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GREG GRANDIN, grandin@nyu.edu, @greggrandin
Author of Kissinger€™s Shadow, Grandin just wrote the piece "The Clinton-Backed Honduran Regime Is Picking Off Indigenous
Leaders." For background, see: "Hillary Clinton Admits Role in Honduran Coup Aftermath," and
"Hillary Clinton's Emails and the Honduras Coup."
BEVERLY
BELL,
bev.otherworlds@gmail.com, @beverly__bell
Bell appeared on an Institute for Public Accuracy news release last April:
titled "Cáceres, Threatened Honduran, Wins Biggest Enviro Award." As noted on that news
release, "For 15 years, Bell has been a close collaborator with Cáceres€™ and
the group she coordinates, the National Council of Indigenous Organizations of
Honduras." Bell has repeatedly warned that Cáceres and other indigenous
activists' lives were in danger because of their work.
She said then: €œBerta likes to say that Honduras is known only for having been a Contra base and for Hurricane Mitch. But that country also hosts a powerful social movement which has taken on unaccountable government, multinational corporations and oligarchy run amok, and U.S. military domination..." Bell said today that, more than anything, this is "about continued U.S. and Honduran government support for land and river grabs and multinational investment."
School of the Americas Watch released
a statement titled: "Human Rights Organizations Demand an Investigation of the
Circumstances Surrounding the Assassination of Berta Cáceres, the General
Coordinator of COPINH." It says: "At approximately midnight last night, the
General Coordinator of COPINH, Berta Caceres was assassinated in her hometown of
La Esperanza, Intibuca. At least two individuals broke down the door of the
house where Berta was staying for the evening in the Residencial La LÃbano, and
shot and killed her. COPINH is urgently responding to this tragic
situation.
"Berta Cáceres is one of the leading indigenous activists in Honduras. She spent her life fighting in defense of indigenous rights, particularly to land and natural resources. ... "Since the 2009 military coup that was carried out by graduates of the U.S. Army School of the Americas, Honduras has witnessed an explosive growth in environmentally destructive megaprojects that would displace indigenous communities. Almost 30 percent of the country's land was earmarked for mining concessions, creating a demand for cheap energy to power future mining operations. To meet this need, the government approved hundreds of dam projects around the country, privatizing rivers, land, and uprooting communities. Repression of social movements and targeted assassinations are rampant. Honduras has the world's highest murder rate. Honduran human rights organizations report there have been over 10,000 human rights violations by state security forces and impunity is the norm -- most murders go unpunished. The Associated Press has repeatedly exposed ties between the Honduran police and death squads, while U.S. military training and aid for the Honduran security forces continues." For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 March 3, 2016 Institute for Public Accuracy --------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Based
on the widely unpopular British 'anti-terror' mass surveillance program, the
FBI€™s 'Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools' guidelines [PDF], released
in January, are almost certainly designed to single out and target
Muslim-American communities. However, in its caution to avoid the appearance of
discrimination, the agency identifies risk factors that are so broad and vague
that virtually any young person could be deemed dangerous and worthy of
surveillance, especially if she is socio-economically marginalized or
politically outspoken.
"This overwhelming threat is then used to justify a massive surveillance apparatus, wherein educators and pupils function as extensions of the FBI by watching and informing on each other." ARUN KUNDNANI, arun@kundnani.org, @ArunKundnani
Kundnani
is the author of The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the
Domestic War on Terror and a lecturer at New York
University.
He said today: €œThe document aims to encourage schools to monitor their
students more carefully for signs of radicalization but its definition of
radicalization is vague. Drawing on the junk science of radicalization models,
the document dangerously blurs the distinction between legitimate ideological
expression and violent criminal actions.
€œIn practice, schools seeking to implement this document will end up monitoring
Muslim students disproportionately. Muslims who access religious or political
material will be seen as suspicious, even though there is no reason to think
such material indicates a likelihood of terrorism.€
"The
belief system of the Islamophobes," and other of his writings are available at
Kundnani's website.
He was featured last year on the Institute for Public Accuracy news release,
"Trump€™s Islamophobia is Tip of Iceberg."
See an interview of his on CNN.
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 March 7, 2016 Institute for Public Accuracy 980 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 * accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org |
Saturday, March 12, 2016
The Guardian reports today: "Berta Cáceres, the Honduran indigenous and environmental rights campaigner, has been murdered, barely a week after she was threatened for opposing a hydroelectric project."
'Shut Down Creech' to demand end of drones
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Free Dr Miguel Ángel Beltrán, a Colombian academic and member of the higher education union ASPU
|
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Building Peace and Justice– Now More than Ever: Massachusetts Peace Action 2016 Annual Meeting
Building Peace and Justice– Now More than Ever: Massachusetts Peace Action 2016 Annual Meeting
When: Saturday, March 12, 2016, 11:00 am
to 4:00 pm
Where: First Church in Cambridge -
Jewett Auditorium • 11 Garden St • Harvard T • Cambridge
Keynote
Speakers
Phyllis
Bennis: The Syrian War, ISIS, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US
Bennis is author
of Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror: A Primer
Rep. Jim
McGovern: Amidst Today’s Turmoil, We Must Rebuild the Peace
Movement
McGovern represents
Massachusetts’ 2nd Congressional District. Rep. McGovern will be
awarded the 2016 Peacebuilders Prize for his leadership in
Congress on peace and justice issues
Workshop Topics:
Building Peace in the Middle East: Diplomacy Wins,
War Fails
Struggling for Peace by Meeting People’s Needs at
Home
Resisting the Trillion Dollar Nuclear Weapons
“Modernization” Plan: First Steps in a Long-Term Campaign
Peace and a stable climate: Can we have one
without the other?
Agenda
10:00
Registration and Literature Tables Open
11:00
Welcome
Phyllis Bennis – Remarks & Discussion
12:00 Jim
McGovern – Remarks & Discussion
1:00
Lunch
1:45
Workshops Start
3:00
Business Meeting
Board of Directors Election
Finance Report
Campus Organizing Report
Program Report, Discussion & Approval
4:00
Adjourn
General
admission $20; members, students, and low income $10 (includes lunch); members
of Peace Action campus groups free. Lunch is not guaranteed unless you
pre-register. Register online here or
mail a check to Massachusetts Peace Action, 11 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Write "Annual Meeting" on the memo
line.A View From The Left-Survey: American voters would cut defense spending by at least $12B
Survey: American voters would cut defense spending by at least $12B
Getty Images
While
some Republican presidential candidates have called for increased defense
spending, a new survey shows that a majority of American voters would actually
decrease it by at least $12 billion.
They
would also cut the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and one aircraft carrier, showed
the survey, which was conducted by the University of Maryland's non-partisan
Program for Public Consultation, between Dec. 20 and Feb. 1.
In the
survey, a representative sample of approximately 7,000 registered voters across
the country were given detailed, non-partisan information vetted by
congressional staffers and experts about the 2016 defense budget.
The
majority trimmed the 2016 defense budget by $12 billion, including cutting $4
billion for ground forces, $3 billion for nuclear weapons, $2 billion for air
power, $2 billion for naval forces and $1 billion for missile defense.
The
budget for special operation and the Marines were untouched, but no area was
increased.
"They
look at all the numbers and they just have a sense about you know, how much to
spend," said Kull, who is the president of Voice of the People, a non-partisan
group working to give citizens more influence in policy making.
Broken
down by political affiliation, the majority of Democrats would cut the defense
budget by $36 billion, while the majority of Republicans left the defense budget
as is, and the majority of independents would cut it by $20 billion.
African
American respondents cut the budget $34 billion, and Hispanics cut $20 billion,
the survey showed.
The
results of the survey were briefed on Monday to some of the offices of lawmakers
for the eight states whose voters participated, which included California,
Florida, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia.
The
desire for decreased defense spending was despite a growing concern among the
public about the threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
"If
people were really worked up about it, you would have expected to see some
support for increasing [defense spending]," Kull said.
What
mattered more to the survey participants was cutting the nation's budget
deficit, he said.
"It's
quite clear that Americans are concerned about the deficit and that seems to be
the driver," he said. "So it's interesting how little discussion there is in the
campaign about reducing the deficit, given how much the public seems to be
interested in bringing that about."
"We're
not talking about deep cuts, you know, some modest cutting," he added.
While
voters nationwide did not call for increased defense spending, Kull said that
Florida -- where GOP presidential contender Sen. Marco
Rubio (R) is from -- was an
exception among Republican voters.
"In
Florida there was some support for modest increases," said Kull. Rubio has
called for a large increase in defense spending if he were to become president.
Kull said his Senate office was briefed on the survey's results.
While
the majority of participants would cut the F-35 and an aircraft carrier, they
would continue to fund the planned Long Range Strike Bomber and not reduce the
number of 12 planned submarines to eight.
In
addition, the majority of participants also favored keeping 5,500 U.S. troops in
Afghanistan, versus withdrawing all of them by the end of the year.
The
survey's report can be found here
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A View FromThe Left -NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
NEW
WARS / OLD WARS –
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
'Iraq
syndrome' will limit new president's options
For
a generation, the so-called Vietnam syndrome kept the United States from
undertaking any large-scale foreign military operations. The mere suggestion
that a conflict could become "another Vietnam" was enough to galvanize public
opinion against the dispatch of U.S. troops to some far corner of the world. It
wasn't until the end of the 1991 Gulf War that President George H.W. Bush could
say, "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!" Today, 25
years later, U.S. public opinion has turned against the Iraq war, which is
widely viewed as a "big, fat mistake," as Trump put it during the Feb. 13
Republican debate in North Carolina. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war puts him
at odds with the other Republican candidates, as well as the establishment wing
of the party. The split is just as pronounced in the Democratic race.
More
SAUDI
ARABIA’S UNHOLY WAR
Since
it began its war on the Houthis in March 2015, Saudi Arabia has justified its
intervention as a broader holy duty to fight Shia and protect the government in
exile. Yet Yemenis increasingly view Saudi intervention more as a campaign—in
which they are collateral—to upgrade Riyadh’s own influence and an ill-conceived
effort to promote Mohammed Bin Salman as a powerful future Saudi king. As such,
Yemenis fail to see any moral or legal justification for the U.S.-backed Saudi
war. What is evident to them is the deliberate destruction of people and
capital—all to no end, as the war has failed to accomplish Saudi Arabia’s goal
of weakening the Houthis. Instead, the airstrikes and blockade that form the
core of Saudi Arabia’s strategy have increased anti-Saudi hatred, driving
greater numbers of Yemenis to support the Houthis every day.
More
US-Saudi
War Helping al-Qaida Flourish in Yemen
AQAP
[al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] has gladly taken advantage of the Saudi-led
campaign’s almost exclusive focus on the Houthi-Saleh alliance. In April 2015 it
occupied Mukalla, Yemen’s fifth-largest city and the capital of Yemen’s largest
province, freeing prisoners and seizing cash and weapons. In December it
captured Zinzibar, the capital of Abyan province, and in late January, the
capital of Lahj province, Houta, also fell to the group. In February AQAP
occupied several more towns as it is now quickly reestablishing control over the
territory it held at its prior peak in 2011 and 2012. As busy as AQAP has been,
it still took the time to reaffirm in August 2015 that the United States remains
its top target. Much of the work to deny AQAP a safe haven in Yemen, flawed as
it was, has now been completely undone. More
We Are
Witnessing the Decline of Saudi Arabia as a Major Power
Just
as the Arab Spring provided the opportunity for the Saudis to intervene in
Libya, so too did it provide the Saudis with the pretext for regime change in
Syria and in other theaters where it fantasized about Iranian influence
(Bahrain, Yemen and Lebanon). The Saudi ambition was to erase Iran’s presence.
Five years later, the detritus of that policy is clear: Libya, Syria and Yemen
are destroyed, whereas Bahrain has been reduced to a prison of dreams… But much
of the Saudi dream, given encouragement by the United States, has now turned.
Syria and Yemen have been destroyed, but they remain standing. Iran has been
welcomed into the fraternity of nations, whether with the slow erasure of the
nuclear sanctions regime or integration into the Chinese and Russian networks.
Saudi Arabia’s oil civil war has served to bankrupt Saudi Arabia as much as its
adversaries. More
ENERGY
WARS OF ATTRITION
U.S.
and Canadian producers were adding millions of barrels a day in new production
to world markets at a time when global demand was incapable of absorbing so much
extra crude oil. An unexpected surge in Iraqi production added additional crude
to the growing glut. Meanwhile, economic malaise in China and Europe kept
global oil consumption from climbing at the heady pace of earlier years and so
the market became oversaturated with crude… Threatened by this new reality, the
Saudis and their allies faced a painful choice. Accounting for about 40% of
world oil output, the OPEC producers exercise substantial but not unlimited
power over the global marketplace. They could have chosen to rein in their own
production and so force prices up. There was, however, little likelihood of
non-OPEC producers like Brazil, Canada, Russia, and the United States following
suit, so any price increases would have benefitted the energy industries of
those countries most, while undoubtedly taking market share from OPEC. However
counterintuitive it might have seemed, the Saudis, unwilling to face such a
loss, decided to pump more oil. Their hope was that a steep decline
in prices would drive some of their rivals, especially American oil frackers
with their far higher production expenses, out of business.
More
Iran
Deal Opponents Keep Trying. . .
Leading
Democrats and Republicans join forces on Iran sanctions
Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and ranking member Ben
Cardin (D-Md.) are preparing legislation to slap additional sanctions on Iran in
response to a recent spate of ballistic missile launches. While the tests do not
themselves violate the Iranian nuclear deal that took effect in January,
officials believe they fly in the face of other international prohibitions and
weaken the spirit of compliance needed to sustain the nuclear pact… If the
Senate can produce a package of sanctions, it stands a good chance of getting an
audience in the House, where Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said Tuesday that
Congress would “continue to press for new sanctions against Tehran” in light of
the most recent ballistic missile tests. More
Iran's
latest missile test launches do not violate nuclear deal, U.S.
says
The
Obama administration labeled the missile launches provocative, but said the
firings did not violate the terms of last year’s nuclear deal between Iran and
world powers, including the United States… Biden told reporters in Jerusalem
that U.S. officials were closely watching Iran’s “conventional activity outside
the [nuclear] deal.” He repeated U.S. vows to take action should Tehran be found
to be violating the terms of the nuclear pact… The high-profile tests, analysts
said, have a dual purpose: to demonstrate Iran’s missile capabilities to outside
adversaries — including Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States — while
reassuring a domestic constituency that the nation’s military might remains
robust, despite the nuclear pact, at a moment of high regional tension.
More
Your
Tax Dollars Are Enabling Police Brutality in Egypt
Ever
since the Black Lives Matter movement exploded into the headlines, violence by
American police officers has come under fire from activists and ordinary
citizens alike. Less discussed, however, is how the U.S. government winks at the
police brutality of its client states abroad. The military government in Egypt,
for example, is cracking down hard on its restive citizenry — harder than any
time in memory. And the United States, which sends the country over a $1 billion
a year in security aid, is looking the other way. The cops on the beat in
Egyptian cities are a menace. They demand bribes from motorists on any pretense
and mete out lethal violence on a whim. On February 18, a Cairo policeman shot 24-year-old Muhammad Sayed in the head because the youth
asked him for a few extra dollars to do the cop a favor. The policeman is facing
murder charges. But, as in the United States, it’s common for Egyptian courts to
acquit officers or send them away with a slap on the wrist. Beatings and other
abuses are rampant at the country’s police stations. More
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