Old Soldiers, old wounds, endless-war dead

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

PERSISTENT FOREIGN PRESENCE IN
AFGHANISTAN
Anti-war activists in a congressional hearing hall wave signs saying ‘No More War,’ ‘New General, Old Graveyard.’

U.S. and NATO casualties are soaring and undercutting U.S. and Europe’s public support for eight years of an overt war against Afghanistan. U.S. allies Canada, the Netherlands and Poland have announced plans to withdraw combat forces.

Entrenched General David Petraeus takes over U.S. forces in Afghanistan and in congressional hearings [echoing U.S.-led Iraq invasion-occupation-speak] engages in doublespeak. “Any drawdown would be based on security conditions on the ground, gradual and limited to the 30,000 ‘surge’ troops… It is going to be a number of years before Afghan forces can truly handle the security tasks in Afghanistan on their own.” By the way, the U.S. House of Representatives is headed toward a vote “within 72 hours on [another] $33 billion emergency war funding” bill.

June 30 update Afghanistan
A suicide bomber detonated an explosive in a vehicle at the gate of a NATO base occupying Afghanistan. Other fighters armed with AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the airport.

The Taliban said the attack was a message to the head of U.S. Central Command, David Petraeus, put forward by the U.S. president to takeover leadership of NATO and U.S. operations in Afghanistan that they can strike at will. The Taliban attack was in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.

“Violence in Afghanistan is reported to be “at an all time high,” this month being “the deadliest month for international forces ... since the war began nine years ago.” [“Taliban attacks NATO base,” June 30, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/201063053238108506.html]

JULY 1 UPDATE AFPAK
Eighteen people (est.) died today and more than 70 suffered wounds when suicide bombs exploded in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore. Doctors said Lahore’s main hospital has declared a state of emergency and they expect the death toll to rise. Lahore has experienced a string of attacks against minority communities in recent months. In May of this year, more than 80 people died when twin attacks hit mosques of the Ahmadi minority sect.

IRAQ
Twelve people died and 18 suffered wounds Tuesday when bombs went off in the town of Baiji in northern Iraq and in the capital city, Baghdad. Recent attacks have targeted Iraq’s economic institutions.

SAUDI ON
PALESTINE
Saudi Arabia’s 86-year-old King Abdullah is scheduled to meet today with the U.S. president at the White House. The discussion is expected to cover Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, the nuclear standoff with Iran, the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, mutual national security efforts, and economic co-operation. Next week President Obama is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.… “The Saudis have linked achieving a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal to alleviating other regional tensions, including the perceived threat from Iran.”

IRAN, TURKEY, ISRAEL
Despite concerns and objections of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, “Israeli municipal authorities moved ahead with plans to demolish 20 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem” and establish more Israeli settlements in the area. The secretary general said again that the planned moves were “contrary to international law and against the wishes of Palestinian residents.”

“Israeli commandos shot at activists on the Mavi Marmara [part of the six-ship ‘Freedom Flotilla’] from their helicopters.” The Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER) stated during a press conference on Monday referencing autopsy reports.

Stepping back into international negotiations despite the new wave of sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear work, Iran said today it will soon resume nuclear talks with Turkey and Brazil but under certain conditions and not before the end of August.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has postponed talks between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany over his country’s nuclear program. The Iranian president has called for new negotiating partners, saying that more countries should be involved.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a television interview on Monday, “Israel has atomic bombs and it refuses to comply [with] the NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] but no one is imposing sanctions on it. How do you explain that? [A fair world would] scrutinize Israel as much as one does North Korea.”

Israel [estimated to retain an arsenal of 100-200 nuclear warheads, often threatening attack on the Islamic republic] recently has refused U.S. and international calls to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to open its facilities for IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] perusal. Iran has vowed to meet certain conditions of the nuclear swap deal crafted by Turkey and Brazil, Erdogan said, and in signing the Tehran agreement Iran promised “to enrich uranium only for peaceful purposes … If Tehran fails to comply with the ten articles of the agreement, we will impose sanctions ourselves.” As it stands, Erdogan concluded, “Iran was being punished over a mere possibility that it could make nuclear weapons in the future.”

HOW MANY (estimated) two-theater U.S.-led WAR DEAD?
Casualty sites reporting

June 29, 2010 (accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 181]

Wounded 31,865-100,000;

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000;

Suicides 18 a day

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count figures:

96,813 – 105,563,

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,408 U.S., 4,726 Coalition;

AFGHANISTAN: 1,144 U.S., 1,889 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Sources
“Top U.S. general plays down Afghan expectations,” June 30, 2010,
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20100630/twl-oukwd-uk-afghanistan-usa-d4a870c.html
“Twelve die in Iraq unrest, suicide bombing ,” June 30, 2010, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100629/twl-iraq-unrest-575b600.html
“Saudis urge U.S. on Middle East peace,” June 29, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/06/201062951518293452.html
“UN blasts razing of Jerusalem homes,” June 24, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201062411715429597.html
“Turkish autopsy: Israeli soldiers shot activists from choppers,” World Bulletin June 29, 2010, http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=60670
“Iran postpones nuclear talks,” June 28, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/2010628124311454616.html
“Turkey slams ‘blindness’ on Israel atomic bombs (charges international concerted action with ‘blindness’ on Israel’s nuclear arsenal over Iran’s nuclear program),” World Bulletin June 29, 2010, http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=60654
“Iran to resume nuclear talks with Turkey, Brazil before powers,” World Bulletin June 29, 2010, http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=60669

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE no more

Sharing and shared resources, food and water, threatened
From Food and Water Watch excerpting and editing by Carolyn Bennett

WATER

Our water infrastructure is in desperate need of repair. In order to protect our essential water resources, create tens of thousands of green jobs, and safeguard public health, we need a permanent and dedicated federal funding source. Help by urging members of the U.S. Congress to support the Water Protection and Reinvestment Trust Fund; learn more about the trust fund; learn more about the groundwater crisis; drink tap water [http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/].

Water Facts Global
Restricted Access to Water

1.4 billion people live without clean drinking water
Two-fifths of the world’s population lack access to proper sanitation
More than one-third of Africa’s population lacks access to safe drinking water
More than 130 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean lack access to safe drinking water
Between 15 and 20 percent of the water used worldwide is not for domestic consumption, but rather for export

Water and Disease

Every eight seconds a child dies from drinking dirty water
People with easily preventable waterborne diseases occupy half of the world’s hospital beds
Eighty percent of all sickness and disease worldwide is related to contaminated water (ref. the World Health Organization)
Diarrhea killed more children in the last decade (nearly 2 million a year in developing countries) than all armed conflicts since World War II.
Dirty water kills more children than war, malaria, HIV/AIDS and traffic accidents combined
Seventy-five percent of the people in Latin America and the Caribbean suffer from chronic dehydration because of poor water quality

Water Quality

Ninety percent of wastewater produced in underdeveloped countries is discharged untreated into local waters
Eighty of China’s major rivers are so degraded that they no longer support aquatic life
Ninety percent of all groundwater systems under major cities in China are contaminated
Seventy-five percent of India’s rivers and lakes are so polluted that they should not be used for drinking or bathing
Sixty percent of rural Russians drink water from contaminated wells
Twenty percent of all surface water in Europe is seriously threatened

Water Scarcity

One-third of the world’s population now live in water-stressed countries
Unless we change our ways, two-thirds of the world’s population will face water scarcity by 2025
Compared with 2010, by 2015 five times as much land is likely to be under ‘extreme’ drought
Between the 1970s and 2005, the percentage of the Earth’s land area stricken by serious drought more than doubled
Rapid melting will reduce the Tibetan glaciers by 50 percent every decade (ref. the Chinese Academy of Sciences)
More than two-thirds of Chinese cities face water shortages
Ninety percent of Europe’s alpine glaciers are in retreat

Water Facts USA
Water Scarcity

Water managers in 36 states expect water shortages by 2013 (ref the U.S. Government Accountability Office)
One-third of all U.S. water withdrawals are for export
California has a 20-year supply of freshwater left
New Mexico has only a ten-year supply of freshwater left
Florida’s rapid use of groundwater has created thousands of sinkholes that devour anything ─ houses, cars and shopping malls─ unfortunate enough to be built on top of them
The U.S. interior west is probably the driest it has been in 500 years (ref. the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Geological Survey)
In 2007, Lake Superior, the world’s largest freshwater lake, dropped to its lowest levels in 80 years and the water has receded more than 15 meters from the shoreline
Lake Mead, the vast reservoir of the Colorado River, has a 50 percent chance of running dry by 2021

Water Quality

Forty percent of U.S. rivers and streams are too dangerous for fishing, swimming or drinking
Forty-six percent of U.S. lakes are too dangerous for fishing, swimming or drinking because of massive toxic runoff from industrial farms, intensive livestock operations and the more than 1 billion pounds of industrial weed killer used through the country each year
Two-thirds of U.S. estuaries and bays are moderately or severely degraded
One quarter of U.S. beaches are under advisories or closed due to water pollution
1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen pollution are carried by the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico every year [http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/interesting-water-facts/]

FOOD global
Food is no longer just a sustainer of life but a profit center for large multinational corporations. Today, we are in a worldwide struggle for control of our food and water. Over the past 100 years, food production has changed dramatically.

Large corporations for decades have taken aim on family farms, but they have also begun to encroach on our oceans, vying to parcel off the waters into private chunks so they can create massive fish farms and develop private monopolies over the right to fish [http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/world/].

“Everyone is dependent on shared resources like clean water, safe food and healthy oceans. It is therefore essential that these shared resources be regulated in the public interest rather than for private gain,” says Food and Water Watch.

Food and Water Watch is a Washington, D. C.,-based non-profit organization with staff in 10 offices in the United States and international staff in the European Union and Latin America working with coalition partners to track the global impact of actions of U.S. corporations on public policy overseas; and to inform and monitor accountability.

Food and Water Watch works to ensure safety, accessibility and sustainability of the food, water and fish we consume. It advocates for common sense policies that will result in healthy, safe food and access to safe and affordable drinking water. It works to promote practices and policies that will result in sustainable and secure food systems that provide healthy food for consumers and an economically viable living for family farmers and rural communities. It advocates for public control of water resources and services, strong conservation measures ─ policies that will result in safe and affordable drinking water for everyone, rather than reliance on bottled water ─ and supports tough regulation of toxic emissions into water.

Cognizant of the oceans’ importance as a source of food, the group works against misuses of the oceans such as with the creation of massive factory fish farms, operation of dangerous oil platforms, creation of policies that lead to the privatization of ocean resources. Food and Water Watch promotes policies that maintain the environmental quality of oceans and their resources [http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/about/].

Peace, antiwar conf comes to Albany, NY

Excerpted and edited by Carolyn Bennett from materials posted by National Peace Conference
A National Conference to
BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW
July 23–25, 2010, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Albany, New York

Sponsored by After Downing Street, Arab American Union Members Council, Bailout the People Movement, Black Agenda Report, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, Campus Antiwar Network, Citizen Soldier, Code Pink, International Action Center, Grandmothers Against the War, Granny Peace Brigade, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, May 1st Workers and Immigrant Rights Coalition, National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, National Lawyers Guild, Office of the Americas, Peace Action, Peace of the Action, Progressive Democrats of America, Project Salam, September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, The Fellowship of Reconciliation, U.S. Labor Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Voters For Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, World Can’t Wait Schedule Friday evening July 23 panel discussion on “Strategies & Tactics in the Struggle to End the Empire’s Wars and Occupations,” presentation of action proposal; Saturday July 24 keynote speakers, workshops, lunch panel on Government Repression, Defense of Political Prisoners and Guantanamo Detainees, plenary discussion of action proposal, amendments & resolutions; Saturday evening July 24 public forum with speakers & cultural performances; and Sunday July 25 plenary discussion and vote on action proposal, workshops

In these troubled times

Washington’s wars and occupations rage resulting in ever-increasing numbers dead and wounded, destruction of countries which pose no threat to the United States

Trillions are spent on seemingly endless conflicts in pursuit of profits and global domination. Trillions more are lost by working people in lost jobs, homes, pensions, health care, cuts to social programs and public services.

The United States goes to war to plunder the world’s fossil fuel resources, the unrestrained use of which threatens the future of our planet.

We must demand the immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq, and the end to drone attacks on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries; and call for self-determination for peoples of all countries.

We recognize, moreover, that the Middle East cauldron today also encompasses Iran, Yemen, Palestine, and Israel, while countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa are targeted for intervention by a militarized U.S. foreign policy.

UNITY OF ACTION IS DEMANDED by the urgency of the current world situation and for generating the broad social movement we must create not only to end wars and occupations, but fundamentally to change the aggressive policies that inevitably lead our country to militarism, racism, and war.

‘Money for Human Needs Not for Wars, Occupations, and Bailouts’ must be our cry.

Source
National Peace Conference, http://nationalpeaceconference.org/Home_Page.html

Places of ‘hardship,’ Naples’ homeless staged

Excerpted, edited by Carolyn Bennett
Davide Iodice brings theater to “places of ‘hardship,’” places of hardship to theater: La fabbrica dei sogni (The dream factory)
Homelessness highlighted

Biographies, memories, dreams and nightmares of homeless people “became the script of a screenplay that talks about us, maybe about what we ourselves have ‘repressed.’”

In the dream factory “one tries, without project or distinction, to construct or reassemble one’s own reality, a semblance if not exactly an ideal model of reality. What is used is the leftover material from one’s own memories, one’s own pain, what is left of a love affair, of a tragedy...

“Sad laborers work in the dream factory, souls waiting to be adopted, ‘misshapen’ lives outside the social mold live and sleep side by side ─ yet out of reach from each other.

“… [Is] life itself not a factory of dreams: illusion, evanescence, precipice of images, rambling plot, apparition, phantom, endless return?” [Davide Iodice]

Davide Iodice conducted research, noted his impressions and recorded moments of the everyday life of the guests of Naples’ Doss-house for the Homeless. The result was a collection of suggestions, personal portraits and snapshots of the subjects’ introspection ─ La fabbrica dei sogni (The dream factory)
http://www.teatrofestivalitalia.it/Napoli_Teatro_Festival_Italia_Performances_2010_La_fabbrica_dei_sogni-1458.1982.7.html?y=2010&v=1 Performed June 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 / Dormitorio Pubblico di Napoli / approx. length 1 hour 30 minutes; dramatics and direction by Davide Iodice / production Teatro Stabile di Napoli / in co-production with Napoli Teatro Festival Italia / country Italy / language Italian. David Iodice (b. Naples, Italy, 1968) is a theater director and dramatist.Also featured on Network Europe Week June 26, 2010, http://www.euranet.eu/eng/programme/English-Programmes/Network-Europe-Week-26-June

This weekend “Canada’s native communities are using the G20 and G8 gatherings to bring attention to land rights issues, poverty and poor living conditions.”

Italy’s largest union staged a nationwide strike disrupting public transport and government services in a protest over the government’s austerity measures. Protesters also took to the streets on Friday in Rome and other major Italian cities including Naples and Milan. [Reported on Al Jazeera English]

LSE Fellow Francesca Klug sheds light on “Left”

The Left’s critique of State power can sometimes sound selective and inconsistent.

Sometimes the few need protection from the many.

Text excerpting, further editing and notes for Today’s Insight News by Carolyn Bennett

…We should not underestimate the influence of an intellectual tradition that never really saw the problem with the State — provided the State was in the Right or, rather, the Left hands.

Evidence of a see no evil-hear no evil approach to the torture techniques used by some of our allies was shameful but sometimes all it would have taken was greater regulation and a more stringent commitment to the presumption of innocence to avoid charges of authoritarianism. The purpose of the Left, post-Marx, was not so much to change the State but to control it … Yet eighteenth century radical liberals routinely discussed the nature of political power in a democracy and measures necessary to keep in check the oppressive and centralizing tendencies of the State.

A tradition set aside [or insufficiently progressive], however, need not be lost forever. One of the reasons a rich seam of liberal egalitarian thought ─ from the Levellers to Thomas Paine through the Chartists ─ has been dismissed so lightly by socialists over the decades is that it was associated with a liberalism antithetical to the State in principle and hostile or indifferent to its potential to address inequality.

Clearly there has been a long and principled tradition of the Left, regardless of which party was in power, defending civil liberties — campaigning against successive Prevention of Terrorism Acts, miscarriage of justice and restrictions on protest. However, unlike right-wing libertarians, the Left’s critique of State power can sometimes sound selective and inconsistent, based on opposition to particular laws rather than a coherent analysis and set of principles about State power.

If it does not tread carefully, a movement that stands for the many, not the few can confuse populism with democracy. Sometimes the few need protection from the many. Ethical leadership from a movement driven by liberal egalitarian values could provide this protection.

Francesca Klug is Professorial Research Fellow at the London School of Economics.

Sources and notes
“Why has the left become so illiberal?” Compass conference 2010, an edited version of a speech by Francesca Klug at the Index on Censorship Event. Francesca Klug is Professorial Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2010/06/francesca-klug-left-liberal/
Also http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/francesca-klug/why-has-left-become-so-illiberal
Karl Heinrich Marx (b. Trier, Rhine province, Prussia [Germany], May 5, 1818 – d. London, March 14, 1883) was a sociologist, historian, and economist. With Friedrich Engels, he published Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848) commonly known as The Communist Manifesto and the most celebrated pamphlet in the history of the socialist movement. He also authored Das Kapital. These writings and others by Marx and Engels form the basis of the body of thought and belief known as Marxism.
The Leveler movement originated in 1645–46 (England) and advocated a program of economic reform in the interests of small property holders. Included were complete equality before the law, abolition of trading monopolies, reopening enclosed land, security of land tenure for copyholders, no conscription or billeting, drastic law reform, the abolition of tithes, complete freedom of religious worship and organization.
Chartism aimed at parliamentary reform and took its name from the People’s Charter (London May 1836) of six points including annual parliaments; universal male suffrage; the ballot; no property qualifications for members of Parliament; payment of members; and equal electoral districts. Behind the political demands was fierce social discontent. The movement drew on an array of working-class grievances and extended working-class consciousness as it grew.
Thomas Paine (b. Thetford, Norfolk, England, January 29, 1737-d. New York, N.Y.- U.S. June 8, 1809), English-American writer and political pamphleteer. Papers “Common Sense” and “Crisis” papers were important influences on the American Revolution. Other works included the Rights of Man and the Age of Reason. Born of a Quaker father and an Anglican mother, Paine had little formal education but “enough to master reading, writing, and arithmetic.”
Egalitarianism (1905) is “a belief in human equality esp. with respect to social, political, and economic rights and privileges; a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people.”
Britannica references

Thanks for your service now “man up,” move on

Suicide soliders on a fool’s errand
Re-reporting, editing with comment by Carolyn Bennett

The U.S. Army is said to be in alarm alert because the suicide rate among U.S. soldiers at home and abroad in this year alone has exceeded the number dying in the ongoing invasion and occupation of Afghanistan ─ the fool’s errand.

The director of the Army’s suicide prevention task force, Colonel Chris Philbrick, told National Public Radio that Army authorities dragged their feet and were generally dismissive about the rising crisis in military suicides.

“‘[We tell them] 'Thank you for your service, go find someplace else to work.’ The tough challenge is changing a culture that is very much about ‘manning up’ when things get [mentally and emotionally] difficult.”

Very late in the day ─ when most astute readers of news and antiwar literature already knew military personnel were committing suicide in record numbers ─ Army brass are claiming to be “investigating” the military's suicide prevention and mental health programs.

“Suicide rivals the battlefield in toll on U.S. Military (National Public Radio, Jamie Tarabay), June 17, 2010, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127860466

The real wounds to the mind are the killing fields ─ death and unspeakable injury: the constancy of killing, watching other human beings die, being concerned with, scared of imminent death. Never coming home again.

Say it again

Support the troops

Bring them home

Insightful student supports Mass teacher’s ‘End War’ speech

Edited and re-reported with minor comment by Carolyn Bennett
Two Massachusetts high school teachers are facing disciplinary action and possibly the loss of their jobs for holding a silent antiwar protest during a school gathering. During a Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School ceremony for seniors about to enter the military, “Marybeth Verani and Adeline Koscher held up a sign reading ‘End War.’”

“The teachers say they wanted to express their opposition because they view the ceremony as a military recruiting tool. The school has received dozens of phone calls urging administrators to fire the teachers. The teachers have been put on paid leave until further action is taken.”

The consequences of war reach far and wide but occasionally there is reason to see light in the future, reason not to give up on young minds. These insightful thoughts on war and protest and free speech were submitted anonymously to Cape Cod Today.

“I am a freshman at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School who witnessed the incident at Senior Last Assembly firsthand. During the speech honoring the students who joined the military, Marybeth Verani, who was situated in the bleachers in an unobtrusive location, held a small sign that read ‘End War.’…

“Many viewed [Marybeth Verani’s action] as a personal attack on the students and the military but the protest was aimed at the war itself ─ a war which has nearly no true justification. A majority of students condemned this protest, claiming it to be ‘unpatriotic.’ However, Verani was exercising her Constitutional right of Freedom of speech and those opposing this action are truly unpatriotic because they are opposing the most well known of our inherent rights.

“In a report by WBZ, a freshman was quoted saying, ‘I can't picture anyone not clapping because they’re going to defend our country for us.’

“This view is faulty. A six-month invasion to combat terrorism is now in its seventh year. No weapons of mass destruction or substantial evidence of their existence has been recovered. The best means of defending our country from any threat not yet discovered is readying ourselves for an attack from our own country ─ not invading another.

“Ms. Verani presented her opinion openly as her own. Others posted unsigned signs, in every wing of the school, reading, ‘We are proud to support our troops.’ The latter tactic seems dogmatic. It seems a form of pro-war propaganda. It is extremely unpleasant and troubling to walk the halls of a public school and see only the words of one of two opposing viewpoints.

“Many of the students opposing the peaceful protest may have opinions reflecting those of their peers and parents. The role models in my life remain neutral in this area, thus my beliefs are formed through my interpretation the facts that I receive.

“Most citizens remember the tragic death of Nicholas Xiarhos who had been one of Verani’s students. [Twenty-one-year-old Nicholas Xiarhos of Yarmouth, Massachusetts, a U.S. Marine corporal, died in Afghanistan July 2009 when a roadside bomb exploded.] She is one of many who was and still is affected by the war, so her statements have more relevance to the ongoing war than the thoughts of those who have not yet felt the consequences of the war. Verani had every right to state openly her opinions, without scorn.

“Support our troops by bringing them home.

“Thank you, Anonymous D-Y Student

(Name withheld at student’s request)”

Sources and notes’
“Mass. Teachers Face Punishment for Silent Antiwar Protest,” June 16, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/16/headlines/mass_teachers_targeted_for_silent_anti_war_protest
“D-Y student defends teacher’s protest ─Protest aimed at war, not student,” Cape Cod Today (letters)
June 14, 2010, http://www.capecodtoday.com/index.php
http://www.capecodtoday.com/index.phpLetters to the Editor
The Voice of Cape Codders
http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2010/06/14/d-y-student-defend-s-teacher-s-protest?blog=36
http://www.wbur.org/2010/05/31/steve-xiarhos
WBZ is a News Radio (1030) CBS affiliate in Boston, Massachusetts, http://www.wbz.com/

Anglo-Persian BP past is present

Re-reporting, excerpting, editing with minor comment by Carolyn Bennett

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the British Secret Service joined together to protect the interests of the oil company now known as BP, to overthrow the democratic government in Iran, and to cause consequences occurring in Persia over the past half-century [Stephen Kinzer]

Author Stephen Kinzer on today’s Democracy Now program contextualized BP in a bloody British-U.S.-Iranian hegemonic history. This is some of what Kinzer had to say.

BP
The history of the company we now call BP traces, over the last hundred years, “the arc of global transnational capitalism. In the first decade of the twentieth century, this company began as a kind of a wildcatting operation in Iran.”

What is today called BP was then “entrepreneurial and risk-taking,” a company with “a bunch of geologists running around in these very forbidding steppes and deserts.” Then “they struck what was the greatest find up to that time in the history of the oil industry.”

Stole Iran’s oil
“They discovered Iran was sitting on an ocean of oil and they decided they would take it. Under a corrupt deal they struck with a few representatives of the old declining Iranian monarchy, all of whom had been paid off by the company, this concession [later known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company] guaranteed itself or won the right to own all of Iran’s oil [What of U.S. and Iraq oil today?].

Given this deal, nobody in Iran had any right to drill for oil, extract oil, or sell oil.

The British government, soon after the find was made, decided to buy the company ─ [the company now known as BP]. “The British Parliament passed a law and bought 51 percent of that company.”

Stolen oil built British way of life
During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, “the entire standard of living that people in England enjoyed was supported by oil from Iran.

“All the trucks and jeeps in Britain were being run on Iranian oil.
Factories all over Britain were being funded by oil from Iran.
The Royal Navy, which projected British power all over the world, was run 100 percent on oil from Iran.
That became a foundation of British life.

Iran wanted its oil back
“After World War II, when the winds of nationalism and anti-colonialism were blowing throughout the developing world, Iranians developed the idea that they had to take back their oil. Mohammad Mosaddegh, the most prominent figure in the democratic period of Iran during the late 1940s and early 1950s, desired to nationalize what was then the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company; and with Iran’s democratically elected parliament voting unanimously, they nationalized their oil.

British/U.S. retaliated
“The British and their partners in the United States fiercely resisted Iran’s nationalizing of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and when these giants failed to prevent nationalization, they set in force (1953) the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh.

“This overthrow forced the end of the Mosaddegh government and the end of Iran’s democracy. Longer-term consequences of UK and U.S. violent aggression against Iran followed.

“The authoritarian Shah of Persia ruled for twenty-five years with increasing repression. His rule produced the explosion of the late 1970s, which produced the Islamic Republic.

“The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the British Secret Service [had] joined together to protect the interests of the oil company now known as BP and to overthrow the democratic government in Iran and to produce all the consequences we’ve seen in Iran over the past half-century.”

Sources and notes
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (b. 1919-d.1980 in Egypt) was the Shah of Persia. He was born in Tehran, Iran, and succeeded on the abdication of his father, Reza Shah, in 1941. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s reign brought “many years of social reforms” but during the latter 1970s, religious fundamentalists waged rising protests against “western-style ‘decadence’” In the 1979 Revolution, the Shah was forced out of Iran. The United States admitted him for medical treatment, which provoked Iran’s detention of 52 U.S. diplomats.
The Iranian Revolution is cited as “one of the great revolutions of modern history.” Like the French or Russian revolutions, the Iranian Revolution “confronted the West with a disruptive new political order. The consequence of widespread discontent at rapid socio-economic change and the authoritarian rule of the Shah of Persia, the revolution took the exiled religious scholar Ayatollah Khomeini as its figurehead.”
As the Shah bore down, his security forces in Qom killed six theology students (January 1978). Demonstrations ensued and hundreds of protesters were massacred in Tehran’s Juleh Square (September 1978). Unable to stem the protests and regain control, the Shah went into exile (January 1979). On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran to lead the revolution and establish the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“Stephen Kinzer on the History of BP/British Petroleum and Its Role in the 1953 Iran Coup,” Democracy Now, June 14, 2010, [http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/14/steven_kinzer_on_the_history_of
Stephen Kinzer is author of All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, looks at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s role in the 1953 CIA coup against Iran’s popular progressive prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh
Mohammad Mosaddeq (b. 1880 - d, March 5, 1967 in Tehrān, Iran)
Mosaddeq [also spelled Masaddiq , or Mossadegh] was an Iranian political leader who nationalized the huge British oil holdings in Iran. As premier in 1951–53, he almost succeeded in deposing the shah. Mohammad Mosaddeq was the son of an Iranian public official who grew up as a member of Iran’s ruling elite. He received a Doctor of Law degree from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
Reference sources: Cambridge Encyclopedia (third edition); Britannica (Deluxe edition 2008)

Week’s geopolitics: looming U.S. Asia conflict

June 13 update ─ The report on Pakistani intelligence (below) leaves no other conclusion than that the United States government ─ while claiming to fight “an enemy” and killing and traumatizing thousands of Afghanis, Pakistanis, Americans and sundry foreign nationals ─ is simultaneously funding (with debt and taxes) the very group it insists is a mad “extremist” bent on destroying “the West’s way of life.”
Compiled and edited with comment by Carolyn Bennett

Without constantly factoring in these engagements, theaters, and proxies, which critically affect social, educational, governmental, structural policy and action in every sense ─ often looming silenced in a room ─ any talk about U.S. foreign or domestic conditions and relations is nothing more than empty rhetoric.

MIDDLE EAST

Israel’s “Double game”
“When dealing with world superpowers, Israel has long played a double game whenever its relationship with the U.S. permitted it. In the 1990s, Israel tried to help China out of its global isolation following the Tiananmen massacre. It even tried to lobby Washington for Chinese interests. The Israelis have long boasted of lobbying the U.S., the White House, Congress and media in favor of countries of little importance to the United States; countries with poor human rights records; or merely need U.S. support.… Eventually many tapped Israel and its U.S. lobby for help in return of better relations with a country long considered an international pariah.…One wonders if boasting that its lobby has major influence in Washington doesn't indirectly fuel anti-Semitic claims of Jewish influence and control.…

“The Netanyahu government’s aggressive policies and settlement expansion in occupied Palestinian lands following his predecessor’s war on Lebanon and Gaza is driving Israel further to isolation. The only regional issue that has kept Israel in the loop is the Iranian nuclear issue.…” [“Israel shakes down China,” (Marwan Bishara in Imperium on June 10th, 2010), http://blogs.aljazeera.net/Israel shakes down China Al Jazeera Blogs].

Palestine
A Palestinian died Friday when Israelis opened fire in occupied East Jerusalem. “Palestinian witnesses said the man was standing on the side of the road when Israeli police officers started firing indiscriminately, killing him and seriously injuring a young woman.” Israelis said the man had attempted to ram his car into two Israeli police officers. It remained unclear whether the incident was an accident or a deliberate attack. Israeli security forces were deployed across East Jerusalem in large numbers in anticipation of possible unrest. Israeli police had announced a policy of limited-access for under-40-year-old Palestinian men travelling from East Jerusalem to the al-Aqsa Mosque for Friday prayers. Tensions between Israelis and Arabs in East Jerusalem remained high [“Israeli police kill Palestinian man,” June 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201061116939579309.html].

Iraq blowback
June 8
Video footage from a helicopter cockpit shows a deadly aerial strike carried out in 2007 in the Iraqi capital. Twelve civilians died in the attack among them two Reuters’ journalists.

Twenty-two-year-old U.S. Army Specialist Bradley Manning deployed at a base near Baghdad last year allegedly leaked the classified combat video to a whistleblower website Wikileaks. Manning was arrested last month after he reportedly bragged online about leaking the video and U.S. diplomatic cables. The U.S. military is reported to have issued a statement saying the soldier currently in Kuwait is in “‘pre-trial confinement for allegedly releasing classified information’” [“U.S. solider arrested over Iraq video,” June 8, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/20106815818808270.html].

Yemen
June 7
Fifty-five people among them 14 women and 21 children died in this attack. Amnesty International released photographs on Monday apparently showing parts of a U.S. cruise missile and cluster munitions gathered from the site of the military strike last December in the village of al Ma'jalah in southern Yemen.

After the rights group published what is said to be new evidence of U.S. involvement in the strike, the United States faces fresh questions concerning its role in the 2009 attack on an alleged al-Qaeda camp in Yemen. Fourteen alleged al-Qaeda members also died.

“The Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program said, ‘A military strike of this kind against alleged militants, without an attempt to detain them is, at the very least, unlawful.… The fact that so many of the victims were actually women and children indicates that the attack was in fact grossly irresponsible, particularly given the likely use of cluster munitions’” [“‘U.S. missile’ used in Yemen strike,” June 7, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/20106653442608341.html].

Yemen
June 12
Tribal fighters in eastern Yemen today blew up an oil pipeline in retaliation for an army raid on the home of one of their leaders accused of harboring al-Qaeda operatives. “The sabotage targeted a section of the pipeline that runs about six kilometres east of Maarib, capital of the province of the same name” [“Oil pipeline blown up in Yemen,” June 12, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/20106126547917129.html].

SOUTHWEST ASIA
AF/PAK

Afghanistan
June 9
Four foreign soldiers died Wednesday in Afghanistan when their helicopter was shot down in the south of the country.

U.S. and British forces stationed in southern Afghanistan are planning major operations in the Kandahar area where the U.S. president has said 30,000 more U.S. troops will be deployed. Following the plane hijacking of September 11, 2001, the U.S. government accused Taliban of harboring al-Qaeda in the area and invaded Afghanistan [“NATO troops killed in Afghanistan,” June 9, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/20106911642572476.html].

Afghanistan
June 10
More than 40 people in a wedding party in Kandahar died on Wednesday. Dozens suffered wounds. Afghan president Hamid Karzai called the incident ‘a crime of massive inhuman proportions.’

Rising deaths among foreigners (nearly 300 British soldiers have died in Afghanistan since 2001) and rising costs straining already stretched public finances “are eroding the UK's public support for the war” [“Karzai condemns Kandahar bombing,” June 10, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/201061010921894475.html].

Afghanistan
June 11
Eleven civilians (among them women and children) and two U.S. soldiers died Friday in violence across southern Afghanistan. Taliban fighters have increased attacks ahead of the planned U.S.-NATO operation. Nine of the civilian deaths occurred when a roadside bomb struck a minibus in the city of Kandahar. The other two civilians died in Zabul, a province neighboring Kandahar, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a shopping area of Shahjoy district. Sixteen people suffered wounds [“Many killed in Afghan blasts,” June 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/201061174818697945.html].

Pakistan
June 11
Fifteen people have died in two U.S. drone attacks launched “against alleged Taliban strongholds.” Carried out 12 hours apart, these attacks hit “west and east of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, a tribal region near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.” U.S. policy prohibits confirming drone attacks but “the U.S. army and Central Intelligence Agency are the only forces in the region with access to pilotless drones.”

More than 900 people among them many civilians have died “in nearly 100 drone raids on Pakistan since August 2008 and there have been at least 35 suspected drone attacks so far this year. This is a large increase over previous periods.”

Commenting on these drone killings the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions issued a report this month questioning the legality of CIA-directed drone attacks and calling them ‘license to kill without accountability.’ Moreover, critics have called these attacks “extra-judicial killings that create a ‘video-game warfare’ mentality … where civilian lives are not seriously valued” [“Deaths in Pakistan drone attacks,” June 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/201061113424264165.html].

EASTERN EUROPE/WESTERN ASIA

U.S.-Russia-Afghanistan Connection
NATO is said to have begun moving military supplies to Afghanistan through Russia after its convoys moving through Pakistan faced deadly attacks from the local Taliban. … Cargo had previously been shipped to the Pakistani port of Karachi and then transported into Afghanistan. The Alliance “cannot ship supplies through Iran’s southeastern port of Chahar Bahar due to the political dispute over Iran’s nuclear program [and] the Chinese route through the Wakhan Corridor is impractical “because the dirt road is blocked by snow for much of the year” [“NATO route opens through Russia,” June 12, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/2010611204927850979.html].

EAST ASIA

Koreas
Following the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, South Korea has put up loudspeakers in 11 locations along the tense border in order to resume anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, suspended since 2004. The North Koreans are calling the move ‘a direct declaration of a war’, a ‘flagrant violation’ of the inter-Korean declaration for peace and reconciliation signed in 2000. North and South Korea technically have remained at war since the end of the 1950-53 conflict and each side has waged cross-border propaganda campaigns during and since the end of the Cold War [“S Korea warned over loudspeakers,” June 12, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/06/20106124113542531.html].

Notes and more sources
“Yemen, an international quagmire,” Inside Story, January 5, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2010/01/20101562037795156.html
“Threats from al-Qaeda frightened the U.S. and the UK into indefinite closure of their embassies in Yemen. According to the U.S. embassy website, the danger is that the group’s Yemen-based offshoot, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is growing stronger and planning attacks on Western targets.”
Al Jazerra report May 30, 2010
A UN report released in January of this year revealed that at least 2,412 civilians had died in the Afghan conflict in 2009. The figure represented a 14 per cent increase over the previous year. NATO and Afghan government forces were responsible for 25 per cent of the deaths; and of those, about 60 per cent were due to airstrikes [“U.S. crew faulted in drone deaths,” May 30, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/05/201053034934522302.html].

Casualty sites reporting

June 12, 2010 (accurate totals unknown)
• Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 177]

Wounded 31,844-100,000;

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000;

Suicides 18 a day

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count figures:

96,663 – 105,409,

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,405 U.S., 4,723 Coalition;

AFGHANISTAN: 1,114 U.S., 1,823 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

AF/PAK/IRAQ
UPDATE ─ UK
Iraq
June 13
“Baghdad bombings hit central bank,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10304652.stm
Twelve people died today when bombs went off within a few minutes of each other in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The attacks come on the eve of the Iraqi parliament’s first day in its new session.

Britain/Afghanistan
June 13
“[UK] Armed forces chief to quit early - Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup is to quit as head of the armed forces in the autumn, before the end of his term in April 2011.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/default.stm
Britain’s most senior military officer Jock Stirrup will cut short his tenure and leave his position in the autumn. As Air Chief Marshal, Jock Stirrup has been chief of the defense staff since 2006. The previous Labour government had asked him to extend his term. The UK Ministry of Defense civil servant Bill Jeffrey will also leave his position.

“British troops joined a U.S.-led coalition that invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban in that country were accused of providing a sanctuary for al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.” Approximately 295 British service personnel have died in Afghanistan since military operations began in 2001.

June 13
Pakistan
“Pakistani agents ‘funding and training Afghan Taliban’ ─ Pakistan's links with the Taliban could go much deeper than thought,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/default.stm
“Pakistani intelligence gives funding, training and sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban on a scale much larger than previously thought, a report says. London School of Economics authors of the report suggest that support for the Afghan Taliban was ‘official ISI policy.’

“The ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] first became involved in funding and training militants in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979. Since 2001 the ISI has been a key U.S. ally, receiving billions of dollars in aid in return for helping fight al-Qaeda.”

Wikipedia ref. note: “The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (also Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI) is the largest intelligence service in Pakistan. It is one of the three main branches of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.”

The report on Pakistani intelligence leaves no other conclusion than that the United States government ─ while claiming to fight “an enemy” and killing and traumatizing thousands of Afghanis, Pakistanis, Americans and sundry foreign nationals ─ is simultaneously funding (with debt and taxes) the very group it insists is a mad “extremist” bent on destroying “the West’s way of life.”

U.S. BREACH unleashed British oil

Re-reporting, excerpting, editing, commentary by Carolyn Bennett  

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America [Preamble to the U.S. Constitution].

Taking the oath of office, U.S. Government Officials swear to uphold the Constitution and, failing that, they stand in breach of this Constitution. A report today in the New York Daily News illustrates that the U.S. Government and a long line of government officials are in continuing breach of their oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. 

U.S.-BP is the case in point. British Petroleum “suffered the most spills” of any oil company in the period 2000 to 2010, Juan Gonzalez reports, and the U.S. government knew about it. “Federal records show BP reported 23 significant oil spills” in this period; two of them within weeks of each other in 2003. Involved was “the same Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that was destroyed in the April 21” catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

• January 19, 2000: 2,400 barrels of 60 percent synthetic-based drilling mud [with approximately 60,000 gallons of oil] leaked into the Gulf of Mexico.
• May 21, 2003: 2,450 barrels of 58 percent Accolade synthetic-based drilling mud (SBM) spilled at Mississippi Canyon 778 containing approximately 1,421 barrels (59,000 gallons) of Accolade synthetic base oil.
• June 30, 2003: 944 barrels (est.) of Nova Plus synthetic base oil were spilled into the sea.
• August 3, 2003: 143 barrels (est.) spilled after the boost line leaked because of a rupture in the boost hose and several worn places along the hose

Between 2000 and 2009 “there have been thousands of spills,” Gonzalez quoted the head of Toxics Targeting in Ithaca, N.Y, a company that tracks and analyzes federal hazardous spill reports.

 “Spills mounted,” Gonzalez, and “no one paid attention. Now the big one has come and nothing can hide the gushing hole at the bottom of the sea” [“Devastating BP oil spill was inevitable as government failed to learn from past tragedies” (Juan Gonzalez – News), June 11, 2010, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/11/2010-06-11_previous_oil_spills_taught_them_zilch.html]

Today on the Democracy Now program, Juan Gonzalez talked about the current Gulf of Mexico catastrophe and his reporting for the New York Daily News story.

“New government estimates have found the BP oil spill may be spewing twice as much oil into the Gulf of Mexico as previously thought. On Thursday, the Flow Rate Technical Group released its new estimate of 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day based on information gathered last week, before BP installed a new capture device.

“Some scientists have warned that the flow rate sharply increased after BP last week cut the pipe known as the riser to install the new device. The current estimates from the government panel suggest that an amount equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster could be flowing into the Gulf of Mexico every eight to ten days. The new numbers were released shortly after a scientist on the Flow Rate Technical Group publicly warned that the oil might be spewing out at a rate of more than 100,000 barrels a day, a figure BP once called its worst-case scenario. …”

Based on the Toxics Targeting analysis, Gonzalez reported that in government databases over the past several decades “there had been literally thousands of spill reports in the Gulf of Mexico and they have been increasing dramatically ─ especially the significant spills ─ since the Bush administration…. BP has been the firm with the most spill reports, twenty-three in the last ten years…. The number of incidents clearly should have signaled to the government that the number of accidents was increasing ─ and that a big one was bound happen.”

In the clean up now being undertaken in the Gulf, Gonzalez commented, “many of the people working out there are getting sick as a result of the lack of safety provisions” and “BP [has hired former U.S. Vice President] Dick Cheney’s former spokesperson as their director of communications” [http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/11/].

 In the entrenched earmark-making, broken U.S. governmental system where money and luxury buy legislation and policy (government officials), deregulation and blindness ─ governance in the interest of private for-profit and nonprofit corporations ─ the constitutional principle of providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves, and our posterity is abandoned. A “more perfect union” where justice takes root, peace among the people is insured is a pipedream ─ a betrayal of public trust, a BREACH of the people’s law.

History meets current conditions ─ conflict comments

A Second 2nd Intifada? From Professor Mark LeVine
Excerpting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Her “gift”

To the Israeli government and its supporters her words were “an unexpected but welcome gift,” Mark LeVine writes in an opinion piece posted at Al Jazeera-English. For a while, media obsessed on her comments, downplayed or ignored reports of “30-plus shots fired into the bodies of activists on the high seas, and bent over backwards to demonstrate their commitment to Israel’s narrative [‘the world is against Jews’].” Instead of demanding better access to Gaza, media [had] “to refute the liberal anti-Israel bias of the media.”

Her “warning”…

“Her words were also an admonishment,” LeVine wrote. For as long as the American establishment and crucial political and economic constituencies perceive Israel as a strategic and political asset, Israel will continue its occupation, continue defying world opinion. “Israeli leaders are betting that their best chance of continuing the status quo indefinitely is for the United States to remain embroiled in so many conflicts abroad that no administration has the energy or political capital seriously to challenge Israel’s actions even when the actions contradict the assessment of generals and policy-makers about the best interests of the United States.”

… Of a breaking point

“With double-dip recession, weak job numbers, increasing casualties in distant battlefields, more oil and coal mining disasters, another this time successful attack by ‘terrorists’ … Americans are going to start looking for people to blame....”

However intemperate or prejudiced her words may have seemed, they warned also of letting Israel continue “the business of destroying itself while [Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran] look on, waiting to pounce ─ just as Israel did to Palestinian society during the worst years of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, when the pressure led to widespread chaos and infighting among Palestinians.

“The question is: will Israel play according to their script. Continue to defy world public opinion, slowly alienating the population of its only (until now) unequivocal benefactor? Or will Israel’s leaders and so-called friends change course before it is too late?”

Sources and notes
Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC-Irvine, senior visiting researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (Lund University, Sweden) and author of Heavy Metal Islam and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989. His opinion: “The cautionary tale of Helen Thomas,” June 9, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/06/201068132838677696.html

Al-Aqsa Intifada

A Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip

Al-Aqsa Intifada, or the Second Intifada, began after Ariel Sharon, a leader of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party, visited al-Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in Jerusalem on September 28, 2000. AlHaram, which contains al-Aqsa Mosque, is the third holiest shrine of Islam. The visit itself was provocative, especially because 1,000 riot police accompanied Sharon.

But what triggered the Intifada the following day was the Israeli police’s use of live ammunition and rubber bullets that killed 6 and injured 220 rock-throwing (but otherwise unarmed) Palestinian demonstrators.

The fundamental cause of the Intifada (‘shaking off’) was the continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at Camp David in July 2000 that were supposed to end the occupation had broken down. Palestinians had expected that the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) recognition of Israel would lead to an end of the thirty-three-year Israeli occupation and to the establishment of a Palestine state. However, in the 1990s the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza had doubled to 200,000, for which Israel confiscated more Palestinian land for the settlements and their access roads. Israel extended its policy of closures, which restricted movements, and its network of checkpoints, where Palestinians were often humiliated. Israel also continued to demolish homes and to uproot and burn olive and fruit trees for security reasons and as a form of collective punishment for acts of terrorism. In short, Israeli repression and Palestinians’ unmet expectations of freedom and independence had contributed to years of pent-up Palestinian frustration, despair, and rage.

As in the first Intifada (1987 - 1991), in October 2000 Palestinians began by using nonviolent methods. But after 144 Palestinians had been killed, Islamist groups such as HAMAS and Islamic Jihad began a campaign of suicide bombings against mostly civilians in occupied territories and Israel. Groups associated with al-Fatah such as al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade focused on resisting Israeli army incursions and attacking settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. Starting in January 2002, al-Aqsa Brigade also began conducting suicide bombings against mostly Israeli civilians, a practice condemned by the international community. Although Yasir Arafat (head of al-Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization and president of the Palestinian Authority since 1996), did not initiate the Intifada, he reportedly gave tacit approval to armed resistance and terrorism despite his promise made in the Oslo Accord in 1993 to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to renounce ‘the use of terrorism and other acts of violence.’

Palestinian violence contributed to the downfall of Israel’s Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barak and to the rising popularity of Ariel Sharon, who became prime minister on February 6, 2001.

Sharon ─ a proponent of Greater Israel, an architect of the settlements, and an opponent of the Oslo process ─ proceeded with broad public support to use harsh measures against the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. In response to Palestinian violence, he initiated a policy of assassinations ─ euphemistically called ‘targeted killings’ ─ of suspected terrorist leaders, that sometimes included activists and innocent bystanders. He reoccupied major Palestinian cities, using helicopter gunships, warplanes, and tanks. Some of Sharon’s methods were considered to be war crimes by human rights groups, and were condemned by the United States.

The Intifada was costly to the Palestinians, to Israel, and to the United States.

Some Palestinian analysts considered the militarization of the Intifada to be a blunder. The Oslo process was destroyed, Arafat sidelined, the Palestinian economy damaged, and PA (Palestinian Authority) areas occupied, as Israeli settlement construction and a separation barrier (called wall by Palestinians, fence by Israelis) continued apace.

By early 2004, Sharon’s harsh measures had led to the deaths of about 3,000 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians, including about 500 children.

In addition, the Palestinians lost much popular, moral, and diplomatic support around the world.

The Intifada also cost the lives of about 900 Israelis, most of them civilians, and brought insecurity to the everyday lives of Israelis, who lost faith in the Palestinians as peace partners. It also contributed to Israel’s worst economic recession, for which the government sought a large loan from the United States.

President George W. Bush’s neglect of the peace process and support for the hard-line policies of Sharon resulted in anger at the United States in much of the Muslim and Arab world, which has helped anti-American Muslim extremist groups to recruit members.

The Intifada also had unintended positive consequences. Pressure from Sharon and Bush prompted reform of the Palestinian Authority, which most Palestinians had sought for years because they viewed the PA as corrupt, inept, and autocratic. A new office of prime minister was created to assume many of the duties and much of the authority of the PA president. One diplomatic by-product of the Intifada was the Arab League’s approval in March 2002 of a Saudi plan calling for Arab recognition and normalization of relations with Israel ─ provided that United Nations Resolution 242 is implemented and an independent state of Palestine is created.

Another was the U. S. initiation of another peace effort, the Road Map, in 2003. The Intifada also increased support within Israel for the dismantling of most of the settlements and withdrawal from Gaza. Despite the violence, destruction, and insecurity, and despite the failed leadership of Arafat, Sharon, and Bush, most Israelis and Palestinians continued to support the concept of a two-state solution as the only viable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

http://www.answers.com/topic/al-aqsa-intifada

People struggle, people bring change ─ Jahangir

Excerpt, editing, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett

In awarding the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom Medal to Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist Asma Jahangir, the citation said Asma Jahangir understood early in life the requirements and sacrifices associated with a commitment to human rights. She understood that a flourishing democracy requires nourished and free civil society institutions. These convictions inspired her public career and, despite intimidation, arrest and imprisonment, and threats to her life, she “never compromised her commitment.” She saw injustice first-hand and took up the study and practice of law, a profession in 1970s Pakistan deemed unsuitable for women. Asma Jahangir co-founded the first all-woman law practice and the first free legal-aid center in Pakistan; then challenged ordinances making blasphemy a capital offense.

Women together uproot entrenched bigotry

“I firmly believe that women across the world, regardless of their positions in life or cultural backgrounds, have much in common,” Asma Jahangir said in accepting the award. “My clients often express Eleanor’s [Eleanor Roosevelt’s] admission to a friend that she could ‘forgive but not forget.’ However, several women can do neither. Dependency and an all-pervasive male environment force them to accept ill-treatment as their fate. This must change.

“The worst threats and attacks made on me were during two cases that I defended. One of a fourteen-year-old, Salamat Masih, who was accused of blasphemy which carries a mandatory death penalty in our country; the second of a 22-year-old woman who had defied her family and married a man of her choice. Fortunately, both cases were won but at a huge price.

“The litigants could no longer live in the country. The presiding judge who acquitted Salamat was killed. I escaped two assassination attempts. Such challenges are instructive. I have never regretted defending the vulnerable. They often put us to shame. Their courage and patience is exemplary.

“Religious intolerance knows no borders. It is contagious and rears its head in almost all regions of the world.”

Democracy, rule of law, human rights interwoven

“Rights of religious minorities are compromised, even in a system where democratic norms are otherwise respected. However, dictatorial and autocratic systems provide a fertile ground for intolerance to entrench itself deeper into society. It is therefore important for us to recognize that democracy, rule of law and human rights are closely interlinked. They flourish together or perish one by one.

“In my early years of activism, I was dubbed as a controversial person. This is the initial step of marginalizing an activist for human rights. People like myself are then considered dangerous and a threat to moral, and traditional values. Harassment, arrests, and eventually physical attacks follow vilification. A number of human rights defenders go through these hurdles. My life was no different.”

However, in an interview with Radio Netherlands’ South Asia Wired program, she said, “‘we don’t have the luxury of fear, we have to act.’”

“‘The West is only learning now, but extremism took over Pakistan [30 years ago]’ … The attacks of 9/11 in New York just highlighted the ‘sleepiness’ of the Western intelligence and diplomatic communities to something that ‘every Pakistani on the street had been talking about for years.…’”

People bring change

In a 1990s interview, Asma Jahangir spoke of progressive change rising, not from governments, but from the people. “‘Eventually things will have to get better. However, the way they will improve is not going to be because of government, elite or political leadership, or the institutions of our country ─ most of which have actually crumbled.

“‘It will be the people of the country themselves who will bring about the change in society because they have had to struggle to fend for themselves at every level.’”


Sources
Asma Jahangir’s Acceptance speech at The International Four Freedoms Awards 2010, Middelburg, The Netherlands, May 29, 2010, http://fourfreedoms.nl/index.php?lang=en&id=58
http://www.fourfreedoms.nl/index.php?lang=en&id=57
“Asma Jahangir” (Laila Kazmi, Interview by Farahnaz Junejo, Zameen, December 1997), http://www.jazbah.org/asmaj.php
“An Outspoken Woman” (South Asia Wired, South Asians talking to each other, Dheera Sujan’s interview with Asma Jahangir), June 3, 2010, http://blogs.rnw.nl/southasiawired/2010/06/03/an-outspoken-woman/

Israeli Blockade starves 60 percent ─ UN report

“Gaza food supplies are strangled by 1,000-day blockade.” From UN reports edited excerpts by Carolyn Bennett

Citing UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) findings, the Integrated Regional Information Networks reported in May of this year, “the amount and quality of food available to the estimated 1.5 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip has been severely restricted by more than 1,000 days of a near-complete blockade.”

Sixty-one percent of people living in Gaza are “food insecure” [hungry, undernourished or starving]

• Israel’s import and access restrictions have suffocated Gaza’s agricultural sector, directly contributing to rising food insecurity
• Protein-rich foods such as meat and poultry are especially difficult for Gazans to afford
• The number of Palestine refugees unable to access food and are lacking the means to purchase basic items ─ such as soap, school stationery and safe drinking water ─ has tripled since the imposition of the blockade in June 2007.
• Israeli naval forces since January 2009 have restricted the access of Gaza fishing boats to only three nautical miles from shore, often in practice reduced to two nautical miles.
• Reduction in electricity supplies to Gaza as part of the Israeli blockade causes significant damage to vegetable crops due to the lack of refrigeration, adds to production costs
• Movement of goods through tunnels from Egypt then sold at inflated prices and inaccessible to most Gazans is not a viable solution.… Unregulated entry of livestock and veterinary medicines to Gaza from Egypt via tunnels result in animal diseases in Gaza and trans-boundary disease outbreaks in the region.

Sources and notes
Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) is part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, but its services are editorially independent. Its reports do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations and its agencies or its member states. Founded in 1995 to improve the flow of vital information to those involved in relief efforts in the Great Lakes region following the 1994 Rwandan genocide, IRIN’s headquarters are in Nairobi, Kenya. The principal role of IRIN “is to provide news and analysis about sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia for the humanitarian community.”

Pakistani poverty, Taliban popularity

Inequality, hatred, Desperation – People are desperate
BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones travelled to Pakistan to find out why the Taliban gained support in the Swat Valley. The report examined fears and the Taliban’s message of hope to those who are trapped in rural poverty, and how they could see them taking hold of Punjab, Pakistan’s most powerful province.
Edited excerpts from that report with commentary by Carolyn Bennett

“‘He gathered his last few rupees, sent his children to buy some sweets from the market and whilst they were away hanged himself.

“‘My son could not cope with the poverty… He didn’t say anything to me or his family. He just killed himself. He was fed up because he could not get his creditors off his back and he could [not] pay them either.’”

[The father of Nawaz Mohammed, a 30-year-old with seven children who decided there was no way he could repay money he had borrowed from his employer.]

“Almost every day the newspapers carry reports of fathers committing suicide because they are unable to feed their families.

“The leading farming families in Pakistan are generally described as ‘feudals.’ The Taliban denounce the ‘feudals’ as exploiters of the common people.”

The message of the Taliban is “‘there is a lot of injustice and we will give you land. We will look after you. We will be the empowered future ─ join us and be part of the future.’” [Khalid Aziz, a retired senior official from North West Pakistan].

“This message, along with the anti-Americanism resulting from the invasion of Afghanistan, fuels the Taliban’s popularity, particularly among the dispossessed.

“There is speculation that the Taliban might make a concerted effort to win control of the country’s most powerful province, Punjab.

“Punjab may be the country’s richest state, but many Punjabis do not know where their next meal is coming from and in rural areas, there is real despair.”

However, “the Taliban suffers from having failed to deliver when it has won power. In the Swat Valley, the Taliban told the poor and dispossessed that they would get land and they attacked leading landholders, some of whom held senior political positions. Once the Taliban commanders took over estates in Swat they decided they would hang on to them for their own families. They turned out to be venal as well as violent. If the Taliban kept their promises, they would be a far more formidable force.”

One comes away from Crossing Continents’ report of Inequality and the Taliban thinking about the global situation of conflict rising and spreading because of intolerable poverty and the fact that nations, sects and corporations take advantage of and worsen this situation. One thinks about poverty creation by “entitled” wealth, national leaders’ neglect of society and individuals generation after generation, suffering well into the future. One thinks about the callously filthy rich (often public “charities,” private and nonprofit foundations, tax sheltering tax evaders) and desperately poor divide. One thinks of U.S. and other powerful nations’ foreign and domestic policies that deepen desperation, pour on flames of war, cause the rise and raging of perpetual conflict.


Sources and notes
“Pakistan inequality fuelling Taliban support,” May 13, 2010 “Crossing Continents” program Owen Bennett-Jones investigates the grievances that lie behind Pakistan’s Taliban movement,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8681024.stm
Britannica notes on Punjab and Swat Valley:
Punjab
Punjab province of eastern Pakistan is bordered by the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to the northeast, the Indian states of Punjab and Rājasthān to the east, Sindh province to the south, Balochistān and North-West Frontier provinces to the west, and Islāmābād federal capital area and Azad Kashmir to the north. Punjab is Pakistan’s second largest province, after Balochistān, and the most densely populated. The name Punjab means ‘five waters,’ or ‘five rivers,’ and signifies the land drained by the Jhelum, Chenāb, Rāvi, Beās, and Sutlej rivers, which are tributaries of the Indus River.
Swat River Valley
Swat River in northern Pakistan formed by the junction of the Gabriāl and Ushu rivers at Kālām in the Kohistān region. Fed by melting snow and glaciers and receiving the drainage of the entire Swāt River valley, the river flows southward, then westward, until joined by the Panjkora River. The united stream then flows southwestward into the Peshāwar Plain and joins the Kābul River at Nisatta after a 200-mile (320-kilometre) course. The Swāt canals irrigate about 160,000 acres (65,000 hectares) in which sugarcane and wheat are the chief crops.
“Crossing Continents,” recipient of the Amnesty International, One World and New York Festival Awards, is BBC Radio 4’s award-winning foreign affairs documentary series. The program is broadcast 28 times a year on Thursdays and is repeated on Mondays, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/2712645.stm
Journalist Owen Bennett-Jones, educated at the London School of Economics and Oxford University, has been based in Geneva, Islamabad and Hanoi. In 2003, he wrote Pakistan: Eye Of The Storm, a modern history of the country, and is working on a second edition. His coverage of events in Pakistan in 2007 and 2008 included interviews with Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and President Pervez Musharraf, reporting on the country’s corruption, Benazir Bhutto’s return and on the aftermath of her assassination. For excellence as an interviewer and reporter, Bennett-Jones won the Sony Radio Gold Award in the News Journalist of the Year category for 2008. He has written for key British newspapers including The Guardian, Financial Times and The Independent and, in addition to “Crossing Continents,” has been a presenter on another BBC World Service radio news program, “The Interview.”