Friday, February 27, 2009

Unusual Suspect



Crazy sure is funny, until someone gets hurt. For now, we can just laugh at the absurdity. And hope no one dares take it seriously.

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Thursday, February 26, 2009

That Jindal Rebuttal Speech...




I saw this train wreck coming as soon as it rounded the corner in that bizarre camera angle (what the frack was up with that?!?). Once he began speaking in that eerie voice and even more disturbing smile, I settled in for the hilarity and hijinks I knew would eventually ensue. So absolutely no further commentary needed. The frustrated talking heads of the conservative movement have said it all. Jindal as the GOPs rising star seems dismally doubtful. But the comedy his speech illicited is something to treasure. We as a nation, needed to laugh again.

More after the fold:

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Friday, February 20, 2009

Once You See What Truly Happened in Gaza, It Will Change You Forever




When I traveled to Gaza last week, everywhere I went, a photo haunted me...of a young Palestinian girl who is literally buried alive in the rubble from a bomb blast, with just her head protruding from the ruins. Her eyes are closed, her mouth partially open, as if she were in a deep sleep. Dried blood covers her lips, her cheeks, her hair. Someone with a glove is reaching down to touch her forehead, showing one final gesture of kindness in the midst of such inhumanity. What was this little girl's name, I wonder. How old was she? Was she sleeping when the bomb hit her home? Did she die a quick death or a slow, agonizing one? Where are her parents, her siblings? How are they faring? Of the 1,330 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military during the 22-day invasion of Gaza, 437 were children. Let me repeat that: 437 children -- each as beautiful and precious as our own.


This is the chilling introduction to Medea Benjamin's article on the suffering Gaza has endured. I repost the full article below, unedited.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Getting Afghanistan Right




So it's official. President Obama yesterday announced plans to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The "undebated war," often referred to as the "good war," is about to get its very own "surge." This is nothing new from Obama. Throughout his campaign, he has long used Afghanistan and the surrounding region as his "look-and-talk-tough" Democratic issue, hoping to counter his more hawkish rivals. Many, including myself, disagreed heavily with this stance, but kept quiet (mostly) about it. That is, we voiced our disapproval but didn't make it a massive issue. Now it's reckoning day. And there's a sinking feeling as we watch a would-be progressive President try to subjugate a region that has left other would-be empires broken and scattered in its deserts. As if eight years isn't enough; as if US and NATO airstrikes haven't alienated the populace; as if a corrupt propped up government in Kabul hasn't helped Taliban recruiting efforts even more, we want to throw another 17,000 troops and a few billion dollars at it.

Attempting to form a constructive stance on the issue, writers and bloggers including Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, Alex Thurston and Jason Rosenbaum of The Seminal, and Howie Klein of DownWithTyranny, has put together a project termed "GetAfghanistanRight" whose purpose is to both talk directly to President Obama and inform the larger public.

More after the fold.

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Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Business of War in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Who Benefits?




"This is all money," says a Western mining executive, his hand sweeping over a geological map toward the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He is explaining why, in 1997, he and planeloads of other businessmen were flocking to the impoverished country and vying for the attention of then-rebel leader Laurent Kabila. The executive could just as accurately have said, "This is all war."


In examining the happenings in the DRC and other regions, the question often asked is "why?" Too often, popular media accounts resort to simplistic stories of "ethnic" conflict or small local regional conflicts. In truth however, the happenings in the DRC (as in many other "third world" regions) are part of a brutal resource war, in which local, regional, transnational and international players are heavily involved. A 2001 article in Dollars and Sense called The Business of War in the Democratic Republic Of Congo: Who benefits? by Dena Montague and Frieda Berrigan examined this often underreported relationship. It is reposted here in full.

More below the fold:

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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Israel's Right-Wing Makeover



Right wing ideologue Benjamin Netanyahu has swept to power in the elections. Coming with him are pro-settler politicians who are firmly against any Palestinian state, and militarists who are itching to preemptively wage war on Iran--along with anyone else in the neighborhood. To top it off, an anti-Arab ultra-nationalist, Avigdor Lieberman (who thinks apartheid for the Palestinians is a good idea, and at whose rallies Israeli teens chant "Death to Arabs") now has the position of "kingmaker" in the new emergent government. There's no misreading this--Israel as a state has tilted radically to the right, with leaders who are best compared to the neocons of the Bush era. And the left, defeated and humiliated, has been reduced to a minority voice.

It boggles the mind to think that the architects of the recent massacre in Gaza, are actually to the *left* of the people now in power. It seems the "extremists" are no longer restricted and blockaded in Gaza--they now have compatriots in Tel Aviv. Troubling for an Obama administration eager to wrangle out some form of Mid East peace, hope and change did not come to Israel.

More below the fold.

Fatah leaders on the ground see the Israeli election as confirming what they already knew: that there's nothing to be gained by continuing the charade of U.S.-sponsored talks-about-talks with the Israelis. They could not get what they needed from Olmert, and they know his successors will be even more hardline. From the Palestinian perspective, the past eight years of waiting for negotiations with Israel has left Abbas empty-handed, while the latest Gaza conflict has put Hamas in a stronger position than ever in Palestinian public opinion.



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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Obama Strikes Back! (and it's about time)



Finally! After nearly two weeks of letting the GOP bash the Obama administration's intended stimulus plan, the head guy in charge is finally firing back. Seeming lost in some feel-good fog of "bipartisanship," the White House has allowed obstructionist Republicans to whittle away important portions of the package, all the while bashing it as "pork" or "wasteful spending." They even managed to twist the administration's arm and insert a series of useless tax cuts. And what did the the President get back in return? Not a single Republican in the House voted for the bill.

Realizing that a party that allows Rush Limbaugh to dictate it's agenda can't be trusted to deal with economic matters seriously, Obama yesterday finally hit back at his critics--calling out their hypocrisy and chiding them for what he termed "ideological blockage." My favorite line:

Now, you have some people, very sincere, who philosophically just think the government has no business interfering in the marketplace. And in fact there are several who've suggested that FDR was wrong to intervene back in the New Deal. They're fighting battles that I thought were resolved a pretty long time ago.

Pure gold. Excerpts of the news conference after the fold.

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Monday, February 9, 2009

What If You Had a World War- And No One Cared ?


Why do we care about some wars and not about others? Why does Darfur arouse such passion in decent people all over the world, but the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC (the country until a decade or so ago known as Zaire), which has taken the lives of far more people—4 million between 1996 and 2001, according to some informed estimates—for the most part remains what relief workers brutally but not inaccurately call an “orphan conflict”?


Such are the questions asked by French writer Gerard Prunier in his book Africa’s World War: Congo, Rwandan Genocide and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe.

The awful truth is, the current horrors of the Congo are the tailspin of the long shamefully ignored late 1990s war in the region, that drew in numerous factions, countries, international backers (in arms and finances) and resulted in the deaths of some 4 million Congolese. That war itself spun out (in part) of players and actors in the equally neglected genocidal horror in Rwanda, that killed three quarters of a million people. The causational link between these two tragedies is direct and glaring. And the chaos that has resulted from rapacious resource-greedy regional neighbors with silent international partners and a country left debilated by a western backed dictator (Mobutu) and strangling IMF debt (accrued western bribes to Mobutu) have all served to make a deadly cocktail that remains a glaring hole in the heart of a continent and the world. One way or the other, we're all responsible for the Congo, and we'll all pay.

David Rieff at Truthdig examines Prunier's book and tries to answer some of the vexing moral questions these tragedies pose to Africa and the world. Read article here or after the fold.

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Sunday, February 1, 2009

Terror from the Skies




Last week saw yet another "suspected" US missile strike in Pakistan. More than likely from a US unmanned Predator drone, the missile strike would be about the 38th since last August. Altogether, some 132 people have been killed in Pakistan by these attacks. And while the US, in a type of non-denial, denial, contends they are meant to "disrupt" Taliban and terror networks, they inevitably take the lives of civilians. In this case, while Western newspapers claimed anywhere from 1 to 10 "insurgents" had been killed, locals claimed "...three children lost their lives."

Begun by the Bush administration, these controversial (and illegal) acts of non-declared war have been resistant to any "change" brought about the new administration. A "hawk" on this issue, President Obama had asserted forcefully that he would use such measures since the campaign trail. It looks like he's making good on the threat. Meanwhile however, these missile strikes are unleashing terror on suspected enemies and innocents alike, and creating growing resentment in Pakistan that could blowback on the government--seen as either impotent against, or in alliance with, the US.

This past week journalist Bill Moyers sat down with historian Marilyn Young, author of the forthcoming Boming Civilians: A Twentieth Century History and former Pentagon official Pierre Sprey, who helped found the military reform movement, to discuss the ethics, effectiveness and danger of America's longtime reliance on aerial bombardment--from Vietnam to Afghanistan--as a form of war and pacification.

Watch video here.

Transcript below the fold.

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