Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
February 12, 2019
Hello All – While the mainstream media continues to publish articles about the internal crisis in Venezuela, there is almost no news about what the Trump/Bolton administration is planning. Are we going in? On this topic, the news scene is quiet, too quiet in my opinion. I am old enough (barely) to remember the New York Times news blackout preceding Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. What are the CIA and the Special Forces up to in our bases in next-door Colombia? What's the Navy doing at our bases on the islands just off shore of Venezuela? We read about the secretive cargo planes landing weapons in Venezuela; what's that about? Why isn't the mainstream media more curious? In short, I will be surprised if we do not look back on these weeks as a time when Trump/Bolton were putting our invasion ducks in a row, and we were kept in the dark.
On the surface, it looks like the US invasion is off to a slow start. The Venezuelan high command has not had many defections. The repression of the Opposition demonstrations has not produced a high level of martyrdom. The refusal to allow US/Opposition intervention in the guise of humanitarian goods and services has not produced a crisis requiring the US Marines; in fact, the Colombian Red Cross has refused to support this "humanitarian charade." As Venezuela's slow-motion coup has ambled along, more voices are calling for ending the sanctions and organizing peace negotiations or at least discussions, while Democrats and others who support regime change are refusing to endorse US military intervention. Sanctions may produce
Outside the mainstream media, a great deal of information is emerging about the divisions within the Venezuelan Opposition, with little support for Juan Guaido. It is also clear that the Maduro government retains a substantial amount of support, and the even strong opponents of Maduro oppose both the US sanctions and the threatened USA military invasion. In other words, the Trump/Bolton carrots and sticks are not producing either a coup against Maduro or an armed counter-revolution. Acting President Bolton has signaled that, while the immediate target is Venezuela, the ultimate goal is regime change in Cuba.
But if the US surge into Latin America stalls at Venezuela, what then?
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and "Anti-Semitism"
Newly elected congresswoman Ilhan Omar got pounced on this week for a set of tweets that brought accusations of anti-Semitism from both Republicans and Democrats, including the Democratic leadership. In essence, she stated that pro-Israel money played an important role in determining US policy towards Israel; and, when challenged, pointed her finger at the major pro-Israel lobbying organization in the USA, AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee). Faced with a command that she probably couldn't refuse, Omar made a gracious apology. Glenn Greenwald, the Intercept journalist whose original posts elicited her tweets, came to Omar's defense in this hard hitting, concise rebuttal to the claims that it is unseemly, indeed anti-Semitic, to raise the question of AIPAC's malign influence when in polite company. Indeed, the political power of AIPAC is legendary, not only for funding campaigns, but also for shaping the boundaries of what is permissible and what is impermissible in talking about Israel. An illuminating instance of the Israel Lobby's efforts to stifle incorrect thinking about Israel appeared just this week, in the concluding part of a documentary series from Aljazeera ("Marketing the Occupation"), in which a reporter goes "undercover" to infiltrate an organization whose mission is to disrupt/prevent expressions of Palestinian support.
Despite Omar's apology, it is unlikely that this matter will go away. It's not just the Republicans who will seek to gain traction by casting as anti-Semitic Omar and the handful of other Palestinian supporters in Congress; the Democratic leadership has strong motivation to put this eruption of dissent back in its box. For the Democrats, "Israel," "BDS," and "anti-Semitism" are on the cusp of a savage inner-part fight. While just over half of the Senate Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, voted in favor of the Republicans' numero uno piece of legislation a week ago, which allows/encourages state and local governments to pass laws criminalizing support for BDS, et al., six of the seven Democratic presidential hopefuls in the Senate voted "No." (Indeed, they have their fingers in the wind, as polls report that three-quarters of USA voters oppose legislation that punishes businesses or contractors who support BDS.) It is also relevant that many of the most prominent Democratic dissenters on Israel -- such as Representatives Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, and Tlaib -- are part of the party's left wing, disrupting business as usual. For those who see the need to increase the power of the radicals within the Democratic Party, this is no time to stand back from the fray, as if the outcome doesn't matter. It does.
The Peoples' Shutdown?
This afternoon's news indicates that President Trump is "not happy" with the budget compromise worked out by the congressional Democrats and Republicans, but he will not say (so far) whether or not he will sign off on what must be passed to "keep the government open." If Trump refuses to sign off, claiming that it's his wall/way or highway, the People may just step in. Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, is proposing demonstrations of airline/airport workers next Saturday (the day after the possible shut-down begins). An informative article in The Nation proposes that, if the government is shut down, Saturday, February 16th be made National Stayaway Day. It was evident that the last shut-down was ended when airline flight schedules began to tremble. I think it is unlikely that federal workers, locked out without a paycheck for four weeks in a row, will be so willing to work without pay for another few weeks of government incompetence. Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, watch out!
News Notes
For those who missed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's magnificent primer on the corruption inherent in how our elections are funded, check it out. As of noon today, the segment of her testimony on C-SPAN has been seen by 37 million people.
Millions of people last saw Kim Phuc when a picture of her taken in 1972, during the Vietnam War, in which as a nine year old she was running naked and suffering from napalm burns, earned a Pulitzer prize for photographer Nick Ut. She is now 55, lives in Canada, and was recently honored for her support of Unesco and children wounded in war, and for speaking out against violence and hatred. Read more about her here.
Old friend from grad school Robert Brenner is now a famous historian and one of the most astute analysts of our political/economic moment. He recently spoke on radio station KPFK on the topic of "The state of the economy is NOT strong." I think you will find this an illuminating presentation.
Thirteen thousand nurses at three NYC hospitals are preparing to go on strike in March if their demands are not met. Their leading demand is an improvement in the patient-nursing ratio, a plague now in hospitals everywhere, whereby hospital management attempts to cut costs to increase profits and management salaries. Among the many nurses interviews for this article, Michelle Gonzalez, a nurse in the intensive care unit at Montefiore, said: "I'm ready to strike. I won't just be an unquestioning part of a machine. I will stop the machine if that is what it takes to win better standards for my patients." Notice the similarity to the recent teachers' strikes; wages and benefits, yes, but the foremost demand is to be able to do your job effectively, for the benefit of the people/children you are helping. [Read the Article]
Two Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli fire last Friday at the border in Gaza; an additional 32 were wounded by bullets. Since March, when the protests began, 295 Palestinians have been killed and about 6,000 wounded by live first. Read this useful/tragic report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
And finally, "Medicare-For-All" dreamers will be interested to learn that Nancy Pelosi's point person for healthcare report privately told insurance executives not to worry about Democrats pushing "Medicare-for All." Maybe he was just putting them on. We report, you decide.
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Wednesday, February 13th – Two public hearings – at 2:30 PM and 6:30 PM – and an important press conference at 1 PM, will be held at the White Plains Public Library, 100 Martine Ave. in White Plains, to address the county's public utilities regulators on the need to push for more renewable energy and end our reliance on fossil fuels. The immediate issue if Con Ed's extortion ploy/moratorium on gas hook-ups. A complicated issue; for more information, go to the CFOW Facebook page.
Sunday, February 17th – CFOW stalwart Elisa Zazzera will speak about our food system – how our food is produced and brought to us - and what "community supported agriculture" (CSAs) can do to connect us more closely to the source. At the Hastings library (Maple Ave. and Spring St.), at 2 p.m.
Sunday, March 3rd – Please join us for the next monthly meeting of CFOW. At these meetings we review events of the past month and make action-plans for the month to come. We meet at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 p.m. Everyone is welcome at these meetings!
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or climate change, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We (usually) meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. And if you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. In addition to the excellent Featured Essays and the set of readings on Venezuela, I encourage you to check out Lawrence Wittner's article ("War & Peace") on the dangers of nuclear rearmament, now underway; an update on the nearly secret war in Somalia; a Democracy Now! interview with Dair Jamail, author of the new book about our climate crisis, The End of Ice; several articles about the refugee/immigration crisis at our southern border; and an excellent article ("Our History") by Jill Lepore about USA socialist icon, Eugene V. Debs. Read on!
Rewards!
Newsletter "Rewards" are a service to stalwart readers who seek an oasis of sanity before plunging in to the peace & justice news from the past week. First up this week is the long-awaited film from CFOW friend James Dean Conklin, "Go Without Fear/A Meditation on Walking Pilgrimage." The film follows a zen monk who is answering Buddha's last request that those wishing to know what Buddha was up to should make a pilgrimage to certain spots. Several years in the making; I think everyone will enjoy and be inspired by the film. To see the film and learn more, go here. Almost half a century ago, Paul Simon gave us his song, "American Tune." Now we have a new version from Kurt Elling, one that seems to me reflecting deep reflection on the even greater troubles of our era. Thanks to BT for this. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
Yellow Vests and Red Unions Strike Together [France]
By Richard Greeman, ZNet [February 10, 2019]
---- On Tues, Feb. 5, as the Macron government pushed harsh repressive laws against demonstrators through the National Assembly, the Yellow Vests joined with France's unions for the first time in a day-long, nation-wide "General Strike." At the very moment when in Paris the lower house was voting to implement Macron's proposed laws designed to suppress public demonstrations (a legal right protected in both the French Constitution and the U.N. Human Rights Declaration) tens of thousands of their constituents were out in the streets all over the country demonstrating and striking against Macron's authoritarian, neo-liberal government. The demonstrators' demands ranged from better salaries and retirement benefits, restoration of public services, equitable tax codes, an end to police brutality, and banning the use of "flash-balls" on demonstrators, to Macron's resignation and the instauration of participatory democracy. Deaf to the angry people's legitimate grievances, unwilling to deal with them, Macron has given himself no other choice than to legislate new repressive legal restrictions to suppress their continued free expression. This resort to open repression can only serve to discredit the government's handling of a crisis largely of his own making, treating a spontaneous social movement among the 99% as if it were a terrorist or fascist conspiracy. The unpopular President's repressive tactics will inevitably backfire on him. The French are extremely jealous of their liberties, and Macron's monarchical arrogance can only remind them of how their ancestors dealt with Louis XVI. [Read More]
---- On Tues, Feb. 5, as the Macron government pushed harsh repressive laws against demonstrators through the National Assembly, the Yellow Vests joined with France's unions for the first time in a day-long, nation-wide "General Strike." At the very moment when in Paris the lower house was voting to implement Macron's proposed laws designed to suppress public demonstrations (a legal right protected in both the French Constitution and the U.N. Human Rights Declaration) tens of thousands of their constituents were out in the streets all over the country demonstrating and striking against Macron's authoritarian, neo-liberal government. The demonstrators' demands ranged from better salaries and retirement benefits, restoration of public services, equitable tax codes, an end to police brutality, and banning the use of "flash-balls" on demonstrators, to Macron's resignation and the instauration of participatory democracy. Deaf to the angry people's legitimate grievances, unwilling to deal with them, Macron has given himself no other choice than to legislate new repressive legal restrictions to suppress their continued free expression. This resort to open repression can only serve to discredit the government's handling of a crisis largely of his own making, treating a spontaneous social movement among the 99% as if it were a terrorist or fascist conspiracy. The unpopular President's repressive tactics will inevitably backfire on him. The French are extremely jealous of their liberties, and Macron's monarchical arrogance can only remind them of how their ancestors dealt with Louis XVI. [Read More]
Trump Is Launching a New, Terrifying Arms Race
By Michael T. Klare, The Nation [February 8, 2019]
---- Ostensibly, President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, announced on February 1, is intended to coerce Russia into admitting that it has violated the accord and then to destroy any weapons so identified. But the closer one looks, the more obvious it becomes that administration hawks, led by National Security Adviser John Bolton, have no interest in preserving the arms-control agreement but rather seek to embark on an arms race with Russia and China—a dynamic that will take us into dangerous territory not visited since the Cold War. … It is vital to remember why such weapons were banned in the first place: They provide an easy bridge from conventional to nuclear war. Should the United States deploy hundreds of ballistic missiles in Europe and Asia aimed at Russian and Chinese territory, Moscow and Beijing would almost certainly expand their nuclear arsenals and could even adopt a launch-on-warning policy. By precipitating a new arms race in intermediate-range weapons, the Trump administration is returning us to the early 1980s, when any military clash between the major powers—intended or not—could rapidly escalate into a thermonuclear conflagration. The only adequate response to this peril, as in that earlier dangerous era, is a massive antinuclear mobilization. [Read More]
The Right Yearns to Oust the Palestinians. The Left Must Stop It
---- Many of us on the left live this contradiction between the painful recognition that the Israeli public is galloping to the extreme right - since it pays off for them, materially and emotionally - and our attempt to continue offering information and insights that could perhaps lead to some cracks in the ultra-nationalist wall. People on the right can spew catchy slogans that are instantly understood by listeners since they blend in with the prevailing mixture of lies and stereotypes with which we are bombarded from every direction. In contrast, we on the left require many more words in order to dismantle a fake picture, in order to counter the lies and the methods information is concealed. This is true for the journalists among us, as it is for politicians on the left. [Read More]
"Make America Cruel Again:" Trump's War on Immigrants
By Arnold R. Isaacs, Tom Dispatch [February 9, 2019]
---- "Make America Cruel Again." That's how journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Shipler has reformulated Donald Trump's trademark slogan. Shipler's version is particularly apt when you think about the president's record over the last two years on refugee resettlement and other humanitarian-related immigration issues. President Trump's border-wall obsession and the political uproar over it have dominated the news, while the alleged dangers of illegal immigrants — whose numbers he wildly exaggerates — have dominated his rhetoric. But the way he's altered immigration policy affects many more people than just the migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border who are at the center of the wall debate. Many of those currently or potentially harmed by his actions are not outside the law, but are in the United States legally, some with permanent residence status and others on a temporary or provisional basis. Many more, including tens of thousands of refugees who would be eligible for resettlement, are seeking entry or lawful residence through normal immigration procedures, not trying to sneak into the country. [Read More] For an example of this sadism, pulled almost at random from the daily news, read "Trump Admin Says It's Too Hard To Reunite Thousands Of Separated Families: Court Filing," by Angelina Chapin, Huffington Post [February 7, 2019] [Link].
THE WAR ON VENEZUELA
The Battle for Venezuela
By Tony Wood, London Review of Books [February 21, 2019 issue]
What happens next? There is a frighteningly clear path ahead to an escalation of the crisis, including military intervention by the US, possibly alongside its ideological bedfellows in Brazil and Colombia. Having pushed for regime change, the US is not likely to back down quickly. As if to signal US intentions, on 25 January Trump appointed as his special envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams, the man who ran the Reagan administration's dirty wars in Central America, and who worked in the Bush White House during the last US-backed coup attempt in Venezuela in 2002. 'It's very nice to be back,' Abrams said. Guaidó and his external backers clearly expected Maduro to be removed in short order. That he has not been suggests a greater degree of support for him inside Venezuela than the US bargained for, not because Maduro is at all popular, but because the basic fact of sovereignty still matters to enough people; for others, a 'transition' shaped by the US may seem too high a price to pay for his removal. The longer Maduro remains in the Miraflores, the more successfully he will be able to depict Guaidó's parallel government as the creature of outside powers. [Read More]
How Washington Funded the Counterrevolution in Venezuela
By Tim Gill and Rebecca Hanson, The Nation [February 8, 2019]
---- On February 4, more than a dozen European countries recognized the president of Venezuela's National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as the country's legitimate president. This decision came almost two weeks after the United States, Canada, and most countries in Latin America backed Guaidó's claim to the presidential office. Despite continued Chinese and Russian support for Nicolás Maduro's government, the international community is quickly isolating it, as never before. A strange coalition of left- and right-wing political parties has formed to assist Guaidó, and knee-jerk support from both pundits and politicians who profess concern about the country's humanitarian crisis has generated an allegiance to this little-known politician and his call for Maduro's resignation. … Since some of the most powerful countries in the world have now decided to back Guaidó, there is good reason to ask who he is, what sort of future he represents for Venezuela, and whether domestic support for Guaidó's call for Maduro's resignation equals support for him as leader of the country. …There should not be any doubt, though, about what the United States, alongside other countries within and beyond the Western Hemisphere, are pushing for in Venezuela: a military overthrow of the Maduro government. [Read More]
For more on the manufacturing of Juan Guaidó – "Juan Guaidó: The Man Who Would Be President of Venezuela Doesn't Have a Constitutional Leg to Stand On," by [Link]; and "This man plotted Guaidó's rise – and still dreams of leading Venezuela," by Joe Parkin Daniels, et al., The Guardian [UK] [February 7, 2019] [Link].
The Dirty Hand of the National Endowment for Democracy in Venezuela
By Eva Golinger, Consortium News [January 28, 2019]
[FB - Written in 2014 during the Obama administration, this article by Eva Golinger gives insightful background to the current crisis in Venezuela and Washington's role in stirring it up by "spreading democracy."]
[FB - Written in 2014 during the Obama administration, this article by Eva Golinger gives insightful background to the current crisis in Venezuela and Washington's role in stirring it up by "spreading democracy."]
---- Anti-government protests in Venezuela that seek regime change have been led by several individuals and organizations with close ties to the U.S. government. Leopoldo Lopez and Maria Corina Machado- two of the public leaders behind the violent protests that started in February (2014) – have long histories as collaborators, grantees and agents of Washington. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have channeled multi-million dollar funding to Lopez's political parties Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, and Machado's NGO Sumate and her electoral campaigns. These Washington agencies have also filtered more than $14 million to opposition groups in Venezuela between 2013 and 2014, including funding for their political campaigns in 2013 and for the current anti-government protests in 2014. This continues the pattern of financing from the U.S. government to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela since 2001, when millions of dollars were given to organizations from so-called "civil society" to execute a coup d'etat against President Chavez in April 2002. After their failure days later, USAID opened an Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Caracas to, together with the NED, inject more than $100 million in efforts to undermine the Chavez government and reinforce the opposition during the following eight years. [Read More]
Also useful on the US and Venezuela – "Western Media Fall In Lockstep For Cheap Trump/Rubio Venezuela Aid PR Stunt," by Adam Johnson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [FAIR] [February 11, 2019] [Link]; and from The Real News Network [audio], "Elliott Abrams: The War Criminal Running US Policy in Venezuela," [February 11, 2019] [Link].
WAR & PEACE
Don't Expect Rulers of Nuclear-Armed Nations to Accept Nuclear Disarmament – Unless They're Pushed to Do So
---- At the beginning of February 2019, the two leading nuclear powers took an official step toward resumption of the nuclear arms race. On February 1, the U.S. government, charging Russian violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, announced that it would pull out of the agreement and develop new intermediate-range missiles banned by it. The following day, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended his government's observance of the treaty, claiming that this was done as a "symmetrical" response to the US action and that Russia would develop nuclear weapons outlawed by the agreement. In this fashion, the 1987 Soviet-American INF Treaty, which had eliminated thousands of destabilizing nuclear weapons, set the course for future nuclear disarmament agreements between the two nuclear superpowers, and paved the way for an end to the Cold War, was formally dispensed with. … Characteristically, all the nuclear powers have rejected the 2017 UN treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons. But the history of the INF Treaty's emergence provides a more heartening perspective. [Read More]
The War in Yemen
Congress Poised to Move Forward with Bold Agenda on Yemen
February 8, 2019]
---- The new Democratic majority in the House is poised, in partnership with key Senate leaders, to advance a bold agenda to bring accountability to the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia and finally reassert congressional oversight of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. In no place is congressional action more urgent than in Yemen, where approximately half of the population—nearly 14 million people—remain on the brink of starvation due to the war and the ensuing economic collapse in the country. Although congressional pressure caused the Trump administration to finally call for an end to the war last October and cut off U.S. refueling support in November, the United States remains intimately involved in the Saudi- and UAE-led military operations in the country. The newly minted House Foreign Affairs Committee's first priority was to follow up on the Senate's unprecedented passage of the war powers resolution on Yemen last December that positively influenced ceasefire negotiations in Sweden. [Read More]
The War in Syria
Trump Says ISIS is Defeated, But He Ignores the Much Bigger and More Troubling Picture
---- President Trump says that in the coming week the US and its allies will announce that they have captured all of the land previously controlled by Isis. He claims that US-led forces "have liberated virtually all of the territory previously held by Isis in Syria and Iraq … we will have 100 per cent of the caliphate." The prediction has sparked a sterile and misleading debate about whether or not Isis is finally defeated, something which will remain unproven since the movement is unlikely to run up a white flag and sign terms of surrender. The discussion has – like all debates about foreign policy in the US – very little to do with the real situation on the ground in Syria and Iraq and everything to do with the forces at play in Washington politics. In discussing the demise or survival of Isis, pundits make the same glaring omission. They ignore the fact that by far the largest stronghold in Syria held by an al-Qaeda type group is not the few shattered villages for which Isis has been battling in the east of the country. Much more important is the jihadi enclave in and around Idlib province in north-west Syria which is held by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Liberation of Levant Organisation), a powerful breakaway faction from Isis which founded the group under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra in 2011 and with whom it shares the same fanatical beliefs and military tactics. Its leaders wear suicide vests studded with metal balls just like their Isis equivalents. [Read More] For more on "Are the troops coming home?" read "US Will Retain a Military Base in Syria Despite Withdrawal," b[Link]; and "Trump's 'Eyeball-to-Eyeball' Orders to the Generals on Syria," by February 7, 2019]
The War in Afghanistan
Media Rally Around 'Forever War' in Afghanistan
By Gunar Olsen, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [FAIR] [January 31, 2019]
---- After "six days of some of the most serious Afghan peace negotiations to date," US government and Taliban officials have agreed in principle to preliminary foundations of a deal, the "biggest tangible step toward ending" the war, the New York Times reported this week. As described by US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, a longtime neoconservative architect of Hamid Karzai's installation as Afghan president following the US invasion in 2001, the Taliban would guarantee that Afghan soil would never again be used to plot a terror attack against the United States. The US would then fully withdraw its troops, in return for a ceasefire and direct negotiations between the Taliban and Afghan government. This framework agreement comes a month after President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of 7,000, or about half, of US troops from Afghanistan. (Trump increased troops in Afghanistan from roughly 8,400 to 14,000 in 2017.)… Yet, just hours after news of the framework deal broke, corporate media jumped to sound the alarm, urging the US to maintain its occupation. The primary concern was over the Trump administration's perceived "quick exit" or "speedy withdrawal," a boogeyman notion that the New York Times has hyped up for years. [Read More]
The War in Somalia [Did you know?]
Inside the Secretive US Air Campaign In Somalia
By Amanda Sperber, The Nation [February 7, 2019]
---- Over October and November of 2018, I spent five weeks in Somalia investigating the impact of the US air campaign. My goal was to find out whether there were strikes happening that were not being made public and civilian casualties that were not being disclosed. I interviewed 25 Somalis from Lower and Middle Shabelle who had been displaced by the strikes and were now living in camps near Mogadishu. Others who provided me with information or insights included current and former senior Somali security and intelligence officials; current and former senior American security and diplomatic officials and contractors; members of the country's Federal Parliament; and about a dozen well-connected Somali and American analysts, activists, and aid workers. My investigation identified strikes that went unreported until they were raised with AFRICOM, but also others that AFRICOM could not confirm—which suggests that another US agency may also be launching air attacks in the region. The investigation also tracked down evidence that AFRICOM's claim of zero civilian casualties is almost certainly incorrect. [Read More] Also useful is "US Airstrikes Kill 15 in Somalia; General Warns Airstrikes 'Not Enough'," by Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com [February 8, 2019] [Link].
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHAOS
(Video) The End of Ice: Dahr Jamail on Climate Disruption from the Melting Himalayas to Insect Extinction
From Democracy Now! [February 12, 2019]
---- A new report finds at least a third of the Himalayan ice cap will melt by the end of the century due to climate change, even if the world's most ambitious environmental reforms are implemented. The report, released by the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment earlier this month, is the culmination of half a decade's work by over 200 scientists, with an additional 125 experts peer reviewing their work. It warns rising temperatures in the Himalayas could lead to mass population displacement, as well as catastrophic food and water insecurity. The glaciers are a vital water source for the 250 million people who live in the Hindu Kush Himalaya range, which spans from Afghanistan to Burma. More than 1.5 billion people depend on the rivers that flow from the Himalayan peaks. We speak with Dahr Jamail, independent journalist and Truthout staff reporter. He is the author of the new book "The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption." [See the Program] For more discussion about Jamail's new book, hear the podcast with Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese (Popular Resistance),, "Finding Hope in the Midst of Climate Disruption [Link].
Climate Justice and Economic Justice Are Not in Conflict
By Michelle Chen, The Nation [February 8, 2019]
---- Across the world, global inequality leaves hundreds of millions in dire poverty, while wealth clusters in a handful of "advanced" economies. But increasingly, middle-income countries, or "emerging" economies, are scrambling to catch up by modernizing production and expanding export industries. The problem is that these countries' development comes with extreme environmental costs—so if bringing the world's population up to the wasteful, carbon-intensive living standards of the developed Western economies would ruin the environment, how do rapidly developing countries raise living standards without sinking the earth deeper into climate crisis? … The type of growth that emerging economies have historically used to raise living standards have clearly not helped make our environments cleaner or healthier. Indeed, growth has typically come at the expense of increased pollution and carbon consumption. The Ecological Economics study does not explicitly lay out a program for decarbonization, but does outline the balance of priorities that must drive any coordinated effort to manage, and ultimately curb, future growth. [Read More]
The Green New Deal Takes Its First Congressional Baby Step, as Pelosi Mocks "Green Dream or Whatever"
By Kate Aronoff, The Intercept [
---- The first hand of the Green New Deal has been dealt. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday unveiled a five-page, nonbinding resolution that frames a 10-year "national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization" to confront the climate crisis. The plan envisions the creation of millions of "good, high-wage jobs" and will serve to "counteract systemic injustices." The resolution sets a framework for legislation to be hashed out over the next two years, and gives Ocasio-Cortez, Markey, and climate groups something to organize around. Their goal is to meet 100 percent of the demand for power in the U.S. with "clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources," in line with the scientific consensus on climate change, as well as to provide "all people of the United States" with clean air and water, "healthy and affordable food," high-quality health care, "affordable, safe, and adequate housing," and economic security. [Read More] For a video of the Green New Deal launch, go here. (AOC starts speaking about 8:30 into the press conference.)
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
[FB – In consideration of the obsession of the mainstream media (and many Democrats) with the factual morass referred to as "Russia-gate," it is likely that any sentence including both the words "Russia" and "intelligence" should be given careful scrutiny. Here are two front-burner news stories from the past week that illustrate this profound truism.]
The Spy Who Wasn't
By James Bamford, The New Republic [February 11, 2019]
---- With anti-Russia fervor in the United States approaching levels directed at Muslims following the attacks of September 11, 2001, it was easy for prosecutors to sell the story of Butina as a spy to the public and the press. But is she really? Last February, Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the Russia probe, indicted 13 Russian spies for interfering with the 2016 election. And in July, two days before Butina was arrested, Mueller charged twelve more Russians with hacking into email accounts and computer networks belonging to the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. It is not inconceivable that Butina is among their ranks. Yet a close examination of Butina's case suggests that it is not so. Butina is simply an idealistic young Russian, born in the last days of the Soviet Union, raised in the new world of capitalism, and hoping to contribute to a better understanding between two countries while pursuing a career in international relations. Fluent in English and interested in expanding gun rights in Russia, she met with Americans in Moscow and on frequent trips to the United States, forging ties with members of the National Rifle Association, important figures within the conservative movement, and aspiring politicians. "I thought it would be a good opportunity to do what I could, as an unpaid private citizen, not a government employee, to help bring our two countries together," she told me.
[Read More]
The Mainstream Media's Smearing of Tulsi Gabbard
By Jacob Sugarman, Truth Dig [February 4, 2019]
---- Days after the MSNBC host speculated that Russian President Vladimir Putin might try to freeze unsuspecting North Dakotans to death, NBC News published an article with the headline, "Russia's propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard." And like Maddow's on-air musings, the report has proved no less irresponsible. "The whole story was a sham," The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald writes. "The only 'expert' cited by NBC in support of its key claim was the firm New Knowledge, which just got caught by the New York Times fabricating Russian troll accounts on behalf of the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to manufacture false accusations that the Kremlin was interfering in that election." [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
The Case Against 'Border Security'
By Daniel Denvir, New York Times [February 11, 2019]
----Democrats should follow their voters, who increasingly want more open borders, and reframe the immigration debate by rejecting the very notion that the border needs more "security" and making it clear that the real problem is the denial of migrants' rights. The time has come for the Democratic Party to push for concrete policies to make the border more open. There is plainly no need for more security on the border. Illegal entries to the United States (as measured by Border Patrol apprehensions, which the government has long used as a proxy) began to fall at the turn of the century, and have plummeted since 2006. They remain at historic lows today. Those who are coming to the country are often Central Americans fleeing violence that United States policy in the region helped foment. … Then why, if there isn't truly a crisis on the border, do the Democrats continue to invoke the need for more "border security"? Largely because the conversation about the border and immigration has moved so far to the right over the past 30 years. … Simple realism dictates that no legislation to grant citizenship to the millions of undocumented Americans who deserve it will be passed until the Republicans are defeated. There's no use trying to appease them. The bipartisan consensus supporting harsh immigration and border enforcement has fractured. Democratic elected officials need to catch up. [Read More]
For more useful reading on the crisis at our southern border – "Journalists, Lawyers, And Activists Working On The Border Face Coordinated Harassment From U.S. And Mexican Authorities," by Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept [February 11, 2019] [Link]; and "How the U.S. Weaponized the Border Wall," by Greg Grandin, The Intercept [February 10, 2019] [Link]. Among Trump's latest rants about refugees and his wall, he launched some whopper lies about conditions in Mexico and Central America. For a corrective, read "The Facts About The Humanitarian Crisis In Mexico And Central America," from Doctors Without Borders [February 8, 2019] [Link]. This cartoon is a pretty good summary of the whole mess.
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
First Israel Suffocates Gazans, Then We Say We're Worried About Their Fate
---- The security establishment is worried about the collapse of Gaza's health system because this will make it more difficult for the Israel Defense Forces to pursue a major military operation there in the event the political leadership orders one. That's what Yaniv Kubovich wrote last week in his report on a recent security cabinet discussion on the matter. In other words, the very poor performance of the Palestinian health system is one of the things that must be taken into account when deciding whether to attack the besieged Palestinian enclave yet again. We can learn two other things directly from the report: 1. Most of the casualties in the expected confrontation will be civilians (as was the case in the previous operations, incidentally) who will not be rescued from the combat zones in a timely manner or receive proper medical treatment and 2. The international community (presumably meaning Western countries) will have a hard time supporting another Israeli operation because of the inability to save wounded civilians. What one can learn between the lines is that both the security and political establishments deny any responsibility of their own for the situation in Gaza in general and that of the Palestinian health system in particular. On the contrary, a political source even said the Palestinian Authority wants Gaza's health system to collapse. [Read More]
Democrats Echo Israel's Far-Right by Refusing to Even Use the Word "Occupation"
---- What do you call Israel's military rule over millions of disenfranchised Palestinians in the territories it seized by force in 1967? The answer, "an occupation," is obvious to anyone familiar with the laws of war, but in recent years American progressives who use that term to describe Israeli control of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have come under intense pressure from Democratic leaders concerned about exposing the party to charges of bias against Israel. This hesitancy to acknowledge that the territories are indeed occupied, rather than contested or disputed as right-wing Israelis insist, is particularly strange to anyone who recalls that one of Israel's most revered leaders, Ariel Sharon, made a point of using the term repeatedly in a televised news conference almost 16 years ago. … While right-wing Israelis prefer to say that the land where they rule a Palestinian population that is denied basic civil rights is contested, the occupation is a fact under international law, and is routinely referred to that way left-wing Israelis. So what explains the skittishness of the American political establishment, both Democrat and Republican, to be as candid about using the word occupation now as Israel's ultranationalist leader was in 2003? [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
Eugene V. Debs and the Endurance of Socialism
By Jill Lepore, The New Yorker [February 18, 2019 issue]
---- Every man who worked on the American railroad in the last decades of the nineteenth century became, of necessity, a scholar of the relations between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the masters and the slaves, the riders and the ridden upon. No student of this subject is more important to American history than Debs, half man, half myth, who founded the American Railway Union, turned that into the Social Democratic Party, and ran for President of the United States five times, including once from prison. … Debs was one of thousands of socialists jailed during the First World War and the Red Scare that followed, when the Justice Department effectively tried to outlaw socialism. His defense attorney compared him to Christ—"You shall know him by his works"—and called no one to the stand but Debs, who, during a two-hour oration, talked less about socialism than about the First Amendment. "I believe in free speech, in war as well as in peace," Debs told the court. "If the Espionage Law stands, then the Constitution of the United States is dead." … But it's the speech Debs gave during his sentencing that would be his best-remembered address, his American creed: "While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." [Read More]
