Reform, Revolution or Radical Transformation?

By NoCureForThat.org

Given: The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum

Living with an intractable problem that has been successfully solved is a lot like moving away to a foreign country.  Or Texas. One can judge a foreign land based on externals and never move to that foreign land based on one’s findings. Many times a person’s externally-oriented judgments come to be proven accurate. However, no reasonable person can argue that individuals experiencing intractable problems in their lives have learned to properly identify a solution to their problems and then implemented the prescribed solutions. The first whiff of spent Betadine in an asylum generally cues new visitors to the obvious fact that they are not observing people living comfortably in a solution that is working for them. 

‘Dehumanization, part of US training’

PressTV

Former US Army specialist Josh Steiber

A former US Army specialist, who was part of the same unit that killed Iraqi civilians from a helicopter in 2007, says dehumanization is part of basic US army training.

In an interview with Press TV, Josh Steiber explained the three years he spent in the US Army before he asked to be released as a conscientious objector.

Steiber said “the dehumanizing of people from other countries” was the main reason that he quit the Army.

“As far back as basic training, we were singing songs as we were marching around, joking about killing women and children,” he told the Press TV correspondent in Washington.

Return to ‘Indian Country’: The Global War on Tribes

BUZZ THIS!

By ZOLTAN GROSSMAN              Counterpunch

The so-called “Global War on Terror” is quickly growing outside the borders of Iraq and Afghanistan, into new battlegrounds in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and beyond. The Pentagon is vastly increasing missile and gunship attacks, Special Forces raids, and proxy invasions–all in the name of combating “Islamist terrorism.” Yet within all five countries, the main targets of the wars are predominantly “tribal regions,” and the old frontier language of Indian-fighting is becoming the lexicon of 21st-century counterinsurgency. The “Global War on Terror” is fast morphing into a “Global War on Tribes.”

Tribal regions are local areas where tribes are the dominant form of social organization, and tribal identities often trump state, ethnic, and even religious identities. Tribal peoples have a strongly localized orientation, tied to a particular place. Their traditional societies are based on a common culture, dialect, and kinship ties (through single or multiple clans). Although they are tribal peoples, they are not necessarily Indigenous peoples–who generally follow nature-centered spiritual and cultural systems. [sic*]  Nearly all tribal communities in the Middle East and Central Asia have been Islamicized or Christianized, but they still retain their ancient social bonds.

Yet modern counterinsurgency doctrine only views tribal regions as festering cauldrons of lawlessness, and “breeding grounds” for terrorism, unless the tribes themselves are turned against the West’s enemies. The London Times (5Jan10), for example, crudely asserts that Yemen’s “mountainous terrain, poverty and lawless tribal society make it… a close match for Afghanistan as a new terrorist haven.” This threatening view of tribal regions is, of course, as old as European colonialism itself.

U.S. Military in Colombia- drastic increase in militarization

School of the Americas Watch

In the fall 2009, U.S. and Colombian officials signed an agreement granting the U.S. military access to seven Colombian bases for ten years. (Watch the 21min. video about the agreement)

SOA Watch is extremely concerned about the drastic increase of U.S. militarization in Latin America. The bases agreement operates from the same failed military mindset that has given rise to the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC). The purpose of the bases and the purpose of the SOA/ WHINSEC are the same: to ensure U.S. control over the region through military means.

Yemen on Lather, Rince, Repeat Cycle

By Ahsan at the Five Rupees Blog

The security-policymaking community in the U.S. works in very predictable ways. Any time a country no one in the U.S. is really familiar with comes up in the news due to some plausible connection to organized terrorism, the following things happen:

1. There is indignation and disgust directed at the government du jour. Government du jour, you see, has been concentrating on Country X With Lots Of Brown People for the longest time, but what it has missed is that Country Y — which, incidentally, also has Lots Of Brown People — is also crucial to the war on terrorism.

2. People who have no idea about Country Y With Lots Of Brown People suddenly feel the need to opine on it. This, by the way, is the most entertaining step — as long as you’re not from Country Y With Lots Of Brown People. Nothing is funnier than watching an entire industry of pundits, writers, op-edders, think tankers, cable news invitees, foreign policy “experts” and bloggers pretend to know what the fuck they’re talking about.

Of course, if you happen to be from Country Y With Lots Of Brown People, you begin to get worried, because any time the American punditocracy starts talking about you, only bad things happen. This is why I cried myself hoarse during the Pakistan hysteria in the middle of last year, and why I am thoroughly enjoying the Yemen hysteria now.

I Am the Resistance

By Jessica Isla

Honduran feminist and coup resister Jessica Isla introduces the faces of those who flooded the streets to protest the overthrow of Manuel Zelaya’s democratically elected government. Despite Roberto Micheletti’s military-backed coup, the women, men and youth of Honduras continue resisting. They are an inspiration to everyone opposing imperialism and fighting for dignity, freedom of speech and workers’ power throughout the world.

I Am the Resistance

I am this body marked by blows
that walks day after day under the sun,
under this uncertain sky of flying machines,
amongst gusts of smoke and
the sound of rifles

Obama and the Permanent War Budget

By William D. Hartung

It’s been a good decade for the Pentagon. The most recent numbers from Capitol Hill indicate that Pentagon spending (counting Iraq and Afghanistan) will reach over $630 billion in 2010. And that doesn’t even include the billions set aside for building new military facilities and sustaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The Baggage of American Extremism

No Enemy, No Negotiations: Only the Dead Are Real

By Gordon Duff , Senior Editor

Information Clearinghouse “Veterans Today” — When General Petraeus asked for the “surge” in Iraq, he also opened negotiations with top Sunni and Shiite militia leaders, opened not only “negotiations” but started passing out cash.  This combined with the “hammer” of a powerful new military force was the temporary military solution he had been tasked with, one that was, within limits, successful.  The lack of real diplomatic negotiations after that has bogged the US down in Iraq where it now looks like we may spend years.

Welcome to the Unconquerable Land

By Arial

Caring and Killing

By Robert C. Koehler

Dear Barack . . . Mr. President . . . brilliant, courageous (I once thought) guy I voted for:

You’re great. I mean the way you put words together. As I listened to you on Tuesday night, I thought about the interlocking, dovetail-joint perfection of your language: the crisp-edged certainty of your delivery, the clean precision of your logic, even an acknowledgement of some of the big values (peace, human dignity) so beloved by your voting base.

What Obama said and didn’t say about Afghanistan

By Michael Collins

It is easy to forget that when this war began, we were united — bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again. President Barack Obama, December 1

President Obama made this appeal for unified support of his Afghanistan policy at the very end of his speech at West Point last night.  It seems awkwardly placed at the conclusion of a long and fairly cerebral oration.  After reviewing the arguments for his policy, the placement may make some sense.

Obama’s War

By Jim Hightower

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to war we go! Pound the drums loudly, stand with your country proudly!

Wait, wait, wait — hold it right there. Cut the music, slow the rush, and let’s all ponder what Barack Obama, Roberts Gates, Stanley McChrystal and Co. are getting us into … and whether we really want to go there. After all, just because the White House and the Pentagon brass are waving the flag and insisting that a major escalation of America’s military mission in Afghanistan is a “necessity” doesn’t mean it is … or that We the People must accept it.

Elections in Honduras: Whitewashing the Path to a Past of Horrors

ByLisa Sullivan

I came to Honduras to participate as a human rights observer of the electoral climate in a delegation organized by the Quixote Center. Several delegations converged, connecting some 30 U.S. citizens with dozens more from Canada, Europe and Latin America.

Criminalizing Peace

By Brasscheck TV

It seems like in the years leading up to whatever it was that happened at Fort Hood on November 5, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was one busy guy.

November Vigil with Indigo Girls, Rebel Diaz to Close SOA

November 20-22, 2009 – Converge on Fort Benning, Georgia

Mass Mobilization to Shut Down the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC)!

The military coup by SOA graduates in Honduras has once again exposed the destabilizing and deadly effects that the School of the Americas has on Latin America. The actions of the school’s graduates are unmasking the Pentagon rhetoric and reveal the anti-democratic results of U.S. policies. It is time for a change towards justice.

From November 20-22, 2009, thousands will vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, to stand up for justice, to shut down the School of the Americas and to end the oppressive U.S. foreign policy that the school represents.

Video: American Police Force Exposed as a Blackwater Front Group

By Paul Joseph Watson

American Police Force, the paramilitary unit patrolling a small town in Montana, has been exposed as being a front group for the disgraced private military contractor Blackwater, now called “Xe”.

The G-20 Announces a “New World Order”

bailoutpeople.org

Citizens Respond

Michael Collins

PITTSBURGH — A new world order is emerging at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh with a decision by the group to become the premier coordinating body on economic issues. 

Mission of Ignorance

In this American Force Press Service file photo, 1st Infantry Division Soldiers look on as Afghan National Army soldiers zero their weapons during basic rifle marksmanship training on Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Feb. 11, 2009.

By Robert C. Koehler
Tribune Media Services

Right up there with “our mission,” in the pantheon of sacred foreign policy mumbo-jumbo, is “training Afghan security forces,” that endless, multibillion-dollar prerequisite for our departure from the country.

Zelaya’s return to Honduras met with vicious force on Tuesday