Mediterranean Sea to Indian Ocean — Africa to Asia: Southwest Central Asia/Middle East
Nigeria-Sudan, Egypt-Sudan-Ethiopia-Somalia
Egypt-Palestine-Syria-Iraq/Saudi Arabia-Yemen
Palestine, Iraq-Iran, Afghanistan-Pakistan-India
Oil lands, waterway passages, geopolitics and domination
Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett
You would not think so from mass media reports but Egypt is in Africa.
It borders Sudan’s northern border and Sudan’s western border is one nation (Chad) away from Sub Saharan Nigeria’s eastern border. Sudan’s eastern border is Ethiopia, then Somalia on Africa’s Horn. Linking waterways from the Mediterranean down the eastern coasts of Egypt, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia are the Red Sea emptying into the Gulf of Aden, into the Indian Ocean.
Traveling a back in a tight circle north and east from the Indian Ocean are India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Egypt. But of course that’s beside the point — or is it?
This is the current critical mass of U.S. foreign relations: Asia/Africa aggression — WAR made in the USA.
For more than sixty years, the United States and “the West” … installed and supported puppets, despots, and corrupt and totalitarian regimes as long as they did our bidding,” Professor Adil E. Shamoo writes in “On the Wrong Side of History in the Middle East,” published at the end of January in Foreign Policy in Focus. “The West had no plans [of bringing] freedom and democracy to Middle Eastern countries. Granting sovereignty to Middle Eastern countries was furthest from the minds of Western leaders.”
Professor Shamoo is a native of Iraq. “As an Arab-American raised in Middle East,” he writes, “I was always baffled by America’s claim of being the beacon of freedom and democracy while consistently supporting regimes in the Middle East headed by kings and dictators who killed, imprisoned, starved, tortured and on occasion raped their people in order to stay in power.
“Unfortunately, this policy remains the same today” but because of scant and biased reporting, “The American people are ill informed about the Middle East…. Mainstream media portray U.S. policy as balancing stability and support of corrupt regimes with instituting some reforms … [But] U.S. policies toward the Middle East are shaped by strategic needs, oil, and support for our friendly countries – primarily Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia …”
After September 11, 2001, U.S. officials’ “rhetoric and actions became even more abhorrent, as we labeled any Arab not in agreement with our policies in the Middle East as terrorists, in order to mute free-flowing discussions regarding our policies in the region. [U.S.] policy since 9/11 has added the requirement of collaboration with us against the ‘terrorists’ as a litmus test to the strength of our relationship. Thus, regimes that are helping us weed out the terrorists receive strong support from us to help stabilize and remain in power by covert and overt means. Our policy is contradictory.
“The mere support of these corrupt regimes creates terrorists against the United States. … [T]he unconditional U.S. support of Israel towards the Palestinians adds another complicating and negative dimension.…
“The time for mere reforms in the Middle East has past. The choice is between lack of freedom and democracy, police state, torture and rape on one side; and respect for human values that encompass freedom, democracy and sovereignty on the other. …”
Middle East: IRAQ
In 2008, Marc Steiner for the Center for Emerging Media talked with Adil Shamoo about U.S.-invaded and occupied Iraq.
“First,” Dr. Shamoo said, “we broke Iraq, we destroyed Iraq, and there are 5 million refugees, half internal and half external. A half million children are practically homeless, the healthcare infrastructure destroyed. Most of Iraq is now ethnically cleansed, especially Baghdad. … There are areas of pure Shiite and pure Sunnis, now.… Iraq had been an intermixed city, very cosmopolitan.… When you ‘ethnically cleanse’ and you have an extra 20-30 thousand troops, violence goes down, especially when you do not count how many Iraqi have died.…
“We went to Iraq for three primary reasons: most important, strategic, to shape the world the way we want; second, oil, not only Iraqi oil but the whole area, which contains 70 percent of the world’s oil; third, the safety and security of allies such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel.”
Looking to a just solution in the Middle East, Shamoo said: “We still have the talent, the business, the management, the education, the technology to help the Iraqis reconstruct their country … They would become more pro-America that way rather than having 20-year-old foot soldiers who don’t know what they are sometimes doing. They do not know how to do reconstruction. They do not know how to run a country. They are taught only to conquer an enemy. Iraq is not that enemy.”
But U.S. officials are unconcerned with history or reason — WAR against liberty “Made in the USA”
AFRICA: EGYPT
Al Jazeera reports that Egypt is second only to Israel in receiving aid from the United States. Egypt receives close to $2 billion in economic and military aid every year and, of that amount, according to the Congressional Research Service, $1.3 billion is in “military assistance.”
Reports from the ground of current protests in Egypt have noted that tear gas canisters fired at protesters are stamped with the U.S. brand — “Made in USA.”
AFRICA: SUDAN— Khartoum
Sudan like Egypt is “deep in economic crisis after a bloated import bill has eaten up foreign currency and forced an effective currency devaluation and rising inflation. [In January], the government cut subsidies on petroleum products and sugar, a key commodity in Sudan.” The result was “protests throughout the north.”
A student died on Monday of wounds inflicted by security forces during anti-government demonstrations in Sudan’s capital. Witnesses reported that hundreds of heavily armed police surrounded at least six universities in Khartoum and environs. The armed police beat back university students in three towns in the north who had tried to escape to conduct peaceful protests.
AFRICA: Central NIGERIA — Jos
Scores of people have died in increased regional violence in recent years. Last Sunday the military sent in force aided by helicopters for ‘aggressive patrols.’
Thirty-five people died last week in clashes between Christians and Muslims in Tafawa Balewa in central Nigeria. Four people died last week and arson attacks destroyed 5 mosques and 50 houses. In neighboring town of Jos, the capital of Plateau state, more than a dozen people died after clashes sparked by Muslim villagers’ stabbing of university students on Friday. Over last weekend, churches, mosques, filling stations, houses and food kiosks were set fire.
ASIA: Afghanistan (Kabul) and Pakistan (Mohmand, Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi)
If fighting intensifies on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said, “up to 90,000 people or 10,000 families could be displaced by the end of February.”
Fighting that began on January 27 — involving aerial bombing, artillery and ground troops — has caused more than 20,000 villagers to flee “military operations against armed fighters in Pakistan’s tribal region of Mohmand near the Afghan border.” United States officials have been reportedly “pushing Pakistan to take action against Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts in the northwest of the country.”
The army prohibits reporting independently in Mohmand and other border areas but in the past few days “the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has registered about 25,000 people displaced as a result of fresh military operations against insurgents in the country’s northwest.”
Peshawar, Pakistan
Ten people died and 19 suffered wounds Wednesday when a car bomb exploded near a police station in a commercial area of Pakistan’s northwestern city, Peshawar. Three infants and two women were among the dead. Women and children were also among the injured.
Five people died Monday on the outskirts of Peshawar, among them a senior police officer, when two bombs exploded. Reports said “a teenage boy carrying between six and seven kilos of explosives” carried out these bombings. Since the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan (2001), Pakistan’s northwest and tribal areas have suffered “violence, mostly targeting security officials.”
Lahore and Karachi, Pakistan
Ten people died and more than 50 suffered wounds Wednesday (January 26) when a suicide bomb exploded near a Shia Muslim procession in the Pakistani city of Lahore. Among the critically wounded were women and children. Believed to have been among the dead were three police officials and a woman. This bomber also was believed to have been a teenager. Four people died and several suffered wounds Tuesday (January 25) in the southern city of Karachi when a motorcycle bomb exploded.
At least 31 people died and 280 suffered wounds in early September in Lahore, a city of eight million people near the border with India. In three and a half years, bombing campaigns across Pakistan have reportedly “killed more than 4,000 people.”
Kabul, Afghanistan
At least nine people died and six suffered wounds Friday [January 28] when a suicide bomb exploded at a supermarket in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Reported among the dead were “foreign women” and a child.
“Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst level since the ‘overthrow’ of the Taliban by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. There have been reported “record casualties on all sides of the conflict and a raging uprising that has shown little sign of abating.” Friday’s incident was “the first major attack on civilians in Kabul since two suicide bombers detonated explosives near the city’s biggest shopping center and a hotel last February [2010], killing at least 14 people.”
SAUDI ARABIA’s SOUTHERN TIP: YEMEN — Sanaa, Aden
Thousands of anti-government protesters planned and Thursday on the streets of Yemen carried out a ‘day of rage.’ Up to 20,000 people gathered in the Yemini capital demanding an end to President Al Abdullah Saleh’s 30-year rule of this impoverished nation. In the incident, pro-government and anti-government demonstrators clashed.
In Aden, a southern port city of Yemen, officers faced a separate group of protesters and “reportedly fired tear gas and live ammunition to break up the demonstrators.”
U.S.-led
WAR DEAD?
Casualty sites reporting January 24, 2011
(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: 208]
Wounded 32,973 -100,000
U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000
Suicides estimated: 18 a day
Latest update on this site: January 26, 2011
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count (civilian deaths from violence) figures:
‘We don’t do body counts’— General Tommy Franks
Documented civilian deaths from violence
99,393 – 108,514
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties figures:
IRAQ: 4,436 U.S.; 4,754 Coalition
AFGHANISTAN: 1,472 U.S.; 2,317 Coalition
“The U.S. must change its policy for our sake and the sake of the Middle East.” More importantly, Professor Shamoo said, the United States “must be on the right side of history. The revolution may not succeed. It may get co-opted. It may fail today but surely it will succeed tomorrow.”
Sources and notes
“On the Wrong Side of History in the Middle East” (Adil E. Shamoo), January 31, 2011, Foreign Policy in focus, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies,
http://www.fpif.org/blog/on_the_wrong_side_of_history_in_middle_east#
“Iraqi American Viewpoint—an Interview with Adil Shamoo,” March 17, 2008, Center for
Emerging Media (Marc Steiner, transcript by Judith Lloyd), http://www.steinershow.org/files/Adil_Shamoo_TRANSCRIPT.pdf
Adil E Shamoo Ph.D., is a professor and former chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and holds a secondary appointment to the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. He serves as a member of the Defense Health Board (DHB), chairing the Medical Ethics Subcommittee as well as a being a member of its Executive Committee. Dr. Shamoo is a senior analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, of the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Accountability in Research and is on the editorial board of the Drug Information Journal. Dr. Shamoo has authored, co-authored, or edited fifteen books, including his textbook , Responsible Conduct of Research (with David Resnick, 2003, 2009); Ethics of the Use of Human Subjects in Research (with Felix Gyi, 2002). He has published over 270 papers. Dr. Shamoo has held full-time faculty appointments at East Carolina University, the National Institutes of Health, University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry, Max-Planck Institute for Biophysics, Frankfort, West Germany, Mount Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York, and University of Louisville.
“U.S. to reconsider aid to Egypt — White House officials are evaluating the annual package given to the embattled Egyptian government” (Laila Al-Arian), January 30, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/201112915194130323.html#
“Sudan student ‘dies in clashes’ — Protesters say he was beaten by police amid anti-government demonstrations in Khartoum and died of his wounds,” January 31, 2011,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/2011131153313865676.html#
“Violence grips Nigeria — Deadly clashes between Christians and Muslim in Nigeria continue ahead of April elections,” January 30, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/2011130212130757290.html#
“Scores flee Pakistan army operation — Fresh military offensive against armed fighters forces thousands of people to flee their villages for safety,” February 4, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/02/201124111710431641.html#
“Deaths in Pakistan blast — Three infants and two women were among at least ten killed in a car bomb near a police station in the city of Peshawar,” February 2, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/02/2011226312386438.html#
“Blasts hit northern Pakistan — Senior police officer among several people killed in two separate attacks near the city of Peshawar, officials say,” January 31, 2011,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/201113185918374946.html#
“Deadly suicide blast rocks Lahore — At least 10 people killed near Shia Muslim procession in Pakistan city, while four others die in attack in Karachi,” January 26, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/2011125142912899674.html#
“Kabul blast targets foreigners — Taliban claim responsibility for attack, which has killed nine people, including one child, and wounded six others,” January 28, 2011 14:06 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/2011128131933750123.html
“Opposing protesters rally in Yemen — Anti-government demonstrators reiterate calls for president to stand down while his supporters stage a counter rally, February 3, 2011,
____________________________________
___________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment