Showing posts with label US Hegemony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Hegemony. Show all posts

6/14/09

PALESTINE & US HEGEMONY




Exploring the achievements of resistance and discussing shifts in US foreign policy


6pm, Thursday July 9th

Friend Meeting House, Euston

Speakers:

HIZBULLAH REPRESENTATIVE

(video link from Lebanon)

HAIFA ZANGANA

(on Iraq)

DR AZZAM TAMIMI

(on Palestine)

NADINE ROSA-ROSSO

(from recogniseresistance.net, on the role of the anti-imperialist movements in the West)

DYAB ABOU JAHJAH

(IUPFP International Director, video link from Lebanon)

JOHN REES

(from Stop the War, on the role of the anti-war movement)

Chair: Sukant Chandan (Chairman of the British section of the IUPFP)

Following from Obama’s historic speech in Cairo on June 5th, this meeting will discuss the following issues:

* How has the Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese resistance

impacted on US plans for world hegemony?

* Is the US in strategic retreat?

* What does the Obama phenomenon mean for the peoples of the South?

Organised by the British section of the

International Union of Parliamentarians for Palestine

http://iupfp.org/

Contact:

07709 112 126

sukant.chandan@gmail.com

1/23/09

Sacrosanct State and Complacent West



By Jeremy Salt – Ankara

'Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.' -- Barrack Obama

'I've been to Gilo and seen the security fence protecting Israeli families from attacks in their own homes.' -- Hillary Clinton

'When I heard about the rocket fire at Israel I felt it was a danger to Italy and to the entire West.' -- Silvio Berlusconi

'While we speak here today thousands of people are living in fear and dread of missile attacks and acts of terror by Hamas.' -- Angela Merkel

These quotes are chosen at random from a script written in the theatre of the absurd known as ‘the west’. Does Barrack Obama, the Harvard law graduate, not know that Jerusalem is an occupied city? Does Hillary Clinton not know that the Israeli ‘families’ living at Gilo have built their homes on land belonging to someone else? Does Silvio Berlusconi seriously regard Hamas rocket attacks as a threat to Italy and even the ‘entire West’? Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton were speaking at the AIPAC conference in Washington last June, Angela Merkel in the Knesset in March and Silvio Berlusconi at Sharm al Shaikh this week. He and other European ‘leaders’, as they are called, Merkel, Sarkozy and Gordon Brown among them, had gathered in Egypt to ‘discuss’ Gaza with Husni Mubarak and Mahmud Abbas, i.e to tell them what their part would be in the European plan to bring peace to Gaza.

Remember that during the three weeks of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza close to 500 children were amongst the 1300 people killed. More than 85 per cent of them were civilians. As bodies are still being pulled out of the rubble it will be some time before the final civilian death toll is known. Banned weapons were used. Whole families were massacred and whole streets destroyed with bunker buster bombs. The living was left for days alongside the dead because Israeli soldiers prevented ambulances and medics from reaching them. Trapped between the sea and the fences erected by Egypt and Israel the Gazans were simply shot down like animals in a game reserve. Then the killers were hauled off so that Barack Obama’s inauguration would not be ruined by the spectacle of children still being killed.

continues here


1/19/09

Chomsky: Undermining Gaza


Sameer Dossani | January 16, 2009

Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco



Foreign Policy In Focus

Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. Sameer Dossani interviewed him about the conflict between Israel and Gaza.

DOSSANI: The Israeli government and many Israeli and U.S. officials claim that the current assault on Gaza is to put an end to the flow of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. But many observers claim that if that were really the case, Israel would have made much more of an effort to renew the ceasefire agreement that expired in December, which had all but stopped the rocket fire. In your opinion, what are the real motivations behind the current Israeli action?

CHOMSKY: There's a theme that goes way back to the origins of Zionism. And it's a very rational theme: "Let's delay negotiations and diplomacy as long as possible, and meanwhile we'll 'build facts on the ground.'" So Israel will create the basis for what some eventual agreement will ratify, but the more they create, the more they construct, the better the agreement will be for their purposes. Those purposes are essentially to take over everything of value in the former Palestine and to undermine what's left of the indigenous population.

I think one of the reasons for popular support for this in the United States is that it resonates very well with American history. How did the United States get established? The themes are similar.

continues here

1/3/09

Living in fear in Gaza City 02 Jan 09



The heavy Israeli aerial bombardment and threat of a ground offensive has forced Gazans to remain indoors for safety. Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros spent the evening with one family in Gaza City to see how they're coping.

8/7/08

Censors and beat-ups in the South Pacific

 Assassinations, coups and conflicts plague the region -- most recently in Fiji -- but does the media provide enough background on post-terrorism issues? asks David Robie
Friday, December 8, 2006

Auckland, New Zealand --- Fiji's fourth coup in almost two decades and the military's failed attempt to censor key media has thrown a spotlight on growing challenges facing journalists reporting on the South Pacific. The Melanesian sub-region of the South Pacific, in particular, has been branded by some political analysts as an "arc of instability."

Fiji

In the past two decades, coups (Fiji), ethnic conflict (Solomon Islands), pro-independence ructions (New Caledonia), paramilitary revolts (Vanuatu), secessionist rebellion and civil war (Bougainville-Papua New Guinea and the Southern Highlands) have troubled the Pacific.

While New Zealand argues from a "Pacific" perspective that sees the region as less threatening, a predominantly Australian view of the region, as argued by strategic analyst Paul Dibb (PDF), forecasts a "more demanding and potentially dangerous neighbourhood."

Australia's strategic objective was to promote stability with regional neighbours such as East Timor, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the island countries of the Southwest Pacific. But in the wake of 9/11, the Bali bombing of October 2002 and a perceived higher level of internal conflict in several Pacific countries, Australia dramatically changed tack in the region.

Already strongly aligned with U.S. security interests and objectives, Canberra three years ago adopted a radical new "activist/interventionist" approach to regional security. "Australia sees the Pacific as potential or actual failed states, a potential source of terror and/or transnational crime and/or drug trafficking and/or pandemics (not to mention a corrosive China-Taiwan rivalry) and accordingly fashions an Iraq-style fixit response," says New Zealand Herald columnist Colin James.

In a recent speech, he added that a New Zealand analysis would say the policy is "bound to fail because it fails to see the island societies, economies and governments in their totality. New Zealanders, perhaps unjustly, would urge a more subtle analysis."

Military policing interventions will not deal with strategic issues such as the lack of jobs for the exploding populations in Melanesia. And Pacific labour mobility is just one of the crucial issues facing the region.
Simplistic notions and prejudices about the region pose challenges for journalists attempting to report with depth, context and analytical skill. Pressures and dilemmas for the news media continue to gain momentum in the South Pacific, often from a cultural as well as socio-political dimension.

RAMSI

After the military this week forced Fiji's major daily newspaper and sole television station, The Fiji Times and Fiji TV, to close for a day in response to heavy censorship, acting commander Captain Esala Teleni claimed it was a "misunderstanding" and pledged no further media interference.

Crises also pose major problems for Pacific media covering the region with very limited resources. While the media in some countries are refreshingly outspoken and courageous, in others there is a worrying trend towards self-censorship.

Background of conflict

Pacific media need more journalists with regional perspectives and experience in conflict reporting. In a 2005 survey of violent conflict in the South Pacific, political analyst John Henderson found that 10 political assassinations have occurred in the region since 1981.

 Kanak independence leader Eloi Machoro



These assassinations have been:

New Caledonian independence leader Pierre Declercq (1981); Belau President Haruo Remeliik (1985); Kanak independence leader Eloi Machoro (1985); New Caledonian independence leaders Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yéiwene Yéiwene (1989); Bougainville Premier Theodore Miriung (1996); Samoan cabinet Minister and anti-corruption campaigner Luagalau Leva'ula Kamu (1999); West Papua pro-independence leader Theys Hiyo Eluay (2001); and two leading Solomon islands political figures, cabinet minister Augustine Geve (2002) and Peace Council member Frederick Soaki (2003). Fiji's current military strongman, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, narrowly escaped becoming the 11th assassination victim when rebel elite Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit (CRW) soldiers staged a mutiny in November 2000.
The South Pacific's military and paramilitary forces have been a major contributor to violence in the region, particularly in Melanesia. About 120,000 Pacific Islanders have died in conflicts over the past quarter century.

 Luagalau Levaula Kamu


The region has so far experienced:
  • Four coups -- two in Fiji in 1987, and a further one in May 2000, followed by a putsch in the Solomon Islands the following month. The fourth Fiji coup happened this week. 

  • Seven mutinies -- the Vanuatu paramilitary in 1996 and 2002, PNG military forces in 1997 (over the Sandline mercenary affair), 2001 and 2002; and part of the Fiji army in July and November 2000. 

  • One cross-border military strike by a friendly nation -- French secret service saboteurs bombed the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand in 1985. 

  • Systematic military oppression -- by Indonesian forces in West Papua since Jakarta seized the province from the Dutch colonisers in 1963.
Some analysts argue that the region should not get carried away with extreme perceptions over so-called "failed states" or even "rogue states."

 French Terror in Aotearoa

Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) responses -- including the Biketawa Declaration, a collective crisis response in 2000, and Nasonini Declaration, a 2002 implementation of anti-terrorist measures -- led to the establishment of the multinational Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in early 2003.

University of the South Pacific academic Dr. Jon Fraenkel argued in a 2004 article in the Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics that the major security threats in the region are "internal, not externally inspired terrorist atrocities." He added that there are "no movements in the Pacific like Al Qaeda, or the Red Brigades of the 1970s, which...retreat into committing bloody terrorist atrocities against perceived opponents."

In contrast, Melanesian conflicts in Bougainville, Fiji, Papua New Guinea Highlands, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are fuelled by local disputes, including demands for autonomy and/or independence, clan-based or ethnic divisions or land-related disputes.

In the more recent case of rebellion against the Polynesian feudal monarchy of Tonga -- seven people died during last month's rioting -- the conflict is about greater democracy and self-determination for the citizens.

"When the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) warned of a developing 'post-modern badlands' in the Pacific Islands, and politicians began talking seriously of the need for urgent 'pre-emptive' action, you had to wonder whether their perceptions of the Pacific were being coloured by the type of images conveyed in futuristic movies such as Minority Report," Fraenkel wrote in 2005.

"In that film, tomorrow's murderers can be identified, arrested and convicted using a psychic machine before they are even conscious of having decided to commit crimes.

"To anyone familiar with Pacific politics, these images of postmodern security threats were outlandish scaremongering."



The case of West Papua

The major conflict in the region has been West Papua, often billed the "forgotten war," and indeed this issue has been largely neglected by international media and the issue of state terrorism is rarely addressed.
Now through a new security treaty with Indonesia, Australia is even more overtly being drawn into repression of pro-independence activists. Diplomats expect the recent Indonesia and Australia Framework for Security Co-operation to put an end to the diplomatic rift caused when Australia granted 43 Papuans political asylum earlier this year. Both nations will agree to respect each other's territorial integrity. The treaty will recognise Indonesian sovereignty over Papua and commit both countries to suppressing independence activists.

South Pacific news media have played a crucial role in exposing corruption and abuse of political power or office in the region -- in some cases leading to justice. Now the Pacific needs more journalists with the skills necessary to address globalisation and "the new regionalism."

There is an urgent need for more journalists who can make sense of the new Australian, New Zealand and international "interventionist" engagement with the Pacific that is broadly shaping regional trends.

This article is based on Dr. Robie's keynote paper at the Media: Policies, cultures and futures in the Asia-Pacific Region conference at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, on Nov. 29, 2006. You can access the complete paper as a PDF via Robie's website

7/31/08

Blood from a stone

Tonga defends lavish coronation

The last king of Tonga?

The tiny island Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific is about to make history, by joining the WTO on what are arguably the worst terms ever offered to any country.The appalling terms of Tonga’s accession package show that nothing has changed in the way the world’s smallest and most vulnerable economies are treated as they seek to join the WTO. It is a further demonstration that the fine words of the Doha Development Agenda mean nothing when pitted against the commercial interests of the world’s richest countries.


Tonga has been forced to give up more on tariffs than any of the countries involved in its negotiations to join the WTO, including countries like NewZealand, the USA and the EU, all of whom played active roles in the working party. In fact, its bound tariffs are lower than any other country in the history of the WTO, with the sole exception of Armenia. Tonga will be allowed up to a maximum of 20% tariff on all products.This contrasts with the 350% tariff that the US applies to beef imports, and an equivalent tariff of over 300% that the EU uses to block sugar imports into its market.

o The money to pay for Tonga’s public health, education and other vital services has come largely from import tariffs until this year. Now that it must slash applied tariffs under its terms of accession, it has just introduced radical changes to its tax system to cope with the tariff reductions. If this new system fails to deliver, there is nothing Tonga can do to restore its income from tariffs, because its hands are tied by its WTO commitments so Tonga has committed more in services sectors of vital public interest (like education) than any of the rich countries on the working party and its overall commitments in services are much more extensive than most other developing countries

o The many commitments to “WTO-plus” liberalization of the economy remove most of the policy space Tonga will need if it is ever to emulate now developed countries

o Many of the terms extracted from Tonga are of no benefit to its people (eg changes to the intellectual property regime) and will cost a lot of money to implement, money that will not be available for Tonga’s development needs. Blood form a Stone



See Also

WHO concerned about 'alarming' death rate in Pacific

"Don't believe the hype" - A Cyclone on the Horizion in Tonga


The Tongan Riots 

 US military to move into South Pacific

Add Tonga To The Growing List Of NZ’s Pacific Interventions

 

 

 

SEABED MINING MAY BE HIGHLY DESTRUCTIVE

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Radio New Zealand International, June 13, 2008) – An Australia-based NGO is encouraging Pacific governments to take a closer look at the potential devastation of sea-bed mining. 
The Mineral Policy Institute is one of a number of groups raising concerns about the Canadian mining company, Nautilus Minerals, has made sea bed test extractions in PNG’s exclusive economic zone.
Nautilus is also starting explorations in Tonga, and has lodged exploration licence applications in Fiji and Solomon Islands. 
Although Nautilus says a yet to be published scientific impact study found sea-bed mining is environmentlly safe, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) sees mining as destructive.
The institute’s spokesperon, Techa Beaumont, says that regional governments need to consider this before they sign away the sea-bed in their EEZ to mining companies
"The international experience around shared ocean areas is that the International Seabed Authority has taken a very conservative approach and hasn’t permitted companies to undertake these activities in international waters, largely because they saw them as potentially very damaging," Beaumont said.

7/26/08

AFP accused of secrecy over Haneef


Mohamed Haneef

The Australian Federal Police has been accused of denying Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef a lawyer and the chance to protest his innocence before a magistrate when he was arrested last year.

- New transcripts surface
- Claims AFP may have broken law

Continues here


See Also:

In addition to providing Dr Mohamed Haneef with a significant victory over the Australian government, Justice Jeffrey Spender’s judgment is a powerful rebuke to those politicians and conservative commentators who argue that our courts ought to defer to government when it comes to matters involving national security. And we must guard against governments who believe in guilt by association, says Justice Spendder. Greg Barns: a victory over guilt by association

AFP admission astounds Haneef lawyer

Should He Stay or Should He Go?

Keetley Expired?

Cyber bandit sabotages top cop



anti terror law protest bankstown

7/25/08

Do YOU support a Free Trade Agreement with the US?


Many New Zealanders believe that a New Zealand-US free trade agreement would put all of Aotearoa up for sale to US corporations by “removing barriers” to US corporate control and by allowing US corporations to sue the New Zealand government for threatening their profits.
Click on image for a larger version

notforsale.jpg
Our World Is Not For Sale | Auckland, Friday 25 July 2008

Do YOU support a Free Trade Agreement with the US?

Press Release - For Immediate Release
ourworldisnotforsale.wordpress.com/

NZ is not for sale

Do YOU support a Free Trade Agreement with the United States?

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is arriving in Auckland this Friday night and will be having meetings in Auckland on Saturday with Winston Peters, Helen Clark and John Key among others. She will also be meeting with the US-NZ Council who will be trying to push for a free trade deal between New Zealand the United States.

A free trade agreement will not be in either country’s best interest and we must continue to oppose the neoliberal free trade agenda.

A free trade agreement would allow US corporations to sue the New Zealand government for threatening the profits of U.S. companies effected by the agreement. Many New Zealanders believe that it puts all of Aotearoa up for sale to US corporations. Their free trade agreement will “remove barriers” to US corporate control. Changes could include:

- Privatisation of New Zealand’s water, schools and hospitals.

- Removal of environmental, water quality and public health protections to make way for massive increases in Dairy production to feed the U.S. market

- Banning labelling of genetically engineered food.

- End to government subsidies of medicines in New Zealand

A protest march to her state welcoming at Government House will be held to tell her that she is NOT welcome here. This will be followed by a protest from 3.15pm outside the Langham Hotel in Symonds Street where she is scheduled to meet National Party Leader John Key. There is also a $5000 reward offered by the Auckland University Students Association for any student who places Condoleezza Rice under a Citizen’s Arrest.

Saturday 26th July
1:30pm at Auckland Domain cnr Carlton Gore and Parks Roads
3:15pm outside the Langham Hotel on Symonds Streeet
Bring noise makers, placards and banners

On the 11th of September 2007 - The U.S. and New Zealand delegations made up of U.S. and NZ corporate and business interests attempted to hold a preliminary meeting in Auckland to discuss the future of such a free trade agreement.

The forum organisers had originally planned to host the event at the Auckland war memorial museum. However, much evidence suggests that in light of information gathered via surveillance of New Zealanders opposed to the Trade agreement in the run up to the event the organisers were forced to employ between 60 and a hundred of police officers to barricade themselves into the hotel they were staying at and hold the event there instead. Unlike the millionaires and corporate CEOs, the New Zealand public was largely kept in the dark about the forums existence.

Despite this, several hundred turned up and peacefully protested outside the event. The social reprecussions of such an agreement for New Zealanders have been completely ignored with most media focusing on New Zealand delegates sidestepping of the serious issues instead making congratulatory comments about how New Zealand’s students will now be able to get longer working holiday visas to the U.S.

The OUR WORLD IS NOT FOR SALE campaign was formed around building the protests at the September 2007 US-NZ Partnership Forum, the global justice campaign aims to build public support and organisation against the signing of any form of free trade agreement between the United States and New Zealand.

source: Scoop

7/6/08

Australian Defense Minister leaves for U.S. on 10-day visit









CANBERRA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Australian Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon left for the United States on Sunday for a 10-day visitto discuss a variety of issues including security, defense and foreign policy interests in the Asia-Pacific region.

He will visit Hawaii, Texas, New York and Washington, a spokesman for Fitzgibbon said.

In Hawaii, the minister would attend roundtable discussions and meet with the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command.

In New York, he will meet UN officials to discuss Australia's relationship and roles in the global arena.

"The minister will also attend roundtable talks with a number of prominent think tanks and academics," the spokesman said.

In Washington, Fitzgibbon is scheduled to make several calls on senior members of the U.S. administration, including vice president Dick Cheney, secretary of defense Robert Gates and a number of congressmen.

"Discussions will be centered (on) the Australia-U.S. alliance, defense and strategic matters, and cooperation in promoting peace, security and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region," he said.

3/9/08

The Emergence of the Contemporary “New Negro”

Barack Obama and the Immaculate-Genocide of the African-American Male

By The Angryindian

"Whites should not tyrannize over [blacks], for their disease should entitle them to a double portion of humanity. However, by the same token, whites should not intermarry with them, for this would tend to infect posterity with the 'disorder'... attempts must be made to cure the disease."

- Dr. Benjamin Rush, signatory of the Declaration of Independence and abolitionist


Before I get deep into yet another article on the much ballyhooed “promise” of the ‘Barack Obama for President Movement’ sweeping colonial America, I am keenly aware of a pressing need to be candid with the reader, if only to assuage a mild sense of personal guilt. Firstly, regular readers of my newswire Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo should be aware by now that I as an individual I do not vote in American elections. As an Aboriginal human being indigenous to North America and unwillingly subject to colonialist domination under the political entity known as the United States, I choose not to authenticate the Euro-American claim to this landmass nor my person by legitimising their system of power. So I have no particular love nor preference for any political affiliation associated with the narrowness of American politics.

Secondly, for a variety of reasons and chiefly due to an innate sense of solidarity with my fellow blood-brothers in the Diaspora, while I do not support Obama or his candidacy, on principle I had so far stuck to my decision not to write anything that may in any way jeopardize his race for the White man’s house. With a heavy heart recent events have forced me to reconsider my position and my allegiance to someone in which even I, if only fleetingly, could envisage would bring some pause to the madness of the first world as it applies to the rest of the human community.

There are two distinct actions on the part of Barack Obama that I personally find disgraceful coming from an African, especially an African running for president of the United States. Foremost in my mind is his very public rejection of the Honourable Min. Louis Farrakhan for the crime of expressing his support for the ‘Obama for Change’ campaign. This move on his part was as Uncle Tom-ish as one could get without breaking a chorus of "I Wish I Was in Dixie". Barack has gone above and beyond in making the point to Goy and Zionist America and in no uncertain terms that he did not, wished not and sought not any form of endorsement or sustenance from Minister Farrakhan or the rank and file membership of the Nation of Islam.

He even went so far to do the good darkie dance during the televised democratic debate in Cleveland, OH last week with media-whore number one MSNBC moderator Tim Russert getting in his face with questions, accusations really, about the public NOI endorsement. Instead of challenging Mr. Russert on why this question is not asked of the republican John McCain who grandly accepts endorsements from the likes of evangelical hate-monger John Hagee who calls for open warfare between American Christians and Muslims, he allowed Russert to berate him incessantly on the issue:

TIM RUSSERT: On Sunday, the headline in your hometown paper, Chicago Tribune: “Louis Farrakhan Backs Obama for President at Nation of Islam Convention in Chicago.” Do you accept the support of Louis Farrakhan?
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: You know, I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic comments. I think that they are unacceptable and reprehensible. I did not solicit this support. He expressed pride in an African American who seems to be bringing the country together. I obviously can’t censor him, but it is not support that I sought. And we’re not doing anything, I assure you, formally or informally with Minister Farrakhan.
TIM RUSSERT: Do you reject his support?
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, Tim, you know, I can’t say to somebody that he can’t say that he thinks I’m a good guy. You know, I—you know, I have been very clear in my denunciations of him and his past statements, and I think that indicates to the American people what my stance is on those comments.
TIM RUSSERT: The problem some voters may have is, as you know, Reverend Farrakhan called Judaism “gutter religion.”
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Tim, I think—I am very familiar with his record, as are the American people. That’s why I have consistently denounced it. This is not something new. This is something that—I live in Chicago. He lives in Chicago. I’ve been very clear, in terms of me believing that what he has said is reprehensible and inappropriate. And I have consistently distanced myself from him.


That’s for damn sure. Obama and his people have done everything possible to distance themselves from authentic African social identifiers that unlike the Obama campaign, gallantly articulate a reality White Americans have no idea exists right beneath their proverbial noses. It simply is not allowed in the unwritten rules governing American socio-political discourse or policy. “The immoveable veil of Blackness,” Obama so embarrassingly totes as Eugenically articulated by early colonial American Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Benjamin Rush and the Dred Scott Decision is something to be pitied, not respected, as it falls far short of an authentic humanity. While Europocentric intellectuals were aware of the inherent “humanity” of the African, they only recognized it partially, not unlike how a breeder strives to define a newly recognised species of dog. So to suggest that Barack Obama is subject to right-wing belittlement and the relentless confirmation of his loyalty to White American interests because he is a “Black” candidate is correct and exact. To imply otherwise is simply American revisionism of the highest order.

Not convinced? Any cursory trip through MediaMatters.org will reveal an unending trail of conservative Obama-bashing ranging from doubts about his religious affiliations to his parent’s choice of first and second names. FOX News has stealthily added his image for split-seconds during reports on Osama bin-Forgotten and resident-experts-on-retainer gleefully reinterpret his Indonesian upbringing as clandestine terrorist training. To say that the neo-conservative media brownshirts are painting a picture of a Muslim Manchurian Candidate is putting it mildly. All the while, his choice of questionable pro-war team players and backers such as his silent bond with the Wall Street economic elite however rarely, if ever, face such intense scrutiny. But nothing earns him the ire of the more honestly bigoted in America as does his African blood and hair. These physical markers as referenced by Jefferson and Dr. Rush will forever bind the Negro to a subordinate “otherness” no matter how “White” in action or thought the Negro has struggled to befit or to qualify for entry into colonialist European society.

In other words a Black candidate is just that, a “Black” candidate. And even Black candidates are required to stay in their respective and historical place on the social chessboard. If the reader thinks I’m jesting just go back to Michelle Obama’s statements about her feelings concerning the U.S., comments only a closeted Klansman would have a problem with in a country that kills in order to export “democracy”. When she declared that “…For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change,” the White reactionary backlash was tremendous with the FOX network’s most prominent voice of White Christian male arrogance Bill O’Reilly suggesting that if Michelle Obama, “ - Really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, - ” that a ‘lynching party’ is indeed in order:

“And I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. We'll track it down.”


Lynching nooses and White terrorist imagery have no place in a nation proclaiming an unbroken history of justice and reason. So when I say that the failure of Mr. Obama and his team to address these blatantly racist smears on his person, his campaign and his family smacks of moral and personal credulity, I mean just that. Barack Obama is a moral coward. Add to this the other distressing fact that unlike Bill Clinton, Mr. Obama has determinedly refused to defend his wife from the likes of Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the sewer-dwelling neo-conservative propaganda cadre, it is clear to everyone except the politically dim-witted that a real Black American voice Barack Obama is definitely not. Partly because he never so such as cites the explicit race-baiting that is being used against him and mostly because like the much respected Booker T. Washington, Barack Obama has allowed White liberal America to check his African pride and his manhood at the door of the Democratic Party platform. Obama has been publicly punked. And White America loves him dearly for it.

What has not been said aloud and begs some consideration is what Obama’s silence really means. What we see before us is a genuine product of the American colonialist system; the ever-grateful, ethnically and masculinity-emasculated “new” Negro. Castrated silently without fuss or defiance by virtue of his willingness to play the game of graceful living under White domination, Obama has taken Booker T’s social prescription to heart. Accept your lot as the White American ugly step-child, follow the rules an’ shuffle on in a hushed, but dignified desperation. This is the reality of Barack Obama. He is the long awaited get-out-of-jail-for-free card White liberal America has been waiting for.

The other portentous reason I have broken my silence has not so much to do with Minister Farrakhan and the highly disrespectful treatment he has received from Mr. Obama as much as the relevance of his endorsement while open genocide is being conducted against the Indigenous people of Palestine by the racialist, theocratic and genocidal state of Israel. On the heels of another wave of death and destruction from on high by the United States supported Europeanised Western Asian client state, Obama had the nerve to release a public statement not only praising the practice of continuous bombardment and extra-legal kidnappings the American state department likes to call “Extraordinary Rendition” in which he flatly accused the legitimate Palestinian liberation political party Hamas of being entirely responsible for the violence killing scores of their own people. In his statement of support for Palestinian genocide, Obama makes it unambiguous and plain, he stands with the Euro-Israeli lobby all the way:

“The violence in Gaza is the result of Hamas’s decision to launch rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, and Israel has a right to defend itself.”


This testimonial for Arab genocide not only whets the appetite of the Arab-hating AIPAC Zionists, but gives implicit material support to the rabidly anti-Jewish evangelic Christian fundamentalists amongst the U.S. economic elites bent on preserving Israel if only to save the European Jewish population from eternal Hellfire for not accepting Jesus. More importantly, it paves a new bloody road to American regional dominance over all of Western Asia under the banner of Christian-inspired liberation with petroleum as its holy sacrament.

For White liberals seeking a middle-ground that encourages Palestinian submission to European-Jewish authority, such sentiments are borne of an ever-expanding empathy for the political “uniqueness” of the European Semitic holocaust, an apparently never-ending reaction to the White world’s apathetic response to the historical European Judeophobia which ran rampant throughout the last century. I too am highly sympathetic, but not to the point of excusing Israeli xenophobia because of the unfortunate existence of anti-Jewish xenophobia. If genocide was wrong against ethnic Jews in Europe during the 1930’s and 40’s, genocide is also equally inappropriate in Arab Palestine. It is telling that one even needs to consider it imperative to make such particulars a point of awareness at the outset of the 21st century. Especially to a Black man who by all visible as well as historical accounts, should in a visceral sense know better.

Rumour has it that the Israeli general public however does know better. According to a Feb 28th 2008 report by the international news service Democracy Now, Israeli opinion polls demonstrate that more than 64 percent of resident Israelis support a military ceasefire with the legal Palestinian government of Hamas, supposedly the largest majority recorded to date. The Hamas government has offered multiple propositions for an armistice with the Zionist state which has routinely rejected these approaches as a “submission to Islamic terrorism.” The empirical evidence that Israel as a notionally independent country was built on the primary principles of abject terrorism against the United States and Britain is selectively written off as a non-issue. Fortunately for them and their supporters, the English and American public maintains a steadfast effort in remaining historically ignorant of the more disturbing and paradoxical episodes of resistance to Western imperialism.

In all sincerity I am taking a great leap of faith by identifying the White world’s apathy to Palestinian genocide as an issue of pure ignorance. My own position is much more candid in that I unequivocally accuse the world community of wilful indifference to Palestine’s plight in favour of White imperialist privilege. Israel’s macho Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai has publicly pledged on Israeli Army Radio to wage a Palestinian "Holocaust" in the Gaza without incident, while at the same time the western imperialist media machine continues to tout the fib that Iran’s leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swore to "wipe Israel off the map." Despite the fact that Ahmadinejad, an eccentric bloke in his own right, was purposefully misquoted in a desperate effort to shore up an excuse, any excuse, to invade and occupy Islamic Iran, Vilnai's outrageous and villainous threat to wipe out the very existence not simply of the Palestinian nationality but the annihilation of the Palestinian people receives virtually no condemnation. Innocence paid to unawareness of Israel’s gnawing yearning to rid itself of its Arab population is spurious at best and a morally ambiguous complicity in racist terrorism and Western imperialism at its worst.

This brings us back to The Honourable Min. Louis Farrakhan’s unwelcome endorsement for Barack Obama’s presidency. Like our other brother-in-arms surviving in the Diaspora and himself a former presidential candidate the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Minister Farrakhan has learned the hard way that in the Zionist world, there is no moral obligation to grant forgiveness.

In the sad case of Rev. Jackson he will forever be remembered for being called to the carpet for remarks he may or may not have made to a Negro Washington Post reporter named Milton Coleman, who without delay dashed to inform a Euro-American journalist working at the same tabloid that he personally witnessed Jesse Jackson refer to N.Y. Jews as "Hymies" and to New York City as "Hymietown." According to the article, which appeared the very next morning, the comments were expressed by Jackson during a private conversation with Coleman and several other American African journalists. I for one would like to take for granted that Rev. Jackson, a confidant and partner of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., would not and could not say anything so morally callous, and frankly I don’t think all of the possible aspects of that situation were explored for the obvious reasons. The Euro-American reporter that broke the story freely admitted that his only evidence was anecdotal and that other than Coleman, no one else ever corroborated the account. Despite this, the pressure to compel an apology from Rev. Jackson and every other African political leader they could conceivably intimidate into conveying regret and shame for an assumed communally held American African predisposition towards anti-Semitism was gargantuan and Rev. Jackson naturally succumbed to the weight. To this day I have yet to review anything that supports Rev. Jackson’s supposed Judeophobia and I doubt that I ever will. But it matters little any longer. The damage that was intended had been done.

Minister Farrakhan’s principled support for the campaign of Barack Obama is burdened by the very same factors that I mentioned above. The semantic ju-jitsu employed by the White mainstream media is wholly concerned with specific words or phrases, in particular the overt and concentrated attempt to play on the emotive characteristics of any criticism towards the State of Israel. While common sense would demand that disparagement of the Israeli politic is mutually excusive of denunciation of Jews as an ethnic group, things are not as clear-cut as they should be. Jew haters throughout the White world have worked in various ways to blame Semites for everything from lost crops to missing French children rumoured to be slain for use of their blood for Passover bread. To deny the reality of deep-seated Judeophobia in a world where Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad can accuse Jews worldwide of a conspiracy to take over the planet is foolish although many indifferently do make that claim.

Just recently on an American cable-television game show which asks embarrassingly personal questions in order to win cash money, a guest was asked if she ever lied about being Jewish. A touchy subject to be sure, she was empathically permitted to not answer the query due to its explosive characteristics. Everyone it attendance nodded in camaraderie with her personal struggle and the show as they say, carried on unabated.

At first glimpse it seems that this all-encompassing empathy towards the Jewish struggle, provided the Jew in question is of European origin, is for the most part the most vicious form of parody imaginable and conceivably the most egregious. But looking deeper, it is dangerously elucidating to see how utterly racist Zionism really is. It presupposes a pre-eminence in the human suffering pecking order, a hierarchy we people of colour are told repeatedly between offences does not exist. In the rational universe of the third and fourth worlds, where the personal struggle against extinction is a dynamic of everyday life, this hallucinatory view of the universe is insulting to the point of farce.

Chiefly due to space considerations I will not go into specifics here, I choose to assume that the reader is cognizant of Native American genocide as a blueprint for Germany’s Final Solution. If the reader is not aware of this connection, the fault lies in the manner American history has been repackaged and marketed to the national and international public. The United States, Australia, Canada and Mexico as a matter of common practise dismiss Aboriginal genocide as the end result of reluctance on the part of the Indigenous population to extinguish themselves by accepting colonial subjugation and territorial occupation. So much so that in the generations since, to even imply that murder, pillage and other atrocities were and are practised in these nations against Aboriginals invites belligerent repudiation and often, sadistic retaliation. It has even been charged that the justifiable indignation many conscious Aboriginals and Africans maintain for White America and its values is the “real” problem. Our anger it is said prevents meaningful progress because we find it so hard to “let go of the past” and move further forward into the White haze of an exclusively Europocentric paradise of physical as well as psychological crypto-slavery.

Americans of course are accustomed to excusing genocide, perhaps because they have been skilfully doing so for more than 500 years. How else could they harp on about freedom and human rights while conversely redefining American Indigenous genocide and African involuntary servitude as a necessary, progressive and honourable endeavour for all involved? Given the extent and vigour Euro-Americans have toiled to maintain the United States as a predominately “White” nation, such revisionism illustrates the reality that White society does in fact acknowledge its unsavoury history by twisting it into something much more palatable for the colonial, i.e., White mind.

Barack Obama calls himself an American, so it should not be considered off the mark when I propose that he, like other professed “Americans” regardless of ethnicity, accept Aboriginal and African maltreatment and exploitation as inexorably beneficial and favourable because it led to the contemporary excellence of the United States and by extension, the world as we have all been led to understand it.

This is why the photos of torture from Abu Ghraib mean nothing to the American public. This also goes on to explain why half a million child deaths due to American economic sanctions against Iraq between the two Gulf wars can be admitted to without significant public disapproval. Review the cases of White American colonialist involvement in East Timor, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nicaragua, South Africa and North America.

Let’s face it folks, America is a genocidal empire. By the same token it is an empire that does its level best to deny that it is an empire. It excuses its atrocities and the atrocities of its client states by declaring its hostility as part of the necessary back-braking work needed to spread democracy and free trade. America does not kill to dominate, it is merely spreading the “promise” of freedom. It is an oxymoron of such immense wretchedness it is patently worthy of the Nazi government that the current president’s grandfather so proudly served. Nevertheless, it is the authentic state ideal and creed of the U.S. although very few have dared say so openly. To do so is self-incriminating and White America as a whole has never truly been willing to accept their moral responsibility when historical distortion can divert attention from the reality.

When we are forced to look at Palestine and the Palestinian people, Americans liberal and conservative see what they want to see. 1948 is ignored, the British Mandate is long-forgotten and a Jewish-led genocide is applauded as righteous self-defence against Jewish genocide. In other words, the elimination of the Palestinian populace is, as cheerfully articulated by Madeline Albright on America’s 60 Minutes television programme in reference to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi babies, a necessary price to pay for European-Jewish survival. Boiled down, an Arab life means absolutely nothing. Like the razing of a viable and potentially resistant North American Aboriginal presence, the destruction of the Palestinian Arab populace must take place for the existence of a “White” Israel to be secure. The rebuff of the dark reality of Zionism in its purest form as an extremist political movement dedicated to ensuring European Jewish cohesion and interests are made manifest by any means necessary is to be selectively judicious in regards to the usage of aggression. Hence, the sympathy extended to Irgun’s desperate attempts to build an alliance with the German Nazi Party to assist them in battling the British for control of Palestine under the British Mandate. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, even when they are Nazis primarily responsible for the systematic eradication of Semitic Europe if the ultimate goal is a Jewish homeland in someone else’s country.

The Jewish translation of Manifest Destiny in Greater Palestine differs little in theory and practise from its Euro-American predecessor. And the vastly escalating support Israel receives from the more radically inclined neo-conservative and theological elements within the United States are vital to its implementation. Without American State Dept. financial and munitions support, Israel would cease to exist. And without near total American domination of the United Nations and the World Court, it is doubtful Israel would elude censure and reprimand for war crimes against that regions native population. All told, it is the disgrace of post-World War Two global society that this decades old slow bleed of the Palestinian Nation has continued unabated while the world defends their oppressors. The disparity of power, the humiliation of colonialism and the malevolence of racism are expressed as the negative effects of challenging European expansion wherever the frontier may be. Barack Obama calls it Jewish self-defence, Palestinians and Human Rights observers call it genocide.

I did not write this piece to defend the Honourable Min. Louis Farrakhan. His record of soulful representation of African America requires no defending from this writer. And I will not play the game of listing the probable offences attributed towards him. I refuse, as I stated at the outset of this article, to stab another person of colour publicly in the back. Divide and conquer will not work in this instance. And at the risk of being charged with anti-Semitism, I will make it clear here for the record that I respect Min. Farrakhan and any issues I have with his rhetorical record are between him, me and the rest of the African Diaspora. I will not denounce him because it is fashionable to do so nor will I reject him because we differ on various political issues. I recognise that Min. Farrakhan unlike his detractors has come a very long way in addressing the numerous concerns that have served to diminish and marginalise not just the African liberation movement but the African community as a whole. His tone and tremor have matured over the years and at this period in his life he has sought solidarity more than ever before with people and organisations several years ago many would have said was highly unlikely. His recent embracing and teaching of tolerance for our gay African brothers and sisters was a major step to repairing the Black family and increasing understanding on this very important issue. An optimistic and promising development overlooked by a White establishment that watched two young gay men killed within a week of each other on both coasts. The myth of White American tolerance for humanity in all its forms and its hypocritical record on the Homosexual civil right to protection from violence is glaringly damming. So is its history of legitimizing brutality towards the outsider. An initiative represented in every speech I have ever heard from the minister including the material detested by the American Jewish community.

I understand the context in which his commentary is made and his Jewish cynics understand it as well, thus the basis of their criticism in truth is not so much his choice of words but his intended critique of the Zionist misuse of White Christian guilt for their decidedly Judeophobic non-action as Semitic Europe literally burned alive. An understandable tactic given that new publications of the falsely believed Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are still freely available and fervently referenced by xenophobes everywhere.

If Barack Obama and other Israel supporters were to articulate this issues fairly I would say so, but they do not. Obama is no different than any other American politician when it comes to pledging support for Israeli inhumanity. This, I cannot forgive and still remain human. While I still refuse to harm another POC by publicly quarrelling with them, I do not recognise Barack Obama as a ‘Black’ man. He does not act nor sound in any way shape or form like a Black man. He acts and sounds like what a White man thinks a Black man should act and sound. I was disposed, even eager, to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I also erred this way in regards to Clarence Thomas and General Colin Powell. I never could bring myself to trust the shoe-lady, current ineffectual Secretary of State Condi Rice. Her uninterrupted excursion to NYC during the drowning of hundreds of Africans and other poor people confirmed and justified my hesitation. Only Oprah Winfrey has done more to demonstrate that the American Negro is still seeking entry into the plantation house. Even if he or she has to step over the bodies of their own to reach the doorknob.

Barack Obama is exactly this sort of Negro. His church may be Black, but his heart is where the power structure is, deep within the White man’s fat capitalist backside. Only an Uncle Tom of the highest order could defend the murder of a defenceless, landless and speaking bluntly, beaten people. The hypocrisy of kowtowing to genocidal Zionist terrorism while simultaneously denouncing Minister Farrakhan for remarks made years ago in reference to Palestinian Arabs and African-Jewish relations in the United States says much about the man and his anticipated polices. Endless, racialised slaughters in the third world, genocides in the fourth world and rampant exploitation of the second world until peoples such as the Palestinians cease to exist in sufficient numbers to defend their right to land, cultural identity and political self-determination. So I ask humbly ask Barack Obama and all those who support his presidency, where is the accountability the liberal/democratic folks say Obama personifies? Where is the moral justice in mass murder in the name of American imperialist power? And when will White America admit that what Barack Obama really represents is a brown face that will make the genocide, the exploitation and the racism “legit” in the eyes of its victims?

Don’t pretend that Obama does not fully comprehend his role in this tragic comedy, he is intelligently playing his part with great aplomb and technique. He’s “clean” as the neo-con and liberal punditry like to point out. He has successfully shed the morose vestiges of his dark skin to reveal the psychosomatic White man within all of us cruelly moulded by European indifference to our reality.

Jefferson and Dr. Rush would stand proud. The America they visualized is finally coming to pass.

The Angryindian


12/1/07

NZ AND AUST ASKED TO LEAVE MELANESIAN COUNTRIES ALONE

http://www.niufm.com/?t=3&View=FullStory&newsID=2645

Date: 30 November 2007

Auckland 6am: A call's been made for New Zealand and Australia to step back from interfering in Melanesian countries, such as the Solomon Islands.

The spokesperson for Global Peace and Justice in Auckland says both of the Regional Superpowers want a finger in the pie.

John Minto says both try to dominate the regional security group, RAMSI, under the guise of terrorism.

Minto says locals would rather see resourcing that'll lead to their daily life being less of a struggle and the nation more stable economically and democratically. (listen)

10/17/07

Why Thursdays' anti-terrorism bill is bad for New Zealand

17 October 2007

Media Release:

Since 2001 our government has passed three pieces of legislation to
"suppress terrorism" with the fourth now due in parliament tomorrow.
This latest piece is the Suppression of Terrorism Bill 2007.

There will be many more such bills to follow in the future.

The government says it is just doing its part supporting international
moves to isolate and control terrorism. In reality it's part of the US
leadership's drive to have American foreign policy objectives adopted
by governments around the world.

So what are the latest changes and why are they dangerous?

Change 1:
Under the proposed law the definition of a terrorist changes to
someone who, for political reasons, causes "serious disruption to an
infrastructure facility, if likely to endanger human life"

Effect: There are many examples of protest activity and civil
disobedience from past events such as the 1981 Springbok tour which
could now be classified as terrorist. (A better definition would be
the UN definition of "criminal acts, including those against
civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily
injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of
terror in the general public")

Change 2:
Under this legislation New Zealand would automatically adopt the UN
list of terrorists and terrorist organisations. It is the US which
dominates the compilation of these lists.

Effect: New Zealanders working to support liberation struggles,
democracy and human rights overseas would now face the prospect of
being charged with supporting terrorist organisations. Under the new
proposal it would have been illegal to provide support for the African
National Congress in the fight against apartheid or for campaigns to
have Nelson Mandela released from jail. It could easily also be used
against New Zealanders supporting Palestinian groups such as Hamas
despite Hamas being democratically elected to power in the occupied
territory of Palestine. (Previous legislation allowed support and
assistance to organisations provided it was "for the purpose of
advocating democratic government or the protection of human rights".
This wording is to be removed)

Change 3:
New Zealand would give up its right to make its own independent
assessments of terrorists and terrorist designations.

Effect:
Without the ability to make our own independent assessments we become
captive to shonky, prejudiced, politically motivated overseas
assessments such as those relating to Ahmed Zaoui. (Previously New
Zealand adopted UN designations "in the absence of evidence to the
contrary". This safeguard would be removed)

Change 4:
The courts are removed from considering designations of terrorist or
terrorist organisations. (At the moment if the Prime Minister
designates a terrorist organisation then this is reviewable by the
High court after three years)

Effect: Independent scrutiny of cases will no longer be available. The
PM will be judge and jury. The US wants this because governments are
then more open to international pressure. At least with the courts
there is the semblance of independent scrutiny.

This assumption of power by politicians over court processes is
demonstrated most clearly by the US with its treatment of Guantanemo
Bay detainees and the CIA's "rendition" programme whereby suspected
terrorists have been clandestinely transferred around the world for
torture. In both cases the courts have been sidelined. It would be a
disgrace for New Zealand to follow.

Monday's arrests
Monday's police action in arresting 17 people on gun charges and
raising the spectre of terrorism charges to follow is an attempt to
soften the public up to the idea we have terrorism in New Zealand.

This creates a climate of fear and makes it easier to pass
anti-terrorism laws which inevitably undermine the civil rights of New
Zealanders and our relations with organisations overseas.

The government should withdraw this grubby piece of legislation.

John Minto
Spokesperson
Ph (09) 8463173 (H)
(09) 8452132 (W)

http://www.gpja.org.nz/newsletter/why-thursdays%E2%80%99-anti-terrorism-bill-bad-new-zealand