Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Iraq 10 Years after Crusader Invasion


10 Years After Iraq Invasion: Continued Myths, Hundreds of Thousands Killed

- Andrea Germanos, staff writer
This week marks ten years since the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
An anti-war protest in Dallas in 2003, one of many that took place across the country and worldwide. (Photo: Dean Terry)The Iraq war, which most today in the U.S. see as a mistake, has cost the U.S. trillions of dollars, billions of which were "wasted."
But the devastation for the people of Iraq is incalculable: hundreds of thousands have been killed, over a million remain refugees and U.S. weapons used in the country, such as depleted uranium, have left a haunting legacy far past the drawdown of U.S. troops.
While many mark March 19, 2003 as the day the U.S.-led invasion of the country began, crippling sanctions against Iraq began more than a decade before.  And while the George W. Bush administration launched the war, it found willing partners in the Democratic party and corporate media.  Below are some voices offering perspective on the anniversary and lead-up to the invasion: 
On the invasion:
Arundhati Roy, writer and global justice activist, speaking on Democracy Now! Monday:
When the United States invaded Iraq, a New York Times/CBS News survey estimated that 42 percent of the American public believed that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And an ABC News poll said that 55 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein directly supported al-Qaeda. None of this opinion is based on evidence, because there isn’t any. All of it is based on insinuation or to suggestion and outright lies circulated by the U.S. corporate media, otherwise known as the "free press," that hollow pillar on which contemporary American democracy rests. Public support in the U.S. for the war against Iraq was founded on a multitiered edifice of falsehood and deceit, coordinated by the U.S. government and faithfully amplified by the corporate media.
Hans Blix, head of U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion, writing "Iraq War was a terrible mistake and violation of U.N. charter" in CNN on Monday:
The war aimed to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but there weren't any.
The war aimed to eliminate al Qaeda in Iraq, but the terrorist group didn't exist in the country until after the invasion. [...]
The Bush administration certainly wanted to go to war, and it advanced eradication of weapons of mass destruction as the main reason. As Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has since explained, it was the only rationale that was acceptable to all parts of the U.S. administration.
U.N. inspectors were asked to search for, report and destroy real weapons. As we found no weapons and no evidence supporting the suspicions, we reported this. But U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield dismissed our reports with one of his wittier retorts: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Rumsfeld's logic was correct, I believe, but it was no excuse for the American and British governments to mislead themselves and the world, as they did, by giving credit to fake evidence or assuming that if weapons items were "unaccounted for" that they must exist. They did not exist.
Christian Parenti, investigative journalist, giving author Belen Fernandez his response to John Bolton's admission that the Iraq invasion "was never about making life better for Iraqis, but about ensuring a safer world for America and its allies."
That sort of honesty, spoken like a true war criminal, would be refreshing if it didn't reveal such an appalling disregard for the value of human life and happiness. The US has destroyed Iraq and in doing so broken the hearts and ruined the lives of millions of people… That sort of psychopathic lack of empathy belies a deep bigotry towards other cultures and a general alienation from the life of our species.
A group of progressives including Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies andLeslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice write Monday
The US war against Iraq was illegal and illegitimate. It violated the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and a whole host of international laws and treaties. It violated US laws and our Constitution with impunity. And it was all based on lies: about non-existent links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, about never-were ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, about Iraq’s invisible weapons of mass destruction and about Baghdad’s supposed nuclear program, with derivative lies about uranium yellowcake from Niger and aluminum rods from China. There were lies about US troops being welcomed in the streets with sweets and flowers, and lies about thousands of jubilant Iraqis spontaneously tearing down the statue of a hated dictator.
And then there was the lie that the US could send hundreds of thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars worth of weapons across the world to wage war on the cheap. We didn’t have to raise taxes to pay the almost one trillion dollars the Iraq war has cost so far, we could go shopping instead.
Widespread blame
Sam Husseini, director for the Institute for Public Accuracy, in a statement Monday:
It’s common to simply blame Bush and Cheney for the Iraq war, but it’s not accurate. Many voted for or otherwise backed the Iraq war — including Obama’s entire foreign policy team from Kerry to Hagel; from Clinton to Rice toBiden. Even among those who voted against the war, many facilitated it, likePelosi, who claimed during the buildup to the Iraq invasion that ‘there was no question Iraq had chemical and biological agents.’ None of these individuals have ever seriously come clean about their conduct during this critical period (and I’ve questioned most of them) — so there’s never been a moment of reckoning for the greatest foreign policy disaster of this generation. The elevation of Democrats who did not seriously question the war likely facilitated Bush and Cheney never being held accountable for their conduct.
2003 or 1991?
Raed Jarrar, Communications Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, speaking on Up with Chris on Sunday:
Unlike the perception that we have in the U.S. that the war started in 2003, the war started in 1991 and Iraq was pretty much destroyed by 2003. ... When the 2003 invasion happened, it came on the top of another 13 years of destruction, very destructive sanctions and semi-daily bombing campaigns.
(See more from the segment "Iraqis still face violence, corruption as they rebuild" here andhere.)
Iraq now
Norman Solomon, author, co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, writing in Common Dreams:
Ten years after the invasion of Iraq, don’t expect the vast numbers of media hotshots and U.S. officials who propelled that catastrophe to utter a word of regret. Many are busy with another project: assisting the push for war on Iran.
Raed Jarrar:
Millions of Iraqis have been killed, injured or displaced. One of the most developed countries in the region at the time of the invasion, Iraq now is among the worst in terms of infrastructure and public services. Baghdad ranks lowest in the quality of life of any city in the world, according to a recent global survey from the consultant group Mercer. Moreover, the Iraqi national identity has been replaced by ethnic and sectarian affiliations.
Danny Muller, formerly of Iraq Peace Team and Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign that broke US law to resist economic sanctions and prevent further warfare in Iraq, stated Monday:
The Iraqi people, especially children, have suffered and been brutalized by US troops, mercenaries and multinational corporations to such an extreme extent that a decade later, the US has managed to make a brutal dictator look tepid compared to the level of horror that the US has inflicted on civilians.
Epidemics of cholera after the 2003 massacre, to take one example, speak volumes to the level of destruction that the US caused to the water, sanitation and electrical grids in 1991 and 2003—those basic systems that provide for the public's health have still not been repaired. The ensuing corruption, inefficiency and outright theft still leave most Iraqis without basic access to the most human of needs.
This war lives on in the blood of US soldiers, in the birth defects of stillborn Iraqi infants, in the skyrocketing cases of cancer and toxicity countrywide. The US people saw an entire country of 25 million Iraqis as disposable and less than human. America seems to have developed the collective memory and historical consciousness of a dead moth, but what we have done is downright unforgettable and unforgivable. And as much as we choose to pretend otherwise, most of us know what we did in Iraq: our money, our weapons, our boys in uniform, were sent to kill kids for lies and greed. It's as simple and horrific as that.

KARZAI SAY US/EURO WAR IN AFGHAN AIMLESS AND IGNUT


Afghan government hits back at NATO chief, says war aimless

By Jeremy Laurence
KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan government has hit back at remarks by the head of NATO who said Kabul must recognize the sacrifices made by other states, calling the alliance's war on terrorism inAfghanistan "aimless and unwise".
In the latest outburst of vitriol from the Afghan leadership deriding its Western allies, the spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the people of Afghanistan "ask NATO to define the purpose and aim of the so-called war on terror".
"As they question why after a decade, this war in their country has failed to achieve its stated goals, but rather has resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent lives and destruction of their homes", Aimal Faizi said in a statement.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Monday he was concerned about the increasingly harsh rhetoric between Karzai and the United States, which contributes the largest contingent to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
He told a news conference in Brussels that "we would also expect acknowledgement from the Afghan side that we have ... invested a lot in blood and treasure in helping President Karzai's country to move forward".
More than 3,000 foreign troops from 50 countries have been killed in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led military intervention began in 2001. Some estimates put the cost to the United States alone of the Afghan war in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Speaking to the state news agency, BIA, Faizi said: "The people of Afghanistan ask NATO Secretary-General that while it is clearly known to NATO that terrorism sanctuaries are outside Afghanistan, why this war then continues in their homes and villages unproductively?"
"Therefore, the Afghan people consider this war as aimless and unwise to continue," he said.
WAR OF WORDS
Karzai marred a debut visit to Afghanistan by the new U.S. defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, last week by accusing Washington and the Taliban of colluding to convince Afghans that foreign forces were needed beyond 2014, when NATO is set to wrap up its combat mission and most foreign troops are to withdraw.
Washington denies the accusation, and found support from Rasmussen who said the allegation was "absolutely ridiculous".
Karzai's remarks further strained already fraught ties between the president and the Western allies who are fighting to protect his government from insurgents.
The United States still has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan, down from almost 100,000 two years ago at the height of a surge ordered by President Barack Obama. Washington intends to withdraw most of them by the end of next year but wants to negotiate a continued, smaller presence.
Karzai has been increasingly assertive towards the United States. Last month, he ordered U.S. special forces to leave Wardak province after residents complained that they, and Afghans working with them, were torturing and killing civilians, an allegation denied by the Americans.
Opposition politicians saw Karzai's order as a political move to bolster his party's support base ahead of a presidential election next year. Karzai is not allowed to stand again.
"As every day passes, our relations with the international community get worse. Whenever President Karzai makes some remarks against Americans, money goes out of the country and businessmen leave," Ahmad Zia Massoud, leader of the Afghan National Front opposition alliance, told Reuters.
He said as tension had risen between Washington and Kabul in the past year, and as Afghanistan prepared to go it alone, some $4.5 billion had poured out of the country and into Dubai where worried Afghans are building homes.
(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Jon Hemming)

In the Crazy House Called America Revisited

BLACK PANTHER CO-FOUNDER BOBBY SEALE
 AND MARVIN X AT JOYCE GORDON GALLERY

Since I published the first edition of my essays In the Crazy House Called America in 2002, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, our common mental condition has severely depreciated, from Mild and Moderate to Severe. Madness abounds yet no one has a solution. If President Obama has a trillion dollar defense budget and is president of the number one arm's merchant of the world, engaged in innumerable global wars, we cannot expect a solution from such a sinister individual.

But in a hypocritical manner, the USA offers insurgents and Muslim fundamentalists in Iraq three things: education, jobs and housing, yes, in  Afghanistan and elsewhere, soon Syria--but cannot stem the violence in the hoods of America with the same solution that is decreasing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, alas, the President of Afghanistan claims the USA is in bed with the Taliban to keep America in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.

Let's focus on the three items: Education, Housing, Jobs. You can offer this and decrease the violence in Iraq, but you cannot offer the same to the boys and girls in the hoods of Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Baltimore, New Orleans, Houston, Los Angeles, Fresno and the Oakland Bay Area.

We call upon President Obama to implement the same program in America that America is employing globally, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Don't be surprised if the same offer isn't given to the Muslim fundamentalists if they should somehow gain power in the neo-Syria.

God forbid that Syria should go backward rather than forward!

We are well acquainted with Syria. Our beloved son Abdul El Muhajir (Darrel P. Jackmon) won a Fulbright fellowship to the University of Damascus. He graduated from UC Berkeley in Arabic and Middle Eastern literature, studied at the American University in Cairo, grad study at Harvard.

And then my son suffered manic depression and under medication decided to walk into a train.

My son was the reincarnation of myself. He said he would preach my funeral, yet I had to preach his as many parents are doing these days. Yes, nature is out of order. Children are supposed to bury parents, not the reverse. My father in law is 85 yet has had to bury two of his daughters.

What is the solution?

I have offered you my book How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, Nisa Ra offers you Black Love Lives and my daughter Muhammida El Muhajir offers you Black Power Babies, surely between Nisa, Muhammida and myself lies the truth!


Monday, March 18, 2013

Coming soon to a venue near you: In Concert: Marvin X and pianist Alfie Pollitt


Black Love Lives, producer Nisa Ra (former wife of Marvin X and mother of their daughter Muhammida El Muhajir, co-producer), Sister Zoharah (a disciple of His Holiness Guru Bawa--this entire group was influenced by Elijah Muhammad and Guru Bawa), Marvin X, Hurriyah Asar (celebrating a 47 year friendship with Marvin X) at Houston Hall, University of Penn. Marvin X concluded the conference with a reading accompanied by Philly living legend, pianist Alfie Pollitt at the Black owned Cleft Jazz Club.








The Black Love Live Conference ended with Marvin X reading from his The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables and fables. He read Parable of the Heart, backed by Philadelphia's living legend, pianist Alfie Pollitt. The two have long wanted to perform together. "This is the start of something Alfie and I have talked about for at least two years. It was a pleasure having this Philly legend perform with me. In sha' Allah, there is more to come between us. We share the same musical, artistic and spiritual consciousness."




Alfie Pollitt and Marvin X, seated, vending his books at Black Love Lives Conference, University of Penn.

Parable of the Heart

There was a man who loved God. He went to churches, mosques, temples in his search for God. He married, had children, a good job, yet still didn't feel he knew God. He prayed day and night until his knee caps had sores. He called out for God to make Himself known in his life. Hearing nothing from God, he balled his fists at God, in anger and frustration. Why won't God talk to me, he wondered?

He loved his family and they loved him. He gave them all the material comforts, yet he was angry because he felt God was hiding from him, and he wanted God to be real in his life. He tried over and over attending churches, mosques, temples. He studied all the religions, isms, schisms, sects, cults. He almost had a breakdown because he believed God was playing tricks with him.

Finally God spoke to him. He said, look, man, you have everything any man could want: a beautiful family, good job, a sincere heart. Why do you keep calling me? Do you think I am deaf?

I've done all I can do for you. You have everything. Get off your knees, there is no need to pray to me. Why are you praying when I've already answered? Are you an ungrateful wretch? Don't you know I have plenty of work to do with all these wretched beings causing hell on earth? Why do you want me to waste time with you when I made you perfect, without defect?

Your search for me is in vain because I have been with you all the time. Every time your heart beats, that is me moving inside you. Now what else do you need to know?

And so the man came to know God as his heart beating in the day and in the night. He came to believe and know the religion of the heart. He no longer searched for God in buildings, churches, mosques, temples, but instead listened to his heart beat, the rhythm of his soul. He looked to the God within and without, since God also told him He was everywhere in all things, that there was nothing and nowhere He was absent. He was in the trees, rivers, oceans, fish, cows, horses, mountains, old people, poor, rich, youth, hungry, sick, dope fiend, alcoholic, sinner. All is in God and God is in all. He is in the fly, bees, birds, ants, mosquitoes, rats, snakes.

His family was so happy he had found God in his heart. They wondered why it took so long for him to see the light. His wife told him she saw God in his face the day they met. 
--Marvin X




Marvin X. Jackmon has shared a video with you on YouTube


Celebration, performance and rare interview of legendary Philadelphia musician & composer ALFIE POLLITT who celebrated his 70th earthday on January 6, 2013 at the Philadelphia Clef Club House of Jazz. Performances by Alfie Pollitt and Love's Magic.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Black Rage in Brooklyn: Pigs Murder Kimani Gray

Rage in Brooklyn: East flatbush reacts to police shooting of Kimani Gray

By NAYABA ARINDE Amsterdam News Editor And AMITY PAYE AmNews Web Manager

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Depending on which agency is delivering the report, word is; on Saturday, March 9 around 11:25 p.m., Kimani "Kiki" Gray, 16, was shot 11 times by two undercover police officers. The officers claim the youth was armed. However, a number of witnesses have said the teen did not have a gun at all.

A too, too familiar New York City story.

Over 100 people responded to the shooting and gathered Monday night for a vigil in East Flatbush. Irate, some in the crowd chanted, "NYPD, KKK, how many kids did you kill today?" The vigil was an all-too-common scene of mourners and protestors. There were candles, flowers and photographs. It was nonviolent by all accounts, and then they dispersed.

Though peaceful at first, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, "a splinter group" broke off and ran rampant through a Rite Aide, attacking some people and destroying property. Remnants of the crowd created civil unrest, with aired reports stating that police virtually had to barricade themselves in the 67th Precinct. The mainstream media labeled it a "riot."

DNAinfo.com reported that "a large, disorderly group [began] throwing bottles at police" and "threw bottles at cops, broke shop windows and looted a Rite Aid."

"This was not a riot. One person getting arrested for disorderly conduct does not a riot make," retorted Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron, who was at the vigil. "This was a situation where the people were rightfully angry. A young man was killed and they want to know why … it was when I got home that I heard there was a riot. But you don't see any images of a riot. What you see is the police in the street with the people."

At Monday's vigil, the crowd marched from East 52nd Street and Tilden Avenue and reportedly planned to march to the 67th Precinct, located on Snyder Avenue, but was blocked off by the police a block away. Protesters, joined by members of Stop Stop-and-Frisk, Malcolm X Grass Roots Movement, the New Black Panthers, Mothers Resist, Picture the Homeless and many others gathered again on Tuesday night at 52nd Street and Church Avenue and marched about 20 blocks toward the nearby 67th Precinct station. However, before they could reach the station, police again barricaded their path this time with a row of outfitted riot police, a row of metal barricades, a row of police officers and a final row of mounted officers, along with at least two helicopters observing from above.

"They already see us as criminals, they are profiling us right now. And we're not dong anything but exercising our Fourth Amendment right," said Jose LaSalle, one of the organizers of the march, who also organizes with the group Stop Stop-and-Frisk. "They have to understand that we are marching because police brutality has risen to a point that we can not take it anymore. We are tired of being silenced. We know that silence is consent, and we no longer consent to the abuse, ethics and policies that these police officers are using on our communities," LaSalle said during an impromptu speak-out that protestors held when they were stopped at Nostrand and Snyder avenues by police barricades.

This week, the Huffington Post reported that on the day Gray was shot, he was spotted hanging out with friends by anti-crime patrol officers working in an unmarked car. When the group of young men noticed the officers, police stated that Gray fidgeted with his waistband and broke away from the crowd. This is when the officers exited their vehicle in an attempt to speak to him. Cops said that Gray "turned on them and pointed a .38-caliber pistol at [them]."

Both officers fired shots, hitting Gray in several places on his torso and legs, according to police. However, BlackYouthProject.org reported that Grey's sister Mahnefah was told by a witness that it was only the "suspicious" adjustment of his waistband that caused the police to shoot and kill her brother.

Witnesses also said Gray begged for his life and reportedly said, "Please don't let me die." One of the officers reportedly replied, "Stay down or we'll shoot you again."

Gray was rushed to Kings County Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Both officers, whose names have not been released, were treated at Methodist Hospital for trauma and tinnitus, ringing in the ears.

"There are too many stories. He had a gun, he didn't have a gun, It's bulls—," said Fatima Shakur, who led the protest march on Tuesday night. "But what is the protocol to deal with Black youth? … Ray Kelly, you need to train your officers to follow protocol. Ray Kelly, please train your officers again. They are not following protocol in the Black community. How many bullets does it take to disarm a child?"

Police quickly announced that Gray had a criminal record, which included charges for breaking into a car and possession of stolen property. The two officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative duty while the shooting remains under investigation.

The police department did not respond to an AmNews request for a response and Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been uncharacteristically quiet on this issue. The police have also not released an image of the gun they said Gray was brandishing, as they have done in similar cases.

Gray's uncle, Cecil Nunes, 65, told the Huffington Post, "He was respectful, but a typical teenager. I have to ask myself why this happened. Why, why, why?"

Gray's mother, Carol, was hospitalized when she heard about her son's death. She was released Sunday morning.

While the Gray family mourns the loss of Kimani, his death reminds community members of others in their past. In 1996, cops from the very same 67th Precinct surrounded what they said was a stolen Honda and shot an unarmed 23-year-old Aswan Watson 18 times. "That boy died with his hands in the air and a hole in his chest," said a distraught witness at the time. As memories of the 1999 42-shot police killing of West African vendor Amadou Diallo resurface, the city is once again reeling from the effects of yet another plain-clothes police killing.

Shantel Davis was also shot and killed by an NYPD officer last year following a car chase that ended just blocks from the location of Gray's shooting Saturday. "We are on East 38th Street, we are on East 38th Street," chanted protest marchers on Tuesday night. "Shantel Davis was assassinated on East 38th Street. No justice, no peace, no racist police. Justice for Shantel Davis."

Finding himself in the thick of things, Flatbush Council Member Jumaane Williams told the Amsterdam News, "This is not about one particular shooting—this is a culmination of things. This is about police and community relations."

Williams continued, "There was a huge community presence at the vigil because people are just fed up. It is not just about the shooting of Kimani Gray. It is because of the daily occurrences—how the police interact with the community, the stop-and-frisk, the abuse of police power and the lack of resources."

Williams, who tweeted live from the first the vigil, quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "A riot is the language of the unheard," he said, then asked the mayor and the police commissioner to visit East Flatbush. Kelly dismissed as a mere request for a "photo op."

Saying that Bloomberg called him on Tuesday morning, Williams told the AmNews, "The leaders have to keep the city safe, but they are misguided in the way they are doing it. You can't triple down on the amount of policing while not tripling down on the resources needed … This is about the lack of resources. I don't have a community center within three miles of my district. We need park space."

Expressing similar sentiment, Barron told the crowd at Tuesday's protest march, "We are fighting capitalism … Poverty is a crime. Unemployment is a crime. Racist institutions, they are crimes ... It's time to be hot. It's time to raise the temperature. We need to grow this and shut this city down. Shut it down! … The real criminal is Mayor Bloomberg."

On Wednesday, Barron said, "This not about one lone issue or even this particular shooting. People are angry because of the history of the Police Department, with all the racial profiling, stops and frisks, the cussing us out, and the use of abuse of police powers. People are sick of the disrespect and abuse of force and violence against them."

"We want the truth to come out. We never believe the police version. Whether he had a gun or not, we need to see if the shooting was justified. We just need the truth, videos, photographs and witnesses," Barron said.

Williams will be hosting the Youth Empowerment Seminar: "Let's Be Real!," taking place on Saturday, March 16, 2 to 6 p.m. at the Tilden Educational Campus, located at 5800 Tilden Ave.

As of press time, a third vigil and protest was scheduled for Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at 52nd Street and Church Avenue in East Flatbush, with the possibility of a fourth protest on Friday, May 15, which is International Day Against Police Brutality.



Additional reporting by TRUDY TOMLINSON and VICTORIA JOHNSON