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.”

USA, How many died today ─ Aden to Atchafalaya Bay?

Re-reported, compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

MEDITERRANEAN SEA TO ARABIAN SEA

Gaza (occupied land)
As survivors mourn and the dead are buried, an autopsy and Freedom-Flotilla eyewitnesses give evidence of execution-style slaughter.

The Turkish council of forensic medicine reports that nine men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times. Five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head.

• A 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back.
• A 19-year-old named Fulkan Dogan [who also held U.S. citizenship] was shot five times from less that 45cm. He was shot in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back.
• Two other men were shot four times
• Five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back

The chairperson of the council of forensic medicine, Dr Haluk Ince, in Istanbul, said that in only one case was there a single bullet wound to the forehead from a distant shot; every other victim suffered multiple wounds. All [the bullets] were intact. This is an important piece of evidence because “when a bullet strikes another place it comes into the body deformed [but] if it directly comes into the body, the bullet is all intact.” The doctor went on to say that all except one of the bullets retrieved from the bodies came from 9mm rounds. The other round was of a kind of material they had not seen before used in firearms. “It was just a container including many types of pellets usually used in shotguns; it [had] penetrated the head region in the temple; we found it intact in the brain.”

The next June mission, the Rachel Corrie, named for a young American activist killed in Gaza in 2003, lands on Saturday and again is boarded by Israel’s military. The aid boat had ignored Israeli orders to divert to Israel’s Ashdod port where Israel had offered to unload the cargo and deliver it to Gaza after inspecting it. The Rachel Corrie carried Irish and other activists and was the latest attempt to break Israel’s four-year old blockade on Gaza. The national coordinator of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Dublin called Israel’s taking of the ship “‘another brazen act of Israeli piracy on the High Seas.’” The abduction comes five days after Israel attacked the multinational aid-carrying Freedom Flotilla.

In separate incidents, five Palestinian fighters died Tuesday in the Gaza Strip after coming under Israeli fire. After Monday’s Israeli attack killing ten people on the aid-carrying Freedom flotilla of hundreds of activists, tension has increased in the Palestinian territories.

Afghanistan

A series of attacks against schools and female students have driven many Afghan girls underground to obtain an education. The Taliban have waged a violent campaign against girls who go to schools in their Afghan strongholds but the Taliban have denied involvement in the recent spate of suspected attacks and have condemned the targeting of school girls. In a 2008 attack in Kandahar men on motorbikes sprayed acid on approximately 15 girls and teachers. Taliban rule in the years 1996-2001 prohibited girls’ attending school.

Also in Afghanistan foreigners reach a death mark. This year alone approximately 230 foreign troops have died in the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Two-thirds of the year’s casualties were U.S. citizens, as U.S. forces comprise most of the estimated 130,000 rising to 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan. Casualties too will surely rise all round foreign and domestic.

Iraq

An Iraqi politician from the Iraqiya bloc died when armed men opened fire in the northern city of Mosul. Police said unknown assailants shot Faris Jassim al-Jubouri early on Saturday in his home in Mosul about 350km north of Baghdad.

Armed By Global, U.S. War Industry

Arms keep pouring in. The top U.S. commander in Iraq said he expected the United States to meet a long-standing Iraqi request for new Lockheed Martin Corp F-16 multi-role fighter aircraft, although not as soon as Baghdad had expected. [Army General Ray Odierno] said the United States would not meet Iraq’s request before the scheduled completion of a phased U.S. troop withdrawal at the end of next year.

However, Iraqi Defense Minister Abdel Qader Jassim had let it be known in July that Iraq had ‘many alternatives’ for securing such aircraft if the United States failed to supply F-16s. France, Russia, China and others have been jockeying to help fill Iraq’s multibillion-dollar arms wish list, which includes multi-role fighters to defend its air space from its neighbors. Lockheed Martin is the U.S. Pentagon’s No. 1 supplier by sales and the F-16 is the world’s most widely flown fighter. More than 4,400 of them have been produced or are in the pipeline for 25 countries.

HORN OF AFRICA, WESTERN ASIA

(Gulf of Aden to Indian Ocean)
Pirates captured a Panama-flagged cargo vessel carrying sugar from Brazil to the northern Somali city of Bossaso. The ship piloted by a Pakistani captain was “travelling inside of the internationally recommended transit corridor.” Security forces from Somalia’s Puntland region Wednesday stormed the Panama-flagged cargo vessel and freed the ship’s 24-member crew from Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Ghana. In the gun battle, two Somali soldiers suffered wounds; the Pakistani captain of the MV QSM Dubai died.

EASTERN ASIA

(Sea of Japan to South China Sea) 

An investigation by an anti-government Myanmar broadcaster finds evidence that Myanmar’s [Burma’s] “military regime has begun a program to develop nuclear weapons.” Though “journalists from the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) have been gathering information about secret military projects in Myanmar for years, they say recent revelations from a former army officer show that the military government is pushing ahead with ambitions to become a nuclear power.”

Democratic Voice of Burma observed, “A poor country with a weak economy and starvation yet manages to gather resources to build a nuclear weapon… in many ways North Korea is a parallel to Burma.” Few people a short time ago “imagined that countries like North Korea, Iran and Pakistan would also become nuclear powers.”

KILLER OIL

(Alaska to Atchafalaya Bay)

From Phoenix, Louisiana, activist Tyrone Edwards’ comments in Friday’s interview with Democracy Now
“Once you kill the fishing industry, you have devastated their [fishers’] whole life. For most of these people, that’s how they survive. Their whole living depends on the water environment. That’s all they know. Some people fish every day—Sunday, Saturday, all day, because they own their own oyster bed.

“Not only is the oil spill devastating the environment and people’s livelihoods and the fishing industry, it is destroying people’s health, their lives. We’re concerned about dispersants in the water because everything we do is controlled by the Mississippi River: the water we drink and the water that we bathe in. Once that’s contaminated, we are destroyed. We’re concerned about an epidemic in our community that we had no control over.

“This oil spill disaster has long-term impact. That’s why you have the anxiety among our community now. When we went to Washington, D.C., after we left the House judiciary hearing, we went to [Louisiana Senator Mary L. Landrieu’s] hearing and we were frightened by the fact that she had someone representing the large fishing industry, people who do international business. We had Byron Encalade [owner of Encalade Fisheries in East Pointe a la Hache in Plaquemines Parish] who represents little [fishing business owners] who go out and get 200 sacks of oysters ─ compared to somebody who is dealing with hundreds of thousands of sacks of oysters. We found that more attention was being placed on [big businesses] because what … Landrieu was saying to BP was, ‘Can somebody come to your office—can a business come to your office and file a million-dollar claim?’ Our little fisher men can’t file a million-dollar claim. … We can’t make contributions to elected officials’ campaigns. We vote for what they do for us. We’re concerned that we’re going to get lost in that shuffle because we cannot compete. We think we deserve the same kind of treatment as big business and casinos. We’re talking about our lives.”

War, Occupation Casualty sites reporting

June 5, 2010 (accurate totals unknown, usual reporting not updated)

• Anti-war dot com casualties in Iraq starting March 19, 2003: Since January 20, 2009 inauguration: 174 dead; 31,839-100,000 wounded; 320,000 U.S. veterans with brain injuries; 18 suicides a day [May 8 update], http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count: documented civilian deaths from violence 96,663 – 105,408, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,402 U.S, 4,720 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,089 U.S., 1,797 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif//

The Washington Post citing senior military and administration officials reported Friday, “Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy and beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and other radical groups. U.S. Special Operations forces have grown in number and budget and are deployed in 75 countries.” At the beginning of 2009, the Post article said, the number stood at approximately 60. “In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.”


Sources and notes, hegemony, geopolitical landscape 
Atchafalaya Bay is an arm of the Gulf of Mexico extending southeastward along the southern coast of the U.S. State of Louisiana. The bay’s reefs contain oyster shells, which provide road ballast and raw materials for making lime and cement at many coastal factories. There are many natural gas and oil fields in the area. The bay also is the focus of the Atchafalaya Delta Wildlife Management Area that occupies some 214 square miles (554 square km) of water and land.

Atchafalaya Bay extends for 21 miles (34 km) from Point Chevreuil to Point Au Fer on Point Au Fer Island. The bay is 10 miles (16 km) wide, and Four League Bay extends another 11 miles (18 km) to the southeast. Eugene Island lies on a long shell reef extending 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Point Au Fer. The Lower Atchafalaya River links the bay with Morgan City, 15 miles (24 km) north, where the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway meets the Plaquemine–Morgan City Waterway and connects to the Mississippi River system.
“Gaza flotilla activists were shot in head at close range,” June 5, 2010,

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/04/gaza-flotilla-activists-autopsy-results
 Exclusive: Nine Turkish men on board Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times, autopsy results reveal

 “Aid ship Rachel Corrie ‘intercepted’ by Israeli troops: Gaza,” June 5, 2010, http://gulfnews.com/news/region/palestinian-territories/aid-ship-rachel-corrie-intercepted-by-israeli-troops-gaza-committee-1.636962
“‘Rachel Corrie victim of piracy, terror,’” June 5, 2010, http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=129143§ionid=351020202“Five Gazans killed by Israeli fire,” June 1, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201061135822164378.html

“Afghan girls brave Taliban threats,” June 5, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/20106510171162225.html
“Foreign troop death toll in Afghanistan hits 230,” AFP - Saturday, June 5, 2010,

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100605/tap-afghanistan-unrest-nato-eea7cf4.

“Iraq politician shot dead in Mosul,” June 5, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201065112649147845.html

“U.S. eyes new F-16 fighters for Iraq – commander” (Reporting by Jim Wolf; Editing by Tim Dobbyn UPDATE), Friday June 4, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0414780020100604?type=

“Somali forces free ship,” June 3, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/06/20106391238963851.html
The Horn of Africa is an extension of land between the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden inhabited by Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Djibouti, cultures linked throughout their long history.

The Gulf of Aden is a deepwater basin forming a natural sea link between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. Named after the seaport of Aden, in southern Yemen, the gulf is situated between the coasts of Arabia and the Horn of Africa. In oceanographic and geologic terms, it extends to the eastern limits of the continental shelf [Almost everywhere the shelves represent a continuation of the continental land mass beneath the ocean margins] beyond the Kuria Muria Islands to the north and the island of Socotra to the south, covering an area of some 205,000 square miles (530,000 square km).

The Indian Ocean is bounded by Iran, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh to the north; the Malay Peninsula, the Sunda Islands of Indonesia, and Australia to the east; Antarctica to the south; and Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to the west. In the southwest, it joins the Atlantic Ocean south of the southern tip of Africa, and to the east and southeast, its waters mingle with those of the Pacific. The question of defining the oceanic limits of the Indian Ocean is complicated and remains unsettled. The Indian Ocean is a body of salt water, covering approximately one-fifth of the total ocean area of the world; it is the smallest, youngest, and physically most complex of the world’s three major oceans.

“Myanmar ‘nuclear plans’ exposed, June 4, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/06/2010642542469132.html
Myanmar is bordered by China to the north and northeast, Laos to the east, Thailand to the southeast, the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal to the south and southwest, Bangladesh to the west, and India to the northwest.

[On India’s western border is Pakistan and on Pakistan’s western border is Afghanistan; on China’s eastern border on the Sea of Japan is North Korea. The largest of all Asian countries, with the world’s largest population, occupying nearly the entire East Asian landmass, approximately one-fourteenth of the land area of the Earth ─ China is bounded by Mongolia to the north; Russia and North Korea to the northeast; the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea to the east; the South China Sea to the southeast; Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), India, Bhutan, and Nepal to the south; Pakistan to the southwest; and Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan to the west. In addition to the 14 countries that border directly on it, China also faces South Korea and Japan, across the Yellow Sea, and the Philippines, which lie beyond the South China Sea]. 

Officially the Union of Myanmar (also called Burma, Burmese Myanmar or Pyidaungzu Myanma Naingngandaw country), Myanmar sits in the western portion of mainland Southeast Asia. In 1989, the country’s official English name was changed from the Union of Burma to the Union of Myanmar; in the Burmese language, the country has been known as Myanma (or, more precisely, Mranma Prañ) since the 13th century. The English name of the capital, Rangoon, in 1989 became Yangôn. 

“Nearly 5 Years After Katrina, African American Fishing Community in Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish Faces New Struggle in Oil Spill Devastation and BP Obstruction,” June 4, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/

“U.S. ‘secret war’ expands globally as Special Operations forces take larger role” (Jennifer Jenkins), June 4, 2010, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2010/06/us_secret_war_expands_globally.html?wprss=washingtonpostinvestigationsBackground notes: Britannica

“We who believe in freedom” ─ Reagon’s Ella

Lyrics excerpted with minor edits by Carolyn Bennett for Today's Insight News
In an interview today on WBIA, Bernice Johnson Reagon discussed her activism, her career and work, Ella Baker, U.S. history, context and current affairs.

African American woman’s voice, child of Southwest Georgia, voice raised in song, born in the struggle against racism in America during the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s, Bernice Johnson Reagon has been a major cultural voice for freedom and justice. She is a composer, singer, song leader, scholar and producer. Four decades ago, Bernice Johnson Reagon organized Sweet Honey In The Rock.

She is the composer of

“Ella’s Song”

Ccopyright: Songtalk Publishing Co.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons
Is as important as the killing of White men, White mothers’ sons

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

… That which touches me most is that I had a chance to work with people
Passing on to others that which was passed on to me

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

To me young people come first, they have the courage where we fail
… If I can shed some light as they carry us through the gale

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on
Is when the reins are in the hand of the young who dare to run against the storm

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Not needing to clutch for power, not needing the light just to shine on me
I need to be just one in the number as we stand against tyranny

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot I come to realize
…Teaching others to stand up and fight is the only way my struggle survives

We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

I’m a woman who speaks in a voice and I must be heard
At time I can be quite difficult, I’ll bow to no man’s word

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Bernice Johnson Reagon is the composer Ella’s Song copyright: Songtalk Publishing Co.
http://www.bernicejohnsonreagon.com/ella.shtml
http://www.bernicejohnsonreagon.com/

Bernice Johnson Reagon was in interview live on WBAI, New York City, May 3, 2010, http://wbai.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=4&id=221&Itemid=135

Complicit U.S. gov't denies Israeli massacre

Edited excerpts by Carolyn Bennett from today’s Democracy Now interview with Ali Abunimah, Executive Director of Electronic Intifada

People have tried to reach Gaza to break the siege. They have tried by land. They have tried by sea. They have… given their lives in the cause of breaking this siege on Gaza.

We have to ask for what crime 1.5 million people in Gaza are being held prisoner?

There is a museum in Berlin dedicated to those who were killed ─ machine-gunned to death while trying to cross over the Berlin Wall. An unknown number of people (Israel will not release numbers) have been machine-gunned to death for trying to break Israel’s blockade.

When will there be accountability?

When will the Obama administration stop this outrageous complicity, this enabling, this acting as an accomplice with these crimes against people in Palestine, and now (on the ‘Freedom Flotilla’) crimes against Americans, Turks, Greeks, Jordanians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Swedes, French people, German people, members of Parliament, doctors, retired people, trying to bring medicine to people in Gaza?

That our government has not stood up and condemned this [attack on six aid-carrying ships to Gaza] in the clearest possible terms is a sign that something is sick in the United States’ system when it comes to speaking about and dealing with Israel. This sickness must be addressed.



Sources and notes
“Global Condemnation of Israeli Armed Attack on Gaza-Bound Freedom Flotilla: At Least 10 Dead, Hundreds Remain in Detention.” June 1, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/1/global_condemnation_of_israeli_armed_attack
“Massacre at sea ─ Israel attacks aid flotilla to Gaza,” May 31-June 1, 2010, http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml

The Electronic Intifada (EI) is a not-for-profit, independent publication committed to comprehensive public education on the question of Palestine, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the economic, political, legal, and human dimensions of Israel’s 40-year occupation of Palestinian territories. EI provides a needed supplement to mainstream commercial media representations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/aboutEI.shtml
EI’s Executive Director is Ali Abunimah, its Managing Editor is Maureen Clare Murphy [http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2242.shtml]