Gaza: Netanyahu and Lieberman Wanted `a Quickie’…
Another of Netanyahu’s `surgical strikes’ on Gaza:. BBC journalist Jihad Masharawi carries his son’s body at a Gaza hospital.
(Note: This article appeared – slightly edited and greatly improved thereby – in Foreign Policy In Focus and Counterpunch!)
Unable to – or restrained from – attacking Iran (or getting the United States to do so), Israel had to shoot its military rocks off somewhere else, so it has turned its fire power on Gaza?
As in 2008, Netanyahu and Lieberman waited until after the U.S. presidential elections were over, but before the new administration had been put into place and a clear U.S. policy towards Israel-Palestine in Obama’s second term had been fleshed out. Did Netanyahu cut a deal with Washington? That is not clear at the moment, although it is implausible that there wasn’t some kind of `consultation’ and green light from Obama.
To think otherwise is to live in la-la land. Read more…
The Petraeus-Broadwell Affair Continues To Spin Out of Control
The Happy Couple…
David Petraeus’ affair with Paula Broadwell `has legs’ and continues to grow with new revelations and embarrassments for the former head of the U.S. military and the C.I.A. almost by the hour. Of course, this being the United States, the media has focused on the details of the affair and on what could be serious breeches in state security. Much less attention has been given to date anyway, to the bigger picture: General Petraeus war record in Iraq and Afghanistan, to his role in creating the lie of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the March 2003 U.S. led invasion of Iraq. Perhaps that will come later. There is some attention to the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Bengazi and what is coming out is both revealing and embarrassing for the Obama Administration, and for Petraeus personally.
What follows here are some of the more insightful articles on the larger ramifications of the affair.
The Forgotten History of David Petraeus (Jeff Kaye. The Dissenter: July 31, 2011)
General Petraeus Is Dumb; She’s Dumber (Roger Simon. Politico: November 13, 2012) – while this is tongue and cheek it actually has some genuine politics in it towards the latter half of the article. Gets, in my opinion, to the heart of the matters personal and political
White House Urged To Boost CIA Drone Fleet (UPI. October 26, 2012)
Petraeus has a plan to finish the war: Double Down on a failed strategy. (Michael Hastings. Rolling Stone: February 2, 2011)
Petraeus Resigns Over Affair With Biographer (Fred Kaplan. Slate: November 9, 2012)
Petraeus G-Mail: Paula Broadwell, Bengazi and Other Reasons for the CIA Director’s Perfectly Timed Resignation (Ethan Case. Policymic: November 12, 2012)
David Petraeus, A U.S. War Hero? ( Al Jazeera: November 13, 2012)
Admitting To An Affair, Petraeus Resigns as C.I.A. Chief (Anne Flaherty, Kimberly Dozier, Adam Goldman. AP: November 12, 2012)
Petraeus Biographer Strokes More Than His Ego (Russ Wellen. Foreign Policy In Focus. November 12, 2012)
Paula Broadwell on the Daily Show (from the University of Denver, Korbel School Website)
Behind Petraeus’ Resignation (Robert Perry. Common Dreams. November 10, 2012)
With Paula Broadwell, Petraeus Let His Guard Down (Joby Warrick. Washington Post. November 12, 2012)
The Sins of General David Petraeus (Michael Hastings. Buzzfeed Politics: November 10, 2012)
Paula Broadwell Speaks at D.U. on Petraeus and the Attack on the U.S. Consulate in Bengazi (University of Denver. October 26, 2012)
Juan Cole on Democray Now: Petraeus’ Real Failure Was Counter-Insurgency (Juan Cole. Democracy Now! November 12, 2012)
Pundit Tears Pouring Out Over the Fall of CIA Chief Petraeus (Ray McGovern. Alternet. November 11, 2012)
Darwin Wins One In Texas: A Ray of Hope for America
25,000 year old Cromagnon (early humanity) cave art from Peche Merle in S. France…evidence of human evolution
“When I think back on all the crap I leaned in high school, it’s a wonder that I can think at all” (Kodachrome, Simon and Garfunkel)
1.
Last night (November 8, 2012), `The Revisionaries‘, a documentary film about the take over of the Texas School Board by right wing Christian fundamentalists, played as a part of the 35th annual Denver Film Festival. In the midst of reading a fascinating book on evolution, Jonathan Weiner’s The Beak of the Finch, and as a part of a personal interest in evolution, I decided to go. Besides, it wasn’t just Mitt Romney’s economic policies that took a hit in the national elections a few days ago, but his narrow vision of American culture as well.
The theater was packed, although not with too many of the under the age of fifty in attendance – guess they were too busy texting each other. A shame that young people do not appear interested as it is their future that is being played with. Still, the audience response suggested that are a lot of people concerned for the fate of public education in America.
The film focused upon the efforts of Tea Party types to hijack Science and Social Studies text content, to purge it of its more objective content, to do nothing short of savaging American history and attacking Darwin’s theory of natural selection. A couple of lonely anthropologists and a few other concerned citizens made futile efforts for curriculum sanity, but they might as well have been pissing in the wind, for all the good it did. This was a tone-deaf school board, pickled in their own ignorance, and proud of it – as only Texas right wingers can be.
Ironically, Texas is a state where many of these same anti-evolutionists are at the mercy of what might be called `practical evolution’ every day as they try to find new ways to confront insects that have grown resistant to pesticides in the cotton fields. Dependent upon the principles of evolution first to understand and then counter an attack on their economic activity which threatens the very livelihood of large swaths of people in Texas (and Louisiana), doesn’t stop many of them from railing against the theory essential to their livelihood. But then, Texans have a great tradition of shooting themselves in the foot so to speak, so why stop now?
Read more…
Droning On…Drone Warfare in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula
The Horn of Africa – Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti – striking distance for U.S. drones attacking Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia…Libya and Mali are mentioned too as possible targets.
Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians from U.S. Drone Practices in Pakistan. – Report of Stanford Law School and NYU School of Law. September 2012
(in process – I’ll be writing up some stuff on this presently)
David Harris at West Side Books (3232 W.32 Ave, NW Denver). Harris spoke of past horrors – the war in Vietnam – and future challenges – stopping global warming…
(thanks to Margie Stewart and Ron Young of Bird Runner Wildlife Preserve on Lower McDowell Creek, outside of Junction City Kansas)
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Now 66 years of age, with knee and hip pain, no longer able to give speeches off the cuff as he once did or play pick up basketball that he so loved, still, David Harris, anti-Vietnam war resister and author, has not lost any of the moral compass that propelled him to national prominence a half century ago as a spokesman for the draft resistance movement during the Vietnam War era. He might have to work off notes now – and use spectacles to read them – but he is still as thoughtful and articulate as he was a half century ago, as militant at heart, as humane as ever. The heart and mind are still willing even if the body needs a late afternoon nap.
The fire still burns.
Sentenced to three years, Harris spent two of them in a federal prison for his refusal to go to war in Vietnam. He was in Colorado reminding his audiences of the social movement’s past accomplishments, and the even more daunting challenges facing us, and by `us’ he means the whole world, no exceptions. To those of his/my generation his message – beyond the analysis – was clear enough although not perhaps in these words: push yourselves for peace and justice, to preserve this great planet from global warming, don’t be stupid but show a bit of courage, eat more simply, take care of our disintegrating bodies and carry on – for ourselves, for our country, for the world. And…
Do good deeds with the time remaining.
To the country’s youth the message was also unambiguous: we’re with you, but it’s your struggle; you have to lead the way. We’ll be there, too. The hand that history has dealt you ain’t the best. You are facing challenges even bigger than the ones we faced a half century ago – the fate of the earth, the stealth-like ever speeding up insidious effects of global warming that will take an unprecedented global effort to bring under control, and which threaten life on earth as we know it. We, who are losing our hearing , forgetting our keys and the cell phones we never really learned to use, getting hip replacements and heart pacemakers can help, perhaps in our experiences are useful lessons and insights…but now it is your show, young-uns , and unless you wake up and get on with it soon, the irreversible consequences of global warming will consume us all… Apocalyptic, but accurate. Read more…
Dreams Die Hard: Working for Peace in the 1960s and Today (a talk by David Harris)
Westside Books: 3434 W. 32 Ave, Denver, 80211
David Harris, one of the leaders of the anti-war movement of the 1960s
Harris was a student president at Stanford University; he became a leader in the draft resistance movement and spent three years in jail for refusing to go Vietnam. For a time he was married to the folk singer Joan Baez. Harris wrote a book about his experiences – Dreams Die Hard. It traces the relationship between Harris, former U.S. Congressman Allard Lowenstein and Dennis Sweeney and is in my view, one of the better `bird’s eye’ views of the social movement of the 1960s. The relationship ended tragically with Sweeney – who had become severely mentally ill – assassinating Lowenstein in his office in 1981.
Today Harris is a feature writer for the NY Times Sunday Magazine.
For Information: westsidebooks@qwestoffice.net
Sponsors: Westside Books, Colorado Coalition Against Attacking Iran, Front Range Jewish Voice For Peace
Algerians Shed Few Tears For Deceased President Chadli Benjdedid
Benjdedid and General Nezzar, the man who `helped’ Benjdedid write his resignation statement in January 1992
(note: published in Foreign Policy In Focus)
Chadli Benjdedid’s Funeral: The Hypocrite’s Ball
“Ils sont tous venus, aujourd’hui, célébrer celui qu’ils brocardaient hier. Il a été traîné dans la boue pendant 20 ans. C’est le bal des hypocrites” (1)
(translation: yes, today they all showed up to honor the person they had savaged yesterday and whose reputation they had dragged through the mud for twenty years. It was a hypocrite’s ball)
1.
In Algeria, presidents come and go; only the military and the security establishment remain, a platitude reflected by recent events. A state funeral was held for former Algerian President Chadli Benjdedid. He died of cancer in Algiers on October 6.
In contrast with the death of neighboring Tunisia’s founding president, Habib Bourguiba similarly removed from office in 1987, whose passing in 2000 provoked a genuine outpouring of national grief, the response to Benjdedid’s death in Algeria was, at best, muted.
If the broad masses of Algerians shed few tears still, much of the Algerian elite, past and present were in attendance at the funeral, including:
– those who had essentially `drafted’ Chadli Benjdedid for the presidency at the outset in 1979 (and then ran him from the shadows);
– those who, like Khaled Nezzar, in 1992 Algeria’s Defense Minister, (now facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a Swiss Court) threatened Benjdedid’s life to pressure him to resign the presidency;
– those who, like Abdulaziz Bouteflika, (since 1999 Algeria’s president) somehow wiggled out of a corruption scandal during Benjdedid’s time in power.
– some of the ministers who served in his administration, among them the economic reformer, Mouloud Hamrouche, whose late 1980s market-oriented reforms threatened the Algeria’s military junta’s hold on power (and so they dumped him along with Benjedid).
– high level delegations from Tunisia, Mauritania Egypt and Palestine were present as were a number of key figures from the Algerian trade union movement, political parties. Read more…
Immigrant Rights – one of the many issues avoided in the first Obama-Romney presidential debate. photo from an immigrants rights demonstration. Park Ave, Manhattan, New York City. July, 2010
Robert Kuttner: First Round To Romney (from American Prospect)
`The Real News’ – (a series of responses) : Romney – The Masterful Liar
Robert Reich: The First Presidential Debate
Tom Hayden – A Serious Serious Setback
Wall Report – Jim Wall: Bad Moon Over Obama Victory Rising
“I hope I made you proud out there explaining the vision we share for this country.”
Barack Obama – in an email sent to his supporters the day after the first debate.
Irreverent comments from different friends (unidentified) of interest.
“Romney whipped Obama’s centrist butt”
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“Never mind the debate last night, does anyone want to meet at the community garden to pick tomatoes before frost hits tonight?”
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“some thoughts after the debate, and the public debate for the
remainder of the election campaign. I think what we saw last
night is what we can expect for the remainder – unless the
left side of the base sounds the alarm.
Obviously Romney campaign to play him as a “sane Republican,”
not a wild-eyed Tea Party fanatic. Obama campaign it seems has
decided that there is a small slice of the national electorate
that is undecided, and they are going to focus on the
remaining front-line states. Looks like they have concluded
that with the small number of states in play that they need to
turn the tide in those states. Read more…
R. Prince Interview; Press TV Concerning the U.S. State Department Removing the Mujaheedin E Khalq from its Terrorist List
Iranian Iris…
This interview was conducted by telephone this morning (September 25, 2012)
Ethiopia in Transition, Prospects and Hope. Remarks of Rob Prince to the Ethiopian Community of Colorado. Embassy Suites Hotel, Aurora. September 23, 2012
credit: Le Monde Diplomatique
Dear Friends of the Metro Denver Ethiopian Community…
Thank you for inviting me and my friends to join you for this special occasion. We are glad to be with you and to support your efforts to bring democracy and development to your dear country with its extraordinarily rich and diverse culture, its long and proud history. At 30,000, yours is a sizable and active community within our midst, many of whom have been in Colorado for three decades or more.
Ethiopia is not only the birthplace of coffee – but more generally, humanity itself.
When, at the end of the 19th century, the rest of Africa continent – `that great African cake’ as the Europeans called it – was carved up between this and that rapacious European colonial power, Ethiopia stood alone on the African continent as independent and free, having defeated Italy in 1896 at the Battle of Adwa.
In the twentieth century Ethiopia experienced a century of repeated hope and disappointment that continues until this day.
There are a number of themes I would simply like to touch on – to remind you of the great tradition of which you are a part. Read more…
Can War With Iran Be Averted? An Open Forum: University of Denver; Sept. 26. 2012
Rob Prince, December 2011. Tunis, in front of Bourguiba School. L’Institut Bourguiba des Langue Vivantes) on Ave. de la Liberte
I.
Friends of Sabeel
Thank you for this invitation. I am delighted to kick off your monthly speaker series and hope that I can do the series justice with this introductory lecture.
I had hoped that my friend and companero, Imam Ibrahim Kazerooni, would join me at the podium today but he came down with a migraine headache which has immobilized him and so I’ll have to proceed on my own. We have given this talk together several times and enjoy each other’s company and respect each other’s viewpoints – although frankly – or world views are quite different. And we have been called many unkind things by detracters, Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince – he, the quirky Imam and myself, the self-hating Jew.
But there is nothing quirky about Ibrahim Kazerooni – he is one of the great and humane minds among us and is, as you know, a veritable expert on the Middle East, its history, its culture, its current complex political developments.
As for myself, I have never been `a self hater’, not of myself or of Judaism as I understand it. It is such a bizarre term if you think about it. Actually, to the contrary, I am quite comfortable being Rob Prince and have always been respectful, even if I am not a religious person, of Judaism, and most especially its commitment to social justice, which is an integral part of the religion, indeed its heart and soul. Such labels as `self-hating’ are used to try to intimidate those of us Jews, who have been openly critical of Israel’s cruel, inexcusable treatment of the Palestinians, who have – in part, precisely because of our Jewish heritage – opposed the Occupation..it is not that I am a `self-hating’ Jew – it is that those who use such language are apologists for that occupation, little more. Indeed, they often cannot even utter `the `O’ word. Read more…
Blooms Not Bombs: Plants of Central Asia and Iran
Habib Souaidia – , a former Algerian intelligence officer who wrote La Guerre Sale (The Dirty War) accusing General Khaled Nezzar of war crimes
Note: This article also appeared featured at Algeria Watch, Foreign Policy in Focus and Open Democracy
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Lampadusa had it right-things had to seem to change so that things could remain the same. There’d be elections; there’d be new faces and new promises, but all that would happen would be that different trotters would go into the trough, and new accounts would be opened in those discreet private banks …in Switzerland
– Donna Leon – Death and Judgement
Two Cheers for the Swiss!
Khaled Nezzar, Algeria’s former defense minister and regime strongman during much of that country’s civil war that raged throughout the 1990s, expressed `surprise’ a Swiss court, the Swiss Federal Crime Court, refused to throw out a civil suit filed against him for alleged war crimes committed by the Algerian government against its citizens during that period. The case was brought by the Trial Watch Project at the behest of two Algerians residing in Switzerland.
Swiss refusal to dismiss the case has thrown the Algerian government into something approaching a panic. Algiers is scurrying to contain the damage, which, if made public would cast a dark shadow not only over Nezzar and the other Algerian Junta that was in power at the time. It would also reflect poorly on the current leadership, inheritors of the Junta’s `legacy’, one that makes Pinochet’s bloody rule in Chile look like something akin to child’s play.
Algiers is scurrying to contain the damage, which, if made public would cast a dark shadow not only over Nezzar and the other Algerian Junta that was in power at the time. It would also reflect poorly on the current leadership, inheritors of the Junta’s `legacy’, one that makes Pinochet’s bloody rule in Chile look like something akin to child’s play Read more…
Former Algerian Defense Minister, Khaled Nezzar, Indicted for War Crimes in Switzerland – Part One
The Maghreb
“The generals are up to their necks in the killing, and their motive is to hang onto power and the oil revenues and business commissions that go with it…The real problem in Algeria isn’t Islamic fundamentalism, it’s injustice”
Habib Souaidia, author of La sale guerre, as quoted in Time, April 16, 2001
1.
His name might not ring a bell this side of the Atlantic Ocean, but there is hardly an Algerian who wouldn’t recognize the name of Khaled Nezzar. Once, one of Algeria’s most powerful men, if not the most powerful, in the country, Khaled Nezzar was Algeria’s Minister of Defense and one of five members of Algeria’s High Council of State that suspended the country’s second round of elections scheduled for 1992 and engineered what was in essence a military coup.
That act plunged the country into a horrific civil war in which Nezzar was not merely a participant, but one of the main architects. Nezzar served as Minister of Defense from 1992-1994. He resigned from the High Council of State in 1994 after he was the target of an assassination attempt.
During the war years different human rights organizations (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International) cited Nezzar as “one of the main architects responsible for the bloody repression of political opponents, especially Islamicists, the massive campaign of torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the first years of the dirty war which eventually cost about 200,000 deaths, 20,000 disappeared and the forced displacement of more than 1.5 million people” In his 2001 expose of the activities of the Algerian counter insurgency program, Habib Souaidia, author of La sale guerre (The Dirty War) accused the Algerian military of repeatedly perpetrating massacres of civilians while disguised as rebels, killing suspects in cold blood and torturing rebels to death during the Algerian civil war, Nezzar being one of those directing such operations.
On October 20, 2011, Khaled Nezzar was stopped by Swiss police as in front of a Geneva bank and arrested. He is being charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the Algerian civil war of the 1990s. The indictment alleges that many of the terrorists acts allegedly committed by Islamic radical guerillas during `the dirty war’ , among them many of the more heineous crimes, were actually committed by the army’s internal security counter-terrorism units (and members of the Interior Ministry’s internal security counter-insurgency units) which Nezzar directed. The Algerian government’s and Nezzar’s personal lawyers claims of immunity were rejected by the court as was his claim that the court was interfering into Algeria’s internal affairs. Read more…
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 