into going to war with Iraq and liberating the Iraqi people from the brutal fist of Saddam Hussein pursuing a petty vendetta and building a permanent American imperialistic free-market paradise? Although a significant portion of the American electorate is still in therapy to suppress the dark Bush/Cheney years and the Statue of Liberty still suffers from acute nausea, perhaps you recall the John Yoo Torture Memo, the infamous memo that the Bush Administration relied on in justifying its harsh interrogation “techniques” on prisoners overseas. This was the memo that was in force when the Abu Ghraib detainees were subjected to cruel treatment and torture, including “Waterboarding“, Dick Cheney’s favorite water sport that was used on a variety of essential and non-essential prisoners to extract information (and to make Cheney smile).
I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.
What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.
Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.
Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.
My arrival in country in late 2010 marked the start of my fourth combat deployment, and my second in Afghanistan. A Regular Army officer in the Armor Branch, I served in Operation Desert Storm, in Afghanistan in 2005-06 and in Iraq in 2008-09. In the middle of my career, I spent eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve and held a number of civilian jobs — among them, legislative correspondent for defense and foreign affairs for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.
As a representative for the Rapid Equipping Force, I set out to talk to our troops about their needs and their circumstances. Along the way, I conducted mounted and dismounted combat patrols, spending time with conventional and Special Forces troops. I interviewed or had conversations with more than 250 soldiers in the field, from the lowest-ranking 19-year-old private to division commanders and staff members at every echelon. I spoke at length with Afghan security officials, Afghan civilians and a few village elders.
I saw the incredible difficulties any military force would have to pacify even a single area of any of those provinces; I heard many stories of how insurgents controlled virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a U.S. or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base.
I saw little to no evidence the local governments were able to provide for the basic needs of the people. Some of the Afghan civilians I talked with said the people didn’t want to be connected to a predatory or incapable local government.
From time to time, I observed Afghan Security forces collude with the insurgency.
READ THE REST AT Armed Forces Journal
By Dave Lindorff
Something very small and yet enormous happened this past week.
On Feb. 2, two women who have been fighting for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, filmmaker/professor Johanna Fernandez and National Lawyers Guild Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, visited Abu-Jamal, as each has done in the past, but this time, because he has been moved off of death row, for the first time since 1995, he was able to greet them with a hug--free of leg shackles and handcuffs.
For the first time too, since 1995, there is a photo to record that seemingly mundane and ordinary event.
Monday morning at 7-8AM tune in (KPFK 90.7 fm) or log on: http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/index.php?shokey=ctd
Lila Garrett’s CONNECT THE DOTS. Guests include:
Robert GreenwaldHead of Brave New Films and producer-director of Rethink Afghanistan about Obama’s decision to stop the war with…or more accurately the war on Afghanistan… in 2013 , one year earlier than predicted. Are we finally to have peace or are we just moving into another war, this time with Iran. Producer Greenwald takes the positive point of view.
David Swansoncovers his new book on the Military Industrial Complex. MIC at 50. a collection of essays by a remarkable group of experts on the United States policyofpermanent war. MIC at 50 includes not only distinguished journalists, professors and the like, but CIA and military alumni who once helped build that policy.
Former Colonel Ann Wrightis one of those experts. She spent 35 years in the military before resigning to become a peace activist. She tells her story and more….
Monday morning at 7 on CONNECT THE DOTS.
Lila Garrett (Host of CONNECT THE DOTS)
KPFK 90.7 FM in LA; 98.7 Santa Barbara: 93.7 San Diego
Airs Mondays from 7AM to 8AM.
To pod cast or download the broadcast just use this link:
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/index.php?shokey=ctd
Each show is on line for three months.
Can we close the Futenma Marine Base Without Constructing Additional Marine Bases in Okinawa?
Hosted by Nago City & Network for Okinawa
When: Wednesday, February 8th 2012 11am-Noon
Where: 2456 Rayburn House Office, (Congressional Office Building) 45 Independence Ave SW
Who: Susumu Inamine, Mayor of Nago City, Okinawa, Japan
John Feffer, Network for Okinawa, Institute for Policy Studies
What: A briefing with the Mayor of Nago-City, Okinawa, Japan to talk about U.S. military spending and closing the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station
To RSVP, please send an e-mail to nagomayorvisit2012@gmail.com
CvillePodcast
Rick’s guests this week were Brandon Collins and David Swanson with Charlottesville’s Center for Peace & Justice.
Citizens Leading the Way to Peace and Development in Iraq
A Conversation with Iraqi Civil Society Leaders
February 6th, 2012
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Busboys & Poets - 5th & K
1025 5th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Come to Busboys & Poets (5th & K, NW) on February 6th from 6pm – 8pm to hear four prominent leaders of Iraq’s growing citizen sector speak about the current challenges and opportunities for long-term transformation following the U.S. troop withdrawal. The speakers are deeply-rooted in the complex struggles and fears still weighing heavily on Iraqi communities, and are working through Iraqi nonprofit service organizations to prevent bloodshed and help their country forge a brighter future. This is an opportunity for people who support Iraqis in their search for peace to engage Iraqi citizen leaders in informal conversation.
An opportunity to meet four extraordinary activists with extensive knowledge of the current Iraqi situation.
Ms. Hanaa Edwar is the secretary general of one of Iraq’s largest and oldest NGO’s, the Iraqi Al-Amal Association, founded in 1992. She has been a Human Rights,
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woman’s rights, and democracy activist for more than 40 years. In 2011 she was awarded the Sean MacBride Peace Prize by the International Peace Bureau for her contribution "to the advancement of democracy and human rights,” and her "firm stand against violence and war.” Hanaa has led campaigns in Iraq for women’s equality, enhancing women’s role in decision-making positions and in the constitutional process. She was a founder of the "Civil Initiative to Preserve the Constitution,” which won an Iraqi Supreme Court lawsuit that forced the Iraqi Parliament to convene in late 2010. Hanaa holds a law degree from Baghdad University.
Mr. Hashim al-Assaf heads the Iraq office of the NGOs Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI), the main umbrella organization for Iraqi NGOs working in the country. As Iraq Coordinator of NCCI, Hashim works to enhance cooperation among NGOs and to strengthen civil society participation in public policy-making in Iraq. He and his staff at NCCI work to facilitate NGO relations with the Government of Iraq and are advocates for humanitarian work and the protection of human rights. Hashim has designed and implemented training sessions for Iraqi NGO staff on human rights, non-profit management, monitoring and evaluation, conflict resolution, and other topics.
Mr. Abdulsatar Younis is the coordinator of the Iraqi Kurdistan NGOs Network (IKNN), the voluntary association established as an umbrella network to support Kurdish and Arab NGOs registered with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). IKNN has helped shape the new KRG law regulating NGOs in the region. Abdulsatar is also the Erbil coordinator of the Iraq-wide "La Onf” (Non-Violence) network. He was the principle organizer of the October 2011 "First Iraqi International Marathon in Erbil for Peace and Nonviolence” sponsored by La Onf, which attracted hundreds of runners and received extensive coverage in the local media. During his five-year tenure at the head of IKNN Abdulsatar has also played a key role in election monitoring in Erbil.
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Ms. Noof Assi is a Baghdad activist who last year monitored and reported on the Arab Uprisings demonstrations in Baghdad. She has conducted human rights, citizenship, and conflict management training for Iraqi youth and women and taken part in advocacy activities on the problems facing Iraqi youth. Over the past four years Noof has participated in numerous training sessions offered by the National Democratic Institute in Iraq and other groups. She is also a former blogger and radio program presenter and has participated in the youth programs of the Beirut-based Arab Thought Foundation. Noof is currently working with Iraqi Al-Amal Association, one of Iraq’s largest and oldest NGOs.
United for Peace & Justice
By Sherwood Ross
You know you live in a police state when the president allows the
military to continuously harass a prisoner against whom no crime has
been proven by interrupting him every five minutes of the day to ask
him, “Are you okay?” and forces him to stand to attention naked at
roll call. What it can do to one man it can do to every man.
You know you live in a police state when said prisoner is barred from
exercising in his cell and told where he may and may not put his hands
when he goes to sleep at night. Only a police state would dictate how
an individual can sleep.
You know you live in a police state when the government punishes,
rather than honors, whistle-blowers who reveal its crimes such as the
U.S. massacre of civilians in Baghdad that Bradley Manning exposed.
Stay warm this winter in a black hooded sweatshirt. Order one. Order them by the dozen and donate them to occupations!
