Sunday, June 19, 2011
Beyond Treason: Depleted Uranium & Anthrax Vaccines [Full Film]
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror
from The New York Times, March 29. 2009
Source http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/books/30fren.html
Clearly, the African disaster most in view today is Sudan, or more specifically the dirty war that has raged since 2003 in that country’s western region,Darfur.
Rare among African conflicts, it exerts a strong claim on our conscience. By instructive contrast, more than five million people have died as a result of war in Congo since 1998, the rough equivalent at its height of a 2004 Asian tsunami striking every six months, without stirring our diplomats to urgency or generating much civic response.
More interestingly, the author maintains that much of what we see today as a racial divide in Sudan has its roots in colonial history, when Britain “broke up native society into different ethnicities, and ‘tribalized’ each ethnicity by bringing it under the absolute authority of one or more British-sanctioned ‘native authorities,’ ” balancing “the whole by playing one off against the others.”
Mr. Mamdani calls this British tactic of administratively reinforcing distinctions among colonial subjects “re-identify and rule” and says that it was copied by European powers across the continent, with deadly consequences — as in Rwanda, where Belgium’s intervention hardened distinctions between Hutu and Tutsi.
In Sudan the result was to create a durable sense of land rights rooted in tribal identity that favored the sedentary at the expense of the nomad, or, in the crude shorthand of today, African and Arab.
Other roots of the Darfur crisis lie in catastrophic desertification in the Sahel region, where the cold war left the area awash in cheap weapons at the very moment that pastoralists could no longer survive in their traditional homelands, obliging many to push southward into areas controlled by sedentary farmers.
He also blames regional strife, the violent legacy of proxy warfare by France, Libya and the United States and, most recently, the global extension of the war on terror.
This important book reveals much on all of these themes, yet still may be judged by some as not saying enough about recent violence in Darfur.
Mr. Mamdani’s constant refrain is that the virtuous indignation he thinks he detects in those who shout loudest about Darfur is no substitute for greater understanding, without which outsiders have little hope of achieving real good in Africa’s shattered lands.
Here's an article by Keith Harmon Snow with more information about Darfur that is not discussed in the mainstream media http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-264THE%20WINTER%20OF%20BASHIRS%20DISCONTENT.htm
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Africa’s gift to Latin America?
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stephen_kinzer/2008/04/iraqs_gift_to_latin_america.html
He writes,
“With the United States so totally consumed by the Iraq conflict, it has no time, energy or political capital to crack down on challenges south of the Rio Grande. Sensing their historic chance, many Latin nations have embarked on experiments that the US would in past eras have instantly stepped in to crush.
The independence that many Latin American countries have shown in the last five years borders on outright defiance of US power. Yet to a degree unprecedented in modern history, Washington is allowing them to do as they please.”
While US involvement in Iraq appears in the mainstream media everyday, US involvement in Africa does not.
Here are articles about African countries that the United States is politically/militarily involved with. Using Kinzer’s way of thinking, these are gifts to Latin America
Congo
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_keith_ha_080207_the_gertler_steinmet.htm
Sudan
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=447&Itemid=1
Somolia
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m41085&hd=&size=1&l=e
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Americans Tell It Like It Is to the Iraqis
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/sutton
In the first panel, that "average Joe's" viewpoint is held by many highly educated people. There are Senators and Congresspersons (Republicans and Democrats) who have the same point of view.
Here is information about what the US is doing in Iraq that you won;t find in the mainstream media
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/20/iraqi_american_reflects_on_five_years
Here is an article about "Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power"
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html
Here is an article about how the United States sold weapons and gave false strategic advice to both sides of the Iran-Iraq war.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Spielberg Drops Out As Beijing Olympics Adviser Over Darfur
Film director Steven Spielberg and actress Mia Farrow joined activists worldwide Tuesday in using the Olympics as a backdrop to address human rights concerns, urging Beijing to exert political leverage on Sudan's government to help end the crisis in Darfur
article continued at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/12/spielberg-drops-out-as-be_n_86338.html
The delusional righteousness of Steven Spielberg, Mia Farrow and all those other phony “Save Darfur” activists
It really is incredible the gall and extreme hypocrisy of people who cry crocodile tears for Darfur. If they are really concerned about stopping the violence in Darfur they would discuss all the factors contributing to it. As Americans, Steven Spielberg and Mia Farrow should be discussing the role of the Untied States in fueling the violence in Darfur. Learn more about it from these two articles.
One is written by Keith Harmon Snow
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=447&Itemid=1
the other is written by F William Engdahl
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Oil_in_Africa/oil_in_africa.html
Why don’t the “Save Darfur” activists have anything to say about the United States’ role in the genocide in the Congo?
See
http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/congo.htm
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_keith_ha_080207_the_gertler_steinmet.htm
What about the genocide in Iraq?
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m40642&hd=&size=1&l=e
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html
http://gettingtruth.blogspot.com/2007/05/can-whats-going-on-in-iraq-just-be.html
What about the genocide in Somalia?
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m41085&hd=&size=1&l=e
As long as people spend most of their time preaching to other countries and not to their own country, genocides will continue to occur.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
ISRAEL AND THE ONGOING HOLOCAUST IN THE CONGO
By Keith Harmon Snow
Maurice Templesman is one of big funders of Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Templesman was the unofficial ambassador to the Congo (Zaire) for years, always working the CIA and Mobutu to instill terror and steal minerals, but a new Israeli-American tycoon has replaced him.
In the world of bling bling and bling bang, some things change, some stay the same. The CIA, MOSSAD, the big mining companies, the offshore accounts and weapons deals—all are hidden by Western media. The holocaust in Central Africa has claimed some six to ten million people in Congo since 1996, with 1500 people dying daily.But while Africans are victims of perpetual Holocaust, the persecutors hide behind history, complaining that they are the persecuted, or pretending they are the saviors. Who is responsible?
For Israeli-American Dan Gertler, business in blood drenched Congo is not merely business, it is a quest for the Holy Grail. Young Dan Gertler goes nowhere——does nothing——without the spiritual guidance of Brooklyn-born Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Leibovitch, a personal friend of Condoleeza Rice.
Article continued at
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_keith_ha_080207_the_gertler_steinmet.htm
Here is an article about Israel in Darfur
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=447&Itemid=1
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Bombs Away Over Iraq
by Tom Engelhardt
A January 21st Los Angeles Times Iraq piece by Ned Parker and Saif Rasheed led with an inter-tribal suicide bombing at a gathering in Fallujah in which members of the pro-American Anbar Awakening Council were killed. ("Asked why one member of his Albu Issa tribe would kill another, Aftan compared it to school shootings that happen in the United States.") Twenty-six paragraphs later, the story ended this way:
"The U.S. military also said in a statement that it had dropped 19,000 pounds of explosives on the farmland of Arab Jabour south of Baghdad. The strikes targeted buried bombs and weapons caches.
"In the last 10 days, the military has dropped nearly 100,000 pounds of explosives on the area, which has been a gateway for Sunni militants into Baghdad."
And here's paragraph 22 of a 34-paragraph January 22nd story by Stephen Farrell of the New York Times:
"The threat from buried bombs was well known before the [Arab Jabour] operation. To help clear the ground, the military had dropped nearly 100,000 pounds of bombs to destroy weapons caches and I.E.D.'s."
Farrell led his piece with news that an American soldier had died in Arab Jabour from an IED that blew up "an MRAP, the new Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected armored vehicle that the American military is counting on to reduce casualties from roadside bombs in Iraq."
Note that both pieces started with bombing news -- in one case a suicide bombing that killed several Iraqis; in another a roadside bombing that killed an American soldier and wounded others. But the major bombing story of these last days -- those 100,000 pounds of explosives that U.S. planes dropped in a small area south of Baghdad -- simply dangled unexplained off the far end of the Los Angeles Times piece; while, in the New York Times, it was buried inside a single sentence.
Neither paper has (as far as I know) returned to the subject, though this is undoubtedly the most extensive use of air power in Iraq since the Bush administration's invasion of 2003 and probably represents a genuine shifting of American military strategy in that country. Despite, a few humdrum wire service pieces, no place else in the mainstream has bothered to cover the story adequately either.
Continued at http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m40642&hd=&size=1&l=e
Note: the article mentions what happened in 1937 Guernica; here is an article that points out that Western countries were already bombing Arab and Muslim countries before 1937. See http://www.brushtail.com.au/july_04_on/bombing_arabs_history.html
Sunday, December 30, 2007
The role of the United States and other countries in fueling the violence in Darfur
Conflict in Darfur escalated in 2003 after in parallel with negotiations “ending” the south Sudan war. The U.S.-backed insurgency by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the guerilla force that fought the northern Khartoum government for 20 years, shifted to Darfur, even as the G.W. Bush government allied with Khartoum in the U.S. led “war on terror.” The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)—one of some 27 rebel factions mushrooming in Darfur—is allied with the SPLA and supported from Uganda. Andrew Natsios, former USAID chief and now US envoy to Sudan, said on October 6, 2007 that the atmosphere between the governments of north and south Sudan “had become poisonous.” This is no surprise given the magnitude of the resource war in Sudan and the involvement of international interests.
Israel reportedly provides military training to Darfur rebels from bases in Eritrea, and has strengthened ties with the regime in Chad, from which more weapons and troops penetrate Darfur. The refugee camps have become increasingly militarized. There are reports that Israeli military intelligence operates from within the camps, as does U.S intelligence. Eritrea is about to explode into yet another war with Ethiopia.
See complete article at http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=447&Itemid=1
Here are additional articles on Darfur
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Meaningless Resolution Regarding the Armenian Genocide
How about asking the U.S. Congress to put an end to the genocide it is committing in Iraq? Most politicians only acknowledge the deaths of American soldiers, but have nothing to say about the deaths of the Iraqis. Even the political left pretend that what is going on in Iraq is just a civil war and the U.S. is an innocent, helpless bystander. This is no different from Turkey. “The Turkish government has said the toll [of 1.5 million]is wildly inflated and that Armenians were killed or displaced in civil unrest during the empire's collapse.”
It was the United States that helped Saddam Hussein into power and supported him strategically and financially, when he was committing his worst atrocities. The U.S. has bombed the infrastructure of Iraq during two invasions; no one really knows how many were killed during these bombings or due to the use of chemical weapons and depleted uranium. Thousands of Iraqis are put in jail without justification. Reconstruction projects are benefiting foreigners more than the Iraqis. American agent provocateurs are fueling the violence between the different religious and ethnic groups; but no one is investigating this.
Millions of Iraqis have fled their country in fear for their lives. The Iraqis are scapegoats for U.S. foreign policy.
For those who have no sympathy for the Muslims in Iraq (and Afghanistan), let’s look at what the United States did in Vietnam and Cambodia. Three to five million Buddhists were killed when the U.S, bombed and used chemical weapons on these countries. Where is U.S. acknowledgment of this genocide?
What about how the United States preaches human rights and democracy, yet it engages in regime change, supporting brutal dictators and kings who do its bidding?
The fact that the U.S. Congress wants to pass a resolution regarding the genocide that Turkey has committed, but has not said anything about the genocides the United States is responsible for, shows that passing these type of resolution is completely meaningless.
Why don't the United States and Europe set the example by acknowledging their genocides?
It wasn't only the Armenians that were killed in large numbers. Read here about what the Europeans (with Americas' help) were doing in their former colonies
See http://www.brushtail.com.au/july_04_on/bombing_arabs_history.html
I suspect there is much more history that has yet to be revealed about the atrocities Europeans committed against former colonies.
Mass Murder in the Horn of Africa
Why is the U.S. subsidizing and supporting murder, rape, and systematic ethnic cleansing in the Horn of Africa? The reason: it's all part of our strategy for "victory" in the "war on terrorism."
The village of Kamuda – a remote outpost in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, where the majority are Muslims and ethnically Somali – had some unexpected visitors last June, when a platoon of Ethiopian soldiers showed up, announcing their arrival by shooting their rifles into the air – and demanding to know why the villagers had been providing food and safe haven to rebels from the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). With no satisfactory answer forthcoming, the soldiers took action: they picked out seven young ladies, between the ages of 15 and 18, and dragged them off into the bush.
Three were later found hanging from trees, beaten to death. The rest simply disappeared.
(Complete article by Justin Raimondo at http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11778 )
Friday, October 05, 2007
From Iraq to Burma Hypocrisy Rules the West
October 1, 2007
Shame has vanished from Western “civilization.” Hypocrisy has taken its place.
On September 28, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown could be heard on National Public Radio decrying the use of violence against democratic protesters by the government in Burma. Brown declared the British people’s revulsion over the violence inflicted by the Burmese government on its people. But Brown said nothing about the violence the British government was inflicting on Iraqis and Afghans.
George W. Bush also struck the blameless pose when he declared: “The world is watching the people of Burma take to the streets to demand their freedom, and the American people stand in solidarity with these brave individuals.”
Bush and Brown do not have the same sympathy for the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither Bush nor Brown stand in solidarity with those who are demanding their freedom from foreign occupation by American and British troops. Indeed, Bush and Brown, as commanders in chief, are on a killing spree that makes the government in Burma look extremely restrained by comparison.
Complete article at http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m36826&hd=&size=1&l=e
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Iraq: a free and sovereign state?
by Ron Jacobs
If anyone still believes that Iraq is a free and sovereign state, a couple recent moves in Washington should put a rest to that thought forever. The first is the response to the most recent slaughter by the Blackwater mercenaries. The second is the vote on September 26, 2007 in the US Senate that calls for the division of Iraq into semi-autonomous regions that would be decided by the US client government inside Baghdad's Green Zone.
The response to the Blackwater murders from the Green Zone government was strong at first. The Minister of the Interior demanded the exit of the mercenaries from Iraq and possible prosecution of the murderers. Then the pressure from Washington began and the forceful language from the Green Zone Iraqis became considerably more conciliatory. As it stands at this writing, the Iraqi legislature is considering passing a law that would make the private mercenaries fighting Washington's war in Iraq the responsibility of the Pentagon. This would mean that they would answer to the men in uniform wearing lots of medals. It doesn't mean that their murderous actions would be punished, but it would mean that they would have to be sanctioned by the Pentagon. Given that there seems to be very few US military officers of high rank whose careers are not tied to Washington's version of success in Iraq, this change in the command chain seems like it will make very little difference in how the Blackwaters of the war operate.
See rest of article at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_jaco_070928_the_illusion_of_divi.htm
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Pope in 'freedom' blast at Islam
A poll earlier this year of more than 1,000 young adult British Muslims found that 36 per cent believe those who convert to another faith should be punished by death.
Pope Benedict is particularly concerned about the persecution of Christians in Iraq since the invasion of 2003.
Before then, there were about 1.2million Christians in the country. But the number has dropped to below 600,000.
complete article at (Click here for the complete article)
Did it bother the Pope when the United States helped bring Saddam Hussein into power? The U.S. and other Western countries supported Saddam, strategically and financially when he was committing his worst atrocities?. Is he concerned about the millions of innocent women, men and children that were killed by bombings in two invasions, the use of chemical weapons by the United States and the sanctions that were placed against the people of Iraq? What about the millions of Iraqis that have fled their homes into the surrounding countries?
While tolerance of others must be addressed by Muslims, it would help if the Pope set the example by speaking up against how Western countries, while preaching human rights and democracy, go around engaging in regime change and supporting brutal kings and dictators who do their bidding? He won't be doing this anytime soon because these mass murders and violations of human rights are what gives him and those living in the West their comfortable lifestyles.
I don't expect he will be addressing the region in which the most killings and rapes are occurring, the predominantly Christian Congo. It is because the United States, Israel, and Europe benefit from the diamonds, other natural resources, and sale of weapons that deaths and suffering of the Congolese does not matter.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Crocodile tears for Darfur flood the civilized world
Organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Save Darfur Coalition are silent on the role of the United States and other democracies in fueling the violence in Sudan.
See http://allthingspass.com/journalism.php?jid=165
And http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Oil_in_Africa/oil_in_africa.html
For some strange reason these activists are not too concerned about the Congo were a larger number of killings and rapes have occurred. Can it be because the United States, Israel and Europe benefit from the diamonds, other natural resources, and sale of weapons, that the death of millions of black Africans in the Congo is not so tragic?
See http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/congo.htm
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9832
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2007/snow.html
Friday, August 24, 2007
Jimmy Carter: a liar or a puppet president?
Q: What has been the importance of your own faith in your continued interest in peace in the Middle East?
is
A: As a Christian, I worship the Prince of Peace. One of my preeminent commitments has been to bring peace to the people who live in the Holy Land. I made my best efforts as president and still have this as a high priority.
But here is an interview with (National Security Advisor to President Carter) Zbigniew Brzezinski at http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html (from Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998 )
Brzezinski says
According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
and
That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
In this article about the women of Afghanistan it says
from http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Women/RevolAfghanWomen.html
The USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and occupied the country throughout the 1980s. The CIA hired the Mujaheddin (soldiers of God) to expunge the Communists from Afghanistan. The Mujaheddin were trained by Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Directorate, and funded and armed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France, Britain, Israel, Iran, Japan, and China. The U.S. spent $5 billion to support the rebels during the 1980s, and used Osama bin Laden, then an ally of the U. S ., to help recruit non-Afghan Muslims to the Mujaheddin.
RAWA has pointed out that there were several democratic-minded groups the U.S. and other countries could have supported if they had wanted to drive out the Communists and help restore independence to Afghanistan. Why did these countries instead back the fundamentalist Mujaheddin? RAWA member Sajeda told Said lt magazine in August that pro-democracy groups would have refused to act as "puppets" for other countries, and would have made it difficult for those countries to "maintain their economic and political interests in Afghanistan."
When the Soviet Union withdrew its army in 1989, the Mujaheddin, under the command of the despotic Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and still funded by the U.S., began shelling Afghanistan's cities, killing thousands of civilians. After the Soviet's puppet regime collapsed in 1992, the country was seized by civil war. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in rocket attacks. The Mujaheddin stopped women from working and attending health courses sponsored by non-government organizations (NGOs). Amnesty International reported that armed groups beat, raped, and murdered women in their homes. Young women were kidnapped as wives for commanders or sold into prostitution. Some committed suicide to avoid this fate, like one young woman who threw herself off a balcony in her house when soldiers came to kidnap her. In March 1994, a 15-year-old girl was repeatedly raped after soldiers killed her father for allowing her to go to school. Many people were victimized for belonging to a certain religious or ethnic group.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Judith Miller and the Bloodbath in Iraq (Repeat)
On April 21, 2003, Judith Miller, now working as an embedded reporter with the U.S. military's MET Alpha, wrote the story, "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert." In this piece of propaganda, Miller claims without evidence or proof that the Iraqis destroyed or shipped to Syria their vast stockpiles of WMDs. Miller's anonymous source was a guy claiming to be an "Iraqi scientist," and she tells her readers that she "was permitted to see him from a distance at the sites where he said that material from the arms program was buried. Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried."
This "Iraqi scientist," who turned out to be bogus, allowed Miller to appear on PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer and have the following exchange:...
complete article at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/judith-miller-and-the-blo_b_57023.html
Friday, August 10, 2007
The US has Returned Fundamentalism to Afghanistan
Here http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/12/468/ is a transcript of the speech given by Malalai Joya, member of the Afghan Parliament, at the University of Los Angeles on Tuesday April, 10th.
Here are two quotes from her speech.
Respected friends, over five years passed since the US-led attack on Afghanistan. Probably many of you are not well aware of the current conditions of my country and expect me to
list the positive outcomes of the past years since the US invasion. But I am sorry to tell you that Afghanistan is still chained in the fetters of the fundamentalist warlords and
is like an unconscious body taking its last breath.
The US government removed the ultra-reactionary and brutal regime of Taliban, but instead of relying on Afghan people, pushed us from the frying pan into the fire and selected its
friends from among the most dirty and infamous criminals of the “Northern Alliance”, which is made up of the sworn enemies of democracy and human rights, and are as dark-minded, evil, and cruel as the Taliban.
The Western media talks about democracy and the liberation
of Afghanistan, but the US and its allies are engaged in the warlordization, criminalization and drug-lordization of our
wounded land.
————————————————————————————–
The gang-rape of young girls and women by warlords belonging to the “Northern Alliance” still continues especially in the northern provinces of Afghanistan. People have staged mass protests a number of times but no one cares about their sorrow and tears. Only a few of the rape cases find their way into the media. One shocking case was that of 11 year old Sanobar, the only daughter of an unfortunate widow who was abducted, raped and then exchanged for a dog by a warlord. In a land where human dignity has no price, the vicious rapist of a poor girl still acts as district chief.
The only protests in Afghanistan the mainstream media reports on are the ones involving the abuse of the Quran or those Muhammed cartoons. Much of the mainstream media does not care to portray Muslims as human beings, who have the same concerns as everyone else. How much attention has Malalai Joya gotten in the mainstream media or from Western feminists? It is because she criticizes both U.S. military actions and the Taliban that she is not well known.
Monday, July 30, 2007
More sympathetic media coverage given to animals than the suffering people in the Congo
How come the same amount of attention is not given to the people of the Congo as the gorillas of the Congo? Is it because Western countries benefit from the diamonds and natural resources; as well as the sale of weapons to the Central Africa region?
Here are some articles about it, in case you are not aware of it.
http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/congo.htm
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9832
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2007/snow.html
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Barack Obama is clueless
He said, “the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.”
I don’t know if the military can solve the problems in Iraq, but the least Obama could do is acknowledge that the United States and its allies created the the chaos in Iraq. The U.S., Britain, and its allies
#1) bombed the country and destroyed its infrastructure
#2) rounds up thousands of Iraqis and jails them without justification
#3) makes decisions when elections are to take place and whether the results are valid
#4) benefit more from reconstruction projects than the Iraqis
#5)can break into jails to release prisoners against the Iraqi’s governments wishes. (Remember when two British men where caught disguised as Arabs carrying explosives and weapons in their car? Their fellow British soldiers broke into the jail they were in and helped them to escape) see http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20051015&articleId=1089
Lets look at the second ridiculous thing Obama said, “Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now - where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife - which we haven’t done.”
The guy doesn’t know what he is talking about. I suggest he read “Deadly Legacy:U.S. Arms to Africa and the Congo War” at http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/congo.htm
The findings of the report were
- Due to the continuing legacies of its Cold War policies toward Africa, the U.S. bears some responsibility for the cycles of violence and economic problems plaguing the continent.
- The ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) is a prime example of the devastating legacy of U.S. arms sales policy on Africa.
- Although the Clinton administration has been quick to criticize the governments involved in the Congo War, decades of U.S. weapons transfers and continued military training to both sides of the conflict have helped fuel the fighting.
- Despite the failure of U.S. polices in the region, the current administration continues to respond to Africa’s woes by helping to strengthen African militaries.
- Even as it fuels military build-up, the U.S. continues cutting development assistance to Africa and remains unable (or unwilling) to promote alternative non-violent forms of engagement.
Here are articles that discuss how the United States and other countries exploit the natural resources of the Congo http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2006/snow0706.html
and http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2007/snow.html
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Would you donate to a charity that is associated with the war criminal Henry Kissinger?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
Henry Kissinger and Madeline Albright are listed in the International Rescue Committee’s website as “Overseers.” See http://www.theirc.org/about/ircboard.html
Look at what this article, concerning the Congo, says about the International Rescue Committee (IRC):
A UN Panel of Experts in a recent report challenged many airlines and companies for undertaking illicit flights (illegal, secret, unregistered, or falsely registered) into and out of the DRC. One of many notable companies apparently connected to Victor Bout’s arms trafficking networks is Simax, an Oregon-based company using an address in Sierra Leone. However, the UN Panel of Experts has once again ignored certain western agencies —with histories of illicit activities —whose flights remain equally surreptitious and unaccountable. At the
top of the list is the International Rescue Committee (IRC)—whose directors include Henry Kissinger and whose flights in and out of the Congo and internal flights to and from isolated airports in eastern DRC are completely unmonitored by MONUC arms embargo inspectors. In Bukavu, for example, all light aircraft are subject to MONUC arms embargo inspections, but IRC flights are not within the MONUC mandate.
Complete article at http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2006/snow0706.html