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By Afshin Rattansi
George Clooney, Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Cindy Crawford, Bono, Michael Caine, Claudia Schiffer, Bob Geldof, Hugh Grant, Mia Farrow, Mick Jagger and so many others have expressed their solidarity with the people of the oil-rich region of Darfur. A few weeks ago, Democrats John Lewis of Georgia, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Lynn Woolsey of California, Donna Edwards of Maryland, and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts were all arrested as they demonstrated against the Sudanese government. When Colin Powell used the word genocide in 2004, it kicked off $1 billion-a-year international aid program, much higher than that afforded Somalia or Congo. But why?
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Women in Darfur: We Saw No Evidence of Genocide
By Afshin Rattansi
In the past few months, the International Criminal Court has charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with crimes against humanity and war crimes. The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo is appealing the setting aside of genocide charges, claiming that there is "ongoing genocide" in Darfur. The Sudanese government has expelled some foreign aid groups, accusing them of espionage. They include Oxfam, Save the Children and Medecins Sans Frontieres. According to the Save Darfur Campaign, it was the relief organizations that provided clean water, food, and medical attention to roughly 1.5 million people. The Sudanese government claims these aid-agencies deliberately exclude Arab Darfuris in their ranks, exacerbating sectarian tensions.
And at the moment, President Obama’s Special Envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration is on a diplomatic tour and Britain is sending $185m in aid and $140m in “peacekeeping” money.
Collette Valentine, a TV producer visiting from the United Kingdom, and Ali Gunn, a British media consultant, last week returned from Darfur where they attended the first “International Conference on the Challenge Facing Women in Darfur” in Al-Fasher in the north. Valentine says that articles about Darfur in the international press make her feel as if she visited a completely different region, a completely different country. It all adds weight to the thesis of Columbia University’s Professor Mahmood Mamdani that there is something very murky about Western aid agencies’ insistence that there has been genocide in Darfur, that at the heart of campaigns for Darfur is the culmination of a powerful, imperial desire to suppress citizenry from U.S. high school classrooms to right across the developing world.
Afshin Rattansi: Tell me about your visit and how your experience differed to the portrayal in the corporate media. I understand you went at the invitation of Rajaa Hassan Khalifa from the largest women’s union in conjunction with Bakri O.Saeed from Sudan International University.
Collette Valentine: Ali Gunn and myself and a group of journalists were lucky enough to be invited to Sudan by the Sudanese Women General Union. The women’s union in Sudan has got 27,000 branches all over Sudan, including Darfur. They have representatives in all the rural villages, across all different communities consisting of around 80 tribes and clans. The women of Sudan are a real force. Historically, there have been female leaders. They are wives, mothers, farmers, they build, they grow the vegetables and basically run the communities and are respected by their men folk. A third of families in the camps are headed by women. In recent years, some members of the women’s union have been elected as ministers in the Sudanese government and a quarter of the seats in the Sudanese parliament are occupied by women.
They are all members of the union and they have direct links right down from the most educated academic women from the professional classes to grassroots people. This chain of open communication is active and alive from bottom to top and top to bottom. Because the women have such a strong role in the communities, the women themselves have decided to take action for peace and security in Darfur. They have seen the failure of external, international agencies and NGOs and they know that peace can only come from within their own communities via reconciliation talks.
The IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) in the refugee camps are people who have fled trouble in their own areas of Sudan. They didn’t want to leave but had no option but to flee. Before the international NGOs got involved, the IDPs were provided with camps by Al-Bashir’s government, provided with wells, administrators, bureaucratic structures, materials for shelter and local doctors, clinics, and health services paid for by the Sudanese government.
When women fled their villages, active male rebels from every community that were fighting each other remained. Those conflicts rage on even as there is peace and stability in the camps. We saw no evidence of any genocide. We were not embedded by the government nor with any NGO. We had absolute freedom to talk with whomever we wished. And we randomly talked to as many men, women and children as we could.
One man, a village leader who led 4,000 of his community , separated in two camps, said he had been there six years. His home was 50km away. We asked about genocide and he said that he wouldn’t have remained in the Sudanese government camps for six years if he hadn’t been looked after. When we asked about the issue of rape, he did not deny there wasn’t an issue. The women we spoke to said that unfortunately, rape exists everywhere in the world and some we spoke to quoted statistics about the prevalence of rape in the U.S. and how in developed nations, women are too frightened to press charges. One woman told me that allegations of wide and systematic rape crimes against Darfur women constitute a type of war against Sudan. Historically, in areas of conflict, they maintained, cases of crime and rape are bound to increase. Rape is not a weapon of the government and women are being told to report instances of rape. But the ICC is using the prevalence of rape and giving it undue importance, helping NGOs fill their coffers.
Afshin Rattansi: Were you concerned about safety in Darfur?
Ali Gunn: I understood the situation had settled and that there was quite a lot of fighting down south but that the situation in Darfur was more stable since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. However, I had been warned off by expert security consultants who feared for my safety.
We went to two camps in Darfur and we saw people eeking out a simple existence. No bullet holes, no tanks and no fighting. The only military vehicles belonged to the United Nations. We were given carte blanche to wander around the camps as we pleased and talk to anyone we liked. Many spoke English. I was appalled that so much reporting in our newspapers has no basis in reality. Cheap and lazy journalism at its worst.
Afshin Rattansi: What about the United Nations’ presence on the ground?
Collette Valentine: When we were actually in one of the two camps, we looked up and saw an American tank approaching, followed by a patrol of around 15 UN vans and two more tanks. They drove up, parked the cars outside the office of the administrator of the camp. We didn’t know what was happening.
We were told that three times day, this happens at the camp and that UN officials come to ask whether everything is alright. Women told us that the camps are peaceful places. While we played football with children in the camp at around 9am, men and women setting out market stalls selling tomatoes and oranges, and as the UN personnel talked to the administrator, the soldiers lined up with guns, five meters apart facing us and the rest of the people in the camps.
It was obvious that the soldiers were protecting UN bosses whilst we kicked a football with the children. It was extraordinary. Women were making yoghurt with goat’s milk even as the UN troops pointed their guns at us. I asked one of the women, Maha Feraigon, why guns were being aimed and whether they were scared that we might throw a tomato at them and she just laughed. As Ali says, quite a few people could speak English. Maha was first assistant to the Secretary General of the Sudanese Women General Union, independent of the government. All the people we spoke to were furious about UN personnel arriving in this way and wanted the UN to leave. The UN personnel left their engines running and people resented how much that money for the UN was being wasted in front of their eyes. They asked about what they could be doing with the money. I was disgusted. They asked why these personnel were not in the villages where the fighting continues and their ‘dar’ or land was. People said that NGOs did not want the fighting to stop so that they can continue to be paid. None had seen any money from the Save Darfur campaign and they resented that money was being raised in their names.
Ali Gunn: At the conference, we spoke to opposition leaders and women at the conference. There was no sense of urgency about any “genocide” in the camps themselves. Our concern for our trip was to look at the living conditions of the people in the camps and look at the future of Darfur and the future for families there. And there was very little evidence of external aid. Darfur is the size of France so we didn’t go to all the camps. We have photographic evidence of families and women making their own bricks. You would have to ask the aid agencies about where their money has been sent.
Afshin Rattansi: What about how the Sudanese perceive outside, external forces?
Collette Valentine: I was lucky enough to sit beside Mafa on the flight from Khartoum to Darfur. I emphasize that she has no connection to any NGO or the government. She spoke very good English and explained the anger of the people. Her general feeling, having been all over Darfur, speaking to women at all levels from all communities throughout the region was that they did not want foreign interference because they know that it is all about oil and water – the “oil of tomorrow”.
She told me about how Sudan was sitting on the biggest underwater lake in Africa giving rise to the best arable land. Despite the desertification, responsible for so many of the deaths in recent years, the lake holds great promise. She told me about how Chevron was thrown out of the country and how Chevron executives took all their drilling and exploration maps with them. They still believe that the NGOs in concert with the U.S. are only involved because of water and oil. She pointed to Congo, Sierra Leone and other African countries, firmly believing that there were no good intentions when it comes to great power involvement on the continent.
Afshin Rattansi: Not a day goes by without the word genocide being used when Darfur is in the corporate media.
Ali Gunn: The Western media has totally misrepresented the situation subsequent to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. In Darfur, they are desperate for long term measures to alleviate the cycle of non-delivery in Darfur. Some believed that there were a significant number of people who would never return to their homeland areas.
Living conditions in the camps were spartan but clean and people were very aware of their personal space. There was a market with a butcher, vegetable-sellers, a makeshift restaurant…many different rows of shops. It was very much like a souk you would see in any country of this type, with domestic goods on sale. The people we saw were not starving and pretty healthy.
Afshin Rattansi: Do you see money from oil being used for the benefit of the people?
Collette Valentine: Oil is all-important for Sudan and is vital to the infrastructure-building plans of the country. They are planning schools and health centers. Free medical care is available to everybody but not every village has a clinic so people have to travel to the next village. There is a lot of work to be done in Sudan. This is not a bed of roses, by any means but only oil money is going to be able to change things. I saw in Khartoum how development is beginning. They have big plans for the areas around the Blue Nile in Khartoum and it looks to me like Pudong in Shanghai where I made some documentaries when it was developing, a decade ago.
Maha told me that there was a rail system in Sudan that you could time your watch by but U.S. sanctions starting in the 1990s destroyed it as parts to fix trains and tracks dried up. Sanctions prevented people being able to travel. But, now the Sudanese government has done a deal with the Chinese who they feel are completely different to the Americans. I was told that Chinese involvement was trusted where the U.S. wasn’t. The Chinese are not interested in hegemonic power. I could see the development present in Khartoum. When I later met the president, he said that growth should be across Sudan and not just limited to an elite in Khartoum. The work is in progress and the president’s popularity has gone through the roof after the ICC indictments.
Afshin Rattansi: What about signs of corruption?
Ali Gunn: People had told us the President was a humble and modest man and he certainly seemed like that in person. I was very wary of signs of corruption and wealth. The palace looked like any municipal building in a developing nation. The furniture was all very normal. We were told that he was a modest man who had come up the ranks of the army and as such was possibly less concerned about the ICC than about rebuilding his nation. He is much more popular after the ICC indictments.
There was a feeling that the country has been picked on in comparison to what has been happening in surrounding nations. I saw that people were being actively encouraged to vote. I mentioned that I work in the British parliament and stressed the need for people to register to vote and there was certainly no problem in people understanding the importance of voting.
Like people in Britain, many of the people we spoke to had a healthy skepticism about politicians per se. But they did believe that the next elections would be free and fair.
Collette Valentine: The president knew that the conference was taking place but he had no knowledge of which camps we were visiting. The women were careful not to tell him because they were aware that we were looking for any signs that we were being embedded in any way.
Afshin Rattansi: And the perception is that the ICC has aided the president of Sudan?
Collette Valentine: On the night before we left, we met with President Al-Bashir and his advisor, Dr Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani. Everything they said backed up what we heard on the ground. He admitted that the ICC has aided his reelection chances. He admitted that rape was present in Darfur but he blamed outside aid agencies for putting petrol on the fire and he highlighted the external supply of arms. He also blamed the classic British divide-and-rule tactics of colonialism for the roots of trouble in Sudan. Attabani said “Sudan is politically isolated and that when the ICC indictment was first raised 4 years ago the president offered to step aside, to abdicate – he said 16 years was too long. Our policy in that the National Congress Party (NCP) is that we don’t believe in a’ president for life.’ The made him look like a villain but internally it boosted his popularity. .. now the NCP can’t consider any other candidate.”
From my experience of seeing western leaders in London, there is a cavalcade of security. Al Bashir when he goes from his house to local weddings, funerals and the mosque, seems to have no security at all. One of our delegates went to the mosque and was baffled by the lack of security on seeing him there.
Afshin Rattansi: What about what the president of Sudan expects from the change of administration in Washington?
Ali Gunn: We were attacked about international media coverage of Darfur as the people saw the situation very different to how it is portrayed. They saw the West as patronizing the Sudanese people. On Obama, President Al-Bashir said “He’s much more pragmatic. The old guard from Clinton’s days are still around – in the 90s they were hostile..they’ve not changed, but they have toned down their rhetoric…we believe that the US has been exploited by certain undercurrents .” I would suggest that people go and see for themselves what is happening.
Collette Valentine: Dr. Ghazi said that they are hopeful about Obama but they don’t trust the Clinton people, the Susan Rices and Samantha Powers. Continuation of the ICC path would be seen as vindictive and alien and could result in turning Darfur into a real conflict.
The women in the camps are focused on talking to their men and they believe that the only hope for peace and reconciliation lies with their ability to encourage forgiveness. They believe no international organizations can persuade the men to reconcile with each other. Before this conflict happened, tribal elders would meet to settle conflicts between nomadic and peasant communities. Right across Darfur, women are campaigning on the ground for reconciliation talks. This was the first peace conference. All the women from all the communities are coming together to urge reconciliation talks with women from each community given their time to speak. Security was on top of the agenda as well as education and healthcare.
Ali Gunn: After we came back from the camps, we were both shocked about the disparity of what was happening on the ground and what was in the media.
Afshin Rattansi has helped launch and develop television networks and has worked in journalism for more than two decades, at the BBC Today programme, CNN International, Bloomberg News, Al Jazeera Arabic, the Dubai Business Channel, Press TV and The Guardian. His quartet of novels, “The Dream of the Decade” is available on Amazon.com. He can be reached at afshin@afshinrattansi.com
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen FordClick the flash player below to listen to or the mic to download an mp3 copy of this BA Radio commentary.
If you’re Black and walking the streets of New York City, be careful not to make any "furtive" moves, and make sure not to wear clothing that is "inappropriate for the season" or clothes "commonly used in a crime." The cops consider such behavior "reasonable suspicion" to stop and frisk pedestrians, 90 percent of whom happen to be non-white. This year, the police are on their way to stopping 628,000 persons - joining the two million that have been stopped and frisked since 2004.
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New York Cops Stop Record Numbers of Blacks and Latinos – for Nothing
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“Making a ‘furtive’ move or wearing a jacket the cops think is out of season is good reason to stop a person on the streets of New York.”
Even as civil libertarians push their suit to halt arbitrary stop-and-frisks, New York City cops are on the way to
breaking all records for sweeping Blacks and Latinos from the streets. According to the police department’s own data, at the pace they are going, cops will have stopped, questioned and frisked almost 628,000 persons by the end of the year – more than the whole population of Boston. Last year, stop-and-frisks numbered 531,000 – more than the population of Atlanta. In the years 2004 through 2008, the NYPD stopped almost
two million people on the streets. This may be the largest and longest sustained dragnet in urban history, including under conditions of martial law.
Despite all that police activity – and the seething anger it generates in targeted neighborhoods – only one out of ten stops results in an arrest or even a summons. But it’s not as if the police aren’t trying to arrest as many non-whites as possible. Blacks consistently number around half of those stopped by police – although making up only about a quarter of the population. Whites hover around 10 percent of those stopped on the street, while comprising 45 percent of all New Yorkers.
About one hundred thousand more people are stopped and frisked than are arrested the old fashioned way, based on probable cause. The street stops are supposedly based on the lower standard of “reasonable suspicion” – but it’s a reasoning only understandable to police and racists. In order to make the practice appear reasonable, the cops give out cards that explain the kind of behavior that supposedly leads to a stop-and-frisk.
It includes:
“carrying what appears to be a weapon”;
creating “sights or sounds suggestive of criminal activity” such as ringing an alarm, or running from a crime scene;
making “furtive movements”; and
wearing clothes “inappropriate for the season” or clothes “commonly used in a crime”
“
In the years 2004 through 2008, the NYPD stopped almost two million people on the streets.”So, making a “furtive” move or wearing a jacket the cops think is out of season is good reason to stop a person on the streets of New York. In fact, any excuse will do, if you’re Black.
It is this type of institutionalized police behavior that leads inevitably to mass Black incarceration. The process begins with hyper-surveillance of Blacks and browns. Arbitrary stops lead to arbitrary arrests of the unlucky ten percent; to arbitrarily severe charges, followed by higher Black conviction rates and longer sentences under harsher circumstances. The end result is total community devastation. But it all starts with the cops on the block.
Crime has been way down in New York for a very long time. But that doesn’t matter to the police, who justify their racially selective behavior no matter what the crime rate is. If crime is up, that means more stops are needed. If crime is down, the cops say that’s because of the street stops. The only consistent factor is race – the defining element of American life.
by Jeremy Scahill
Blessed with immunity from the laws of any nation and a new company name mercenaries for the company formerly known as Blackwater are still hard at work, doing what mercenaries do.. getting paid, while corporate media protect us from the news. Independent journalist Jeremy Scahill uncovers another instance of oru tax dollars at work in Afghanistan
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Obama’s War: Drunk, Bored Trigger Happy Mercenaries Kill Afghan Civilians
By Jeremy Scahill
This item was Originally published at Rebel Reports
For those of you who have been following the intricacies of the various ongoing Blackwater/Xe scandals (hard to keep up with indeed), the situation unfolding in Kabul is certainly on your radar. In short, four Blackwater/Xe operatives working for Paravant LLC, a subsidiary of Blackwater/Xe are alleged to have fired on a civilian car they say they saw as a threat, killing at least one Afghan civilian. According to The Wall Street Journal’s August Cole, “At least some of the men, who were former military personnel, had been allegedly drinking alcohol that evening, according to a person familiar with the incident. Off-duty contractors aren’t supposed to carry weapons or drink alcohol.”
The US military said the incident took place in Kabul on May 5. “While stopped for the vehicle accident, the contractors were approached by a vehicle in a manner the contractors felt threatening,” according to the military. At last one Afghan was killed and three others were wounded.
Now, there are many layers to this story, not the least of which is yet another allegation of Blackwater-affiliated personnel drinking and killing in a foreign war zone. (A drunken Blackwater operative was alleged to have killed a bodyguard to an Iraqi vice president on Christmas Eve 2006 inside Baghdad’s Green Zone).
What’s more, this represents the first public mention of the Blackwater/Xe subsidiary Paravant, but also the fact that its work was apparently buried in a subcontract with Raytheon, which in turn has a large US Army training contract in Afghanistan. “Raytheon’s use of Paravant is for a program called Warfighter Focus, a sweeping U.S. Army training effort valued at more than $11 billion over a 10-year period,” reports The Wall Street Journal.
“Warfighter Focus” is carried out by a Raytheon program the company describes in its contract handbook as such [PDF]:
The Raytheon-led Warrior Training Alliance (WTA) team is comprised of over 65 subcontractors with one common mission: to deliver unmatched training support services that cost-effectively meet the U.S. Army’s requirement for total warfighter readiness. The WTA’s ability to provide a comprehensive range of integrated training services will assist the Army in transitioning to a more collaborative, consolidated and streamlined training environment.
Now, the “Warfighter Focus” contract in and of itself is very intriguing and worthy of further investigation. But it is also particularly interesting given that Blackwater is under multiple investigations (DoJ, Congress, IRS, ATF, etc.) and continues to operate in Afghanistan (in part) on a subcontract through a subsidiary working for a massive defense Goliath. This is how the whole contracting scam works, particularly for companies in trouble. They hide under layers of subcontracts and subsidiaries. Blackwater/Xe of course still holds overt contracts in Afghanistan as well.
In addition to Raytheon/Paravant part of the Kabul story, there is yet another internal drama unfolding. According to the WSJ:
Paravant has terminated contracts with the four men “for failure to comply with the terms of their contract,” according to Xe spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell. “Contractual and or legal violations will not be tolerated,” she said.
The contractors were ordered not to leave Afghanistan without permission of the Defense Department, she said, and the company said it is cooperating with authorities.
A US military spokesperson confirmed this, saying, “The contracting company is cooperating with us. We have asked them to keep the individuals in-country until the investigation is complete.”
In light of all of this, I thought it appropriate to share a document that proves an interesting read. Late Friday night/early Saturday, I received an email from Callahan & Blaine— the law firm that represents the four families of the Blackwater men killed in Fallujah on March 31, 2004. That lawsuit, of course, was the first really big case against Blackwater.
Callahan & Blaine has now apparently decided to represent the four Blackwater/Xe/Paravant men involved with the May 5 Kabul shooting. The law firm claims that the men are being held against their will in Afghanistan by Blackwater/Paravant “in a safe house located in a mosque in Kabul in an 8’ x 8’ room.” The company’s alleged motivation for this according to Callahan & Blaine is as follows:
“[T]he Letter of Authorization issued by the Department of Defense to Blackwater specifically provided that the Blackwater personnel would not be armed in Afghanistan. This limitation presumably arose out of concern emanating from the September 16, 2007 shootings in Iraq which resulted in the deaths of 17 Iraqi citizens. Blackwater in knowing violation of the limited authorization issued AK47s to each of the four men. Blackwater acquired these AK47s from a cache of weapons taken from Afghan insurgents. The fact that these men had weapons probably saved their lives but also puts Blackwater’s future involvement in Afghanistan at risk.”
[…]
It is believed that Blackwater has already paid the families of the individuals that were injured or killed and is attempting to negotiate with Afghan authorities to allow Blackwater to remain in Afghanistan despite its breach of the Letter of Authorization in exchange for turning over these four Americans to the Afghanistan authorities, despite their being cleared for release.
I am providing the document below in-full for the public record and as a reference for journalists covering this case more closely than I am able to right now. I am not saying that this is what happened, but rather that it is a version that differs from that of Blackwater/Xe and publicly quoted US military spokespeople. It is from Callahan & Blaine:
FOUR AMERICANS HELD CAPTIVE IN KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
Blackwater USA, now known as Xe Company, is holding four Americans captive and against their will in Kabul, Afghanistan. The four men are being kept in a safe house located in a mosque in Kabul in an 8’ x 8’ room. These men, Mr. Chris Drotleff, Mr. Steve McClain, Mr. Justin Cannon and Mr. Armando Hamid, managed to access Blackwater’s Internet and make a Skype Internet telephone call to Dan Callahan of Callahan & Blaine, the attorney who represents the four Blackwater contractors murdered in Fallujah on March 31, 2004 and is actively involved in litigation against Blackwater.
The group has informed Mr. Callahan that the Letter of Authorization issued by the Department of Defense to Blackwater specifically provided that the Blackwater personnel would not be armed in Afghanistan. This limitation presumably arose out of concern emanating from the September 16, 2007 shootings in Iraq which resulted in the deaths of 17 Iraqi citizens. Blackwater in knowing violation of the limited authorization issued AK47s to each of the four men. Blackwater acquired these AK47s from a cache of weapons taken from Afghan insurgents. The fact that these men had weapons probably saved their lives but also puts Blackwater’s future involvement in Afghanistan at risk.
On May 5, 2009, Messrs. Drotleff, McClain, Cannon and Hamid were in the second vehicle of a two vehicle convoy going through Kabul when an insurgent vehicle passed the second of the two Blackwater vehicles and crashed into the first vehicle. The second vehicle, containing these four men, stopped, and two of the men exited their vehicle to attend to the injuries of the occupants of the first vehicle. The insurgent vehicle suddenly made a u-turn and attempted to run down these Blackwater contractors. At that point, all four Blackwater contractors opened fire on the insurgent vehicle. The driver of the insurgent vehicle was killed and a pedestrian located approximately 200 meters away was wounded and is last known to be in a coma. There were two other occupants in the insurgent vehicle. The men are not sure of those individuals’ medical status.
The United States Army Criminal Investigation Command (“CID”) has investigated this shooting and has freed the men for return to the United States. Blackwater has discharged them and likewise has discharged their team leader, Carl Newman, and project manager, Johnnie Walker. Carl Newman and Johnnie Walker were allowed to leave Afghanistan and have returned to the United States.
Although the four men have been cleared to leave Afghanistan, Blackwater has detained them in a safe house in a mosque in Kabul against their will and contrary to their clearance to leave Afghanistan. It is believed that Blackwater has already paid the families of the individuals that were injured or killed and is attempting to negotiate with Afghan authorities to allow Blackwater to remain in Afghanistan despite its breach of the Letter of Authorization in exchange for turning over these four Americans to the Afghanistan authorities, despite their being cleared for release.
The individuals presently holding the men in an 8’ x 8’ room in a safe house contained within a mosque in Kabul are Tom Adams and Mike Bush, the head of Blackwater’s Afghanistan operation.
The four men told Dan Callahan that special agent Rodriguez of the CID had cleared them for release on May 12, 2009. The men were terminated on May 13, 2009 and told they could leave and since that time have been detained.
The men managed to access Blackwater’s Internet and make Skype Internet telephone calls to Dan Callahan in a request to gain their release.
The men are presently calling Dan Callahan on the hour and will continue to do so until Blackwater discovers that they have acquired this ability to place telephone calls, at which time it is expected that telephone access will be terminated.
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret KimberleyPresident Obama, who campaigned behind a thin veil of peace, dragged two heads of client states into the White House to demand “that both Afghanistan and Pakistan allow their citizens to be murdered and or displaced in the thousands” – or else. Obama read Presidents Zardari and Karzai “the riot act” to let them know who is boss in the military theater called “AfPak.” Obama claims to “want to respect their sovereignty, but” – there’s always the imperial ‘but’ – America has “huge national security interests” in the region. Afghanistan’s Karzai later wondered, “How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?”
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Freedom Rider: Af-Pak Is Obama’s War
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis and Afghans are now refugees or living under the constant threat of American military violence.”
Two central Asian nations bordering one another, Afghanistan and Pakistan, have the grave misfortune of being American client states. They get lots of money and political support, if they’re lucky, but always with terrible strings attached. The current President of the United States, Barack Obama, is demanding that both Afghanistan and Pakistan allow their citizens to be murdered and or displaced in the thousands. In order to accept that a huge body count is necessary, we are told that the two countries, nicknamed AfPak, are on the verge of being over run by the Taliban or al-Qaeda or both.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have been rebranded with a name seemingly devised by a Madison Avenue marketer who could just as easily be referring to a health insurance company or an overnight delivery service. Americans don’t know very much about the rest of the world, but they have a vague notion that brown-skinned Muslims are a crazy bunch who must be kept under control by Washington. So AfPak it is, and the bloodshed instigated by the United States continues. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis and Afghans are now refugees or living under the constant threat of American military violence.
President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan were recently summoned to Washington for the purpose of being informed that their opinions do not count. It doesn’t matter if their countrymen and women don’t want to be chased from their homes or maimed by killer drones and bombing missions. Uncle Sam read them the riot act and dared them to complain. Obviously they didn’t, because the slaughter began anew as soon as the photo ops ended.
“Uncle Sam read Zardari and Karzai the riot act and dared them to complain.”
Obama always knows how to make the terrible sound benevolent. In this case he says that we “must defeat al-Qaeda.” Most Americans had never heard of the word al-Qaeda until September 11, 2001 and will forever connect it with the death of 3,000 people. It is useful for Obama to phrase his assault in terms that will win him popular approval.
The Obama administration has openly undermined Ali Asif Zardari, the elected Pakistani president. Zardari’s main claim to legitimacy comes via his in-laws, the Bhutto family. If he were not Benazir Bhutto’s widower, this convicted embezzler,
known as Mr. 10%, would not be president. Nevertheless, he is the president of a country that is allegedly an ally, and he should be treated with the respect he is due.
Yet the
New York Times reports that Zardari has been told that his opposition will be courted and if necessary put into power with him if he balks at slaughtering his people on Washington’s command. In his 100 days press conference, Obama made himself crystal clear. "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don’t end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."
Not only are we supposed to be whipped into a frenzy at the very mention of words like al-Qaeda and Taliban, but we are now supposed to believe that Pakistan is on the verge of a mysterious “collapse” and that its nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of terrorists who will carry them around in briefcases, as in the plots of Hollywood thrillers. Zardari gets the thumb screw treatment, and we get outright lies.
“How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?”
“Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, is equally hapless and helpless in keeping his people safe from the demands of the United States. He has long complained about civilian deaths caused by attacks on the Taliban and he
repeated himself in vain on
Meet the Press. “Our villages are not where the terrorists are. And that’s what we kept telling the U.S. administration, that the war on terrorism is not in the Afghan villages, not in the Afghan homes. Respect that. Civilian casualties are undermining support in the Afghan people for the war on terrorism and for the, the, the relations with America. How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?” Obviously, such a people will not remain friendly but that has never been America’s concern. National Security Adviser James Jones said as much. “We can’t fight with one hand tied behind our back.”
Once again the United State repeats its long history of killing people and claiming it is for their own good. Afghanistan and Pakistan are just the latest on that awful list. While that dynamic doesn’t change, neither will the reaction of people around the world. They do hate us, and they have good reason to do so.
Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com.
by michael hureaux perezThe name on the door, and the family in the White House has changed. We have a president who speaks in complete, grammatically correct sentences. But with more than 800 US military bases around the planet, and spending more on things military than the other 95% of the globe’s population combined, America is the same old arrogant bully. Dr. King once said that a nation which spends more on things military than on human uplift is doomed. If he were alive today he might add, no matter the skin color of its leaders.
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Eshu’s blues: The Black President of the American Empire
by michael hureaux perez
The man who laughs has not yet heard the terrible news.—Bertolt Brecht
President Obama has now been to Baghdad and the great white way of U.S. leftism is busy choking up over the footage of the Prez with “our troops.” For those of you out there who don’t understand what an imperialist doggie the new president is just yet, here he is in living color, boots on, Clint Eastwood bravado at the ready. If you are still “feeling” Obama, you must accept the fact that this man went into Baghdad, waded through the wreckage from a civil war our U.S. foreign policy deliberately created, and grins Kool-aid smiles when asked about the agony this “civilization” we live with has caused. According to the president, this mayhem he celebrates is “success beyond our wildest dreams.” Why, not even Meyer Lansky could have put that better.
One point two million people dead, four million displaced, the infrastructure of an autonomous people destroyed. Four thousand U.S. troops dead. Thousands more troops maimed physically and psychically. Billions and billions more dollars to be spent on an ongoing, residual occupation that has no purpose or moral base other than the sheer exercise of raw, naked power, the crime for which people were convicted at Nuremburg. The imperial project is pursued regardless of how the waste of material resource affects our people here in the United States in a time of great economic crisis. We’re told there’s not enough jobs, there’s not enough money to fund the further education of people who need jobs. There’s not enough money for public health. There’s not enough resource for mental health. Housing is in short supply while undersold housing stands vacant and tent cities abound.
“The occupation has no purpose or moral base other than the sheer exercise of raw, naked power.”
But there’s enough money for the corporate software military establishment, the bankers and arms manufacturers who profit off of this bloody empire, these software barons of international piracy. This piracy that runs the world, this piracy that wants to roar with outrage at the teeny, tiny gaggle of piracy off the coast of Somalia, wants to steal, and kill, and maim and irradiate both children and veterans with depleted uranium shell casings, and lecture the world on responsibility and morality. And we let them do it. We let them get away with it. In the words of Dalton Trumbo, in the introduction to his classic
Johnny Got His Gun, instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast.
Barack Obama says it’s time for the Iraqi people to take responsibility for their future. Barack Obama does this as leader of the United States, which has gone out of its way to destroy any autonomous future Iraq was inching towards for itself. In taking such a stance, he has joined a violent, arrogant and Eurocentric chorus led by war criminals like the Clinton and Bush dynasties. Barack Obama knows full well that the U.S. conducted this atrocity for no reason apart from imperial venture, and at this moment, he declares it to have been a sacrifice made for the honor of our so-called civilization. Barack Obama rises to tasks demanded of him by the Warlords of the Empire, their eyes glinting with the malicious demand of the self-satisfied mercenary that their victim rise to the moment and assume responsibility for a bloodying that the victim never asked for. This is success beyond their wildest dreams. This is the world that capitalism wants to have.
“Barack Obama rises to tasks demanded of him by the Warlords of the Empire.”
2600 years after the defeat of Greek democracy by the Spartans, the democratic impulse which western capital claims to defend can’t find its ass with both hands in the great capitalist center. Five centuries after the early days of the capitalist
system, with no global threat that compels the development of an imperial order, western capital still chooses imperialism. Western capital chooses imperialism over its own financial solvency. Western capital chooses imperialism over the tattered remnants of its own democratic integrity.
We’re dealing with spoiled children with high tech toys of destruction, and it is time for any anti-war movement worth a damn in this country to begin to figure out how we can make the political culture that exists in this country learn to live with the rest of the world, whatever it costs the imperial order to forfeit the empire, and whatever it costs we who speak out in opposition to that order. We have to pledge, as the Declaration of Independence put it so eloquently, “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” We have to form a new independent political movement, based in the organizations that still exist at the behest of the working class majority in this country and their allies among critical and revolutionary thinking entrepreneurs, a movement that is willing to fight, and even die if necessary, in a battle for the revolutionary promise of democracy.
For all the flowery rhetoric of themselves or their charming Golden Child in the White House, the Obamians are not up to this needful task.
“House slaves like Powell, Rice, and Obama have been “skinnin’ and grinnin’ for a long time.”
You can tell because many of them are shocked at Obama’s decision to defend the CIA’s right to spy on the people of this country. The Obamians feel “betrayed.” The truth is that they lied to themselves about who Obama and the “democrats” are, and many of them are lying still. They believe that if a man allowed to rise within the ranks of the imperial order is black, that the system is more just. The experience of Colin Powell’s miserable lies at the UN six years ago taught them nothing. The brutal farce led by the U.S. State Department under the tutelage of the mercenary Condoleezza Rice taught them nothing. The hard cold fact is that house slaves are allowed a larger role in the global plantation that the imperial order forces upon the so-called “underdeveloped world,” and house slaves like Powell, Rice, and Obama have been “skinnin’ and grinnin’ for a long time. Many more will be outed as the struggle against the imperial order takes larger shape.
The question of anti-imperialism is decisive in this political battle in the United States and internationally. The question of anti-imperialism is decisive, because it is the question of race and class writ large. Capital will not forego the so-called rights of the nations at the center of the world’s economy to live at the expense of those at the bottom of the world economy, most of whom are impoverished and exhausted peoples of color. Capital cannot and will not exist without imperialism. And the dreams of the so-called anti-war movement in this country, the geniuses at MoveOn, the deluded individuals at United for Peace and Justice, who believe that Obama offers “a different approach to imperialism,” and the Center for American Progress, all of these people believe they can ride the tiger’s back. They will wind up on the inside of the beast. No wild thing ever voluntarily cuts its claws.
“All of these people believe they can ride the tiger’s back. They will wind up on the inside of the beast.”
The rest of the world knows. The imperial leadership of the United States is sowing the dragon’s teeth of global terror. It may claim otherwise, but its actions belie its words. People in Pakistan, who at this moment are evading President Obama’s Predator drone attacks; people of Iran, who have seen Barack Obama’s current “good cop, bad cop” routine come from many a U.S. president; people on the Gaza Strip, who watched family members die as the president-elect solemnly declared during the Israeli siege that “there is only one president at a time.”
It is a terrible thing when a man as intelligent as Barack Obama, and the people who support his imperial policies choose to use cunning over critical reason. It is a terrible thing when legions of people believe that words measured in political expediency are the only available form of political discourse acceptable in a country that supposedly upholds a democratic tradition of expression. It is a terror that so many have eyes but will not see. Terror is terror. If humanity survives this period, history will record that United States politics were overtaken by a layer of what used to be called “good Germans,” or people who denied the terrifying evidence provided by their own senses in the years during the holocaust directed against the Jews of Europe. The game is the same, but the name is changed.
But, oh, as the poet said, the shark has pearly teeth, dear. And they’re there for all to see.
BAR columnist michael hureaux perez is a writer, musician and teacher who lives in southwest Seattle, Washington. He is a longtime contributor to small and alternative presses around the country and performs his work frequently. Email to: tricksterbirdboy@yahoo.com
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
President Obama sent a near-declaration of war to Iran, all wrapped up in greetings for the Iranian New Year. The message may have looked like “a smiley faced video” in which the “president appeared to be very amiable and wished peace, love and harmony,” but was actually “nothing more than a well executed propaganda ploy intended to give him cover on the day he announces his true intentions.” Then he told Europeans, ”As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.” Beneath the charm, “Barack Obama repeats the worst, most untruthful and belligerent policies of the Bush administration.”
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Freedom Rider: Phony Nuclear Disarmament
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“Obama repeated almost word for word Bush administration policy on the need for missiles in Europe.”
President Barack Obama has an amazing ability to convince people that he intends to do what they want, even when he intends to do the exact opposite. It is a skill that he honed during the presidential campaign that he is now using expertly as president. He managed to sell himself as the peace candidate when in fact he has every intention of continuing the expansion of the American empire.
Most recently he has used his expert communication skills to declare that he will eventually make war on Iran. He has never said those words, and he even sent a smiley faced video greeting for Nowruz, the Iranian new year celebration. The president appeared to be very amiable and wished peace, love and harmony to the Iranian people. Yet the much discussed greeting was nothing more than a well executed propaganda ploy intended to give him cover on the day he announces his true intentions.
Obama tells outright, bald faced lies about Iran in order to make an attack palatable to progressives, who actually never need much of a rationale to capitulate to the wishes of their idol. Iran is painted as an aggressor nation because it chooses to exercise its right as a sovereign nation and signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty to develop nuclear energy.
“Progressives never need much of a rationale to capitulate to the wishes of their idol.”
Obama is so smooth in planning his attack that he even makes it appear that the United States is willing to pursue nuclear disarmament. During his recent trip to Europe he announced that he and Russian president Medvedev would embark on a plan for mutual nuclear disarmament. Headlines raved that the president was willing to give up nukes, but as always even a cursory reading informed those wise enough to be skeptical that he means no such thing. In a speech in Prague he said, ”Make no mistake: As long as these weapons exist, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies.” Just in case anyone got carried away with the announcement he added, “This goal will not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime.” So much for a nuclear free world.
Not only did Obama make clear that he didn’t mean what soft hearted, useful dupes think he said, he repeated almost word for word Bush administration policy on the need for missiles in Europe. ”As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.”
It was once left to Condoleezza Rice, queen of the bizarre, semi-insane statement, to insist that Poland and the Czech Republic were threatened by the prospect of a nuclear Iran. Now Barack Obama repeats the worst, most untruthful and belligerent policies of the Bush administration. The devious plan is breathtaking in its simplicity. Obama will point to his nuclear proposals, and his new year’s charm offensive in order to claim that he is a lot nicer than George W. Bush.
The Iranian government has no reason to be impressed with America’s empty gestures. Iran has fairly and reasonably requested that the United States address its grievances before relations can be normalized. The United States overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in the early 1950s. America’s then ally, Saddam Hussein, launched a nearly decade long war against Iran in the 1980s that included the use of chemical weapons. In 1988 the United States navy shot down an Iranian passenger jet and killed 300 people. Economic sanctions continue to take their toll on the Iranian economy.
“Needless to say, the only nuclear power in the Middle East, Israel, didn’t get a mention in the president’s remarks.”
The American people will be told none of this history. They will be told that the president made nice and the mean, crazy Iranians slapped his loving, outstretched hand. They will not be told that the United States senate failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Needless to say, the only nuclear power in the Middle East, Israel, didn’t get a mention in the president’s remarks. Israel is estimated to have hundreds of nuclear weapons. No one is certain how many exist because that nation’s nuclear program is unacknowledged and uninspected.
Obama should get credit for gall if nothing else. Most Czechs are opposed to having American nuclear weapons on their soil, and yet Obama told them he would do precisely what they don’t want, while also claiming he wants to end the existence of nuclear arsenals.
Many people who turned up their noses at Bush’s crass bullying swoon over Obama’s slick words. America is still the enemy of the rest of the planet and is not to be trusted. In fact, the mistrust should be greater now that a smart, charismatic imperialist has replaced a stupid, despised one. Nuclear arms reduction should be pursued but the United States can’t take the lead. Its motives are not honest and its true intent is clear. Only a smart imperialist can make plans for war while claiming to make plans for peace. If the Iranians are unimpressed with Mr. Obama it is because they are paying attention. The only question is whether or not enough people in this country are smart enough to do the same thing.
Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com.
To hear this Black Agenda Radio commentary, click the flash player above. to download an MP3 copy for broadcast or personal use, click here.
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"The U.S. plans to double the Afghan army and police, to 400,000 men, through the sheer magnetic pull of money. But, as the old song goes, money can’t buy you love." At root, the Obama/ Petraeus plan for Afghanistan is bribery on a massive scale, a "surge" of billions of dollars to convert the desperately unemployed into U.S.-allied fighters. The plan only looks halfway intelligent in comparison to the early Rumsfeld Iraq plan, which was based on the assumption that the US would be greeted as Afghanistan’s "liberators."
Obama Buys Allies Where the U.S. Has No Friends
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“As the old song goes, money can’t buy you love.”
The Obama plan for Afghanistan, like General David Petraeus’s plan for Iraq, boils down to using massive bribery – ten or twenty billion dollars, or more – to create a political and military ally in a country that doesn’t want the U.S. to be there. There’s really nothing mysterious or out of the ordinary about the strategy. The Obama/Patraeus plan for Afghanistan was also the George Bush plan for Iraq in the last two years of the Republican administration, and only appears to be some kind of stroke of brilliance when compared to the Donald Rumsfeld plan to subdue and colonize Iraq in the early years of the Iraq war.
Rumsfeld’s plan was defeated because it was based on thoroughly racist assumptions. The first assumption was that Iraqis would be universally overjoyed to be occupied by the Great (White) American Father – that they would gladly surrender their national sovereignty and put up no long-term resistance. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney and all the Bush minions had not a shred of a doubt that the Iraqis desired nothing more than to become a colony of the United States. When Baghdad was burning, consumed in flames set by the Iraqis themselves after American forces captured the city, Secretary Rumsfeld announced, and truly believed, that the Iraqis were “celebrating” having been conquered by the U.S.A. He assured the American people that only a few of Saddam Hussein’s most fanatically loyal “dead-enders” would put up further resistance to the American occupation. That essentially racist belief – that colored people desire to be ruled by white people – convinced the Bush administration that it could keep U.S. troop levels in Iraq low – that the vast majority of Iraqis wanted to be occupied by foreigners.
Rumsfeld stuck with his assumption until the American occupation was transformed into a siege of the Americans. Finally, Rumsfeld lost his job. In counter-insurgency terms, the war had been lost.
“General Petraeus’s so-called troop “surge” was only possible because Sunni fighters were getting paychecks from the United States occupation force.”
But America’s war was not the Iraqi’s war. Shia Muslim political parties had their own agenda, and waged a savage war of ethnic cleansing and sectarian annihilation. The Americans didn’t want Iraqis of any religious persuasion running their own country, but they were unable to control events. What happened next was not part of an American plan. Shia Muslim forces had captured 75 percent of Baghdad and Sunni Muslims were on the ropes. At least one hundred thousand former Sunni resistance fighters – virtually the entire force that had earlier brought low the American war machine – agreed to join the U.S. payroll. They made peace with the Americans to escape the wrath of the Shia – and to feed their families. General Petraeus’s so-called troop “surge” was only possible because there were few Sunni fighters to surge against. They were getting paychecks from the United States occupation force.
President Obama hopes to buy off various groups of fighters in Afghanistan in the same way. The U.S. plans to double the Afghan army and police, to 400,000 men, through the sheer magnetic pull of money. But, as the old song goes, money can’t buy you love – in Afghanistan or Iraq – especially when it competes with people’s natural desire to run their own countries. Only racists believe otherwise.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
