Category: politics

There’s still about a month until Election Day, but it’s already safe to declare 2010 the year of the Muslim-baiting campaign ad. Yes, there was the occasional flare-up in 2008, typically targeting Barack Obama. But since then, the associate-your-opponent-with-Muslims tactic has metastasized. Full article.

finally some accounting of afghan deaths. horrific as expected. can we still ask ourselves what will happen to the afghan people if we leave? “As of 7 October 2010, the 9th Anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan, the human cost of the Afghan War has been estimated as about 4.9 million violent deaths or non-violent avoidable deaths from Occupier-imposed deprivation. A detailed and documented Afghan War Human Cost Fact Sheet has been prepared to assist humane public discussion of the ongoing, US Alliance-imposed Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide that has now reached the dimensions of the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation).” Full article.

The Israeli cabinet has approved a proposal requiring new immigrants to pledge loyalty to the “Jewish and democratic” state. The language has triggered charges of racism from Arab politicians who see it as undermining the rights of the country’s Arab minority. Full article.

The Obama administration is seeking to expand the government’s ability to conduct invasive surveillance online. This outrageous proposal would mandate that all online communications services use technologies that would make it easier for the government to collect private communications and decode encrypted messages that Americans send. This includes communications sent using texting platforms, BlackBerries, social networking sites, and other “peer to peer” communications software such as Skype. Sign the ACLU’s petition to Attorney General Holder: Rein in FBI surveillance power. Petition here.

Guatemala’s special place as Washington’s experimental lab for repression began in 1954 when President Eisenhower authorized the CIA to try out new psychological warfare strategies in destabilizing and removing Guatemala’s democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz. Arbenz had offended U.S. business and government leaders by implementing a land reform project that threatened the massive holdings of United Fruit and by letting leftists compete within the political process. The CIA ousted Arbenz with a combination of clever propaganda and armed insurrection, leading to a series of repressive military dictatorships that further radicalized Guatemala’s indigenous poor and urban intellectuals. By the mid-1960s, the United States was assisting the Guatemalan military in developing more refined methods of repression. Guatemala’s first “death squads” took shape under anti-terrorist training provided by a U.S. public safety adviser named John Longon, according to U.S. government documents released in the late 1990s.

[…] By the end of the year, the Guatemalan government was bold enough to request U.S. help in establishing special kidnapping squads, according to a cable from the U.S. Southern Command that was forwarded to Washington on Dec. 3, 1966.

By 1967, the Guatemalan counterinsurgency terror had gained a fierce momentum. On Oct. 23, 1967, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research noted the “accumulating evidence that the [Guatemalan] counterinsurgency machine is out of control.” The report noted that Guatemalan “counter-terror” units were carrying out abductions, bombings, torture and summary executions “of real and alleged communists.”

[…] Apparently confident of Reagan’s sympathies, the Guatemalan government continued its political repression without apology.

According to a State Department cable on Oct. 5, 1981, Guatemalan leaders met with Reagan’s roving ambassador, retired Gen. Vernon Walters, and left no doubt about their plans. Guatemala’s military leader, Gen. Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia, “made clear that his government will continue as before — that the repression will continue.”

Human rights groups saw the same picture. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission released a report on Oct. 15, 1981, blaming the Guatemalan government for “thousands of illegal executions.” [Washington Post, Oct. 16, 1981]

But the Reagan administration was set on whitewashing the ugly scene. A State Department “white paper,” released in December 1981, blamed the violence on leftist “extremist groups” and their “terrorist methods,” inspired and supported by Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

Full article here.

In Sukkur, Sindh Province, as well as other areas in Pakistan, people displaced by the flooding that began at the end of July are still suffering. About 1,198 Pakistani MSF staff, with 135 international staff, have so far conducted more than 49,500 medical consultations and are distributing 1,250,400 liters (330,320 gallons) of clean water per day in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. Full article plus slideshow here.

in this podcast from truthdig.com, the brilliant dahlia wasfi talks about the war in iraq, western imperialism, the civil war between sunnis and shias as part of the age-old divide and rule doctrine, and the urgent need to totally get out of iraq NOW. listen to podcast here.

federal building, rochester, ny – oct 7, 2010

A 25-year-old Palestinian journalist from the southern Gaza Strip has been granted a journalism award from Norway. The award is funded by the Norwegian Union of Journalists, Norwegian weekly newspaper Morgenbladet, Norwegian People’s Aid and individuals. In a statement, the Norwegian committee described recipient Mohammed Omer, from Rafah, as “a voice for the voiceless, for the population of Gaza that has too often been forgotten by the world community.” Omer runs the website Rafah Today, and has contributed to The Nation, New Statesman, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Inter Press Service, among others. Full article.

i challenge everyone to watch this interview. norman finkelstein recommended this book when he spoke in syracuse. no, it’s not about the blockade of gaza. it’s about an equally pernicious and immoral blockade – the incredibly cruel sanctions imposed on iraq before the 2003 american invasion. half a million to three quarters of a million children dead as a result. this stat relates only to children under 5 – it does not include anyone older than 5, it does not include the sick or the elderly. talk about strangulating a civilian population and bringing an entire country to the absolute verge of collapse. shameful shameful shameful.

Joy Gordon, author of Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions, writes, “U.S. policymakers effectively turned a program of international governance into a legitimized act of mass slaughter.” Full interview on DN! here.

I have observed that it was one thing to be anti-Bush, but to be anti-war in the age of Obama is not to be tolerated by many people. If you will also notice, the only people who seem to know about the FBI raids are those of us already in the movement. There has been no huge outcry over this fresh outrage, either by the so-called movement or the corporate media. I submit that if George Bush were still president, or if this happened under a McCain/Palin regime, there would be tens of thousands of people in the streets to protest. This is one of the reasons an escalation in police state oppression is so much more dangerous under Obama – even now, he gets a free pass from the very same people who should be adamantly opposed to such policies. (Cindy Sheehan) Full article.

More than 100,000 people gathered in Washington, DC, at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday to rally for progressive causes. More than 400 groups, including labor unions, as well as civil rights, gay rights, and environmental groups, endorsed the One Nation Working Together rally. Organizers said the gathering drew a crowd of 175,000 people. The focus of the day: jobs, justice and education for all. The rally’s sponsors said they also hoped to demonstrate that they, not the tea party, represented the nation’s majority. The gathering featured more than four hours of speeches, poetry, music.

[…] The Central Intelligence Agency, in its official report, tells us that the enemy we pursue in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, the al-Qaeda, they number less than fifty—I say fifty—people. Do we really think that sending 100,000 young American men and women to kill innocent civilians, woman and children, and antagonizing the tens of millions of people in the whole region somehow makes us secure? Does this make any sense? (Harry Belafonte) Watch speech here.

In war there are no rules: A number of IDF soldiers have over the last year faced investigation and penalty for documenting themselves performing questionable acts in front of Palestinian prisoners or while on patrol. Full article and video here.

Two French female students have made a film of the pair of them strolling through the streets of Paris in a niqab, bare legs and mini-shorts as a critique of France’s recently passed law. Calling themselves the “Niqabitches,” the veiled ladies can be seen strutting past prime ministerial offices and various government ministries with a black veil leaving only their eyes visible, but with their long legs naked bar black high heels. Bemused passers-by can be seen gawping at the pair or asking to take photographs in the clip. At one stage in the film, the two women approach the entrance to the ministry of immigration and national identity, only to be told by a policeman to go elsewhere. However, a policewoman also present is delighted by their clothes. “I love your outfit, is it to do with the new law?” she asks. “Yes, we want to de-dramatise the situation,” one girl replies. “It’s brilliant. Can I take a photo?” asks the policewoman, who will soon be required to fine public niqab wearers. Full article and video here.