Why I “Assaulted” Defense Chief Leon Panetta
October 17th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
by Alli McCracken
Alli McCracken being arrested by the police for protesting at the Congressional hearing
“Assault? Who — or what — did I assault?” I asked the police officer incredulously as I sat in his office at the police station, handcuffed to the wall. “Well, looks like it was Leon Panetta himself,” the officer responded as he flipped through a pile of paperwork.
Me? A 22-year-old mild-mannered peace activist, assaulted the Secretary of Defense? I had simply tried to tell him how I felt about the wars. On the morning of October 13th about 25 activists who are occupying Washington DC, as part of the nationwide occupations, went on a field trip to Congress. We wanted to attend the House Armed Services Committee hearing where Leon Panetta, the Secretary of Defense, and Martin Dempsy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were testifying about “lessons learned by the Department of Defense over the preceding decade” and “how those lessons might be applied in the future in light of anticipated reductions in defense spending.” After all, these hearings are open to the public. And shouldn’t we have a say in where our money is being spent?
As a peace activist with the group CODEPINK for the past 10 months, I have done my fair share of sending letters and emails and delivering petitions to our government representatives, asking them to stop pouring trillions of our taxpayer dollars into the endless cycle of death, destruction and reconstruction halfway across the world. There are so many critical things that we could spend that money on here in America, such as education, healthcare, helping the homeless, the elderly, the disabled, the veterans.
Whatever Happened to Women and Children First?
October 17th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
by Johnny Barber
“All wars, whether just or unjust, disastrous or victorious, are waged against the child.” — Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children, 1919.
In Kabul, the children are everywhere. You see them scrounging through trash. You see them doing manual labor in the auto body shops, the butchers, and the construction sites. They carry teapots and glasses from shop to shop. You see them moving through the snarled traffic swirling small pots of pungent incense, warding off evil spirits and trying to collect small change. They can be found sleeping in doorways or in the rubble of destroyed buildings. It is estimated that 70,000 children live on the streets of Kabul.
The big news story on CNN this morning is the excitement generated as hundreds of people line up to buy the newest iphone. I can’t stop thinking of the children sitting in the dirt of the refugee camp, or running down the path pushing old bicycle tires, or the young boy sitting next to his overflowing sacks of collected detritus. He has a deep infection on the corner of his mouth that looks terribly infected. These images contrast with an image of an old grandfather, dressed in a spotless all white shalwar kameez squatting on the sidewalk outside a huge iron gate, embracing his beautiful young grand daughter in a huge hug, each smiling broadly, one of the few moments of joy I have witnessed on the streets of Kabul.
In Afghanistan, one in five children die before their 5th birthday, (41% of the deaths occur in the first month of life). For the children who make it past the first month, many perish due to preventable and highly treatable conditions including diarrhea and pneumonia. Malnourishment affects 39% of the children, compared to 25% at the start of the U.S. invasion. 52% don’t have access to clean water. 94% of births are not registered. The children are afforded very little legal protection, especially girls, who are stilled banned from schools in many regions, used as collateral to settle debts, and married through arranged marriages as young as 10 years old. Though not currently an issue, HIV/AIDS looms as a catastrophic possibility as drug addiction increases significantly, even among women and children. Only 16% of women use modern contraception, and children on the streets are vulnerable to sexual exploitation. This is why the “State of the World’s Mothers” report issued in May 2011 by Save the Children ranked Afghanistan last, with only Somalia providing worse outcomes for their children.
Thomas Friedman plots a return to US glory
October 16th, 2011 § 2 Comments
(Photo: EPA)
The following is my review for Al Jazeera of Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum’s new book That Used to Be Us.
In a January 2011 Fox Business interview, three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman – famed begetter of the notion that the US military should make Iraqis “Suck. On. This“- described his forthcoming book That Used to Be Us as “the first book I’ve really written about America”.
Published last month with the subtitle How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented – And How We Can Come Back, the treatise is co-authored by Friedman’s proclaimed “intellectual soul mate” Michael Mandelbaum, a Johns Hopkins professor who appears on an excessive basis in Friedman’s columns and who is credited with coining the mantra that “people do not change when you tell them they should; they change when they tell themselves they must”. Said mantra does not stop either character from cheerleading the US war on Iraq, which Friedman additionally manages to cast as “the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the US has ever launched” despite simultaneously defining himself as “a liberal on every issue other than this war”.
As for Friedman’s assertion that the current book is the first one he has really written about America, this is not entirely reconcilable with his announcement during a 2010 presentation at Istanbul’s Ozyegin University that his then – latest bestseller Hot, Flat, and Crowded ”is really about America”. He adds that The World Is Flat, as well as Hot, Flat, and Crowded, marketed as groundbreaking texts about globalisation and the environment, respectively, “have nothing to do with technology or environment at heart” and are instead “basically cries of the heart to get my country focused on fixing itself”.
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Thank You So Much
October 15th, 2011 § 1 Comment
A message from the father of the murdered nine-year-old Ibrahim Shayban to Russia, China and Bashaar al-Asad.
The Russian and Chinese vetoes to protect the Syrian regime from UN Security Council condemnation are reminiscent of all those American vetoes to protect Israel. Both countries have their reasons for shielding the Syrian regime: Russia’s naval base at Tartus, discomfort over the way the Libya No Fly Zone slipped into more overt intervention, the fear that UN condemnation may one day focus on Russian abuses in Chechnya and Chinese abuses in Tibet and Xinjiang. But both countries should consider their own interests more creatively. Ultimately, their influence in Syria and the wider region will depend on their image in Syrian and Arab eyes. The Syrian regime will not be there for ever. The Syrian people will.
Iran is another state which has repeatedly shot itself in the foot since the Arab revolutions began, first by mischaracterising as Islamic uprisings the deposings of Mubarak, Bin Ali and Qaddafi, then by opposing the revolution which seems most similar to Iran’s in 79 – the Syrian revolution. Iran used to be popular in Syria even amongst many sectarian-minded Sunni Muslims. It used to be popular in the wider Arab region. This popularity was Iran’s best guarantee against marginalisation and even military attack from the region’s pro-Western forces. But its popularity has evaporated this year.
Back to Ibrahim. He was martyred while leaving a mosque in the Qaboon suburb of Damascus. His funeral was held today in Meydan, in the heart of the city. Here’s some footage. Apparently insecurity forces killed two of the mourners when they came out of the mosque into the street.
Commentators have been telling us that central Damascus remains quiet. It’s true that many areas have been quiet, either because the upper middle class inhabitants still support the regime or are sitting on the fence, or because of the overbearing police and mukhabarat presence on the streets. Damascus has certainly not slipped out of regime control, as Homs, Hama, Deir ez-Zor and Idlib sometimes have. Yet Damascus has been bubbling for a long time. Pro-regime commentators will say that Kafar Souseh (which has demonstrated frequently since Shaikh Rifa’i of the Rifa’i mosque was shot) is a suburb, not the city itself – which is true, if Camden Town isn’t part of London. Suburbs further out – like Harasta, Douma, Muadamiya – have been veritable war zones for months. Imagine if Streatham, Hackney, Tottenham and Ealing were in a state of war and commentators told us ‘London remains quiet.’ And Meydan and Rukn ad-Deen have witnessed frequent, large demonstrations, and savage repression. These places are as central as Chelsea and Kensington. Smaller, briefer demonstrations have occurred in high-class Malki, in Sha‘alaan, Shaikh Muhiyudeen, Baghdad Street, Muhajireen. You can’t get more central. The last place is within earshot of Bashaar al-Asad’s house. If the quietness of Damascus reassures the regime, I think they’d better start panicking.
On the alleged ‘Iran Plot’
October 14th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Jasmin Ramsey discusses the alleged ‘Iran Plot’ on FAIR’s Counterspin.
Update: For more interesting developments about this case click here.
Two days after Attorney General Eric holder alleged that the US had foiled an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. a Washintgton D.C. restaurant, many experts are saying the details of the government’s case don’t seem to add up. We’ll talk to journalist Jasmin Ramsey, editor of Inter Press Service’s Lobelog about what questions reporters should be asking.
“Some Preliminary Questions about the Alleged Iranian Terror Plot,” by Jasmin Ramsey (Lobelog, 10/11/11)
Rebel Without a Pause—Lupe Fiasco
October 13th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Lupe Fiasco rocks a Palestinian flag and an Occupy Wall Street t-shirt during his performance at the BET Hip-Hop Awards. (via Mondoweiss).
Slavery: A 21st Century Evil
October 13th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Watch “Food chain slaves” below, the inaugural episode of Rageh Omaar’s new Al Jazeera program Slavery: A 21st Century Evil.
Starting around minute 19.30 is a disturbingly illuminating interview with Global Horizons Manpower CEO Mordechai Orian, an Israeli who has been indicted for human trafficking of Thai workers to farms in the US, where they were subjected to conditions of slavery.
Interjecting two entirely irrelevant references to the Holocaust, Orian informs Omaar that he is being unjustly persecuted by the US justice system, and concocts the appallingly illogical argument that, if he is going to be accused of human trafficking, then “everything is human trafficking. Going on [an] airplane from Hawaii to LA is human trafficking”.
Voting made easier for concealed handgun owners in Texas
October 13th, 2011 § 3 Comments
Rick Perry also goes jogging with a laser sight-equipped pistol (Photo: Rodger Mallison/AP)
In an Oct. 7 article for Bloomberg, Jonathan Alter mentions that Texas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry “recently signed a bill saying you can vote with a concealed-handgun permit but not with identification from the University of Texas”.
Indeed, the website of the Texas Legislature confirms that, as per Senate Bill 14 of 2011, the following serves as valid voter identification:
a license to carry a concealed handgun issued to the person by the Department of Public Safety that has not expired or that expired no earlier than 60 days before the date of presentation
In the text of the bill, a line has been drawn through invalid voter identification such as:
birth certificate or other document confirming birth that is admissible in a court of law and establishes the person’s identity
Other crossed-out text includes
form of identification containing the person’s photograph that establishes the person’s identity
which has curiously been replaced with
United States military identification card that contains the person’s photograph that has not expired or that expired no earlier than 60 days before the date of presentation
Some Preliminary Questions about the Alleged Iranian Terror Plot
October 12th, 2011 § 3 Comments
Manssor Arbabsiar in a mugshot from a 2001 arrest for theft (Neuces Co. Sheriff's Office)
Earlier today the FBI issued a press release stating that two Iranian men have been criminally charged in a New York court for allegedly plotting to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir. Here are some examples of how the U.S. mainstream media initially headlined the story:
ABC News: Iran ‘Directed’ Washington, D.C., Terror Plot, U.S. Says
New York Times: U.S. Accuses Iranians of Plotting to Kill Saudi Envoy
Washington Post: Iran behind alleged terrorist plot, U.S. says
So from the looks of things, Iran has been planning a terrorist plot on U.S. soil, right? Wrong, at least for now that is. There are many holes in this story that need to be filled before the government of Iran can be credibly accused of committing what could be interpreted as an act of war. For a summary of related events so far, read Jim Lobe’s report, and following are some preliminary questions that need answering:
1) Who has the authority to operate on behalf of the Iranian government?
If a relative of a member of the U.S. military or CIA plans a murder on foreign soil and claims he was ordered to even though the U.S. denies it, would we consider that a terrorist plot by the U.S.?
The accused named in the FBI press release are Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old Iranian-American from Texas with dual citizenship, and Gholam Shakuri, an alleged Iran-based member of Iran’s secretive Quds Force. What does the U.S. have that proves they were acting on behalf of the Iranian government, which, by the way, quickly denied the charges?
2) Who approached who first?
If Arbabsiar approached the agent first, how did he find them? If the FBI put Arbabsiar under surveillance for suspicious activities and then lured him into direct communication (which could have been the initial point of contact), was the FBI involved in other persuasive activities as well? Considering the loony aspects of this story which even Hillary Clinton has alluded to, is it wrong to question the sanity of Arbabsiar? Is it unfathomable that the FBI could have found a crazy and/or impressionable person who was acting on his own accord but was in some way related to elements of the Iranian government?
Update: A report in the Washington Post by Greg Miller and Julie Tate sheds some light on who Arbabsiar really is. According to House intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.):
It is my belief he was recruited for this particular operation
