Jan 06 2010
I have recently been calling for a large social movement (or, more realistically, an expansion of the social movements for justice already in existence) and here are a few ways we can all get started on being part of this movement.
(Included: Cindy Sheehan’s thoughts on recent events and a list of upcoming action events you can get involved with.)
Dec 16 2009
This will be brief! Brevity because of too much going on today, but I think it’s very important that everyone gets a glimpse of this. I can hardly digest this news, without a feeling of deep, down illness. And, worse, it’s something that I don’t know if any of us have actually been anticipating or suspecting!
Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula
Yemen will become a battleground for a proxy war between the United States and Saudi Arabia – whose state-to-state relations are among the strongest and most durable of the entire post-World War II era – on one hand and Iran on the other.
It is perhaps impossible to determine the exact moment at which a U.S.- supported self-professed holy warrior – trained to perpetrate acts of urban terrorism and to shoot down civilian airliners – ceases to be a freedom fighter and becomes a terrorist. But a safe assumption is that it occurs when he is no longer of use to Washington. A terrorist who serves American interests is a freedom fighter; a freedom fighter who doesn’t is a terrorist.
Yemenis are the latest to learn the Pentagon’s and the White House’s law of the jungle. Along with Iraq and Afghanistan which counterinsurgency specialist Stanley McChrystal used to perfect his techniques, Yemen is joining the ranks of other nations where the Pentagon is engaged in that variety of warfare, fraught with civilian massacres and other forms of so-called collateral damage: Colombia, Mali, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia and Uganda.
BBC News reported on December 14 that 70 civilians were killed when aircraft bombed a market in the village of Bani Maan in northern Yemen.
The nation’s armed forces claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, but a website of the Houthi rebels against whom the bombing was ostensibly directed stated “Saudi aircraft committed a massacre against the innocent residents of Bani Maan.” [1] . . . .
The conjuring up of the al-Qaeda bogey, however, is a decoy. The rebels in the north of the nation are Shi’ites and not Sunnis, much less Wahhabi Sunnis of the Saudi variety, and as such are not only not linked with any group of groups that could be categorized as al-Qaeda, but instead would be a likely target thereof. . . .
Please read! Be aware of this latest aggression!
Feeling near “faintness” right now — it all goes ahead without us or any resistance — it’s all so unstoppable, as is so far the reality!
Nov 22 2009
Real people … who we knew and loved … who died unnecessarily in the U.S.
Real Life Stories of Americans
THE SILENT … NOW DECEASED
“My daughter got sick with cancer after her husband lost his job. She never told anyone she was sick because she knew the financial hardship it would cause and eventually the hospital would take their house for unpaid medical bills. We lost her in the following spring … We read her diary and learned all she was feeling and thinking. Now I wonder how many others are just like her in this America? And how many before her?”
Deaths due to Preventable Diseases: Dead Last
Rankings 1st to 19th. France, Japan, Australia, Spain, Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland, Portugal, United States
May 15 2009
Friends, I just wanted to give you a heads up that over at Avaaz.org we have decided to run this Ad ahead of the Obama-Netanyahu face-off on Monday.
The Ad — titled “Leadership” will run during the Sunday talk shows in the DC market. We have been inspired to take this step by a stunning poll of Israeli-Jews suggesting that 65% want President Obama actively involved in helping solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Ad draws attention to the controversial statement made by new, right-wing Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman that Obama will do as he’s told. This comment runs counter to the sentiment expressed in our poll of Lieberman’s fellow Israelis, carried out by major Israeli polling institute Hagal Hahadash, which shows that a majority of respondents believe Obama could help bring about a two-state agreement (53% said he could help a lot or somewhat to achieve this, and only 19.2% answered not at all).
May 09 2009
The use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAV’s, is becoming increasingly controversial. U.S. military leaders say the robotic drone aircraft have been effective in killing Al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan without putting U.S. troops in danger. But what happens when civilians die too? Our guest is Peter Singer, senior fellow and director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution; he’s also author “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century”
May 06 2009
Friends, as you know I have raised the issue of strike drone use by the U.S. in Pakistan on a few occasions. I am currently working on this issue, and a few others, with Avaaz. Please find below a joint entry with my new Avaaz colleague and friend Brett Solomon. Cheers, Raj
With daily news reports suggesting that the democratically elected government of Pakistan is struggling to contain militancy within its borders, Americans and Pakistanis alike are waiting to see how the new U.S. policy, outlined in late March by President Obama, impacts the crisis.
There is a feeling that sustained U.S. and international focus is needed because the militant groups that grew so rapidly under the military government of General Musharraf are threatening the internal security of nuclear-armed Pakistan. This instability is also harming efforts to bring peace and security to bordering Afghanistan.