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Showing posts with label Phyllis Bennis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phyllis Bennis. Show all posts

Friday, August 8, 2014

Bennis, Avnery discuss historical context, credibility, talking with perceived enemies

United States, Western countries must cease decade’s old-style relations with Middle East
Editing, brief commentary by Carolyn Bennett

U.S. journalist, activist, and political commentator Phyllis Bennis is Director of New Internationalism at the Institute for Policy Studies.  The New Internationalism project “works to challenge U.S. domination of the UN and to help democratize and empower the global organization,” according to its website. It works primarily on Middle East and United Nations issues with key areas of interest including U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Instrumentally, the NI project focuses on “education and activism to change the failed and failing U.S. policies and retool those policies to meet the goals of peace with justice” [http://www.ips-dc.org/projects/new-internationalism/]

Today in light of the U.S. Executive Government’s resumption of overt violent aggression in Iraq and again cloaking unprovoked violence in “humanitarianism” and false mandate to protect, Phyllis Bennis talked with Democracy Now.

Phyllis Bennis
Killing them as they feed them

“The notion that there is going to be the need for airstrikes to protect the few dozen U.S. diplomats and a couple of hundred military people in Erbil,” Phyllis Bennis said, “is widely understood as a legal feint (a ruse, trick, maneuver, hoax, hoodwink)  away from the reality.”

In making such a statement, the U.S. Executive undertakes a military operation without the consent of the co-equal U.S. legislative branch of government. In this amped up aggression against a sovereign nation, the U.S. president ignores the expressed view of the American people at large and the constitutional responsibility of public officials who are supposed to represent the American people at large.

The U.S. president has also in this move to return to war against the people of Iraq bypassed the 192 nations comprising the United Nations. Before this latest move by the U.S. president, Bennis said, the United Nations “had offered the Iraqi government technical help to carry out real humanitarian airlifts to the people stuck on the Sinjar Mountain.”

Echoes of sinister priors

The U.S. act of pretending to help people, dropping food packages while killing them, has a sinister history, she said.  This last time this occurred was November 2001 in Afghanistan; Afghan refugees were fleeing the U.S. bombing of the cities. And U.S. operatives, military personnel simultaneously dropped food packs (Meals Ready to Eat or MREs) “wrapped in strong, bright yellow plastic” as they were also dropping “cluster bombs that also happened to be made with bright yellow plastic of exactly the same color.” Bennis said “no one knows how many children, in particular, were killed running to what they thought were food packages that turned out to be cluster bombs.”

Whose life Humanitarian hoax exposed

Afghanistan
Common denominator massacre: As the White House reenters violent aggression against the Iraqi people, the U.S. arms Israel in massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.

The U.S. president’s language, “that there are innocent people facing violations on a massive scale,” Phyllis Bennis said, “describes the situation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and yet, rather than providing humanitarian aid [to the people of Gaza] and demanding that Israel open the gates of Gaza, that it open the border crossings, the United States instead is sending more weapons and more money to buy more weapons and more ammunition for those Israeli attacks.”

Deliberate Compounding: crises created by war are worsened by more war. Crises created by U.S. violence are worsened by more U.S. violence. This is not only immoral and insensible, it is criminal, unconscionably so.   

Back in Iraq, the situation on the ground, the misery perpetrated endlessly against the people – the 2003 war never ended -- was created, manufactured, exacerbated by one after another U.S. official in high office and their partners in crime.

The Islamic State (IS) also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) the U.S. claims to be protecting whomever from, Bennis said, “is a small operation of somewhere around 10,000 fighters … well armed with U.S.-supplied equipment that they have picked up all over Iraq.” 


Part of the reason the group seems so strong, she said, “is that they are backed by military support from former generals, former strategists, former leaders of the Baathist army in Iraq who lost their jobs, lost their positions, in many cases lost their ability to protect their families at the time of the 2003 U.S. invasion; and have been sort of waiting for an opportunity to challenge the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.” What now exists in Iraq, Bennis concludes, is “an ugly kind of sectarianism that was put in place by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003” -- all of which “can be traced back to that [invasion].”

Must Talk cannot be ignored


“I was a member of a terrorist organization when I was 15 years old,” Uri Avnery explained on Democracy Now today.  “I believe,” he said that “I understand the psychology of young people who join organizations which are called terrorists by their enemies, but which themselves think of themselves as freedom fighters.

“Hamas thinks it’s fighting for the freedom of Palestine. They are deeply convinced of this, and therefore they are fighting. And everybody must admit that they are fighting very well, because what you have here during the last month is a guerrilla organization of [roughly] … 10,000 fighters, fighting against one of four biggest and strongest armies in the world.

“It’s not an even fight yet they are standing there—they are still standing there after more than a month.…”

Palestine
Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement Uri Avnery was born in Beckum, Germany, as Helmut Ostermann of a German Jewish family that in 1933, after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, emigrated to “Mandatory Palestine”. Thirty-two years later, he created a political party called HaOlam HaZeh – Koah Hadash, and in the 1965 Israeli election won a seat in the Knesset. In late 1975, Avnery was among the founders of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. After the 1977 election, he served in the legislature as a member of the Left Camp of Israel. He was also involved with the Progressive List for Peace, “a left-wing political party in Israel formed from an alliance of both Arab and Jewish left-wing activists.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Avnery]

On Democracy Now today, Uri Avneri reflected that the situation today between Hamas and Israel is similar to the situation with Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization

Uri Avnery

Before his death on November 11, 2004, Yasser Arafat, who had spent his lifetime fighting for Palestinian self-determination, was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and leader of the Fatah political party and former paramilitary group, which he founded in 1959.  Background reports on the decade’s long crisis in Palestine show one of the most severe PLO cross-border raids extending to March 11, 1978, when a force of nearly a dozen Fatah fighters landed their boats near a major coastal road connecting the city of Haifa with Tel Aviv-Yafo. There they hijacked a bus and sprayed gunfire inside and at passing vehicles. Thirty-seven civilians died. Israeli Defense Forces then launched Operation Litani aimed at taking control of Southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. On June 6, 1982, the Lebanon war began when Israel again invaded this country for the purpose of attacking the Palestine Liberation Organization. An estimated 1,000 to 8,000 civilians died and the Israeli army laid siege to Beirut. In 1985 Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat narrowly survived an Israeli assassination attempt when Israeli Air Force F-15s participating in “Operation Wooden Leg” bombed his headquarters in Tunisia. Seventy-three people died. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Lebanese_conflict; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat]

“One of the basic problems at this moment,” Uri Avnery said, “is that Israelis and Hamas do not talk to each other.” Currently Egypt siding with Israel against Hamas is also “appearing as a negotiator, as a mediator, an honest broker," which is as "ridiculous [as] the American mediation was ridiculous. America is a very, very, very close ally of Israel,” Avnery noted. The U.S. president “repeats like a parrot the most basic Israeli propaganda, and so does [the U.S. Secretary of State]. So we don’t have somebody who can mediate and who’s being trusted by both sides.

Hamas went to the recent ceasefire negotiations in Cairo “full of apprehension, full of distrust towards Egypt.”

For eight years the people of Gaza have been suffering under a blockade, meaning that “all the borders are closed, including the sea border and you cannot get in anything except by the permission of Israel; and you cannot get anything out at all. There is no export from the Gaza area.… The Palestinians, Hamas cannot and will not agree to a real ceasefire, a long-lasting ceasefire, if there is a blockade on the Gaza Strip. This is a basic, local problem.”


Hamas cannot be ignored, Avnery said. People abroad and in Israel have completely distorted what Hamas is. But Hamas is neither “militia” nor “military organization.” It is “a Palestinian political party which, in the last Palestinian elections, supervised by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter,” won by a majority vote: “Majority of the Palestinian people, including the Gaza Strip, voted for Hamas.”

But “when a Palestinian government was set up by Hamas, it was destroyed by Israel and the United States and Europe. It was brought down. It was then that Hamas took over power in the Gaza Strip by force, but it took power after it won a big majority in free elections in the Gaza Strip. So it’s much more complicated than just a fight between Israel and a military or terrorist or whatever-you-want-to-call-it organization.”

The simple solution Avnery sees to ending the suffering and violence is conversation. He said, “When people are firing on each other and trying to kill each other—indeed, killing each other—the best solution is that they start to talk with each other.

If the Israelis and the Palestinians would sit together opposite each other at one table and thresh out their real problems, trying to understand, be able to understand each other, the whole thing would look very differently.

Indicating that he has spoken many times with many Hamas leaders and found them to be people with whom he does not necessarily agree but with whom he can talk, he says, 
You cannot wish Hamas away. You can do to Hamas whatever you want. You can kill all the 10,000 fighters of Hamas but Hamas will remain because Hamas is an ideology and Hamas is a political party accepted by the Palestinian people. In the end, he said, “after all the killing and after all this terrible destruction…, we will have to talk with Hamas.


Sources and notes

“As U.S. Airstrikes in Iraq Begin, Will Military Intervention Escalate Growing Crisis? August 8, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/8/as_us_air_strikes_in_iraq

“Uri Avnery on Gaza Crisis, His Time in a Zionist "Terrorist" Group & Becoming a Peace Activist,” August 8, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/8/uri_avnery_on_gaza_crisis_his

Sinjar Mountain also Shengar/Shengal Mountains: a single ridge of mountains inhabited by Yazidis located in Nineveh Governorate in northwestern Iraq. It is situated near a city of the same name (Sinjar). Reportedly in August 2014, “an estimated 40,000 Yazidis fled to the mountains” after attacks on the city of Sinjar “by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinjar_Mountains]

Yazidi is a religious sect found primarily in the districts of Mosul, Iraq; Diyarbakır, Tur.; Aleppo, Syria; Armenia and the Caucasus region; and in parts of Iran; the religion is reportedly a fusion or combination “of Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian, and Islāmic elements.” [Britannica]

Also Wikipedia and Institute for Policy Studies   
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

END THE OCCPATION assembles September in St. Louie


Phyllis Bennis, Hatem Bazian headline conference
Excerpt, editing by Carolyn Bennett

2012 END THE OCCUPATION September 21-23, 2012, 11th Annual National Organizers’ Conference at St. Louis University

Bennis and Bazian

Well-known Bay-Area academic, human rights activist credentialed in Philosophy and Islamic Studies (doctorate, University of California-Berkeley), Hatem Bazian is founder of the UC Berkeley-based Center for the Study and Documentation of Islamophobia, a research unit dedicated to the systematic study of ‘Othering’ Islam and Muslims.

Dr. Hatem Bazian is co-founder and Academic Affairs Chair at Zaytuna College, the first Muslim Liberal Arts College in the United States; and senior lecturer in the University of California-Berkeley’s Departments of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies and teaches courses on Islamic Law and Society, Islam in America: Communities and Institutions, De-Constructing Islamophobia and Othering of Islam, Religious Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies.

The Palestinian-American academic is also visiting Professor in Religious Studies at Saint Mary's College of California and adviser to the Religion, Politics and Globalization Center at UC Berkeley.

Bazian has played a significant role in many human and civil rights movements in the Bay Area, nationally and internationally including: the defense of affirmative action in California; the Americans with Disabilities Act; the anti-apartheid and anti-globalization movements; and Central American solidarity.

Phyllis Bennis is a veteran writer, analyst, and activist on Middle East and UN issues and currently serves as an adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues. She is well-known for her most recent books 
Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today's UN (2000)
Before & After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis (2003)
[U.S. Policy and the War on Terrorism, 2nd ed.]
Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy U.S. Power (2006)
Primers:
Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (2009)
Ending the Iraq War (2009);
Understanding the U.S.-Iran Crisis (2009)
Ending the U.S. War in Afghanistan (2010).
Phyllis Bennis also directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and is a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. In 2001 she helped found and remains on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She works closely with the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition; co-chairs the UN-based International Coordinating Network on Palestine; and since 2002, she has played an active role in the growing global peace movement.

End the Occupation’s 11th Annual National Organizers’ Conference meets this year at St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri

September 21-23, 2012, offers “an opportunity for member groups and activists from across the country to come together and strengthen efforts to end U.S. support of Israeli occupation and apartheid policies toward Palestinians,” say the conveners.

With nearly 380 member groups now within the End the Occupation coalition, the conference offers “a great opportunity for strategizing, networking and sharing achievements and struggles.”

2012 END THE OCCUPATION September 21-23, 2012
11th Annual National Organizers’ Conference at St. Louis University

END THE OCCUPATION Conference lineup

Speakers
Hatem Bazian, Chairman of American Muslims for Palestine
Phyllis Bennis, Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies

Topics and workshops
Impact of Arab Uprisings on Organizing to Challenge U.S. Policy Toward Palestine/Israel
Building on Successful Church and Corporation Divestment Campaigns
Consumer Boycotts
Campus Activism
Academic and Cultural Boycott Initiatives
Organizing and Coalition Building
Member Group Workshops

Background: St. Louie (St. Louis, Missouri)

The St. Louis Blues originated here in the 1950s. The music (associated with jump blues, ragtime and piano blues) is described as a type of blues that is usually more piano-based than other forms of the blues. The typical band is comprised of a small number of singers, a pianist and a few other musical instruments (e.g., drums and bass, used primarily for rhythm)

Today, St. Louis is said to be known for its symphony orchestra (and of course its Gateway Arch), the second oldest U.S. civic orchestra and one of the major classical musical ensembles in the United States.
 
St. Louis (/seɪnt ˈluːɪs/, French: Saint-Louis or St-Louis, [sɛ̃ lwi]) is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri (United States) and is the second-largest city in the state (population of 318,069 in July 2011).  St. Louis was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) population of 2,812,896 is the 18th-largest in the United States. The Greater St. Louis combined statistical area (CSA) population of 2,878,255 is the 16th-largest CSA in the country, the fourth-largest in the Midwest. The Greater St. Louis area is the largest metropolitan area in Missouri.

St. Louis’s Gateway Arch, designed by Eero Saarinen, is among the state's spectacularly diverse architectural styles. Local crafts once practiced by pioneers out of necessity (quilting, woodworking, basketry, and pottery) are flourishing again, not only because of their artistic merit, but also because of tourists’ interest in traditions.

Modernist poet T.S. Eliot was born and raised in St. Louis (later settled in England). Mark Twain remains Missouri’s most distinguished literary figure: world renowned for his immortalization of mid-19th-century life in Hannibal, Missouri, and along the Mississippi River. Twentieth-century folklorist Vance Randolph, born in Pittsburg, Kansas, illuminated many of the traditions and ways of the Ozark Mountains.

So ... CHORUS
"Meet me in St. Louis, Louis,
Meet me at the fair,
Don't tell me the lights are shining
Any place but there..."


Sources and notes

http://www.co.st-louis.mo.us/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatem_Bazian
http://www.hatembazian.com/
http://www.ips-dc.org/staff/phyllis

2012 END THE OCCUPATION September 21-23, 2012, 11th Annual National Organizers’ Conference at St. Louis University, Detailed program information to be posted as it becomes available. With questions, contact Ramah Kudaimi at membership@endtheoccupation.org if you have any questions. 
RSVP on Facebook and follow @US_Campaign on Twitter to get updates
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=403

Britannica and Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_blues_(music)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louie

Thomas Stearns Eliot (T.S.), b. September 26, 1888, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.; d. January 4, 1965, London, England

Mark Twain (pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens), b. November 30, 1835, Florida, Missouri, U.S.; d. April 21, 1910, Redding, Connecticut)


“Meet Me in St. Louis”

Lyrics sung by Judy Garland
Written by Martin, Hugh/Blane, Ralph
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/j/judy_garland/meet_me_in_st_louis.html

Excerpt from a version of St. Louie (Louis) Blues 
I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down/I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down/ Cause my baby has left this town. 
If I'm feelin’ tomorrow, just like I feel today/If I'm feelin’ tomorrow like I feel today/I’ll pack my trunk and make my get-away.… 
I’ve got the St. Louis blues, just as blue as I can be… 
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/St-Louis-Blues-lyrics-Cab-Calloway/474A986AD0F87C5E48256C230009884D

Images
The Gateway Arch, 200 Washington Avenue: “The nation’s tallest monument at 630 feet, the Gateway Arch has beckoned visitors for more than 40 years with its iconic, awe-inspiring shape. The vision of renowned architect Eero Saarinen, the Gateway Arch commemorates Thomas Jefferson and St. Louis’ role in the westward expansion of the United States.” http://www.gatewayarch.com/experience/the-gateway-arch/

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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Friday, November 4, 2011

U.S. enters Thanksgiving month — shopping while shedding blood

Compiled and edited, re-reporting, comment by Carolyn Bennett
Fatally flawed people in power, their politics, policies, consequences

The United States at perpetual WAR against the world’s peoples, their countries, their cultures, structures and traditions —

1.     Afghanistan
2.     Bahrain
3.     Cuba
4.     Djibouti
5.     Eritrea
6.     Ethiopia
7.     Haiti
8.     Honduras
9.     Iran
10.  Iraq
11.  Japan (Okinawa)
12.  Kenya
13.  Libya
14.  Mexico
15.  Nigeria
16.  North Korea
17.  Pakistan
18.  Palestine
19.  Russia
20.  Saudi Arabia
21.  Somalia
22.  South Korea
  1. Syria

24.  Uganda [dominoes The Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa)]
25.  Yemen
26.   

U.S. against Iraq 2003
WAR … By arming and bankrolling to create domestic and regional pressure, conflict • bullying direct/indirect threat/intimidation • assassination with impunity • direct aggression • displacement/destabilization • economic/financial sanctions • failing nations • failure to negotiate with words or in nonviolent diplomacy • provocation/incitement to protracted violence • occupation • unlawful search and detention • torture…

“Over the past half-century the U.S. has been directly or indirectly involved in military interventions in tens of countries,” Press TV today quotes statements by Tehran’s Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami.

Referencing calls rising from members of the U.S. Congress to assassinate Iranian officials, the cleric said, “Washington, who claims to be the flag bearer of the war against terrorism and has used this as a pretext to attack and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, is now implicitly issuing assassination orders.”

The world will not forget the U.S. history of committing crimes against humanity, the nuclear bombing of Japan, Ayatollah Khatami said.  “‘Siding with the Zionist regime [of Israel] against Palestinians, giving the green light for atrocities to be committed in Bahrain are all among the U.S. crimes against humanity.’”


As U.S. bloodletting continued and Libya continued breaking down in the wake of the U.S. North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s destruction there, Phyllis Bennis spoke with Democracy Now this week about protracted U.S. and NATO violence in Africa.

ARAB SPRING morphed into WESTERN INVASION

“Bringing in the U.S. and NATO forces into Libya, Bennis said, “transformed what had begun in the context of the Arab Spring popping up all over the region and turned that into a Western invasion — a Western assault on another North African, Middle Eastern, Arab country.

NATO emerged as the air force of the self-appointed leadership of the uprising (the National Transitional Council or NTC). Militias who fought Qaddafi now deem the NTC an illegitimate creation to which they owe no accounting. What U.S. NATO belligerence leaves to Libyans is more brokenness and more violence:  “a country glutted with weapons” but no clear leadership structure or accountability, and feeling a deepening dependency on their invader, “U.S./NATO military presence and military action.”

Furthermore, the carnage Libyans experienced is but a piece of the pattern of U.S. NATO malevolence across this continent.

COLD WAR NATO rises with AFRICOM

“It is an example, potentially, of the look of NATO expanding its own self-defined mandate”  — from a creation of the Cold War initially designed to defend its own members, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to now rise with the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) on a continent that “provides more oil to the United States than the entire Middle East.”

Pretext to invade and occupy — KILLER ‘HUMANITARIANS’

Bennis cites the Western-fueled conflict within and between African nations suffering severely not only from internal conflict but also from natural disasters and nonexistent or sorely inadequate infrastructures. People are dying needlessly from lack of running water and proper sanitation, exposure to the elements and starvation or severe undernourishment and Western nations are bombing them and arming other nations to bomb them.
Sub-Saharan Africa

U.S.-allied “Kenyan troops claiming to be going after the [al-Shabab, an Islamist youth movement] militia,” she reports, “[are] moving massively into Somalia … bombing a refugee camp, leaving a number of people dead and dozens injured.” These troops were “going after the refugees, and internally displaced Somalis were fleeing the violence.”

In this manufactured chaos, governments of Kenya and Somalia are “asking [as are Libya and Syria for deepening dependency] the U.S. and Europe with NATO to engage militarily.” However, Bennis says, more NATO engagement, “bringing in outside forces, bringing in more military forces, more combatants with guns leads inevitably to more — not fewer — civilian casualties. The prospect of further escalating the war in Somalia by bringing in NATO is a very bad example.”

War with AFRICA

SOMALIA [U.S. allied against]

Horn of Africa
Somalia is the sixth country where the United States has used remote-controlled drone aircraft to launch deadly missile strikes.


Horn of Africa - Somalia
Today in Somalia’s capital city, Mogadishu, at least 11 Somali soldiers died in fighting between al-Shabab and transitional government troops.

Yesterday, at least 41 people died and 33 people suffered wounds “in a U.S. assassination drone attack near Somalia’s border with Kenya.” Thursday 28 people died and dozens suffered injuries when a U.S. assassination drone strike hit a town in Somalia’s southern Jubbada Hoose region.

Wednesday in Somalia’s central region of Galguduud, the U.S. remote-controlled assassination drones launched aerial attacks on Qeydar and Marodile villages situated between Guriceel and Balanbale districts.

The country’s elders reported at least 38 people died and more than 74 people were injured in the strikes. The same day, 20 people were left dead and 60 were wounded after a U.S. assassination drone launched a strike on the outskirts of Kismayo, a strategically important port city on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast located some 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

On October 28, United States officials admitted flying unmanned aerial vehicles from Ethiopia.

Over the past two days, at least 127 people have died in separate U.S. assassination drone strikes in Somalia and Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan’s northwestern region of North Waziristan on Thursday, at least three people died in a non-UN-sanctioned U.S. assassination drone attack. The attack took place in Darpa Khel village, which is located about four kilometers (two miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in the district of North Waziristan. Local security officials said a drone fired two missiles on a compound in the attack.

NIGERIA [U.S. occupied]

In a world of vast inequalities amidst oil wealth and corporate taking, pirates raid ships. Attacks happening in or near Nigeria are characterized as “threatening to an emerging trade hub, which is an increasingly important source of oil, metals, and agricultural products like cocoa for world markets.”

Reported this week is an incident that allegedly happened on October 30. An official of the International Maritime Bureau told the press an oil tanker with a 25-member crew was captured off the coast of Nigeria. Another Nigerian oil tanker, whereabouts known, was attacked off the Niger Delta region on Wednesday.
  
War with ASIA

PAKISTAN [U.S. allied against]

Drone strikes are one of the major reasons behind growing anti-U.S. sentiments in Pakistan.

Independent organizations have compiled figures showing that, since 2004, more than 2000 people — most of them civilians — have died in the U.S. assassination drone attacks.

Activists have held an exhibition in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, “to bring to light the truth of U.S. assassination drone strikes.” On display at the exhibition organized in collaboration with the British charity organization Reprieve are close to a dozen exploded and twisted U.S. missiles, accompanied by photographs of their victims.

The exhibits reportedly show the kind of sophisticated heavy weaponry used by the U.S. in its drone attacks in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), located on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Reprieve founder Clive Stafford Smith told the press “‘The exhibition shows that when the CIA says there have been no innocent victims of drone missiles in the last 15 months, that is simply not true. What we have are parts of missiles that actually killed children … That is very solid, concrete proof that the CIA is not telling the truth.”

Hey, Hey LBJObama, how many kids did you kill today?


PAKISTAN
Pirates in Africa,  Retaliation explosives in Pakistan

Militants frequently target trucks carrying supplies for US-led foreign soldiers in Afghanistan.

Wednesday, Taliban-linked militants in Pakistan attacked a NATO supply convoy carrying supplies for U.S.-led foreign troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Officials told Press TV that gunmen riding on motorcycles opened fire at a NATO container at Bypass area of Chaman in southwestern Balochistan province. In the attack, the NATO container sustained damage and the driver was injured.

Pro-Taliban militants claiming responsibility for attacks often say the assaults are in retaliation for non-UN-sanctioned airstrikes by U.S. assassination drones on Pakistan’s tribal regions.

AFGHANISTAN [U.S. allied against, occupied]

Violence remains rampant throughout Afghanistan despite [or because of] nearly 150,000 U.S.-led foreign troops invading and occupying their land. The monthly average of security incidents recorded for the year through the end of August has climbed nearly 40 percent, says a September 28 UN report. The report says civilian casualties — already at record levels in the first six months of this year— rose five percent between June and August 2011, compared with the identical period in 2010.

Yesterday in Western Afghanistan, a bomb attack hit a NATO logistics base in the city of Herat near Herat airport. Seven people died, three others were wounded.

SOUTHEAST ASIA
Cambodia [U.S. occupied]

A court in Cambodia has sentenced New York City physician James D’Agostino (age 56) to four years in prison. He was found guilty of sexual abuse of a 15-year-old boy. D’Agostino had travelled to Cambodia two years ago to volunteer at a children’s hospital. The incident happened in February.

Today judges at Phnom Penh Municipal Court ordered the man, a U.S. doctor, who had previously worked as a pediatric emergency doctor in New York, to be deported after serving his jail term.

ASIA CENTRAL
U.S.-allied INDIA
KASHMIR

Protesters have taken to the streets and are being arrested in Indian-administered Kashmir amid allegations accusing New Delhi’s forces of torturing minors while in custody.

Hundreds of youngsters remain in detention after being rounded up in almost daily street protests against the Indian rule over the disputed valley of Kashmir. Police in the Muslim-majority region have recently launched a campaign to crack down on the minors participating in the rallies.

ASIA MIDDLE EAST

IRAQ [U.S. occupied]

As attacks targeting army and police rise in Iraq, its prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, blames foreign countries for fueling trouble. Maliki says some nations are “‘spending money and [making] efforts’ to destabilize Iraq.

“The Iraqis do not want to build an aggressive country that will replace others,’” he said. “They want a country that will help in achieving local and regional stability.”

The prime minister has apparently accused foreign countries before of meddling in his country. Leaked U.S. State Department cables apparently have shown that the prime minister has long criticized foreigners, particularly U.S-ally Saudi Arabia, for conspiring against Baghdad.

YEMEN [U.S. allied with entrenched regime]

Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis continue to hold anti-government demonstrations demanding an end to the rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh whom they accuse of nepotism and corruption. Hundreds of protesters have died and many more have been injured in government crackdowns.

A day after nineteen people were killed by regime loyalists and despite deadly crackdowns, Yemenis today held massive anti-regime demonstrations in the capital, Sana’a, and the southern city of Taizz. “The Yemenis’ voice is one,” they chanted. “We will bring corrupt Saleh to justice.” Friday’s slogan was “Remaining Peaceful is Our Choice.”

PALESTINE [U.S. allied against]
Occupied Territories


Israel has again used force against a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters, killing nine Turkish activists and injuring dozens of others.

Today, according to a Press TV correspondent on board one of the ships, “the two vessels were shadowed by Israeli warplanes and naval vessels in international waters as they approached the besieged Gaza Strip.

Saoirse 
“Eight Israeli warships made radio contact with the ships, calling on them to change course towards Egypt or to turn around. Israeli marines boarded the vessels about 50 nautical miles from Gaza after pro-Palestinian activists refused to turn back. There were no reports of violence.

“The mini aid flotilla called Freedom Waves to Gaza left the Turkish port city of Fethiye on Wednesday and was scheduled to reach the Gaza Strip today. The Canadian ship, Tahrir (Freedom), and the Irish ship, Saoirse (Freedom) are carrying 27 activists, including journalists and the crew, along with $30,000 worth of medicine. Activists on the Freedom Waves to Gaza are from Canada, Ireland, Egypt, United States, and Australia. They have said their international humanitarian mission is ‘to challenge Israel’s ongoing criminal blockade of the territory.’”

PALESTINIANS IMPRISONED by U.S.-allied Israel

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Detainees has reported nearly 200 Palestinian inmates have died in Israeli confinement, either under torture or due to medical negligence. Currently, the estimate of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons is 6,530.

Today, human rights groups are charging Israeli doctors with neglect in documenting cases of torture and mistreatment of Palestinians detained in Israel.

In a 61-page report compiled by the Public Committee against Torture in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights, scheduled for release later this month, are cases of 100 detainees held by Israel since 2007.

This report is said to present evidence that many doctors allowed “‘… security service interrogators to use torture; approve the use of forbidden interrogation methods and the ill-treatment of helpless detainees; and conceal information, thereby allowing total immunity for the tortures.’”

JORDAN [U.S. allied with entrenched regime]

Since January, Jordanians have been holding street protests demanding the election of a prime minister by popular vote and an end to corruption. There were no calls for the king’s removal. King Abdullah II, since the start of the protests, has fired two prime ministers reportedly in an attempt to avoid more protests. Awn al-Khasawneh, a judge at [UN] International Court of Justice, is Jordan’s third premier this year.

Today, hundreds of Jordanians demonstrated in the capital, Amman [with similar protests in Karak, Maan and Tafileh] urging the new government to carry out promised reforms and to fight corruption.

“No Reform with the Security Fist” was Jordanian demonstrators’ slogan on the streets of Amman following the Friday Prayers to press Prime Minister Awn al-Khasawneh to give political reforms top priority. There were no calls for the king’s removal.

BAHRAIN [U.S. allied with entrenched regime]

Since mid February, Bahrain has been the scene of protests against the Saudi- and U.S.-backed Al Khalifa dynasty. In mid-March, at the request from Manama, the Bahraini capital, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed military equipment and troops to quash the anti-regime protests in Bahrain. Scores of anti-government protesters have been killed and hundreds jailed and tortured by forces loyal to Bahrain’s ruling regime.

Today, Saudi-backed Bahraini forces fired tear gas and used armored vehicles in an attempt to disperse hundreds of anti-regime protesters marching in Manama. Protest organizers had called for a huge turnout and a massive funeral procession for Friday morning following the announced death of 70-year-old Ali al-Dayhee, killed by regime forces.



Sources and notes

“Liberal Democracy nearing end: Iran,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208390.html

“As NATO Ends Libyan Bombing Campaign, Is the U.S. Seeking Greater Military Control of Africa?” November 1, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/1/as_nato_ends_libyan_bombing_campaign

PHYLLIS BENNIS
Phyllis Bennis specializes in U.S. foreign policy issues, particularly involving the Middle East and United Nations. She worked as a journalist at the UN for ten years and currently serves as a special adviser to several top-level UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues.

Works by Bennis include: Understanding the U.S.-Iran crisis (2008); Ending the Iraq War: A Primer (2008); Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer (2007); Challenging Empire: People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power (2005); Before And After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis (2002); Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer (2003); Calling the Shots. How Washington Dominates Today’s UN (2000); Altered States. A Reader in the New World Orde r (1993); Beyond the Storm. A Gulf Crisis Reader (1991); From Stones to Statehood: The Palestinian Uprising (1990)

She is a fellow at the Transnational Institute (a worldwide fellowship of scholar activists) and at the Institute for Policy Studies (Washington D.C.). At the latter, Bennis is director the New Internationalism Project.
http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/bio_long/Nick%20Buxton/phyllis%20long%20bio_0.pdf; http://www.tni.org/bio/phyllis-bennis

Under U.S./NATO hegemony

1.     Afghanistan
2.     Bahrain
3.     Cuba
4.     Djibouti
5.     Eritrea
6.     Ethiopia
7.     Haiti
8.     Honduras
9.     Iran
10.  Iraq
11.  Japan (Okinawa)
12.  Kenya
13.  Libya
14.  Mexico
15.  Nigeria
16.  North Korea
17.  Pakistan
18.  Palestine
19.  Russia
20.  Saudi Arabia
21.  Somalia
22.  South Korea
  1. Syria

24.  Uganda [dominoes The Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa)]
25.  Yemen
26.   

AFRICA
ASIA
Djibouti
Afghanistan
Eritrea
Bahrain
Ethiopia
Iran
Kenya
Iraq
Libya
Japan (Okinawa) 
Nigeria
North Korea
Somalia
Pakistan
Uganda [dominoes South Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa)]
Palestine

Saudi Arabia
AMERICAs
South Korea
Cuba
Syria
Haiti
Yemen
Honduras


EUROPE/ASIA



Russian Federation




Russia [Russian Federation] notes

Russia stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia.
It extends across the whole of northern Asia and the eastern third of Europe, spanning 11 time zones and incorporating a great range of environments and landforms, from deserts to semiarid steppes to deep forests and Arctic tundra. Russia contains Europe’s longest river, the Volga, and its largest lake, Ladoga. Russia also is home to the world’s deepest lake, Baikal, and the country recorded the world’s lowest temperature outside the North and South poles.
North and east—Russia is bounded to the north and east by the Arctic and Pacific oceans, and it has small frontages in the northwest on the Baltic Sea at St. Petersburg and at the detached Russian oblast (region) of Kaliningrad (a part of what was once East Prussia annexed in 1945), which also abuts Poland and Lithuania.

South—To the south Russia borders North Korea, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

Southwest, west—To the southwest and west it borders Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as Finland and Norway.
Northern Hemisphere, Europe, Asia—Extending nearly halfway around the Northern Hemisphere and covering much of eastern and northeastern Europe and all of northern Asia,

Russia has a maximum east-west extent of some 5,600 miles (9,000 km) and a north-south width of 1,500 to 2,500 miles (2,500 to 4,000 km). By far the world’s largest country, Russia covers nearly twice the territory of Canada, the second largest.

Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known as the Soviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Kazakhstan [also spelled Kazakstan; officially Republic of Kazakhstan], a country of Central Asia

Kazakhstan is bounded on the northwest and north by Russia, on the east by China, and on the south by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and the Aral Sea

The Caspian Sea bounds Kazakhstan to the southwest. Kazakhstan is the largest country in Central Asia and the ninth largest in the world. Between its most distant points, Kazakhstan measures about 1,820 miles (2,930 kilometers) east to west and 960 miles north to south. While Kazakhstan was not considered by authorities in the former Soviet Union to be a part of Central Asia, it does have physical and cultural geographic characteristics similar to those of the other Central Asian countries. The capital is Astana (formerly Tselinograd) in the north-central part of the country.

Formerly a constituent (union) republic of the U.S.S.R., Kazakhstan declared independence on December 16, 1991.

CENTRAL AFRICA notes

CONGO
Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Central African Republic

Republic of the Congo — a country situated astride the Equator in west-central Africa, officially known as the Republic of the Congo. This country is often called Congo (Brazzaville), with its capital added parenthetically to distinguish it from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (often referred to by its acronym the DRC or called Congo (Kinshasa).

Congo as a whole is sparsely inhabited, with more than half of its population living in the cities. The most populous city is the capital, Brazzaville, which is located in the southeastern corner of the country and is a major inland port on the Congo River.

Democratic Republic of the Congo— often referred to by its acronym the DRC or called Congo (Kinshasa), with the capital added parenthetically, to distinguish it from the other Congo republic (the Republic of the Congo, often referred to as Congo (Brazzaville).

Located in central Africa, the third largest country on the continent (only the Sudan and Algeria are larger), the DRC has a 25-mile (40-km) coastline on the Atlantic Ocean but is otherwise landlocked.  Located on the Congo River about 320 miles (515 km) from its mouth, the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, is the largest city in central Africa and serves as the country’s official administrative, economic, and cultural center.

Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960. From 1971 to 1997, the country was officially the Republic of Zaire, a change made by then ruler Gen. Mobutu Sese Seko to give the country what he thought was a more authentic African name.

Democratic Republic of the Congo Update 2009

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)’s North and South Kivu, internecine fighting in the first half of 2009 had left 800,000 civilians displaced by. The UN estimated that the number of internal refugees had reached two million. By 2009, the use of rape as a war tactic against women, children, and men by all armed forces had doubled or tripled in nine eastern conflict zones. As part of an African tour in August, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the DRC, urged the government to do more to protect civilians and to bring military offenders to justice, and announced a $17 million plan to help achieve these efforts.

Despite vast mineral wealth, mining production severely declined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) because of “mismanagement, corruption, endemic civil unrest, the global recession, and a lack of new investment.”

Central African Republic — The Central African Republic, roughly the size of France, is bordered by Chad to the north, The Sudan to the north and east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) to the south, and Cameroon to the west. The capital, Bangui, is situated on the southern boundary, formed by the Ubangi River, a tributary of the Congo River.

The area that is now the Central African Republic has been settled for at least 8,000 years its earliest inhabitants the probable ancestors of today’s Aka (Pygmy) peoples, who live in the western and southern forested regions of the country.

The slave state of Dar al-Kuti occupied the northern reaches until the various regions of the Central African Republic were brought under French colonial rule late in the 19th century.
Colonial administrators favored some ethnic groups over others, resulting in political rivalries that persisted after independence in 1960. Following periods of civil strife and dictatorial government, including the infamous regime of the self-styled Emperor Bokassa I (who renamed the country the Central African Empire), the country embarked on a course of democracy that, at the end of the 20th century, was threatened by interethnic civil war in neighboring countries as well as by attempted coups d'état.

BY DIRECT ACTION — WAR

AFRICA
“U.S. terror drones kill 41 more in Somalia,” November 3, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208225.html

“U.S. drone raids kill over 120 in 2 days,” November 3, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208198.html

“In 11 Somali soldiers killed,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/section/3510205.html

“‘Oil tanker hijacked off Nigeria coast.’” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208279.html

ASIA

PAKISTAN
“Pakistan holds exhibit of drone attacks.” November 1, 2011,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/207812.html

“U.S. terror drone kills 3 in Pakistan” — at least three people died in a U.S. assassination drone campaign in northwest Pakistan, November 3, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208176.html

“NATO supply truck attacked in Pakistan, November 3, 2011,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208130.html


Press TV caption
NATO under attack Pakistan
NATO's supply line has come under repeated attacks by militants opposing the US-led terror drone strikes inside Pakistan's tribal belt.

AFGHANISTAN
“Bomb hits Afghan NATO logistics base,” November 3, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208152.html

SOUTHEAST ASIA
“U.S. doctor jailed for abusing Cambodian boy,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208385.html

Note on Cambodia: a country on the Indochinese mainland of Southeast Asia. Largely a land of plains and great rivers, Cambodia lies amid important overland and river trade routes linking China to India and Southeast Asia.

About one-third the size of France and somewhat larger than the U.S. state of Missouri, Cambodia is bordered to the west and northwest by Thailand, to the northeast by Laos, to the east and southeast by Vietnam, and to the southwest by the Gulf of Thailand.

Indochina comprises three states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia formerly associated with France, first within its empire and later within the French Union. The term Indochina refers to the intermingling of Indian and Chinese influences in the culture of the region.

ASIA CENTRAL

“Police arrest more minors in Kashmir,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208417.html

ASIA MIDDLE EAST

“Foreigners stir trouble in Iraq: Maliki,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208404.html

“Yemenis hold huge anti-regime rallies,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208376.html

“Israel intercepts Gaza-bound aid flotilla,” November 4, 2011,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208336.html

CAPTION PRESS TV

Greek coastguards stand in front of Canadian boat ‘Tahrir’ after forcing the Gaza-bound ship to return to the port of Agios Nikolaos, July 4, 2011.

“‘Israeli doctors complicit in torture,’” November 4, 2011,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208305.html

“Jordanians press new PM over reforms,” November 4, 2011,
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208429.html

“Police clash with Bahraini protesters,” November 4, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208329.html



________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire
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