maraahmed.com

So what can we expect on the campaign trail this summer and fall? Certainly not prospective civilian commanders-in-chief confident in the vitally important role of restraining, or even reversing, the worst excesses of an imperial state. Rather, we’ll witness two men vying to be cheerleader-in-chief for continued U.S. imperial dominance achieved at nearly any price.

Election 2012 will be all about preserving the imperial status quo, only more so. Come January 2013, regardless of which man takes the oath of office, we’ll remain a country with a manic enthusiasm for the military. Rather than a president who urges us to abhor endless war, we’ll be led by a man intent on keeping us oblivious to the way we’re squandering our nation’s future in fruitless conflicts that ultimately compromise our core constitutional principles.

For all the suspense the media will gin up in the coming months, the ballots are already in and the real winner of election 2012 will be the national security state. Unless you’re a denizen of that special interest state, we know the loser, too. It’s you. More here.

James Q Wilson’s writings had a massive effect. The broken windows argument – by cracking down on minor offenses, the police can prevent the perception of disorder that leads to more serious crimes – has influenced urban law enforcement strategists throughout the nation. Even so, as scholarly critics across the ideological spectrum have noted, there is little evidence beyond the anecdotal to show that such “quality of life” policing actually leads to lower crime rates. When I consider the impact of his ideas, I can’t help but think about the millions of folks being hassled even as we speak by coercive state agents who are acting on some Wilsonian theory recommending stop-and-frisk policing. Neither can I overlook the reinforcement of subliminal racial stigmata associated with the institutions of confinement, surveillance, and patrol that Americans have embraced over the past two generations under the watchful and approving gaze of Professor Wilson. More here.

may 15. nakba day. 64 yrs later.

more testimonies here. also check out: In Tel Aviv, Nakba greeted by Hundreds of Kahanist.

Noam Chomsky: “The Occupy movement spontaneously created something that doesn’t really exist in the country: communities of mutual support, cooperation, open spaces for discussion … just people doing things and helping each other,” Chomsky says. “That’s very much missing. There is a massive propaganda—it’s been going on for a century, but picking up enormously—that you really shouldn’t care about anyone else, you should just care about yourself. … To rebuild [class solidarity], even if it’s in small pieces of the society, can become very important, can change the conception of how a society ought to function.”

Conversation with Mexican poet Javier Sicilia about his efforts to raise awareness about the human toll of the war on drugs. “We are outraged because the war has done nothing for us – it has not solved the problem,” Sicilia says. “We need to create awareness and consciousness so American people know that behind every drug consumer and behind every use of guns, we pay with dead people.” — the exact same thing can be said about the war on terror. other countries pay with dead people. 30,000 killed in pakistan since 2001.

husain haqqani who is supposed to have asked for foreign intervention in pakistan as ambassador to the u.s., who was then forced to step down and face charges for “memogate” and who has finally been able to flee to the u.s. (he is now a professor at boston university, no less) pens an article defending zardari’s corrupt govt and blaming everything on pakistan’s only semi-functioning institution, the judiciary. what does he use to make his argument? tired tropes about the need to fight religious extremism and terrorism. mr haqqani, osama bin laden’s death is irrelevant to pakistan and pakistanis (even if someone organized a well-photographed funeral procession). the only way to “fix” pakistan is to provide people employment and three meals a day, to eradicate polio and allow kids to go to school, to narrow the obscene economic gap that exists between people like u and the remaining 90% of the population. seriously. trust the new york times to publish such personally-motivated, vindictive hogwash.

“The pioneering hip-hop artist Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys died Friday of cancer at the age of 47. In 1998, he made headlines when at the Video Music Awards he publicly criticized the climate of racism toward Muslims and Arabs, and the Clinton administration’s bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan.”

There is a class of urban Afghans for whom the core political question has always been: Does that ideology come with electricity? These are people who have sought to extend the writ of Kabul over the countryside, and ever since the 1920s they have faced violent opposition. Once their vehicle was constitutional monarchy. Then it was a presidential republic, then Soviet-style socialism, and then Najibullah’s last-ditch nationalism. Now it is the deeply flawed experiment in liberal democracy imposed by NATO.
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Repression triggered the bloody communist coup of 1978.

The hastily devised People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) reforms were a casualty of an old rural–urban divide in Afghan society. The educated young urban idealists did not understand the rural world they sought to remake, and the world of the mud-walled villages did not understand urban officialdom. That the social and cultural dimensions of the reforms threatened the privileges of the traditional mullahs, maliks (village leaders) and large landowners is hardly surprising. What can be confusing is that the economically progressive aspects of the program were also widely rejected by the deeply religious peasantry. Afghanistan, though poor and unequal, was not marked by the extreme land inequality typical of pre-revolutionary Mexico or China. As Steele explains, peasants were in many ways “linked to their landlord by ties of religion, clan and family and were unready to flout his authority.” Rural society, always somewhat autonomous from Kabul, and feeling threatened at the root by reforms, turned increasingly to armed resistance, linking up with the Islamist parties that had decamped to Pakistan during Daoud’s repression.

Exacerbating the situation for the PDPA were certain technical mistakes. In their haste the urban communists of Kabul redistributed land but not water rights, a blunder that revealed their ignorance of local agriculture. They abolished the oppressive system of bazaar-based money lending but did not establish an alternative credit program to aid cash-poor farmers in planting. (Raja Anwar’s The Tragedy of Afghanistan is another valuable source on the revolution’s reforms and missteps.) For their part, the Soviets repeatedly advised Kabul to abandon or delay the more radical reforms.

The communists were not the first Afghan modernizers to face a rural backlash. The so-called Red Prince, Amanullah Khan, who ejected the British in 1919, was dethroned ten years later by a tribal rebellion that opposed his Turkish-inspired modernization efforts. He had imposed a modicum of land reform, given women the vote and started educating girls. Rural elites would accept good roads, but not the taxes to pay for them; the rural masses would accept agricultural improvements and education, but not an assault on patriarchy. Fifty years later, the PDPA faced the same sort of religious rebellion, and to quell it communist officials began making displays of public piety, praying and traveling to mosques. But it was too little, too late.
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More here.

An attempt to showcase the legendary dalit icon Bant Singh and his songs of rebellion, inter-caste violence and equality. More on Bant Singh’s story here.

Interestingly, with the ink now drying on the document and the US officially committed to the occupation of Afghanistan for another decade, officials are continuing to tout 2014 as the “end” of the war. This speaks to how the 2024 date, though openly discussed by the Karzai government in Afghanistan and privately acknowledged as part of the secret pact, has not been publicly presented to the American public. When they will officially spring it on us remains unclear. More here.

Here is a powerful clip from the film “America’s Most Dangerous Game,” which was produced by journalist Jeremy Scahill and filmmaker Rick Rowley.
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The fact remains: the Obama administration has engaged in a process of rewriting the definition of “due process” so that the US can wage an unrestrained, lawless and immoral drone war in any sector of the globe. This is being done by the Justice Department in the same insidious way that the Bush Administration worked to rewrite the definition of “torture” so it could justify using torture against any person detained in the fight against “terrorists.”

In truth, this redefining of “due process” is a predictable result of the US government’s perpetual “war on terror.” The despicable and preposterous secrecy aims to further normalize another aspect of the government’s calculated assault on civil liberties. It adds another facade to the new normal, which both the Bush administration and the Obama administration helped to construct in the aftermath of 9/11. And that is why the effort to force the disclosure of information is so critical. More here.

[Jeremy Scahill] strongly condemns the al-Majalah massacre that was authorized by Obama and was a brutal massacre, more brutal than anything that has been done in Yemen in the past decade. The strike was authorized on a Bedouin village because “intelligence” showed it was an al Qaeda training facility at the time. “Cruise missiles and cluster bombs rained down.” The US was not mentioned and did not take credit for the attack. Abdulelah Haider Shaye, a journalist, who is now imprisoned by order of the Obama administration, went and took photos. His photos gave human rights groups evidence that weapons used were not weapons the Yemen government had. And then WikiLeaks released cables that “confirmed” what was suspected—that there was a coverup. General David Petraeus conspired with Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh to prevent anyone from knowing the US was bombing Yemen. More here.

Contrary to Bergen’s generous belief that progressives are deluding themselves about Obama’s militarism, many are fully aware of it and, because it’s a Democrat doing it, have become aggressively supportive of it. That, without a doubt, will be one of Obama’s most enduring legacies: transforming these policies of excessive militarism, rampant secrecy and civil liberties assaults from right-wing radicalism into robust bipartisan consensus. More here.

Obama argues U.S. drone strikes are focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists and have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. “Either President Obama is lying to the nation, or he is too naive, to believe the reports which the CIA is presenting to [him],” responds Akbar. The summit comes as the United States pursues a radical expansion of how it carries out drone strikes inside Yemen. The so-called “signature” strike policy went into effect earlier this month, allowing the U.S. to strike without knowing the identity of targets. More here.

“Every time I watch my son, I’m dying inside,” he says, tears running down his face. “I think about his destiny. He is getting heavier all the time. It’s more difficult to carry him.” So I ask whom he blames for Sayef’s little calvary. I expect a tirade of abuse against the Americans, the Iraqi government, the Health Ministry. The people of Fallujah have long been portrayed as “pro-terrorist” and “anti-Western” in the world’s press, ever since the murder and cremation of the four American mercenaries in the city in 2004 – the event which started the battles for Fallujah in which up to 2,000 Iraqis, civilians and insurgents, died, along with almost 100 US troops. But Mohamed is silent for a few moments. He is not the only father to show his deformed child to us. “I am only asking for help from God,” he says. “I don’t expect help from any other human being.” More here.

If there’s one thing that distinguishes Ron Paul from the rest of the GOP field, it’s his principled stand against American empire and his ardent defense of individual liberties. Paul’s opposition to wars, bloated defense budgets and government espionage of US citizens has made him a hero among some young conservatives. His seemingly rock-solid principles and radicalism has even drawn some on the left; unlike even left-wing Democrats, Paul has said he wants to abolish both the CIA and the FBI to protect individual “liberty.” So it should come as a shock and disappointment to his followers that Ron Paul’s single largest donor—his Sheldon Adelson, as it were—founded a controversial defense contractor, Palantir Technologies, that profits from government espionage work for the CIA, FBI and other agencies, and which last year was caught organizing an illegal spy ring targeting American political opponents of the US Chamber of Commerce, including journalists, progressive activists and union leaders. More here.

The son of a daily wager, Sabir is not a typical victim of abject poverty in the city. Reminiscing about how he read Russian literature when he came across old story books while picking garbage in class seven, Sabir says his great challenge in life has been his caste – that he was born a Deendar Changar – Pakistan’s version of the ‘untouchables’. More here.

First, while I argue that Islamophobia is a mass ideological formation within American political culture, I examine Bernard Lewis and Fareed Zakaria as archetypes of two competing but dove-tailing versions of Islamophobia. The tropes they deploy can be found in the works of rightist nut-jobs like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer who motivated a mass-murder in Norway, pseudo-academics like Daniel Pipes, “liberal” pundits like Thomas Friedman, or “native informants” such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji.

Second, after mapping how these tropes are used to justify American Empire, I examine Islamophobia’s very real effects “on the ground” in the United States. In particularly, I examine how Islamophobia is used by the federal, state, and local governments, as well as law enforcement, universities, the print, cable and electronic media, the blogosphere, interest groups, PACS, and lobbies to establish an atmosphere of fear that manages dissent and erodes civil liberties, against the backdrop of a quiescent if not enthusiastic mainstream.

Finally, I demonstrate how President Barack Obama and his administration are Islamophobes, proactively deploying Islamophobic tropes and rhetoric to further US Empire abroad and systematize and institutionalize the abuses of civil liberties introduced by Presidents Clinton and Bush Jr.
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I hope that the book will begin to aid the Muslim American community to understand Islamophobia in terms of the racial history of the United States and its history of imperialism. Understanding Islamophobia within these contexts, the contexts of control, capitalism, state power, global interests, and global hegemony, Muslim Americans will be able to assert their own struggle within the context of the struggle of people of color in the United States and globally. Such a conversation is already happening on the margins of the Arab and Muslim American communities.

Finally, I’d love the book to be read by people of color. The state of Muslims in the US is only a shadow of the economic, social, and cultural oppression suffered by Black, Latino, Asian, and Native Americans.

Humbly, I can only hope that my book helps to expand and further, even if in a minuscule way, the conversation between economic and racial “minorities” as to allow us to draw together the constellation of the similarities and particularities of our historical experience in order to compel us to collective solidarity and action.
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More here.

There is no “good conduct” in a colonial-type war. There is no such thing as a “kinder, gentler” occupation by the most destructive military machine on the planet, attempting to subjugate an impoverished population that stands in strong, determined opposition to foreign troops on their soil. This is the reality of the war, and will be until all U.S. forces have left. More here.

great interview!

The Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Society, based in the camp, exemplifies a cultural revolution taking place in Palestine today. Created in 1998, it is a genuine community center, offering computer training, a library, photography and video editing, music and visual arts education, and a gym for residents of all ages. But its core project is its youth theater. Founding director, poet, playwright, and educator Dr. Abdelfattah Abusrour sees theater as a “nonviolent way of saying we are human beings, we are not born with genes of hatred and violence, we do not conform to the stereotype of Palestinians only capable of throwing stones or burning tires.” Born and raised in Aida, Abusrour knows occupation firsthand. He took refuge in scholarship, earning a doctorate in biological and medical engineering, but gave up a promising career in science to devote his life to creating a “beautiful theater of resistance” that would unleash the creative capacity of young people to tell their stories. He is not interested in building Palestinian-Israeli dialogue, or other such liberal projects that he believes ultimately contribute to Israel’s normalization, the effort to keep Palestinians and their life conditions separate, contained. More here.

Some 1,200 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails began an open-ended hunger strike Tuesday, Israel’s prisons authority said, as Khader Adnan, who ended a 67-day hunger strike in February, was due to be released from prison. The hunger strikers were protesting against what they call “humiliating” measures in Israeli prisons, including strip searches of visiting family members and night searches of prison cells. More here.

On the whole, the history of international humanitarian law (IHL) is a long record of codifying the privileges of the powerful against lesser threats like civilians and colonial subjects resisting invasion. Even though the laws of war have usually been one more weapon of the strong against the weak, a great deal of their particular brand of legalism has seeped into antiwar discourse. One of the key talking points for many arguing against the invasion of Iraq was that it was illegal—and that was certainly true. But was the failure to procure a permission slip from the United Nations really the main problem with this calamitous act of violence? Would U.N. authorization really have redeemed any of it? There is also a growing faith that war can be domesticated under a relatively new rubric, “humanitarian intervention,” which purports to apply military violence in precise and therapeutic dosages, all strictly governed by international humanitarian law. Here is where the WikiLeaks disclosures were so revealing. They remind us, once again, that the humanitarian dream of “clean warfare”—military violence that is smoothly regulated by laws that spare civilians—is usually a sick joke.
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Let’s be clear: What killed the civilians walking the streets of Baghdad that day in 2007 was not “war crimes,” but war. And that holds for so many thousands of other Afghan and Iraqi civilians killed by drone strikes, air strikes, night raids, convoys, and nervous checkpoint guards as well. More here.

To us, it is deeply troubling to be patronized by a person who insists the hijab is never a choice made of free will. But what is even more saddening is that such opinions are being propagated on a feminist site with a commitment to highlighting the consequences of the “ill-fated pursuit of wars abroad and the abandonment of a vision of social justice at home.” The consequences of such wars have included the demonization, incarceration, and oppression of Muslim men, women, and children at home and abroad.
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As feminists deeply committed to challenging racism and Islamophobia and how it differentially impacts black and Muslim (and black Muslim) communities, we wish to open up a dialogue about how to build solidarities across complex histories of subjugation and survival. This space is precisely what is shut down in this article. In writing this letter, we emphasize that our concern is not solely with Adele Wilde-Blavatsky’s article but with the broader systemic issues revealed in the publication of a work that prevents us from challenging hierarchies of privilege and building solidarity.
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More here.

By the Reagan era, the “culture of poverty” had become a cornerstone of conservative ideology: poverty was caused, not by low wages or a lack of jobs, but by bad attitudes and faulty lifestyles. The poor were dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to “defer gratification,” or possibly even set an alarm clock. The last thing they could be trusted with was money. In fact, Charles Murray argued in his 1984 book Losing Ground, any attempt to help the poor with their material circumstances would only have the unexpected consequence of deepening their depravity.
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So it was in a spirit of righteousness and even compassion that Democrats and Republicans joined together to reconfigure social programs to cure, not poverty, but the “culture of poverty.” In 1996, the Clinton administration enacted the “One Strike” rule banning anyone who committed a felony from public housing. A few months later, welfare was replaced by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), which in its current form makes cash assistance available only to those who have jobs or are able to participate in government-imposed “workfare.”

In a further nod to “culture of poverty” theory, the original welfare reform bill appropriated $250 million over five years for “chastity training” for poor single mothers. (This bill, it should be pointed out, was signed by Bill Clinton.)
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Fifty years later, a new discovery of poverty is long overdue. This time, we’ll have to take account not only of stereotypical Skid Row residents and Appalachians, but of foreclosed-upon suburbanites, laid-off tech workers, and America’s ever-growing army of the “working poor.” And if we look closely enough, we’ll have to conclude that poverty is not, after all, a cultural aberration or a character flaw. Poverty is a shortage of money.
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More here.

brilliant interview that explores the links between money, propaganda, american politics and the war on terror.

what america has seen so far, is just the beginning…