Belafonte : Colin Powell in the Master’s House, and the Promise of Obama

Posted on November 7, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Actor/activist Harry Belafonte.

Obama has a much better starting point than Colin Powell. Powell helped cover up the My Lai massacre and ended up his career supporting the lies that got us into Iraq.
By Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog / November 6, 2008

Harry Belafonte on Colin Powell.

Jump to the last sentence about Pakistan. Harry called it. We should be out of Iraq, out of Afghanistan, and leave Pakistan alone. What excuse will the Democratic leadership have now for not doing that? One hopes they will have none and do the right thing, get our military the hell out of the Middle East. How many more Afghan wedding parties will we blow up? Smell the napalm. I am sure the Afghans have stronger words for the U.S. leadership than “Uncle Tom”. One can only hope Obama was not telling the truth when he said he wanted U.S. troops out of Iraq so he could send them to Afghanistan. One hopes the Democrats can now bring all of our soldiers and mercenaries back from Iraq and Afghanistan and keep them here.

I am very, very happy that Obama won. I agree with Chomsky, as I usually do, that even though Obama is another shade of the Ruling Class he will make a large positive difference in the lives of many and it would be small minded and foolish to discount that in the name of ideological purity. Nader ate some sour grapes, for sure, but if he were darker (and not a candidate himself) he could have said what he said without too much trouble. Let us see Obama prove him wrong. Let us see Obama, and the other Dems, repeal the Patriot Act, lift the embargo on Cuba, get our foot off Haiti’s neck, make nice with Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, junk Star Wars and all that sort of thing as Putin has asked. The list goes on.

Obama has a much, much better starting point than Colin Powell. Powell helped cover up the My Lai massacre and ended up his career supporting the lies that got us into the invasion of Iraq.

“Barack Obama is only a promise,” Belafonte told the crowd—and by extension the entire country–“we are the fulfillment of that promise.”

As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, not the exact quote, “When your house is on fire you must become the fireman”.

In other words, we got Obama elected and now it is also up to us to see he does and can do the rights things. No matter what he wants to do he can’t do it without our active support and perhaps our active push. We already must stop him from giving the green light to more nuclear power plants and more killing in Afghanistan.

Colin Powell, shown during an interview with CNN’s Larry King.

HARRY BELAFONTE, Activist: There’s an old saying in the days of slavery. There are those slaves who lived on the plantation, and there were those slaves who lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master. Colin Powell was permitted to come into the house of the master.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KING: All right, Harry, what did you mean?

BELAFONTE: First of all, let me hasten to say, Larry, that this was never meant to be a personal attack on Colin Powell’s character.

What it was meant, however, to be was an attack on policy, and the reference and the metaphor used about slavery — it is my personal feeling that plantations exist all over America. If you walk into South Central Los Angeles, into Watts, or you walk into Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati, you’ll find people who live lives that are as degrading as anything that slavery had ever produced. They live in economic oppression, they live in a disenfranchised way. In the hearts and minds of those people, and millions of others, you’re always looking for hope, and whenever somebody within our tribe, within our group, emerges that has the position of authority and power to make a difference in the way business is done, our expectations run high. Many times, those expectations are not fulfilled. But when such an individual is in the service of those who not only perpetuate the oppression, but sometimes design the way in which it is applied, it then becomes very, very, very, very critical that we raise our voices and be heard. And…

KING: I’m sorry, I don’t mean — isn’t it possible, Harry, one, that Colin Powell, who has stood up for his country, fought for his country, may have disagreed in counsel, but supports his president in a tough time of need — why compare that to being — as a slave?

BELAFONTE: Because, I think, to a great degree, that which governs us is really the extent to which we are permitted by the forces of power in this country to do what it is we can do to make a difference.

The civil rights movement was a huge struggle against an enormous opposition. You know, many people who lived under that tenet and what we had to do to try to position people in high places to make a difference so we could change the way in which our democracy functioned was part of the game.

And Colin Powell is in that position. And I do believe that the policies that have been expressed by the administration he serves are less than honorable. It is not just about what I say.

Last year, in South Africa, the United Nations under Kofi Annan gave us an excellent opportunity in convening the International Conference on Racism directed by a woman of remarkable credentials, the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson. There was a place where the United States should have been in attendance, and given us the benefit of thought on a very grievous set of conditions that affect the human family — the issue of race.

And in that instance, the United States government sought to turn its back on the thousands of people who were gathered there to make a difference. And Colin Powell was the point person on that distancing of our country. You know…

KING: What did you want him to do? What do you want him to do?

BELAFONTE: I would like him to live up to a higher moral standard. You know, Jeffords doesn’t have to be the only one who sits in disagreement with the policies of this country and this government and acts upon it out of conscience.

Where is Colin Powell’s conscience? In a time when the world is getting ready to go up in flames in a war that’s hugely ill-advised, you know. Today we are going to go after Iraq. You know, where do we go next? After Iran? And then, when our present friends fall out of favor with us, do we go after Pakistan?

Larry King Live / CNN.com / Oct. 15, 2002

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Much Work to Do to Bring Peace to the Middle East

Posted on November 6, 2008 by RagBlog


MIDEAST: For Peace, the U.S. Will Have to Change
By Cherrie Heywood / November 5, 2008

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Barack Obama has been elected U.S. President at a time when the number of extremists has risen dramatically since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, going by the resistance to Western forces in the region. The U.S.-led ‘war on terror’ has itself now become a threat to peace.

A combination of despotic Arab regimes propped up by the West, neo-colonialism, religious intolerance, educational stagnation, a clash of cultures and religious ideology, and a U.S. foreign policy biased in favour of Israel has further helped build this situation.

Given the possibility of an attack on Iran, the near future appears even more ominous. But all hope is not lost, according to both an Israeli and a Palestinian analyst.

“There is still a possibility for the relationship between the U.S. and the Middle East to be repaired, but it will require a quantum change in the attitude of the U.S. administration towards Arabs and Muslims if this is to occur,” Dr Ahmed Yousef, political advisor to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told IPS from his office in Gaza city.

But Dr. Moshe Maoz, Israeli professor emeritus of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, and senior fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, told IPS that “significant self-reflection and hard work too has to be done by the Arab governments and extremist Islamic leaders themselves if there is to be any hope of a political breakthrough.”

Several years ago, following a peak of death and destruction in Iraq, the Middle East Policy Council (MEPC), a U.S. think-tank, held a conference which examined what went wrong between the West and the Muslim world, and why.

Milton Viorst, author of ‘Storm from the East’ and an expert on the region, said there is indeed a clash of civilisations here.

“I really do believe that we have two civilisations here which we have to understand, and I also believe that the war in Iraq is simply the latest eruption in a conflict that has lasted since the time of Prophet Muhammad nearly 1400 years ago. Neither the Christian nor the Muslim civilisation is necessarily superior, but both are profoundly different.”

The bloody massacres during the Christian Crusades since the first of them in the 11th century, led up to the confrontation with the Ottoman Empire that finally folded up in the early 20th century.

“Britain and France, the two great imperial powers, decided what they were going to do because the Ottoman Empire stood in the way of their conquest of the region. And when the Ottomans fell in World War I, the whole region was opened up once again to the Christian West,” said Viorst.

Shibley Telhami from the University of Maryland and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, says clashes of civilisations have occurred throughout history, and that this in itself does not explain the intra-civilisational clashes such as those between moderate and hard line Muslims in the Middle East.

“During the Second Lebanon War (with Israel in 2006) the majority of the Arab public was sympathetic to Hezbollah even though the Lebanese government is pro-Western,” said Shibley.

Dr. Anthony Cordesman from the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said “the struggle is religious, cultural, intellectual, political and ideological, not military nor driven by secular values. As such, the real war on terrorism can only be partially won within Islam and at a religious and ideological level.”

Many of the poor and disaffected in the Middle East are attracted to religious extremism as an answer to what they see as a limited future and a lack of personal hope.

Furthermore, many Arabs say the current U.S. strategy of military force is counterproductive if the desire is to win the hearts and minds of the majority of moderate Arabs and Muslims in the Arab street.

“There are too many memories of colonialism, and there is too much anger against U.S. ties to Israel for Western forces to succeed,” said Cordesman. “The United States needs to understand that it can only use its influence and its counter-terrorism and military capabilities if it changes its image in the Islamic world.”

“This is the core of the issue,” said Yousef. “Arabs and Muslims are fed up with America’s one-sided approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This has caused immense resentment and bitterness. If this conflict is resolved, then it will have a domino effect on peace in the rest of the region,” he told IPS.

Cordesman said efforts to change the U.S. image would require efforts to support genuine reform and not just pay lip service to it. Job creation, stabilisation of economies, respect for human rights and improving education would all be necessary.

Moaz told IPS that in order to truly defeat extremism and terrorism, it was also necessary for corrupt Arab governments to work towards establishing democracy and a more equitable distribution of wealth away from the ruling cronies and elite, as most Arabs were more concerned with day-to-day issues of survival above Western concerns for human rights.

But forcing democratic elections prematurely before these societies have established political systems which incorporate sound legal checks and balances to tackle political demagoguery would be counterproductive, he said.

“It is a catch-22 situation. How can free, democratic governments be established if the short-sightedness of the West is aimed at its own short-term geopolitical and economic interests which involve supporting despotic and dictatorial regimes as long as they are pro-Western.”

Shibley said the problem was that neither the unelected Arab governments nor their Western benefactors cared much about Arab public opinion and their needs as long as their own interests were being served.

But despite the bitterness towards the U.S. there still remains substantial goodwill. Yousef, who lived in the U.S. for years, said he had grown up with the Islamic movement in the sixties and seventies and that they had been great admirers of the U.S.

“We respected the technology and the traditions of democracy and human rights. We were all with America when it fought the Communists, alongside the Mujahideen, in Afghanistan.

“We don’t hate the ordinary American people and we have no sympathy whatsoever for the criminals who perpetrated 9/11. But these people are going to win even more support from extremist elements if the U.S. continues to be so partisan and to display what appears to be a clearly anti-Islamic and anti-Arab agenda.”

Source / IPS News

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Zwarich Responds to Tim Wise’s Optimism

Posted on November 6, 2008 by RagBlog

Tim Wise

Dancing Toward Danger?
By Zwarich / The Rag Blog / November 6, 2008

In an article ironically entitled ‘Avoiding Overconfidence and Cynicism in the Age of Obama,’ an article that is being widely circulated on the Left, Tim Wise goes well ‘over the top’ in issuing highly counterproductive and inflammatory categorical denunciations of anyone who has severe misgivings about the irrational jubilation being expressed by progressives over the election of Barack Obama, most of whose major stated policy positions as a candidate were decidedly UN-progressive.

In vindictive and self-centered denunciation of legitimate progressive viewpoints that do not happen to conform with his own, Mr. Wise graces us with such edifying thoughts as “those who cannot appreciate what has just transpired are so eaten up with nihilistic rage and hopelessness that I cannot but think that they are a waste of carbon, and actively thieving oxygen that could be put to better use by others”, and he actually directly addresses these people, whom he has so narrow-mindedly pigeonholed, according to his own narrow and self-centric perspective, with the crude epithet, “Screw You”. With all due respect to Mr. Wise, and the overwrought jubilation he is obviously feeling, this kind of self-important, self-serving rhetoric can only be divisive, and will only serve to inhibit our efforts, as progressives, to find the means to create ongoing organizational unity.

It is no surprise that Mr. Wise, who is identified in the brief bio that accompanies his article as an “anti-racist activist”, would offer a largely race-based perspective. There is certainly no harm in that, in and of itself. I hold a great deal of respect for that perspective. But Mr. Wise feels compelled to go far beyond expressing his jubilation, to include a vindictive denunciation of anyone who is looking past this one narrow aspect of the implications of Obama’s election.

If we look at what is happening from the post-racial perspective that Barack Obama himself promoted, we might see that beyond the ‘victory’ that some feel, in that a mixed-race African American has been elected president, Barack Obama has not represented himself as ‘progressive’ in the most important and defining major policy positions he has established.

In an election cycle that was almost totally focused on ‘narrative’, and ‘character’, rather than substance, Mr. Wise categorically denounces, (as nihilists, and with other inflammatory epithets, as well as his provocative “screw you”), those who have looked past the foolishly short-sighted bamboozlement of ‘narrative over substance’. Anyone who is willing to maintain Reason in the face of the widespread irrational jubilation we are witnessing, anyone who is willing to look beyond narrative to the actual issues themselves, has every reason to be alarmed, and the irrational exuberance being expressed by so many comprises a significant area of concern in itself. Mr. Wise even goes so far as to castigate anyone who is not participating enthusiastically in this foolish exercise in willfully ignoring reality with his inflammatory denunciations.

To listen to Mr. Wise’s divisive rhetoric now, one wonders if he celebrated the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court simply because he is African American? While Barack Obama is certainly more palatable to the progressive viewpoint, by a quantum leap, than Clarence Thomas, his stated policy positions are indeed extremely problematic for anyone who hopes that the nation will move in a progressive direction.

Barack Obama deliberately, and many would say cynically, wrapped himself in the ‘narrative’ he defined by his soaring rhetoric, while at the same time he established major policy positions that are in complete conflict with the heroic rhetoric itself, and with the carefully packaged narrative it promoted. Beneath his inspiring rhetoric, he has offered up only minor proposals to placate progressives, while he adheres closely to major policies that serve the staus quo power structure, while packaging the whole shebang as “change”.

He is NOT, and never was, an anti-war candidate. He merely opposed the Iraq war before it started for pragmatic reasons. He does NOT intend to end the war. He only intends, as he has stated clearly, to reduce troop strength in Iraq to about 40% of its current level, and to redeploy troops to the huge permanent bases that Haliburton has built in commanding positions over the oil fields.

He avidly supports the US Imperial Mission. He has endorsed the major tenets of the Bush Doctrine, including military incursions into sovereign nations whenever it suits our unilaterally determined self-interest.

He is an unabashed and enthusiastic supporter of the criminally cruel apartheid Zionist project. He has agreed to pretend that the cruel military occupation that Israel has maintained over an entire nation of people for over 40 years simply is not taking place.

He ignores Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, while he pledges to use “any means necessary” to prevent Iran from developing even its independent peaceful nuclear capacity.

He has promised to “beef up” the US military budget, when we already spend more than the rest of the world combined on weapons and military capacity.

His FIRST significant act as President-elect has been to appoint an avowed Zionist as his chief of staff.

On the domestic front he has received massive financial support from Wall Street investment bankers, and has already rewarded them in return with his assistance in ramming the disgraceful ‘bail out’ of obscenely wealthy Wall Street bankers by reaching into the pockets of the common citizens, while they kicked and screamed and shouted out in outrage. He avidly helped stampede this historically disgraceful travesty past Congress, without hearings, without consideration of alternatives that might benefit the nation’s citizens rather than wealthy financiers. He did this with completely insulting contempt for the ‘will of the people’, directly ‘in the face’ of the VAST majority of the citizenry that was crying out in protest against this bailout of the rich by their victims.

His health care proposal carefully preserves our universal need and desire to be healthy as a lucrative profit opportunity for the insurance and health care industries. In order not to anger some of his major backers, he has carefully avoided any suggestion of a ‘medicare for all’ one-payer system that virtually every other country in the developed world has adopted as the only sane way to deliver the highest quality health care at the most reasonable cost.

How or why could anyone possibly consider this man a ‘progressive’? Are we such ‘rubes’ that all it takes is some gilded rhetoric, some smoothly silver-tongued sweet talk, to make us swoon helplessly into a pliant willingness to ignore the very facts of reality that we can see and hear with our own eyes and ears?

Mr. Wise, with his nonsensical contention that we should ignore Obama’s clearly stated policy positions in our jubilation over the fact that an African American has been elected president, only contributes to the atmosphere of irrational exuberance that is going to do harm to the progressive cause. It is certainly going to delay, and it even might possibly deliver a significant blow to, the necessary organizational steps we need to resolve ourselves to take in order to advance a progressive agenda.

But I feel like I am shouting into the roaring winds. Not that I am by any means alone. But those of us who realize that the progressive cause was NOT represented in this election, are now finding ourselves directly subjected to insulting epithets by those who insist that all progressives should be dancing in unbridled jubilation because a charismatic African American ‘centrist’ who has declared himself a supporter of US militarism, apartheid Zionism, free market economics, and the socialization of investment risk backing up the privatization of profit, has been elected president.

The willful ignorance of reality that is at the root of this jubilant celebration of ‘narrative over substance’, is a sort of ‘social madness’, a willful abandonment of Reason, that obviously must run its course. Any who are apart from it, any who are in control of their faculties of Reason in the face of this exercise in mass irrationality, must surely be watching in awe as we witness this stark example of the power of mass media to ‘sell’ any narrative at all, even when that narrative stands in direct contravention to the actual known facts.

It is certainly sobering to witness that even progressives who talk a great deal about the power of media to bamboozle the people, are not in any way immune to this power ourselves.

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Thousands Protest Gay Marriage Vote in SF Vigil

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Coy Abellano is comforted by Erwin Barron as he cries outside City Hall where hundreds of people gather for a candlelight vigil in response to Proposition 8 in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008. Photo by Lacy Atkins / SF Chronicle.

Chanting ‘Marriage, Equality, U.S.A.,’ rally participants said they will not be discouraged – and they will not back down.
By Elizabeth Fernandez / November 6, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — Carrying signs and candles and unbreakable optimism, several thousand supporters of same-sex marriage gathered outside San Francisco City Hall Wednesday night to buoy spirits and to declare that the fight for equality would continue.

Despite the passage of Proposition 8, which alters the state constitution to prohibit same-sex couples from marrying, many of those attending the vigil said they were heartened by the vast show of support from the electorate – nearly 5 million people cast ballots opposing the measure.

“We are not sending up a white flag,” said outgoing state Senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco). “It’s a tough state, a conservative state, it’s a big mother of a state – and we did brilliantly.”

Chanting “Marriage, equality, U.S.A.,” rally participants said they will not be discouraged – and they will not back down.

But in the wake of a heartfelt defeat, it was impossible “not to feel like second class citizens,” said Vandi Linstrot, standing with her spouse, Jami Matanky. The couple married in Oakland on June 17 – they’ve been together 24 years and have raised twin sons.

“California is saying that it is legal to disciminate against gays and lesbians,” said Linstrot, 53, a business analyst. “Marriage is safe now? From what? I don’t know why people feel threatened by us. Many thousands of gays and lesbians have gotten married in the last few months and what happened? Straight marriage continued. There was no great upheaval.”

The rally began in somber, quiet fashion – hundreds of early arrivals stood in silence on the steps of City Hall, breaking the twilight quiet only when a passing car honked in support.

By 6:30, the gathering had swelled to approximately 2,000, according to San Francisco police, and Grove Street was closed to traffic.

Standing at the podium, Kate Kendall, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, exhorted the crowd to pay heed to history: gay rights have steadily gained ground.

“It is a shameful day and it is a day the state will live to regret,” she said.

The moment to many was bittersweet – their joy in the presidential selection of Barack Obama was diluted by California’s passage of Prop. 8.

“We won our country back but we lost a fundamental civil right,” said Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin. “We took two steps forward and one step back. It’s disappointing and sad. Now I put my hope and trust in the Supreme Court of California.”

Many at the vigil brought dogs and video cameras. San Francisco residents Natalie Naylor and Erika Linden brought their baby daughter, Ruby, a sweet-faced, wide-eyed symbol of the battle at hand.

“I’m hopeful that in five years, we will have full legal rights as a married couple,” said Linden. “Hopefully by the time our daughter is of legal age, all this will be a distant memory. And for her it will seem ridiculous that there was once a time when gay people could not get married.”

Source / SFGate

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Call to Action: Stop the Criminals on Television

Posted on November 6, 2008 by RagBlog


Monsters on Television
By Juan Cole / November 6, 2008

Paul Krugman, among my favorite political commentators, has spoken forthrightly of how during the past few years we have had “monsters” in office, naming Tom Delay, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. He complains that until recently, if an observer simply called them what they are, he or she was termed “shrill.” (h/t Daily Kos).

I could not agree more. But I’d like to take this discussion out of the realm of commentary and into that of action.

It is unacceptable that television news brings Tom Delay and Karl Rove on as bona fide political commentators, when both are criminals. The same thing goes for Oliver North. Delay has been indicted on corruption charges and had to step down from his seat in Congress. Rove led a campaign to have the press out a covert CIA operative who was attempting to stop Iranian nuclear proliferation, essentially blowing her cover and that of her contacts to Tehran (i.e. he is a traitor).

There was a time when individuals so tainted with crime made themselves unacceptable in polite society, including on television.

Instead, these monsters are being given air time. CNN brought Delay on to accuse Barack Obama of being a “Marxist.” To have that shameless embezzler given a platform to smear an honorable man just made my blood boil.

Folks, we need an organization that can blanket the corporate media with emails of complaint every time they bring on a criminal and parade him as a legitimate commentator. If they blow us off, it would be time to get up some advertiser boycotts.

This rehabilitation-by-media of criminals is one way the country keeps being shifted to the right every time the people find their voice. The Right gives a comfy perch on television to looney embezzlers and burglars and then wages campaigns with big money behind them to discredit even centrist leaders not in their back pockets.

I do not advocate criminalizing politics. I am not saying anything glib, such that all Bush administration figures are ipso facto criminals and should be denied a public voice. The United States government is a large bureaucracy and lots of civil servants and military have to serve whatever administration the public votes in. There are and were people on Bush’s National Security Council, e.g., who are honorable and trying to do their best by the United States.

All that I am saying is that where someone has to resign in disgrace and is actually indicted on serious corruption charges, like Delay, that should make that individual poison to television news! The Rove case is a little trickier, since he has not been indicted. But the Fitzgerald investigation showed that he tried to do something that was technically illegal. Presidential pardons also muddy these waters. Elliot Abrams lied to Congress over the Iran-Contra affair, but was pardoned by Bush senior and then actually let onto the National Security Council by W.! But a responsible citizen watchdog group could surely come up with a fair gauge of gross criminal or ethics violations that should put the individual out of the business of commenting on daily politics to millions of viewers.

Note that corporate media is much more careful about sexual scandal than it is about other kinds of crime. A politician or public figure so much as accused of sexual impropriety is often considered off limits (CNN’s Aaron Brown once sidelined Scott Ritter that way, over a date gone bad). Presumably this caution derives in part from fear of the emails they would get, and threats of advertiser boycotts, from the relgious Right.

Liberals have let themselves be walked all over by the Right, which is mostly much better funded and organized than the American Left, for too long. In part, it is because we are tolerant of a wide range of speech in a way that the Right is not. But I am not arguing for restricting the range of speech. People with Delay’s or Rove’s views deserve a hearing in the public sphere. It is just that we have no obligation to give a soapbox to monsters and criminals.

So the next time you see CNN or ABC, e.g., interview Tom Delay with a straight face, send a protest email and scream bloody murder and notice which corporation paid for Delay to be on the public airwaves. But better yet, can’t we form a facebook page for this with alerts, and get organized about it?

Source / Informed Comment

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Tim Wise : Tuesday Night Obama Made History; Now the Work Begins

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Zeborah Ball-Paul (right) and Theodora Beasley join 250,000 others in celebrating Barack Obama’s victory during Obama’s election night rally in Chicago’s Grant Park. Photo by Kuni Takahashi / Chicago Tribune.

Avoiding cynicism and overconfidence in the age of Obama.
By Tim Wise / November 5, 2008

Tonight, after Barack Obama was confirmed as the nation’s president-elect, I looked in on my children, as they lay sleeping. Though they are about as politically astute as kids can be, having reached only the ages of 7 and 5, there is no way they will be able to truly appreciate what has just happened in the land they call home. They do not possess the sense of history, or indeed, even a clear understanding of what history means, so as to adequately process what happened this evening, as they slumbered.

Even as our oldest cast her first grade vote for Obama in school today, and even as our youngest has become somewhat notorious for pointing to pictures of Sarah Palin on magazines and saying, “There’s that crazy lady who hates polar bears,” they remain, still, naive as to the nation they have inherited.

They do not really understand the tortured history of this place, especially as regards race. Oh, they know more than most–to live as my children makes it hard not to–but still, the magnitude of this occasion will likely not catch up to them until Barack Obama is finishing at least his first, if not his second term as president.

But that’s OK. Because I know what it means, and will make sure to tell them.

And before detailing what I perceive that meaning to be (both its expansiveness and limitations) let me say this, to some of those on the left–some of my friends and longtime compatriots in the struggle for social justice–who yet insist that there is no difference between Obama and McCain, between Democrats and Republicans, between Biden and Palin: Screw you.

If you are incapable of mustering pride in this moment, and if you cannot appreciate how meaningful this day is for millions of black folks who stood in lines for up to seven hours to vote, then your cynicism has become such an encumbrance as to render you all but useless to the liberation movement.

Indeed, those who cannot appreciate what has just transpired are so eaten up with nihilistic rage and hopelessness that I cannot but think that they are a waste of carbon, and actively thieving oxygen that could be put to better use by others.

This election does indeed matter. No, it is not the same as victory against the forces of injustice, and yes, Obama is a heavily compromised candidate, and yes, we will have to work hard to hold him accountable. But it matters nonetheless that he, and not the bloodthirsty bomber McCain, or the Christo-fascist, Palin, managed to emerge victorious.

Those who say it doesn’t matter weren’t with me on the south side of Chicago this past week, surrounded by a collection of amazing community organizers who go out and do the hard work every day of trying to help create a way out of no way for the marginalized. All of them know that an election is but a part of the solution, a tactic really, in a larger struggle of which they are a daily part; and none of them are so naive as to think that their jobs are now to become a cakewalk because of the election of Barack Obama. But all of them were looking forward to this moment. They haven’t the luxury of believing in the quixotic campaigns of Dennis Kucinich, or waiting around for the Green Party to get its act together and become something other than a pathetic caricature, symbolized by the utterly irrelevant and increasingly narcissistic presence of Ralph Nader on the electoral scene. And while Cynthia McKinney remains a pivotal figure in the struggle, the party to which she was tethered this year shows no more ability to sustain movement activity than it was eight years ago, and most everyone working in oppressed communities in this nation knows it.

It’s like this y’all: Jesse Jackson was weeping openly on national television. This is a man who was with Dr. King when he was murdered and he was bawling like a baby. So don’t tell me this doesn’t matter.

John Lewis–who had his head cracked open, has been arrested more times, and has probably spilled far more blood for the cause of justice than all the white, dreadlocked, self-proclaimed anarchists in this country combined–couldn’t be more thrilled at what has happened.

If he can see it, then frankly, who the hell are we not to?

Those who say this election means nothing, who insist that Obama, because he cozied up to Wall Street, or big business, is just another kind of evil no different than any other, are in serious risk of political self-immolation, and it is a burning they will richly deserve. That the victorious presidential candidate is actually a capitalist (contrary to the fevered imaginations of the right) is no more newsworthy than the fact that rain falls down and grass grows skyward. It is to be properly placed in the “no shit Sherlock,” file. That anyone would think it possible for someone who didn’t raise hundreds of millions of dollars to win–at this time in our history at least–only suggests that some on the left would prefer to engage politics from a place of aspirational innocence, rather than in the real world, where battles are won or lost.

Throngs pour out of Grant Park after Tuesday night Obama victory rally in Chicago’s Grant Park. Photo by Bonnie Trafelet / Chicago Tribune.

So let us be clear as to what tonight meant:

It was a defeat for the right-wing echo chamber and its rhetorical stormtroopers, foremost among them Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.

It was a defeat for the crazed mobs ever-present at McCain/Palin rallies, what with their venomous libels against Obama, their hate-addled brains spewing forth one after another racist and religiously chauvinistic calumny upon his head and those of his supporters.

It was a defeat for the internet rumor-pimps who insisted to all they could reach with a functioning e-mail address that Obama was not really a citizen.

Or perhaps he was, but he was a Muslim, or perhaps not a Muslim, but probably a black supremacist, or maybe not that either, but surely the anti-christ, and most definitely a baby-killer.

It was a defeat for those who believed McCain and Palin would be delivered the victory by the hand of almighty God, because their theological and eschatological vacuity so regularly gets in the way of their ability to think. As such, it was a setback for the religious fascists in the far-right Christian community whose belief that God is on their side has always made them especially dangerous. Now, having lost, perhaps at least some of these will be forced to ponder what went wrong. If we’re lucky, perhaps some will suffer the kind of crisis of faith that often prefaces a complete nervous breakdown. Either way, it’s nice just to ruin their Young-Earth-Creationist-I-Have-an-Angel-on-My-Shoulder day.

It was a defeat for the demagogues who tried in so many ways to push the buttons of white racism–the old-fashioned kind, or what I call Racism 1.0–by using thinly-veiled racialized language throughout the campaign.

Appeals to Joe Six-Pack, “values voters,” blue-collar voters, or hockey moms, though never explicitly racialized, were transparent to all but the most obtuse, as were terms like “terrorist” when used to describe Obama.

Likewise, the attempt to race-bait the economic crisis by blaming it on loans to poor folks of color through the Community Reinvestment Act, or community activists like the folks at ACORN, failed, and this matters. No, it doesn’t mean that white America has rejected racism. Indeed, I have been quite deliberate for months about pointing out the way that racism 1.0 may be traded in only to be replaced by racism 2.0 (which allows whites to still view most folks of color negatively but carve out exceptions for those few who make us feel comfortable and who we see as “different”). And yet, that tonight was a drubbing for that 1.0 version of racism still matters.

And tonight was a victory for a few things too.

It was a victory for youth, and their social and political sensibilities. It was the young, casting away the politics of their parents and even grandparents, and turning the corner to a new day, perhaps naively, and too optimistic about the road from here, but nonetheless in a way that has historically almost always been good for the country. Much as youth were inspired by a relatively moderate John F. Kennedy (who was, on balance, far less progressive than Obama in many ways), and much as they then formed the frontline troops for so much of the social justice activism of the following fifteen years, so too can such a thing be forseen now. That Kennedy may have been quite restrained in his social justice sensibilities did not matter: the young people whose energy he helped unleash took things in their own direction and outgrew him rather quickly in their progression to the left.

Tonight was also a victory for the possibility of greater cross-racial alliance building. Although Obama failed to win most white votes, and although it is no doubt true that many of the whites who did vote for him nonetheless hold to any number of negative and racist stereotypes about the larger black and brown communities of this nation, it it still the case that black, brown and white worked together in this effort as they have rarely done before. And many whites who worked for Obama, precisely because they got to see, and hear, and feel the racist vitriol still animating far too many of our nation’s people, will now be wiser for the experience when it comes to understanding how much more work remains to be done on the racial justice front. Let us build on that newfound knowledge, and that newfound energy, and create real white allyship with community-based leaders of color as we move forward in the years to come.

But now for the other side of things.

First and foremost, please know that none of these victories will amount to much unless we do that which needs to be done so as to turn a singular event about one man, into a true social movement (which, despite what some claim, it is not yet and has never been).

And so it is back to work. Oh yes, we can savor the moment for a while, for a few days, perhaps a week. But well before inauguration day we will need to be back on the job, in the community, in the streets, where democracy is made, demanding equity and justice in places where it hasn’t been seen in decades, if ever. Because for all the talk of hope and change, there is nothing–absolutely, positively nothing–about real change that is inevitable. And hope, absent real pressure and forward motion to actualize one’s dreams, is sterile and even dangerous. Hope, absent commitment is the enemy of change, capable of translating to a giving away of one’s agency, to a relinquishing of the need to do more than just show up every few years and push a button or pull a lever.

This means hooking up now with the grass roots organizations in the communities where we live, prioritizing their struggles, joining and serving with their constituents, following leaders grounded in the community who are accountable not to Barack Obama, but the people who helped elect him. Let Obama follow, while the people lead, in other words.

For we who are white it means going back into our white spaces and challenging our brothers and sisters, parents, neighbors, colleagues and friends–and ourselves–on the racial biases that still too often permeate their and our lives, and making sure they know that the success of one man of color does not equate to the eradication of systemic racial inequity.

So are we ready for the heavy lifting? This was, after all, merely the warmup exercise, somewhat akin to stretching before a really long run. Or perhaps it was the first lap, but either way, now the baton has been handed to you, to us. We must not, cannot, afford to drop it. There is too much at stake.

The worst thing that could happen now would be for us to go back to sleep; to allow the cool poise of Obama’s prose to lull us into slumber like the cool on the underside of the pillow. For in the light of day, when fully awake, it becomes impossible not to see the incompleteness of the task so far.

[Tim Wise is a preeminent writer and lecturer on racism and an anti-racism activist.]

Source / Progressives for Obama

Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

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Mr. Ayers’ Neighborbood : Hanging With Bill on Election Day

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

From the stoop: Bill Ayers outside his home in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Nov. 4, 2008. Photo by Peter Slevin / Washington Post.

‘Ayers seemed curiously calm and cheerful about the way he had been made an issue in the campaign.’
By David Remnick / November 4, 2008

Early this morning, the Obama family voted at the Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School, in Hyde Park. Long after they had gone, the lawn in front of the school was filled with reporters, mostly Europeans, filming voters. While I was talking to an eight-year-old kid dressed as George Washington, my colleague Peter Slevin, of the Washington Post was across the street, knocking on the door of someone else who had voted at the Shoesmith School this morning: William Ayers.

Ayers has avoided reporters ever since he became an election talking point, scratch pole, and general sensation. But now he answered the door of his three-story row house, and I joined the discussion. Ayers is sixty-four and has earrings in both ears. He wore jeans and a Riley T-shirt—Riley the kid from “Boondocks.” The day was fall-bright and 50th Street was filled with fallen gold leaves. Ayers waved to neighbors and kids as they went by on the sidewalk. He was, for the first time in a long while, in an expansive mood, making clear that, in all the months his name has been at the forefront of the campaign, he and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn—ex-leaders of the Weather Underground and longtime educators and activists in the community—have been watching a lot of cable television, not least Fox.

One night, Ayers recalled, he and Dohrn were watching Bill O’Reilly, who was going on about “discovering” Ayers’s 1974 manifesto, “Prairie Fire.” “I had to laugh,” Ayers said. “No one read it when it was first issued!” He said that he laughed, too, when he listened to Sarah Palin’s descriptions of Obama “palling around with terrorists.” In fact, Ayers said that he knew Obama only slightly: “I think my relationship with Obama was probably like that of thousands of others in Chicago and, like millions and millions of others, I wished I knew him better.”

Ayers said that while he hasn’t been bothered by the many threats—“and I’m not complaining”—the calls and e-mails he has received have been “pretty intense.” “I got two threats in one day on the Internet,” he said, referring to an incident that took place last summer when he was sitting in his office at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he has taught education for two decades. “The first one said there was a posse coming to shoot me, and the second said they were going to kidnap me and water-board me. This friend of mine, a university cop, said, ‘Gosh, I hope the guy who’s coming to shoot you gets here first.’”

Ayers seemed curiously calm and cheerful about the way he had been made an issue in the campaign. He seemed unbothered to have been part of what he called “the Swiftboating” process of the 2008 campaign.

“It’s all guilt by association,” Ayers said. “They made me into a cartoon character—they threw me up onstage just to pummel me. I felt from the beginning that the Obama campaign had to run the Obama campaign and I have to run my life.” Ayers said that once his name became part of the campaign maelstrom he never had any contact with the Obama circle. “That’s not my world,” he said.

As the polling day drew into the late afternoon, the level of security in Hyde Park matched the level of anticipation. Obama’s house, four blocks away, was surrounded.

Ayers said he felt “a lot of sympathy” for the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, “who was treated grotesquely and unfairly” by the media. He said that Martin Luther King Jr. was, in his time, far more radical than Wright: “Wright’s a wimp compared to Martin Luther King—he had a fiercer tone.” Ayers was referring to the speeches King gave late in his life in opposition to the Vietnam War and on the subject of economic equality. “Martin Luther King was not a saint,” Ayers said. “He was an angry pilgrim.” Ayers said that he had commiserated recently with yet another former Hyde Park neighbor (and fellow Little League coach), the Palestinian-American scholar Rashid Khalidi, now at Columbia University, who has also been a punching bag of the right wing in recent weeks.

Across the street, neighborhood kids chanted “O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!” and “Yes we can!” for the cameras. Ayers smiled, looking a little like a more boomer Fred MacMurray in an episode of “My Three Sons.”

Ayers said that he had never meant to imply, in an interview with the Times, published coincidentally on 9/11, that he somehow wished he and the Weathermen had committed further acts of violence in the old days. Instead, he said, “I wish I had done more, but it doesn’t mean I wish we’d bombed more shit.” Ayers said that he had never been responsible for violence against other people and was acting to end a war in Vietnam in which “thousands of people were being killed every week.”

“While we did claim several extreme acts, they were acts of extreme radicalism against property,” he said. “We killed no one and hurt no one. Three of our people killed themselves.” And yet he was not without regrets. He mocked one of his earlier books, co-written with Dohrn, saying that, while it still is reflective of his radical and activist politics today, he was guilty of “rhetoric that’s juvenile and inflated—it is what it is.”

“I wish I had been wiser,” Ayers said. “I wish I had been more effective, I wish I’d been more unifying, I wish I’d been more principled.”

Ayers said that his life hasn’t been much altered by recent months, though he decided to postpone the re-release of his memoir, “Fugitive Days”—“I didn’t want it to be put in the meat grinder of this moment.” Two books he co-edited will also be republished soon: “City Kids, City Schools” and “City Kids, City Teachers.”

It was late afternoon, and Ayers was talking about his plans for the evening: he was heading to Grant Park with some friends for what they assumed would be a mass victory party. “This is an achingly exciting moment,” he said.

As we were getting ready to go, after an hour of front-stoop conversation, a neighbor came by and ironically reminded Ayers of the event that he and his wife held for Obama in 1995 when Obama was making his run for the Illinois state senate. “Everyone, including you, wants to have a coffee here,” he joked to the neighbor. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do!”

Source / The New Yorker

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Graphic Change is Coming

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Graphic image by Larry Ray / The Rag Blog

What to say after the historic, emotion filled hours we have just witnessed?

Instead of writing, I was motivated to use my graphic design and artistic side to produce this “first post-Obama post.” I hope you let your own eyes bore into this image and that it speaks to you as you take a moment to decompress compressed feelings, both mine and yours.

Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / November 5, 2008

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Ralph Nader about Obama : Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom?

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Updated November 6, 2008

I originally posted this article with the headline ‘Ralph Nader calls Obama “Uncle Tom.”‘ This was inaccurate; it did not correctly reflect Nader’s words. Nader actually said, “His choice, basically, is whether he’s going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations.”

However, even when placed in this context, I believe Nader’s comments to have been jarringly inappropriate. The social usage of the term “Uncle Tom” has always been explicitly or implicitly racist and it is certainly out of line when uttered by a white man.

Which is not to say that Nader’s speculation about what role Obama will play in relation to the corporate domination of America is inappropriate. That is a question we are duty-bound to ask of Barack Obama throughout his presidency.

Ralph Nader, a man whose historical credentials as a social critic are impeccable, continues to have an astute analysis of the problems confronting America. But he has become essentially tone deaf and, to this observer, greatly functions as an obstacle to the basic social change he so correctly demands.

Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / November 6, 2008


‘It’s a stunning bit of television and a lot of people missed it.’
By Tim Goodman / November 5, 2008

See Video of Nader on FOX News, Below.

As if Ralph Nader wasn’t a big enough tool already, he went on Fox News on election night – the very night Barack Obama broke the racial barrier on the presidency – and uttered the words “Uncle Tom.” Not only that, after being called out on the words (which he initially said in a radio interview) by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith – and given a point-blank chance to apologize and take them back, Nader said he wouldn’t.

It’s a stunning bit of television and a lot of people missed it. (No doubt a good portion of the Bay Area, not exactly a bastion of Fox News watchers, did).

Up until he spewed out the words, the biggest shocker in this scenario was A) That anybody still cared enough to talk to a washed-up political hack like Nader and B) That Nader could actually hear Smith call him on the offensive language. Nader rarely stops his mouth moving – he’s always so caught up in his monotonous blather and meritless belief that he’s making points people want to listen to.

Give Shep Smith a lot of credit here. “Really? Ralph Nader – what was that?” And then he just fried Nader. (I love the look on his face when Nader calls him a bully – it’s that same look people should be giving Nader right about now for completely not getting it.)

So, let’s go to the big board here for the tally: Nader helps the Democrats lose the election in 2000 and then slanders the Democratic winner in 2008? Well played, Ralph. At least this moment brings you (temporarily) back out of obscurity and irrelevance.

Ralph Nader on FOX News

Source / The Bastard Machine / SF Gate

Thanks to Harry Edwards / The Rag Blog

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Baylor : Obama Signs Burned; Noose Hung from Tree

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Noose. Photo by AP.

University officials denounce racial actions on election day.
October 5, 2008

WACO — Baylor University officials said they are investigating an apparent noose hanging from a tree the day Barack Obama was elected the nation’s first black president.

Campus authorities also responded to a barbecue pit fire where several Obama campaign signs were believed to have been burned, interim president David E. Garland said.

“These events are deeply disturbing to us and are antithetical to the mission of Baylor University,” Garland said in a statement Wednesday. “We categorically denounce and will not tolerate racist acts of any kind on our campus.”

On Tuesday afternoon at the world’s largest Baptist university, some students notified officials that a rope resembling a noose was in a campus tree, Garland said. Campus police took the rope and are investigating.

“We believe that the incidents on our campus yesterday were irresponsible acts committed by a few individuals,” Garland said.

No students had been taken into custody as of Wednesday afternoon, Baylor spokeswoman Lori Fogleman said.

Source / AP / Google News

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Franklin’s Advice to Barack Obama (Channeled Through Paul Richard Harris)

Posted on November 6, 2008 by RagBlog


Remember, remember, the fifth of November
By Paul Richard Harris / November 5, 2008

On this day in 1605, for those of us who weren’t there, an event known as the Gunpowder Plot unwound in London. A group of disaffected Catholics, apparently upset that their new King, James the First (also known to the Scots as James the Sixth) hadn’t proved to be more tolerant of Catholics. In fact, he had ordered all the Catholic priests out of England.

So a group of plotters arranged for thirty-six barrels of gunpowder to be placed in the cellar of a house next to the Houses of Parliament. By all accounts, there was enough firepower that a large part of the City of London would have been destroyed. The plot appears to have unwound when it occurred to one of the conspirators that blowing up Parliament would also kill a lot of Catholics. Word of the plot was leaked, and authorities arrived to find one Guy Fawkes sitting on the gunpowder, awaiting the order to light the fuse. Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night, has been celebrated ever since.

Had the plot succeeded, British history would have been forever altered. Given England’s international eminence over the next couple of centuries, much of world history would have been very different.

But what about this fifth of November? Has the world changed because of what happened in the United States yesterday? Some, yes; but not a lot.

Since it became obvious last night that the United States had elected Barack Obama as its next president, commentators and ordinary people all over were congratulating the US on overcoming its history. Frequent references were made to Martin Luther King’s dream of a day when the US would not judge a man by the colour of his skin, but by the content of his character.

Is that really what happened? I don’t think so.

Exit polls revealed that only a small percentage of voters claim to have been influenced by race. Frankly, I’m not buying it. Simply by listening to pundits and voters discussing the results on the morning after, it is clear that race did matter. It seems clear to me that a great many voters did indeed judge this man on the colour of his skin. Some chose him because he looked like them, and some didn’t choose him because he didn’t.

Realistically, though, that doesn’t really matter. While there is at least some evidence that Obama attracted a great many votes based on colour, he was clearly an attractive candidate and distinctly different from his main opponent. Let’s give some credit and accept that a lot of Americans voted for him because of the content of his character.

Obama is clearly charismatic, thoughtful, intelligent, and committed. He is the first US president who is not descended from Northern European stock, and his views and character are certainly informed by his heritage and his family history. It seems entirely reasonable to believe that this man sees people outside the United States as people—not just as raw material or cheap labour. And in that sense, this is a different world.

But before the bloom is off the rose, let’s also remember that much of yesterday’s result is a clear repudiation of George Bush and his simple-minded presidency. As well, McCain likely suffered because of the economic turmoil in the US. Although there is great expectation that Obama is going to fix that mess quickly, no one should be holding his or her breath for it. It isn’t going to happen.

The election probably doesn’t represent a paradigm shift in American values. There is clearly still a big divide between the so-called red and blue states, there is huge inequity within the US, and most US citizens still see themselves as the most important people on the planet. America is all that matters to most of them.

And if there were fears among some that ‘liberals’ were coming to take over the nation and enslave everyone’s first born, you would be hard-pressed to see that in the results of the vote, and in the ballot questions in many states. There is a mixed result in those ballot questions that suggests many aspects of the American psyche are profoundly conservative, while others are shockingly liberal. Go figure.

But all of that aside, is the election of Barack Obama going to make a difference in the US and in the world? Sure. But it won’t be long before the other shoe drops. Everyone will soon realize that whatever change is going to come, it will arrive slowly and will generally fail to meet expectations.

Some changes will be sudden and dramatic. First, the level of intelligence in the White House will have jumped by an order of magnitude. It has been eight years since there was a resident president with an IQ higher than a used tea bag. And the level of discourse should certainly improve—Obama is very intelligent, seemingly very decent, seems to be a man of principle, and has a sense of civility and good manners that Washington has not seen in a long time. Perhaps ever.

But the real changes that the US needs, aren’t going to happen. There is nothing Obama can do (even if he wanted) about reforming the political machine, the economic rape of the middle and lower class, or the Pentagon. In the tough economy he will inherit, there is lot of his campaign pledge package that is simply out of reach. Unless, of course, he takes a page or two out of the Franklin Roosevelt playbook. But in a United States that is fervently averse to anything smelling even remotely of what they euphemistically call ‘socialism’, that is not likely to be starter for him.

He has said he wants out of Iraq, but it is hard to determine if that is because he recognizes the moral shame of the war, or just because it’s costing too much money. Either way, he will have the US war-monger class—a substantial constituency—to deal with. And that is going to be a hard sell. Interestingly, he has spoken of expanding the war in Afghanistan. History has apparently taught him nothing; even high school students are smart enough to know about the failure of every attempt to subdue that country.

Obama will be received in the rest of the world as a breath of welcome air, but unless he is able to change the relationship between the US and everyone else, that air will soon become stale. His best bet would be an attempt, again, to live up to Franklin Roosevelt.

In 1933, at his first inauguration, Roosevelt espoused what he called his Good Neighbour Policy. It contained seven simple but clear proposals for how the US could fit into the world community without lowering its own standards and expectations.

Principle One: The first step toward being a good neighbour is to stop being a bad neighbour.

Principle Two: Our nation’s foreign policy agenda must be tied to broad U.S. interests. To be effective and win public support, a new foreign policy agenda must work in tandem with domestic policy reforms to improve security, quality of life, and basic rights in our own country.

Principle Three: Given that our national interests, security, and social well-being are interconnected to those of other peoples, U.S. foreign policy must be based on reciprocity rather than domination, mutual well-being rather than cutthroat competition, and cooperation rather than confrontation.

Principle Four: As the world’s foremost power, the United States will be best served by exercising responsible global leadership and partnership rather than seeking global dominance.

Principle Five: An effective security policy must be two-pronged. Genuine national safety requires both a well-prepared military capable of repelling attacks on our country and a proactive commitment to improving national and personal security through non-military measures and international cooperation.

Principle Six: The U.S. government should support sustainable development, first at home and then abroad, through its macroeconomic, trade, investment, and aid policies.

Principle Seven: A peaceful and prosperous global neighbourhood depends on effective governance at national, regional, and international levels. Effective governance is accountable, transparent, and representative.

Even at the time of he was giving this speech, FDR knew he was not going to sell to the American people the notion that they should be part of the world community. The arrogance and hubris that drove the building of America had long ago precluded the notion that anyone else had relevance or was entitled to their place in the sun. The United States must rule, although it wasn’t until after World War II that they began to export their military might to make sure they would rule.

Unless Obama is able to convince the world that he is moving toward those seven principles, then the world on fifth of November will be just like it was on the fourth.

© Copyright 2008 by AxisofLogic.com

Paul Richard Harris is an Axis of Logic editor and columnist, based in Canada. He can be reached at paul@axisoflogic.com.

Source / Axis of Logic

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Obama Receives a "Request" from Hamid Karzai

Posted on November 6, 2008 by RagBlog


Karzai ‘demands’ Obama end civilian deaths
By Noor Khan / November 5, 2008

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Afghan President Hamid Karzai made an immediate demand of Barack Obama on Wednesday, saying the U.S. president-elect must prevent civilian casualties as Afghan villagers alleged that air strikes killed or wounded dozens of women and children in a wedding party.

No Afghan officials could immediately confirm the number of alleged casualties, but Mr. Karzai referred to the incident at a news conference held to congratulate Mr. Obama on his U.S. presidential election victory.

Mr. Karzai said he hopes the election will “bring peace to Afghanistan, life to Afghanistan and prosperity to the Afghan people and the rest of the world.” He applauded America for its “courage” in electing Mr. Obama.

But he also used the occasion to immediately press Mr. Obama to find a way to prevent civilians casualties in operations by foreign forces. He then said air strikes had caused deaths in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province.

“Our demand is that there will be no civilian casualties in Afghanistan. We cannot win the fight against terrorism with air strikes,” Mr. Karzai said. “This is my first demand of the new president of the United States — to put an end to civilian casualties.”

The U.S. military said it had no immediate information on the incident. Canadian ground troops operate in the region, but it was known if Canada’s military had any involvement.

The alleged air strikes come only three months after the Afghan government found that a U.S. operation killed some 90 civilians in western Afghanistan. A U.S. report said 33 civilians died in that attack.

Another incident with a high number of civilian casualties could severely strain U.S.-Afghan relations.

Civilian deaths have long caused friction between Mr. Karzai’s government and the U.S. and NATO. But following the U.S. operation in western Afghanistan in August, relations between Afghanistan and the United States were seriously damaged. Mr. Karzai called for a review of operations by U.S. forces in Afghan villages.

An Afghan government commission found the Aug. 22 attack on the village of Aziziabad killed some 90 Afghan civilians — a finding backed by a preliminary United Nations report. The U.S. military at first said only 30 militants were killed and no civilians. But days later the military said up to seven civilians had died.

However, after video of Aziziabad emerged days later showing what appeared to be dozens of bodies, the U.S. appointed a U.S.-based one-star general to investigate. His report found the U.S. operation killed 33 civilians. The report said U.S. troops were justified in firing on the village because militants had first fired on them and wounded a U.S. soldier.

Source / Globe and Mail

Here’s what caused this request from Hamid Karzai:

Afghanis protest civilian casualties.

Air strikes kill dozens of wedding guests
By Jessica Leeder and Alex Strick van Linschoten / November 4, 2008

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Dozens of Afghan civilians are dead and dozens more are wounded after a series of air strikes aimed at Taliban fighters fell short of their target and exploded in the middle of a wedding party in a mountainous region north of Kandahar city, tribal elders and wedding guests told The Globe and Mail on Tuesday.

Survivors of the attacks, which occurred in the village of Wech Baghtu in the district of Shah Wali Kowt on Monday evening, said the majority of the dead and injured were women – the bombs struck while male and female wedding guests were segregated, as is customary in Kandahar province.

They said the bodies of at least 36 women have been identified, and hundreds more men and women have been injured. Local leaders have yet to establish a firm casualty count because many of the victims remain buried beneath rubble, said Abdul Hakim Khan, a tribal elder from the district.

In interviews at Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar city, where at least 16 male victims and dozens of female victims were being treated Tuesday night, several villagers described the attack. While Mr. Khan corroborated much of the information witnesses gave during a separate interview, it was not possible to independently verify their account or the numbers of dead and injured they gave.

Witnesses gave conflicting statements about the identity of troops who arrived at the scene after the air attacks, with some saying they saw Canadian soldiers while others said they saw U.S. troops.

It was not immediately clear which international forces were responsible for the air strikes.

A Canadian military source denied that Canada, which has responsibility for Kandahar province, had any involvement. “Task Force Kandahar has not been in any significant military engagement in Shah Vali Kowt in the last two days,” the source said.

The sparsely populated mountainous region surrounding the village is a known Taliban stronghold. In the past the area has been a target of various anti-insurgent special operations.

Mr. Khan said his village is situated at the foot of a mountain frequented by Taliban insurgents. At the time of the wedding, insurgents on the mountain had attempted to attack troops in the area with an improvised explosive device, Mr. Khan said. Fighting broke out between troops and insurgents after the Taliban began firing from the top of the mountain, which triggered the air strike, he said.

Abdul Zahir, 24, the brother of the bride, said fighting broke out between Taliban and international troops near a crossroads in the village early on Monday. Wedding guests first heard shots from the mountain about 4 p.m. Air strikes followed about half an hour later and lasted about five hours, he said.

While Mr. Zahir was not injured, his sister was severely hurt, as were three of his young cousins, Noor Ahmad, Hazrat Sadiq and Mohammad Rafiq, who range in age from three to five years old. During the interview, they lay sprawled out next to him on tiny hospital cots. Mr. Zahir said that in all eight members of his family were killed, including two of his brothers, Qahir and Twahir, and his grandmother. Fourteen other family members were injured.

The bombing wasn’t the end of the ordeal, witnesses said. When the air strikes were over, they said, international troops arrived in three sand-coloured armoured vehicles.

Villagers reported they were intimidated and prevented from leaving to seek medical treatment while the soldiers took pictures.

The governor of Kandahar province will hold a press conference on the incident Wednesday morning, a spokesman said.

“We are collecting information right now about this incident. It’s not complete,” the spokesman said.

Alex Strick van Linschoten is a freelancer based in Kandahar

Source / Globe and Mail

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