I Hope You Watched Material...

I loved the movie it was accurate, funny, well made and understated. The cast was awesome and Fordsburg has never looked so artsy. The characters were well thought out and if you are from this community there is no way it was not familiar. Makes me want to a take a walk through Fordsburg and down into Newtown and this time look a little deeper :)

When The War Turns Pathalogical - Withdraw !

The latest occupation crime in Afghanistan was a shooting spree on March 11 by a lone American soldier in the village of Balandi in the Panjwai District of Kandahar Province of Afghanistan. 16 Afghan civilians, including women and children, were shot in their homes in the middle of the night without any pretense of combat activity in the area. Such an atrocity is one more expression of a pathological reaction by one soldier to an incomprehensible military reality that seems to be driving American military personnel on the ground in Afghanistan crazy. The main criminal here is not the shooter, but the political leader who insists on continuing a mission in face of the evidence that it is turning its own citizens into pathological killers.

American soldiers urinating on dead Taliban fighters, Koran burning, and countryside patrols whose members were convicted by an American military tribunal of killing Afghan civilians for sport or routinely invading the privacy of Afghan homes in the middle of the night; whatever the U.S. military commanders in Kabul might sincerely say in regret and Washington might repeat by way of formal apology has become essentially irrelevant.

These so-called ‘incidents’ or ‘aberrations’ are nothing of the sort. These happenings are pathological reactions of men and women caught up in a death trap not of their making, an alien environment that collides lethally with their sense of normalcy and decency. Besides the desecration of foreign lands and their cultural identities, American political leaders have unforgivably for more than a decade placed young Americans in intolerable situations of risk, uncertainty, and enmity to wage essentially meaningless wars. Also signaling a kind of cultural implosion are recent studies documenting historically high suicide rates among the lower ranks of the American military.

Senseless and morbid wars produce senseless and morbid behavior. Afghanistan, as Vietnam 40 years earlier, has become an atrocity-generating killing field where the ‘enemy’ is frequently indistinguishable from the ‘friend,’ and the battlefield is everywhere and nowhere. In Vietnam, the White House finally sped up the American exit when it became evident that soldiers were murdering their own officers, a pattern exhibiting ultimate alienation that became so widespread it give birth to a new word, ‘fragging.’

Whatever the defensive pretext in the immediacy of the post-9/11 attacks, the Afghanistan War was misconceived from its inception, although deceptively so (to my lasting regret I supported the war initially as an instance of self-defense validated by the credible fear of future attacks emanating from Afghanistan). Air warfare was relied upon in 2002 to decimate the leadership ranks of Al Qaeda, but instead its top political and military commanders slipped across the border. Regime change in Kabul, with a leader flown in from Washington to help coordinate the foreign occupation of his country, reverted to an old counterinsurgency formula that had failed over and over again, but with the militarist mindset prevailing in the U.S. Government, failure was once again reinterpreted as an opportunity to do it right the next time! Despite the efficiency of the radical innovative tactic of targeted killing by drones, the latest form of state terror in Afghanistan yields an outcome that is no different from earlier defeats.

What more needs to be said? It is long past time for the United States and its NATO allies to withdraw with all deliberate speed from Afghanistan rather than proceed on its present course: negotiating a long-term ‘memorandum of understanding’ that transfers the formalities of the occupation to the Afghans while leaving private American military contractors—mercenaries of the 21st century—as the outlaw governance structure of this war-torn country after most combat forces withdraw by the end of 2014, although, incredibly, Washington and Kabul, despite the devastation and futility, are presently negotiating a ten-year arrangement to maintain an American military presence in the country, a dynamic that might be labeled ‘re-colonization by consent,’ a geopolitical malady of the early 21st century.

As in Iraq, what has been ‘achieved’ in Afghanistan is the very opposite of the goals set by Pentagon planners and State Department diplomacy: the country is decimated rather than reconstructed, the regional balance shifts in favor of Iran, of Islamic extremism, and the United States is ever more widely feared and resented, solidifying its geopolitical role as the great malefactor of our era.

America seems incapable of grasping the pathologies it has inflicted on its own citizenry, let alone the physical and psychological wreckage it leaves behind in the countries it attacks and occupies. The disgusting 2004 pictures of American soldiers getting their kicks from torturing and humiliating naked Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib should have made clear once and for all to the leaders and the public that it was time to bring American troops home, and keep them there if we cared for their welfare.  Instead, punishments were inflicted on these hapless young citizens who were both perpetrators and victims, and their commanders resumed their militarist misadventures as if nothing had happened except an unwelcome ‘leak’ (Donald Rumsfeld said as much). What this pattern of desecration exhibits is not only a criminal indifference to the wellbeing of ‘others’, but also a shameful disregard of the welfare of our collective selves. The current bellicose Republican presidential candidates calling for attacks on Iran amount to taking another giant step along the road that is taking American over the cliff. And the Obama presidency is only a half step behind, counseling patience, but itself indulging war-mongering, whether for its own sake or on behalf of Israel is unclear.

President Obama recently was quoted as saying of Afghanistan, “now is the time for us to transition.”  No, it isn’t. “Now is the time to leave.”  And not only for the sake of the Afghan people, and surely for that, but also for the benefit of the American people Obama was elected to serve.

Richard Falk , 14 March 2012, Al Jazeera 

Happy Jumuah :)

Remembering The Herero and Nama...

(www.photopedia.com)

                                    

In January 1904 the Herero people led by Samuel Maharero rebelled against German Colonial rule and in August the German general Lothar von Trotha responded with a fatal combination of military might and gunpowder. In October of that year the Nama people rebelled against the Germans only to suffer a similar fate.

More than 110000 Herero and Nama died in the 3 years that followed and the genocide was characterized by widespread death due to starvation and thirst because the Herero and Nama who fled the violence into the desert were prevented from returning and the German colonial army systematically poisoned desert wells. 

Survivors, majority of whom were women and children, were eventually put into concentration camps  and forced to work as slave labor for German military and settlers. German Scientists came to the concentration camps to conduct medical experiments on race using children of Herero people and children of Herero women and German men as test subjects. The experiments included sterilization, smallpox injections, typhus and TB. The numerous cases of mixed offspring upset the German colonial administration and their obsession with racial purity. 310 mixed-race children were subjected to numerous racial tests such as head and body measurements, eye and hair examinations. In conclusion the scientist advocated the genocide of alleged "inferior races" stating that "whoever thinks thoroughly the notion of race, can not arrive at a different conclusion".

These scientific actions and torment of the children were part of wider history of abusing Africans for experiments, and echoed earlier actions by German anthropologists who stole skeletons and bodies from African graveyards and took them to Europe for research or sale. An estimated 3000 skulls were sent to Germany for experimentation.

The Herero genocide has commanded the attention of historians who study complex issues of continuity between the Herero Genocide and the Holocaust. It is argued that the Herero genocide set a precedent in Imperial Germany to be later followed by Nazi Germany's establishment of death camps, such as the one at Auschwitz.   

The 1985 UN Whitaker Report classified the aftermath of the rebellion as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples and therefore one of the earliest attempts at genocide in the 20th century.

Red Earth and Pouring Rain...

(image : scenicreflections.com)

' What could my mother be to yours?

What kin is my father to yours anyway?

And how did you and I meet ever?

But in love

our hearts have mingled

like red earth and pouring rain.'

A translation of poetry from the Kununtokai, a classical tamil anthology

Sexycise...

The Tuareg Rebellions

The Tuareg live across the Sahel, from Mali to Niger to southern Algeria. The first post-colonial rebellion begain in the 1960's following Mali's independence it was a fight between a group of Tuareg and the newly independent state of Mali. The Malian Army suppressed the revolt. Resentment among the Tuareg fueled the second uprising in May 1990.

The Tuareg in both Mali and Niger claimed autonomy for their traditional homeland: Tenere with its capital Agadez and the Azawad and Kidal regions of Mali. Deadly clashes between Tuareg fighters  and the military of both countries followed, with deaths numbering well into the thousands.

 Negotiations initiated by France and Algeria led to peace agreements on 11 January 1992 in Mali and 1995 in Niger. Both agreements called for decentralization of national power and guaranteed the integration of Tuareg resistance fighters into the countries' respective national armies.

As of 2004, sporadic fighting continued in Niger between government forces and Tuareg groups struggling for independence. In 2007 the violence began once again.

Many of those involved in the current rebellion are thought to have fought for Colonel Gadaffi, a long-term supporter of their claims for greater independence, in the Libyan conflict. When Gadaffi was killed in October, significant numbers returned home.

The Tuaregs' long-standing grievances are that their desert heartlands – places like Kidal and Gao in northern Mali, and Agadez in northern Niger – have been neglected by central government and need urgent development. There were a number of violent rebellions by Tuaregs in both Mali and Niger in the 90s and 00s.

As a result of the fighting some 700,000 people in Mali and Niger have been displaced and a massive humanitarian crisis is lurking in the shadows. When there are claims of Al-Qaeda in the desert blowing up stuff one cannot help and be sceptical because history has shown us that such announcements are usually followed by Aerial bombardment , international intervention and untimately lots of stolen resources.

The struggle for self-determination is never one to be dismissed but in these times where every struggle seems to be moulded to suit some foreign race for gain one can only hope that the reasons and the struggle do not become mere pawns in an international soap opera for domination of already scarce resources.

And Now For More Mysteries From The Male Mind...

El General And Other Tunisian Rappers

The Arab Agenda In Syria

Here's a crash course on the "democratic" machinations of the Arab League - rather the GCC League, as real power in this pan-Arab organization is wielded by two of the six Persian Gulf monarchies composing the Gulf Cooperation Council, also known as Gulf Counter-revolution Club; Qatar and the House of Saud. 

Essentially, the GCC created an Arab League group to monitor what's going on in Syria. The Syrian National Council - based in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries Turkey and France - enthusiastically supported it. It's telling that Syria's neighbor Lebanon did not.

When the over 160 monitors, after one month of enquiries, issued their report ... surprise! The report did not follow the official GCC line - which is that the "evil" Bashar al-Assad government is discriminately, and unilaterally, killing its own people, and so regime change is in order.

The Arab League's Ministerial Committee had approved the report, with four votes in favor (Algeria, Egypt, Sudan and GCC member Oman) and only one against; guess who, Qatar - which is now presiding the Arab League because the emirate bought their (rotating) turn from the Palestinian Authority.

So the report was either ignored (by Western corporate media) or mercilessly destroyed - by Arab media, virtually all of it financed by either the House of Saud or Qatar. It was not even discussed - because it was prevented by the GCC from being translated from Arabic into English and published in the Arab League's website.

Until it was leaked. 

The report is adamant. There was no organized, lethal repression by the Syrian government against peaceful protesters. Instead, the report points to shady armed gangs as responsible for hundreds of deaths among Syrian civilians, and over one thousand among the Syrian army, using lethal tactics such as bombing of civilian buses, bombing of trains carrying diesel oil, bombing of police buses and bombing of bridges and pipelines.

Once again, the official NATOGCC version of Syria is of a popular uprising smashed by bullets and tanks. Instead, BRICS members Russia and China, and large swathes of the developing world see it as the Syrian government fighting heavily armed foreign mercenaries. The report largely confirms these suspicions.

The Syrian National Council is essentially a Muslim Brotherhood outfit affiliated with both the House of Saud and Qatar - with an uneasy Israel quietly supporting it in the background. Legitimacy is not exactly its cup of green tea. As for the Free Syrian Army, it does have its defectors, and well-meaning opponents of the Assad regime, but most of all is infested with these foreign mercenaries weaponized by the GCC, especially Salafist gangs.

Still NATOGCC, blocked from applying in Syria its one-size-fits-all model of promoting "democracy" by bombing a country and getting rid of the proverbial evil dictator, won't be deterred. GCC leaders House of Saud and Qatar bluntly dismissed their own report and went straight to the meat of the matter; impose a NATOGCC regime change via the UN Security Council.

So the current "Arab-led drive to secure a peaceful end to the 10-month crackdown" in Syria at the UN is no less than a crude regime change drive. Usual suspects Washington, London and Paris have been forced to fall over themselves to assure the real international community this is not another mandate for NATO bombing - a la Libya. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described it as "a path for a political transition that would preserve Syria's unity and institutions".

But BRICS members Russia and China see it for what it is. Another BRICS member - India - alongside Pakistan and South Africa, have all raised serious objections to the NATOGCC-peddled draft UN resolution.

There won't be another Libya-style no fly zone; after all the Assad regime is not exactly deploying Migs against civilians. A UN regime change resolution will be blocked - again - by Russia and China. Even NATOGCC is in disarray, as each block of players - Washington, Ankara, and the House of Saud-Doha duo - has a different long-term geopolitical agenda. Not to mention crucial Syrian neighbor and trading partner Iraq; Baghdad is on the record against any regime change scheme.

So here's a suggestion to the House of Saud and Qatar; since you're so seduced by the prospect of "democracy" in Syria, why don't you use all your American weaponry and invade in the dead of night - like you did to Bahrain - and execute regime change by yourselves?

 06 February, 2012- Asia Times

 Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for the Real News Network. His latest book is Obama does Globalistan. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com