Old order changeth yielding place to the new. Are there changes in the horizon across the Arab world? Two weeks ago, Tunisian strongman Zine el-Abidine ben Ali fled the country following weeks of street protests.
For the last few days, demonstrators in Egypt, the most populous Arab country, have held signs that declared “Pharaoh no more,” an obvious reference to their distaste of President Hosni Mubarak who have been ruling the country with an iron hand for the past three decades since his predecessor was gunned down by a member of his own army during a military parade. Inspired by events in Tunisia, they have filled the streets in Cairo and Alexandria demanding that Mubarak should step down.
In Yemen, about 100 marchers descended on the Egyptian Embassy to show solidarity with the swelling protests. In Iran students demonstrated in front of the Egyptian interest section office in Tehran to show their support for the protesters in Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab countries. In New York City and Washington D.C., hundreds gathered in a peaceful demonstration over the weekend in front of the United Nations Building and the Egyptian Embassy, respectively, showing their solidarity with the protesters in Egypt. They demanded that the Obama Administration stands with the people and not with the dictator.
In the post-Sadat days, American presidents – Democrats and Republicans alike – have been some of the staunchest allies of the unpopular Mubarak regime. This support, in spite of the fact that his was one of the most autocratic, undemocratic and corrupt regimes with some of the worst records of human rights abuses. Sham presidential elections were routinely held that guaranteed re-election of Mubarak with approximately 99% support. The opposition party members had little or no rights, both inside and outside the parliament. Even the Khatibs (that led Friday prayer services) that criticized the regime for any of its plethora of failures were not safe from Mubarak’s prisons. Many would be picked up by the police days before Jumu’a and returned later, if at all. Others would rot and/or die under mysterious circumstances within the prison cells. Mubarak’s internal security forces had mastered the art of torture -- from electric shocks to sodomy and rape. Nothing was off-limits to these two-legged monsters, responsible for upholding the Mubarak regime at any cost. It was Mubarak’s prisons that produced the Arab rebels like Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, now a close ally of Osama Bin Laden. One may argue that had it not been for these Egyptian torture cells, there probably would never have been a 9/11.
Hours after the countrywide protests had begun the Egyptian interior ministry issued a statement blaming the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's technically banned but largest opposition party, for fomenting the unrest. But the Brotherhood denied the accusation. Truly, these protests, if we can still call these as such, are spontaneous reactions to decades of Mubarak’s tyranny and utter failure to improve the people’s lot. These outbursts of public anger have very little to do with any particular opposition party. Millions of Egyptians are unemployed today. Many are forced to do multiple jobs to support their family members. Every ordinary Egyptian -- from a sweeper in the cities to the shopkeepers in the bazaars of the major cities, from cab drivers in cities like Cairo - many with Ph.D. degrees - to college and university professors, from a farmer in the Nile Delta to a firefighter in Alexandria -- is tired of poverty, unemployment, government corruption and authoritarian rule.
The Egyptian people want Mubarak out. They are tired of a dictatorship draped in the cloth of democracy. Afraid of losing control, the government imposed curfew, which however has been defied by the protesters. According to state-run TV, at least 100 people have died in the unrest, including 10 members of security forces. For most part the police have backed off from confrontations in most areas of the capital, thus allowing tens of thousands of demonstrators free rein through the Cairo city center. Sporadic lootings of shops have also taken place in certain parts of the major cities. However, the protests across Egypt have not turned ugly yet, and continue to be quite peaceful. [It should be noted that the despised regime may be behind such lawlessness to prevail, thus, justifying a military crackdown where Mubarak or his chosen successor stays in power without a real change taking root in political landscape of Egypt.]
Like most despotic rulers, President Hosni Mubarak refuses to see the obvious and step down. In a televised address last week, the embattled leader tried to deflect blame for the nation's rising anger by announcing that he would form a new government. On the fifth day of growing unrest by demonstrators he named a vice president for the first time in his 30-year reign, a sign that he would continue to resist the popular uprising's call for his resignation. He swore in Omar Suleiman, 76, chief of Egyptian intelligence, as his vice-president. It is obvious that the latter, a shadowy figure with close ties with the popular Egyptian military, has the blessings of the U.S. and Israel. These countries would approve an orderly transition that would maintain Egypt's international commitments.
But such announcements of government shakeup, including naming of a new prime minister, have not been able to sway the Egyptian public. In Cairo and Alexandria, tens of thousands of protesters returned to the streets to demand that Mubarak leave power immediately. Angry crowds were chanting, "Down, down with Mubarak!" and "Mr. Mubarak, wake up -- today is your final day in power!"
Tanks were also in position at Tahrir Square in Cairo, raising questions about how the military would respond. The army's lower-ranking officers and soldiers come from the nation's heartland and feel a bond with the people, but higher up the chain of command the officers' loyalty is to the president. However, the military in general has grown disillusioned with the government policies and wisely, thus far, has avoided any confrontation with the protesters.
Egypt has been a key to American influence in the Middle East for more than 30 years. It has been a partner with the United States in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. It has fought alongside the U.S. administration against Iraq during the Gulf War I. It has been a trusted ally in George W. Bush’s so-called global war on terror. It continues to work with the Obama administration to curb Iranian influence in the Arab world.
Since the days of late president Anwar Sadat, billions of dollars of U.S. aid have been poured into Egypt. Ignored there is the fact that most of the aid ($1.3 billion annually) was meant for military use. The U.S. economic aid in 2009 was cut to $200 million. That is, the per capita share was a meager $2.60 in a country with a Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) of $5,400 in 2008. Nonetheless such paltry aids, which did very little to better the lives of ordinary Egyptians, were often exploited by the powerful in either side to show and demand Egyptian indebtedness to the U.S. government. Unmentioned there is also the fact that aid given to Egypt provides the United States with political, strategic, and sometimes economic benefits that far exceed the value of what Egypt has received. According to the IMF Trade Statistics Trends Yearbook, during the 1983–2007 period, Egypt’s total accumulated trade deficit with the United States was $45.1 billion. This sum is far greater than the total size of American economic aid to Egypt to date.
The Obama administration is worried about the continuing unrest in Egypt. It is facing a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" choice. They prefer a peaceful change of old guards without any ripple effect. The fall of Mubarak government could intensify pressures on some neighbors, potentially setting off a tsunami that topples other despotic governments and reshapes the political and security balance throughout the region. The rise of a less friendly government could set off alarms in Israel, and calls for the U.S. to step up its defense of its closest ally -- Israel.
In his Cairo speech in 2009, President Obama said the United States supported the aspirations for greater freedom of Arabs. Yet his administration has continued in many ways the old policies of past U.S. governments. It continues to support the region's authoritarian regimes. It is against popular movements in Lebanon and Gaza. Many Arab activists say they preferred the more sharp-edged message of President G.W. Bush, who pushed a "freedom agenda" than President Obama’s forked-tongue message of freedom.
So far, the official response from the Obama administration has been a measured one recommending that the Mubarak regime needs to change its course and listen to people’s grievances. It would do better by demanding that President Mubarak steps down, and lets the Egyptian people have the freedom to elect their legitimate leaders in a free election. Nothing short of it will allow the Obama administration to be taken seriously by the Arab population, especially its young generation that has been craving for change. Any effort by the Obama administration which undermines people’s aspirations for freedom would be counterproductive. On their part, the Egyptian people ought to be extra careful that their revolution is not hijacked by some opportunists within the armed forces, or by stage-managed actors whose loyalty is more for their foreign masters than to their own people.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Hu’s Visit to the USA – It’s Economics, Stupid!
China's human rights record is bad with abuses ranging from censorship to illegal detention of dissidents to executions without due process. Its treatment of ethnic minorities, especially the Uyghur Muslims, is simply horrendous and has no parallel inside China. In July 2009, China’s oil-rich and ethnically sensitive far-western province of Xinjiang experienced violence between the indigenous Uyghurs and the settler Han Chinese in the provincial capital, Urumqi. This resulted in the death of more than 100 people and injury of some 800 individuals, mostly Uyghurs in both counts. The disturbances occurred after a year of rising tensions between the dominant Han Chinese authorities and the Uyghur ethnic minority - the historical ethnic majority in Xinjiang - that have been socially, politically and economically marginalized by Beijing's policies that introduce Chinesization of the region. China’s heavy handed policy of repression inside Tibet has also drawn much condemnation from outside.
But none of these matters of grave concern has put a dent in bilateral economic relationship that China enjoys with the western world, especially the USA. Much to the credit of the late President Nixon’s ground-breaking Ping Pong Diplomacy, the relationship has only become stronger with time. China remains one of the largest trading partners of the USA. There is hardly a major U.S. corporation that does not have a business outlet today in places like Shanghai and Beijing. While millions of jobs have been lost inside the American soil because of outsourcing of those job functions to China, the official U.S. records show that its exports to China are growing nearly twice as fast as its exports to the rest of the world.
According to the Obama administration, the U.S.A. is exporting more than $100 billion a year in goods and services to China, which supports more than half a million American jobs. According to the Chinese official record, some 3 million people travel between the USA and China every year. In other words, on every single day, approximately 7,000 to 8,000 people travel between the two countries. Nevertheless, the widening trade gap between the two countries and the loss of jobs inside the U.S. soil has not softened the attitude of many American politicians towards China.
Last week, President Hu Jintao of China visited the USA and held a joint press conference with President Barack Obama in the East Room of the White House. In a packed news conference President Obama was asked how the United States could keep good relations with a country with such a horrible record on human rights, and whether he had any confidence that as a result of this visit that would change.
In his reply Mr. Obama said the two leaders had talked about the issue a number of times and that he had made it clear to President Hu that Americans have some core views “about the universality of certain rights -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly -- that we think are very important and that transcend cultures. I have been very candid with President Hu about these issues. Occasionally, they are a source of tension between our two governments.”
When President Hu was pressed to defend his country's treatment of its people he initially did not answer, saying he never heard the question translated. When prodded a second time, Mr. Hu defended his country's promotion of human rights. He said, “China is always committed to the protection and promotion of human rights. And in the course of human rights, China has also made enormous progress, recognized widely in the world. China recognizes and also respects the universality of human rights. And at the same time, we do believe that we also need to take into account the different and national circumstances when it comes to the universal value of human rights. China is a developing country with a huge population, and also a developing country in a crucial stage of reform. In this context, China still faces many challenges in economic and social development. And a lot still needs to be done in China, in terms of human rights.” He continued, “We will continue our efforts to improve the lives of the Chinese people, and we will continue our efforts to promote democracy and the rule of law in our country. At the same time, we are also willing to continue to have exchanges and dialogue with other countries in terms of human rights, and we are also willing to learn from each other in terms of the good practices. As President Obama rightly put it just now, though there are disagreements between China and the United States on the issue of human rights, China is willing to engage in dialogue and exchanges with the United States on the basis of mutual respect and the principle of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. In this way, we’ll be able to further increase our mutual understanding, reduce our disagreements, and expand our common ground.”
And as expected, with such a diplomatic response from Mr. Hu, the matter of grievous human rights violations inside China was shelved. No questions were asked about Liu Xiaobo - the Nobel Peace Prize winner (2010), who is in the second year of an 11-year prison sentence for ‘subversion’. (Beijing has denounced the award as "a desecration" and maintained that the honor should have gone to someone focused on promoting international friendship and disarmament.)
Interestingly, Mr. Hu’s visit to the U.S.A. this year coincided with President Obama’s end of the second year in office. All those presidential promises made two years ago about closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison, which continues to hold hundreds of Muslim prisoners (mostly innocent victims who still remain uncharged of any crime after ten years) under gross inhuman conditions, are now conveniently forgotten. Mr. Obama’s promises about making our world less war-prone and more peaceful are also seemingly lost from his agenda. His administration has not only failed to stop Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s settlement policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories but has actually rewarded Israel more handsomely than ever before in spite of its repeated violations of international laws.
More disturbingly, the Obama administration has engaged in covert war against Iran. The fingerprint of the CIA-Mossad collaboration in the targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists Majid Shahriari and Ferrydoun Abbasi Davani on the morning rush-hours of November 29, 2010 is all too visible for everyone to see. Reportedly there has also been a computer virus attack (Stuxnet) to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. As noted by the Newsweek, rarely has a covert war been so obvious.
Will the next two years be any better? Probably not, when it comes to international affairs! America’s foreign policy is increasingly showing the obvious signs of being manipulated by the military industrial complex, forewarned half a century ago by the outgoing president Eisenhower. As alleged last week in a speech by the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh at the Doha campus of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar that key branches of the U.S. military are being led by Christian fundamentalist ‘crusaders’ who are determined to ‘turn mosques into cathedrals.’ This crusading attitude "pervades" a large portion of the Joint Special Operations Command, which is part of the military's Special Forces branch.
On the domestic front, employment or job security and healthcare will continue to dominate the public agenda. Here, the future may look brighter. Although the American economy is still weak, less people are now unemployed compared to the last two years of George W. Bush’s presidency. Mr. Obama’s favorable rating has also become better. In a Rasmussen poll taken last Saturday, overall, 50% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president Obama's performance; forty-eight percent (48%) disapprove. This is the first time in a month that the president’s overall rating has reached 50%. The Gallup daily poll also confirms the latest trend in approval rating for the president.
So, during the joint press conference with Mr. Hu, Mr. Obama could grin while mentioning that China has completed dozens of deals that would increase U.S. exports by more than $45 billion and also increase China’s investment in the United States by several billion dollars. Mr. Obama said, “From machinery to software, from aviation to agriculture, these deals will support some 235,000 American jobs. And that includes many manufacturing jobs. So this is great news for America’s workers.”
These trade deals speak voluminously about the world we live in, as hypocritically scripted by our world leaders. Long gone are the days of ideology and human rights! It is economics, stupid! And not human rights that matters!
But none of these matters of grave concern has put a dent in bilateral economic relationship that China enjoys with the western world, especially the USA. Much to the credit of the late President Nixon’s ground-breaking Ping Pong Diplomacy, the relationship has only become stronger with time. China remains one of the largest trading partners of the USA. There is hardly a major U.S. corporation that does not have a business outlet today in places like Shanghai and Beijing. While millions of jobs have been lost inside the American soil because of outsourcing of those job functions to China, the official U.S. records show that its exports to China are growing nearly twice as fast as its exports to the rest of the world.
According to the Obama administration, the U.S.A. is exporting more than $100 billion a year in goods and services to China, which supports more than half a million American jobs. According to the Chinese official record, some 3 million people travel between the USA and China every year. In other words, on every single day, approximately 7,000 to 8,000 people travel between the two countries. Nevertheless, the widening trade gap between the two countries and the loss of jobs inside the U.S. soil has not softened the attitude of many American politicians towards China.
Last week, President Hu Jintao of China visited the USA and held a joint press conference with President Barack Obama in the East Room of the White House. In a packed news conference President Obama was asked how the United States could keep good relations with a country with such a horrible record on human rights, and whether he had any confidence that as a result of this visit that would change.
In his reply Mr. Obama said the two leaders had talked about the issue a number of times and that he had made it clear to President Hu that Americans have some core views “about the universality of certain rights -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly -- that we think are very important and that transcend cultures. I have been very candid with President Hu about these issues. Occasionally, they are a source of tension between our two governments.”
When President Hu was pressed to defend his country's treatment of its people he initially did not answer, saying he never heard the question translated. When prodded a second time, Mr. Hu defended his country's promotion of human rights. He said, “China is always committed to the protection and promotion of human rights. And in the course of human rights, China has also made enormous progress, recognized widely in the world. China recognizes and also respects the universality of human rights. And at the same time, we do believe that we also need to take into account the different and national circumstances when it comes to the universal value of human rights. China is a developing country with a huge population, and also a developing country in a crucial stage of reform. In this context, China still faces many challenges in economic and social development. And a lot still needs to be done in China, in terms of human rights.” He continued, “We will continue our efforts to improve the lives of the Chinese people, and we will continue our efforts to promote democracy and the rule of law in our country. At the same time, we are also willing to continue to have exchanges and dialogue with other countries in terms of human rights, and we are also willing to learn from each other in terms of the good practices. As President Obama rightly put it just now, though there are disagreements between China and the United States on the issue of human rights, China is willing to engage in dialogue and exchanges with the United States on the basis of mutual respect and the principle of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. In this way, we’ll be able to further increase our mutual understanding, reduce our disagreements, and expand our common ground.”
And as expected, with such a diplomatic response from Mr. Hu, the matter of grievous human rights violations inside China was shelved. No questions were asked about Liu Xiaobo - the Nobel Peace Prize winner (2010), who is in the second year of an 11-year prison sentence for ‘subversion’. (Beijing has denounced the award as "a desecration" and maintained that the honor should have gone to someone focused on promoting international friendship and disarmament.)
Interestingly, Mr. Hu’s visit to the U.S.A. this year coincided with President Obama’s end of the second year in office. All those presidential promises made two years ago about closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison, which continues to hold hundreds of Muslim prisoners (mostly innocent victims who still remain uncharged of any crime after ten years) under gross inhuman conditions, are now conveniently forgotten. Mr. Obama’s promises about making our world less war-prone and more peaceful are also seemingly lost from his agenda. His administration has not only failed to stop Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s settlement policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories but has actually rewarded Israel more handsomely than ever before in spite of its repeated violations of international laws.
More disturbingly, the Obama administration has engaged in covert war against Iran. The fingerprint of the CIA-Mossad collaboration in the targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists Majid Shahriari and Ferrydoun Abbasi Davani on the morning rush-hours of November 29, 2010 is all too visible for everyone to see. Reportedly there has also been a computer virus attack (Stuxnet) to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. As noted by the Newsweek, rarely has a covert war been so obvious.
Will the next two years be any better? Probably not, when it comes to international affairs! America’s foreign policy is increasingly showing the obvious signs of being manipulated by the military industrial complex, forewarned half a century ago by the outgoing president Eisenhower. As alleged last week in a speech by the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh at the Doha campus of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar that key branches of the U.S. military are being led by Christian fundamentalist ‘crusaders’ who are determined to ‘turn mosques into cathedrals.’ This crusading attitude "pervades" a large portion of the Joint Special Operations Command, which is part of the military's Special Forces branch.
On the domestic front, employment or job security and healthcare will continue to dominate the public agenda. Here, the future may look brighter. Although the American economy is still weak, less people are now unemployed compared to the last two years of George W. Bush’s presidency. Mr. Obama’s favorable rating has also become better. In a Rasmussen poll taken last Saturday, overall, 50% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president Obama's performance; forty-eight percent (48%) disapprove. This is the first time in a month that the president’s overall rating has reached 50%. The Gallup daily poll also confirms the latest trend in approval rating for the president.
So, during the joint press conference with Mr. Hu, Mr. Obama could grin while mentioning that China has completed dozens of deals that would increase U.S. exports by more than $45 billion and also increase China’s investment in the United States by several billion dollars. Mr. Obama said, “From machinery to software, from aviation to agriculture, these deals will support some 235,000 American jobs. And that includes many manufacturing jobs. So this is great news for America’s workers.”
These trade deals speak voluminously about the world we live in, as hypocritically scripted by our world leaders. Long gone are the days of ideology and human rights! It is economics, stupid! And not human rights that matters!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The Climate of Hate – Arizona Shooting
United States is a nation prone to political violence. Nine presidents have been the targets of assassination, along with one president-elect and three presidential candidates. In addition, some eight governors, seven U.S. Senators, 10 Representatives, 11 mayors and 17 state legislators have been violently attacked. No other Western country with a population over 50 million has as high a number.
As to the reasons behind such attacks, Columbia University History Professor Steven Mintz says, “Political assassinations have tended to occur during periods of civil strife and intense partisanship. The first presidential assassination attempt — against Andrew Jackson in 1835 — coincided with a sharp upsurge in anti-abolitionist and ethnic violence… Between 1865 and 1877, 34 political officials were attacked, 24 of them fatally. These included a U.S. senator, two Congressional representatives, three governors, 10 state legislators, eight judges and 10 other officeholders. The 20th century saw three peak periods of political violence: at the turn of the century, the 1920s and 1930s, and 1963 to 1981. Each coincided with periods of civil unrest and bitter partisanship.”
When John F. Kennedy went to Dallas on November 22, 1963, conservative protesters were everywhere. One activist handed out 5,000 handbills about Kennedy modeled after police ‘most wanted’ circulars. “This man is wanted for treason,” the handbills read, for “turning the sovereignty of the U.S. over to the communist controlled United Nations” and for having been “WRONG on innumerable issues affecting the security of the U.S.”
We see similar accusations against the sitting President these days. As noted by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman of the Princeton University in a recent article in the New York Times, something very ugly has been taking shape on the political scene since at least the time of 2008 presidential election campaign. As Senator John McCain’s chances faded, the crowds at his rallies were, by all accounts, increasingly gripped by insane rage. It was not just a mob phenomenon — it was visible in the right-wing media, and in the speeches of McCain and his running mate – Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
With an Afro-American President in the White House -- the first ever, who happens to have a Muslim-sounding name -- courtesy of his Kenyan roots, there is undeniably a climate of hate today. The diatribes are increasingly nastier and dangerous. The Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion: in April 2009 an internal report warned that right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence. Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by a whopping 300 percent. We are told that a number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness. But there is no doubt that something about the current state of America has been causing far more ‘psychos’ than ever before to act out their ‘illness’ by engaging in political violence.
In a healthy liberal democracy there is no room for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary. But that is what has been happening in the USA, thanks to the Republican politicians like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, and talk show hosts like Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and O’Reilly. As bluntly noted by a neocon -- David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter, when asked by the ABC TV’s Ted Moran in March 22 of 2010 if the conservative talk show hosts had hijacked the Republican party, “Republicans originally thought that Fox (owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch) worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.”
It was not too long ago that Rush Limbaugh said, “I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus--li¬ving fossils--s¬o we we’ll never forget what these people stood for.” Ann Coulter, another bigot and provocateur, said, “My only regret with Tim McVeigh (responsible for the Oklahoma Federal building blast and terrorism) is that he did not go to the New York Times building.” Glen Beck said, “Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore (an award-winning political commentator and documentary movie producer), and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could.”
It was only a few months ago that Sharron Angle, the Tea Party-endorsed candidate who failed to unseat Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) in last year’s midterm election, had said, “If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking towards those Second Amendment remedies.” The statement makes reference to the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms as a defense against an intrusive or oppressive government. And then there is Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) who in 2009 said, “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back.” She also said, “Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing. And the people - we the people - are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.”
With the passage of health care reform last year, there has been increasingly violent language coming from opponents of the legislation, along with vandalism directed at Democratic members of Congress. Sarah Palin did her part to raise the rhetorical intensity, telling her Twitter followers in March of the last year, “Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: ‘Don’t Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!’”
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot last week during a public event in Tucson on January 8, was among 20 other members of Congress who were on a so-called hit list published by Sarah Palin. Jesse Kelly, Giffords’s Republican opponent in the 2010 mid-term elections, similarly employed guns in a campaign event. He staged an event in July asking supporters to ‘get on target’ and ‘remove Gabrielle Giffords from office’ -- all while shooting ‘a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.’
Consider also the fact that one out of every five Americans is likely to have psychiatric problems. A small fraction of this population (some 40,000) is extremely vulnerable to what it sees and hears and is capable of committing terrorism.
So this latest massacre in Tucson in which 6 people, including a 9-year-old girl, were murdered and Representative Giffords severely wounded should not come as a surprise, especially in the state of Arizona where gun laws stand out as among the most permissive in the country. Last year, Arizona became only the third state that does not require a permit to carry a concealed weapon. The state also enacted another measure that allowed workers to take their guns to work, even if their workplaces banned firearms, as long as they kept them in their locked vehicles. In 2009, a law went into effect allowing people with concealed-weapons permits to take their guns into restaurants and bars. In the last two weeks, two bills were introduced relating to the right to carry guns on college campuses, one allowing professors to carry concealed weapons and one allowing anybody who can legally carry a gun to do so.
Mainstream news organizations linked the attack to Sarah Palin and the offensive target map issued by her political action committee that included crosshairs over Rep. Giffords’s district (among others). The Huffington Post erupted, with former Senator Gary Hart emphatically stating that the killings were the result of angry political rhetoric. Keith Olbermann of MSNBC demanded a Palin-repudiation and Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the Daily Kos, wrote on Twitter: “Mission Accomplished, Sarah Palin.” Others argued that the killing was encouraged by a political climate of hate.
These accusations — that political actors in a liberal democracy contributed to the murder of 6 people — are extremely serious. The Republicans obviously don’t like such charges laid on their dirty hands. In a statement read out on Wednesday, Palin called herself the victim of ‘blood libel’ (by journalists and pundits) — the original term for blaming Jews for the (so-called) crucifixion of Jesus and an anti-Semitic rallying call that led to countless deaths of Jews, primarily in Europe and Russia. Many rabbis called her remarks insensitive, ill-chosen and offensive to Holocaust survivors and other victims of anti-Semitism. Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, said Palin's own words — that violent political language can endanger people — are ‘affirming exactly what her critics charge.’
Whatever may be the excuses now put forth by the messengers of hatred, fact remains that the crazies and terrorists don’t kill in a vacuum, and the vilest of American political leaders and commentators deserve to be called to account for their demagoguery and the danger that comes with it. They cannot have separate rules for Muslim loonies while being too forgiving for breeding their own homegrown terrorists and assassins. Evidence seized from the assassin’s (Loughner’s) home, about five miles from the shooting, indicated that he had planned to kill Rep. Giffords, according to documents filed in Federal District Court in Phoenix. His was not a random act of violence.
According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, more than a million people have been killed with guns in the United States since 1968, when Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were killed. The New York Times reports that eight children and teenagers are killed a day in the USA due to gun violence. More than 150,000 Americans have been murdered since the beginning of the 21st century. This incessantly thriving procession of death that does not spare women or children ought to make us question seriously the plague of gun culture. Forgotten also is the fact that the states with more guns have more deaths resulting from gun violence. Unfortunately, Americans will take absolutely no steps, none whatsoever, to prevent a similar tragedy in the future.
In the aftermath of this latest murderous orgy, the most we will hear about is gun control. Public support for stricter gun control, however, has dropped significantly over the last couple of decades, and there is little evidence to suggest that mass shootings change opinions. And if the comedian Jon Stewart is to be believed, the sale of automatic guns has actually increased after the assassination attempt on Giffords.
Some 37 years ago when Black Muslim leader Malcolm X (Malik Shabazz) was asked to comment about the assassination of President Kennedy, he wisely said, “chickens coming home to roost.” The sad fact is unless American public is serious about reining in its addiction to gun, war and violence, the horror prompted by the attack in Tucson last week will pass, the outrage will fade, and the murders will continue. It’ll be all over again with new targets, and new Columbine and new Tucson killing fields!
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See also the NY Times article here.
As to the reasons behind such attacks, Columbia University History Professor Steven Mintz says, “Political assassinations have tended to occur during periods of civil strife and intense partisanship. The first presidential assassination attempt — against Andrew Jackson in 1835 — coincided with a sharp upsurge in anti-abolitionist and ethnic violence… Between 1865 and 1877, 34 political officials were attacked, 24 of them fatally. These included a U.S. senator, two Congressional representatives, three governors, 10 state legislators, eight judges and 10 other officeholders. The 20th century saw three peak periods of political violence: at the turn of the century, the 1920s and 1930s, and 1963 to 1981. Each coincided with periods of civil unrest and bitter partisanship.”
When John F. Kennedy went to Dallas on November 22, 1963, conservative protesters were everywhere. One activist handed out 5,000 handbills about Kennedy modeled after police ‘most wanted’ circulars. “This man is wanted for treason,” the handbills read, for “turning the sovereignty of the U.S. over to the communist controlled United Nations” and for having been “WRONG on innumerable issues affecting the security of the U.S.”
We see similar accusations against the sitting President these days. As noted by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman of the Princeton University in a recent article in the New York Times, something very ugly has been taking shape on the political scene since at least the time of 2008 presidential election campaign. As Senator John McCain’s chances faded, the crowds at his rallies were, by all accounts, increasingly gripped by insane rage. It was not just a mob phenomenon — it was visible in the right-wing media, and in the speeches of McCain and his running mate – Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
With an Afro-American President in the White House -- the first ever, who happens to have a Muslim-sounding name -- courtesy of his Kenyan roots, there is undeniably a climate of hate today. The diatribes are increasingly nastier and dangerous. The Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion: in April 2009 an internal report warned that right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence. Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by a whopping 300 percent. We are told that a number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness. But there is no doubt that something about the current state of America has been causing far more ‘psychos’ than ever before to act out their ‘illness’ by engaging in political violence.
In a healthy liberal democracy there is no room for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary. But that is what has been happening in the USA, thanks to the Republican politicians like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, and talk show hosts like Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and O’Reilly. As bluntly noted by a neocon -- David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter, when asked by the ABC TV’s Ted Moran in March 22 of 2010 if the conservative talk show hosts had hijacked the Republican party, “Republicans originally thought that Fox (owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch) worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.”
It was not too long ago that Rush Limbaugh said, “I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus--li¬ving fossils--s¬o we we’ll never forget what these people stood for.” Ann Coulter, another bigot and provocateur, said, “My only regret with Tim McVeigh (responsible for the Oklahoma Federal building blast and terrorism) is that he did not go to the New York Times building.” Glen Beck said, “Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore (an award-winning political commentator and documentary movie producer), and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could.”
It was only a few months ago that Sharron Angle, the Tea Party-endorsed candidate who failed to unseat Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) in last year’s midterm election, had said, “If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking towards those Second Amendment remedies.” The statement makes reference to the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms as a defense against an intrusive or oppressive government. And then there is Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) who in 2009 said, “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back.” She also said, “Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing. And the people - we the people - are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.”
With the passage of health care reform last year, there has been increasingly violent language coming from opponents of the legislation, along with vandalism directed at Democratic members of Congress. Sarah Palin did her part to raise the rhetorical intensity, telling her Twitter followers in March of the last year, “Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: ‘Don’t Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!’”
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot last week during a public event in Tucson on January 8, was among 20 other members of Congress who were on a so-called hit list published by Sarah Palin. Jesse Kelly, Giffords’s Republican opponent in the 2010 mid-term elections, similarly employed guns in a campaign event. He staged an event in July asking supporters to ‘get on target’ and ‘remove Gabrielle Giffords from office’ -- all while shooting ‘a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.’
Consider also the fact that one out of every five Americans is likely to have psychiatric problems. A small fraction of this population (some 40,000) is extremely vulnerable to what it sees and hears and is capable of committing terrorism.
So this latest massacre in Tucson in which 6 people, including a 9-year-old girl, were murdered and Representative Giffords severely wounded should not come as a surprise, especially in the state of Arizona where gun laws stand out as among the most permissive in the country. Last year, Arizona became only the third state that does not require a permit to carry a concealed weapon. The state also enacted another measure that allowed workers to take their guns to work, even if their workplaces banned firearms, as long as they kept them in their locked vehicles. In 2009, a law went into effect allowing people with concealed-weapons permits to take their guns into restaurants and bars. In the last two weeks, two bills were introduced relating to the right to carry guns on college campuses, one allowing professors to carry concealed weapons and one allowing anybody who can legally carry a gun to do so.
Mainstream news organizations linked the attack to Sarah Palin and the offensive target map issued by her political action committee that included crosshairs over Rep. Giffords’s district (among others). The Huffington Post erupted, with former Senator Gary Hart emphatically stating that the killings were the result of angry political rhetoric. Keith Olbermann of MSNBC demanded a Palin-repudiation and Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the Daily Kos, wrote on Twitter: “Mission Accomplished, Sarah Palin.” Others argued that the killing was encouraged by a political climate of hate.
These accusations — that political actors in a liberal democracy contributed to the murder of 6 people — are extremely serious. The Republicans obviously don’t like such charges laid on their dirty hands. In a statement read out on Wednesday, Palin called herself the victim of ‘blood libel’ (by journalists and pundits) — the original term for blaming Jews for the (so-called) crucifixion of Jesus and an anti-Semitic rallying call that led to countless deaths of Jews, primarily in Europe and Russia. Many rabbis called her remarks insensitive, ill-chosen and offensive to Holocaust survivors and other victims of anti-Semitism. Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, said Palin's own words — that violent political language can endanger people — are ‘affirming exactly what her critics charge.’
Whatever may be the excuses now put forth by the messengers of hatred, fact remains that the crazies and terrorists don’t kill in a vacuum, and the vilest of American political leaders and commentators deserve to be called to account for their demagoguery and the danger that comes with it. They cannot have separate rules for Muslim loonies while being too forgiving for breeding their own homegrown terrorists and assassins. Evidence seized from the assassin’s (Loughner’s) home, about five miles from the shooting, indicated that he had planned to kill Rep. Giffords, according to documents filed in Federal District Court in Phoenix. His was not a random act of violence.
According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, more than a million people have been killed with guns in the United States since 1968, when Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were killed. The New York Times reports that eight children and teenagers are killed a day in the USA due to gun violence. More than 150,000 Americans have been murdered since the beginning of the 21st century. This incessantly thriving procession of death that does not spare women or children ought to make us question seriously the plague of gun culture. Forgotten also is the fact that the states with more guns have more deaths resulting from gun violence. Unfortunately, Americans will take absolutely no steps, none whatsoever, to prevent a similar tragedy in the future.
In the aftermath of this latest murderous orgy, the most we will hear about is gun control. Public support for stricter gun control, however, has dropped significantly over the last couple of decades, and there is little evidence to suggest that mass shootings change opinions. And if the comedian Jon Stewart is to be believed, the sale of automatic guns has actually increased after the assassination attempt on Giffords.
Some 37 years ago when Black Muslim leader Malcolm X (Malik Shabazz) was asked to comment about the assassination of President Kennedy, he wisely said, “chickens coming home to roost.” The sad fact is unless American public is serious about reining in its addiction to gun, war and violence, the horror prompted by the attack in Tucson last week will pass, the outrage will fade, and the murders will continue. It’ll be all over again with new targets, and new Columbine and new Tucson killing fields!
===========
See also the NY Times article here.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
WikiLeaks Must Remain Free
No news dominated the headlines in the USA as the WikiLeaks story last week when the website released confidential U.S. State Department materials. The latest release is the third in recent months, following disclosures of two caches of U.S. government cables about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The leaked diplomatic cables offer an uncomfortable view into the back corridors of American diplomacy and have been aptly described a ‘diplomatic 9/11’ for the State Department, which is embarrassed for being caught off-guard. Secretary Clinton has been on a four-country swing through Central Asia and the Persian Gulf to repair the fallout from the WikiLeaks disclosures.
The leaked documents are a treasure trove for anyone interested in knowing how the U.S. diplomacy works. They show the extensive and increasingly successful manipulation by the U.S. for pushing a consensus to confront Iran’s nuclear program. It is not Israel alone in that region that is against Iran but also the Gulf States like the Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The leaks reveal the hypocrisy of the totalitarian regimes in the Arab world that are uncomfortable of being seen as collaborators furthering pro-American agenda. For instance, the Yemeni leader Saleh in a January meeting with U.S. General Petraeus urged the U.S. to continue its anti-al-Qaeda operations inside Yemen, while he would seek to find political cover at home by falsely claiming that ‘bombs are ours’ and not America’s.
The cables showed U.S. officials exploring ways to remove the highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani nuclear site in a way that would not spur a political backlash against President Zardari. The leaked cables also detailed a secret U.S. intelligence gathering campaign at the U.N. where the U.S. diplomats were asked to collect biometric information on key U.N. officials. The leaked cables also reveal that the USA and South Korea have discussed plans for collapsing the North Korean regime. Leaked cables showed British politicians trying to keep Parliament in the dark over the storage of American cluster bombs on British territory, despite an international ban on the weapons.
The leaked cables show the derogatory ways America’s allies referred to diplomatic partners. The French President Sarkozy is described as ‘thin-skinned and authoritarian’ ruler who is ‘an emperor with no clothes,’ German Chancellor Merkel as ‘risk averse and rarely creative’ Teflon politician, Russia’s Putin as ‘vicious alpha-dog,’ Turkmenistan’s Berdymukhamedov as ‘not a very bright guy,’ and the Afghan leader Karzai as ‘extremely weak.’ The list goes on, sure to embarrass diplomats, anger foreign officials, undermine international relationships and complicate communications.
When asked to comment on the leaks, the U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called these ‘embarrassing’ and ‘awkward’ but said the damage will be moderate. The Secretary Clinton and her State Department officials have been busy trying to limit the diplomatic ‘embarrassment’ and possible strategic losses by calling dozens of foreign governments.
Long gone are the days of open diplomacy when President Woodrow Wilson advocated ‘open covenants of peace, openly arrived at.’ Interestingly, it was the same Wilson who abandoned his own advocacy for openness when he went to Paris in 1919 to create the League of Nations and shaped the Treaty of Versailles.
Now governments – liberal and illiberal democracies alike, let alone the totalitarian regimes – are more into secrecy when it comes to diplomacy. What the diplomats say in public may only be half-truths, or worse yet, lies. They also equivocate or speak with forked tongues that allow them to deny today what they meant yesterday. The greater the equivocation skill the larger the image of the diplomat as a successful one!
The WikiLeaks disclosures have been praised by many who believe that they will allow the public to hold the government more accountable and thus improve American foreign policy. There is a merit to this line of argument when one reflects upon the mere fact that our world would have been a better place to live in if people were more informed of the secret decisions made by their governments. There would not possibly be a World War II or the emergence of Adolf Hitler if people knew that the Versailles Pact could provide the very seed for such later events. Would there be an Israeli-Palestinian conflict today if there was no Hitler and no World War II in which many Jews perished? Would the Arab world know about the secret Sykes-Picot Accord of 1916 that mapped out the partition of post-Ottoman Middle East between Britain and France had it not been for the Bolsheviks who in 1917 opened up the Czarist archives?
No, we don’t need to go that far back in our history book to learn the value of openness. What chance was there to invade Iraq if the American public knew the whole truth and nothing but the truth that there was no weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? What likelihood is there that America would be seen as a partner-in-crime to the Zionist state if the American public knew the whole truth about Israel’s outrageous influence over American policy-makers thereby undermining peaceful resolution of the conflict? How about the whole truth about Iran’s nuclear program? Can American public be mobilized to support an all-out sanction and repeat of the war crimes in the Iranian soil if it knows that there is no ‘smoking gun’ in Iran, not even the desire to acquire one?
On the contrary, leaks like this simply make those in power retreat further into the shadows to defend themselves and their positions. For instance, previous WikiLeaks releases have already driven the Pentagon to limit cross-agency sharing of information.
One lesson is that foreign officials will less likely speak candidly to U.S. emissaries knowing that their words may later be leaked out.
The suspected leaker is Private First Class (PFC) Bradley Manning, a low-ranking Army intelligence analyst, who has been in custody in Virginia in a pre-trial detention for the last few months for improperly accessing a State Department cable on Iceland and providing it to WikiLeaks. Reportedly he had taken 260,000 State Department cables, although he has not yet been charged in connection with the last three WikiLeaks releases.
What is striking is that if such a vast storehouse of secret information could be accessed by a low-ranking army analyst there is little doubt that freelance hackers and foreign spies can do just as much. Let’s face it. We live in a digital age when information is easily accessible, including our personal data. We are all at the mercy of zealous hackers. Thus, silencing the WikiLeaks won’t be able to address the underlying problem with vital information that needs either safeguarding or sharing.
Already efforts are underway to silence WikiLeaks. Its website has been under repeated cyber attacks. Its founder Julian Assange has been placed on Interpol’s most-wanted list for an alleged sex crime in Sweden, which he strongly denies of committing. New York Congressman Peter King, a Republican hawk on the House Committee on Homeland Security, has called for Mr. Assange’s arrest for violating the U.S. Espionage Act. It is worth noting here that as recently as 2009 the U.S. government dropped an Espionage Act prosecution against two lobbyists for AIPAC, the American-Israeli lobby, after a rebuke by a federal appeals court. Nonetheless, the pro-war politicians consider Mr. Assange an ‘enemy combatant’ with ‘blood on his hands.’ The Obama administration also wants to stop the whistle-blower website. Secretary Clinton has described the WikiLeaks disclosure ‘not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests’ but also ‘an attack on the international community – the alliances and partnerships.’
On December 1, Amazon.com, which initially had allowed its server for disseminating the documents, yielded to pressure from the U.S. government to cut off WikiLeaks. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), a war-monger who heads the Senate Homeland Security Committee, congratulated Amazon for its decision. After staying six hours offline, the website has found a new host and is back online as WikiLeaks.ch. The Pentagon said Wednesday that it could take down WikiLeaks if it wanted to, but to that point had decided against it. The Online payment service provider PayPal says in a company blog it has cut off the account used by WikiLeaks to collect donations. A State Department official warned students at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs this week that talking about WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter could endanger job prospects.
It should come as no surprise that the U.S. government and the pro-war politicians dislike WikiLeaks: it has told the truth about their wars. To them, WikiLeaks is a rogue organization that has exposed official wrongdoing and countless war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, serving as a very important channel of information the U.S. government has tried to keep hidden from its own citizens.
WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization that is dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. In this age of embedded journalism when citizens are deliberately lied to by their respective governments and are tired of listening to and reading one-sided stories fed by merchants and promoters of war, the organization has done a superb job in publishing authentic material of ethical, political and historical significance while keeping the identity of its sources anonymous. Truly, Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks are doing the work that journalists and the media used to do in the USA: speaking truth to power and backing it up with proof and documentation instead of yellow journalism. They have allowed us to see the dirty and evil side of war, and deterred the war party to foment future wars, at least for the time being.
WikiLeaks must be allowed to remain free and provide critical information that public has a right to know. Gestapo-like conduct and McCarthy-era gagging are simply unacceptable in a society that promotes itself as an open society.
The leaked documents are a treasure trove for anyone interested in knowing how the U.S. diplomacy works. They show the extensive and increasingly successful manipulation by the U.S. for pushing a consensus to confront Iran’s nuclear program. It is not Israel alone in that region that is against Iran but also the Gulf States like the Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The leaks reveal the hypocrisy of the totalitarian regimes in the Arab world that are uncomfortable of being seen as collaborators furthering pro-American agenda. For instance, the Yemeni leader Saleh in a January meeting with U.S. General Petraeus urged the U.S. to continue its anti-al-Qaeda operations inside Yemen, while he would seek to find political cover at home by falsely claiming that ‘bombs are ours’ and not America’s.
The cables showed U.S. officials exploring ways to remove the highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani nuclear site in a way that would not spur a political backlash against President Zardari. The leaked cables also detailed a secret U.S. intelligence gathering campaign at the U.N. where the U.S. diplomats were asked to collect biometric information on key U.N. officials. The leaked cables also reveal that the USA and South Korea have discussed plans for collapsing the North Korean regime. Leaked cables showed British politicians trying to keep Parliament in the dark over the storage of American cluster bombs on British territory, despite an international ban on the weapons.
The leaked cables show the derogatory ways America’s allies referred to diplomatic partners. The French President Sarkozy is described as ‘thin-skinned and authoritarian’ ruler who is ‘an emperor with no clothes,’ German Chancellor Merkel as ‘risk averse and rarely creative’ Teflon politician, Russia’s Putin as ‘vicious alpha-dog,’ Turkmenistan’s Berdymukhamedov as ‘not a very bright guy,’ and the Afghan leader Karzai as ‘extremely weak.’ The list goes on, sure to embarrass diplomats, anger foreign officials, undermine international relationships and complicate communications.
When asked to comment on the leaks, the U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called these ‘embarrassing’ and ‘awkward’ but said the damage will be moderate. The Secretary Clinton and her State Department officials have been busy trying to limit the diplomatic ‘embarrassment’ and possible strategic losses by calling dozens of foreign governments.
Long gone are the days of open diplomacy when President Woodrow Wilson advocated ‘open covenants of peace, openly arrived at.’ Interestingly, it was the same Wilson who abandoned his own advocacy for openness when he went to Paris in 1919 to create the League of Nations and shaped the Treaty of Versailles.
Now governments – liberal and illiberal democracies alike, let alone the totalitarian regimes – are more into secrecy when it comes to diplomacy. What the diplomats say in public may only be half-truths, or worse yet, lies. They also equivocate or speak with forked tongues that allow them to deny today what they meant yesterday. The greater the equivocation skill the larger the image of the diplomat as a successful one!
The WikiLeaks disclosures have been praised by many who believe that they will allow the public to hold the government more accountable and thus improve American foreign policy. There is a merit to this line of argument when one reflects upon the mere fact that our world would have been a better place to live in if people were more informed of the secret decisions made by their governments. There would not possibly be a World War II or the emergence of Adolf Hitler if people knew that the Versailles Pact could provide the very seed for such later events. Would there be an Israeli-Palestinian conflict today if there was no Hitler and no World War II in which many Jews perished? Would the Arab world know about the secret Sykes-Picot Accord of 1916 that mapped out the partition of post-Ottoman Middle East between Britain and France had it not been for the Bolsheviks who in 1917 opened up the Czarist archives?
No, we don’t need to go that far back in our history book to learn the value of openness. What chance was there to invade Iraq if the American public knew the whole truth and nothing but the truth that there was no weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? What likelihood is there that America would be seen as a partner-in-crime to the Zionist state if the American public knew the whole truth about Israel’s outrageous influence over American policy-makers thereby undermining peaceful resolution of the conflict? How about the whole truth about Iran’s nuclear program? Can American public be mobilized to support an all-out sanction and repeat of the war crimes in the Iranian soil if it knows that there is no ‘smoking gun’ in Iran, not even the desire to acquire one?
On the contrary, leaks like this simply make those in power retreat further into the shadows to defend themselves and their positions. For instance, previous WikiLeaks releases have already driven the Pentagon to limit cross-agency sharing of information.
One lesson is that foreign officials will less likely speak candidly to U.S. emissaries knowing that their words may later be leaked out.
The suspected leaker is Private First Class (PFC) Bradley Manning, a low-ranking Army intelligence analyst, who has been in custody in Virginia in a pre-trial detention for the last few months for improperly accessing a State Department cable on Iceland and providing it to WikiLeaks. Reportedly he had taken 260,000 State Department cables, although he has not yet been charged in connection with the last three WikiLeaks releases.
What is striking is that if such a vast storehouse of secret information could be accessed by a low-ranking army analyst there is little doubt that freelance hackers and foreign spies can do just as much. Let’s face it. We live in a digital age when information is easily accessible, including our personal data. We are all at the mercy of zealous hackers. Thus, silencing the WikiLeaks won’t be able to address the underlying problem with vital information that needs either safeguarding or sharing.
Already efforts are underway to silence WikiLeaks. Its website has been under repeated cyber attacks. Its founder Julian Assange has been placed on Interpol’s most-wanted list for an alleged sex crime in Sweden, which he strongly denies of committing. New York Congressman Peter King, a Republican hawk on the House Committee on Homeland Security, has called for Mr. Assange’s arrest for violating the U.S. Espionage Act. It is worth noting here that as recently as 2009 the U.S. government dropped an Espionage Act prosecution against two lobbyists for AIPAC, the American-Israeli lobby, after a rebuke by a federal appeals court. Nonetheless, the pro-war politicians consider Mr. Assange an ‘enemy combatant’ with ‘blood on his hands.’ The Obama administration also wants to stop the whistle-blower website. Secretary Clinton has described the WikiLeaks disclosure ‘not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests’ but also ‘an attack on the international community – the alliances and partnerships.’
On December 1, Amazon.com, which initially had allowed its server for disseminating the documents, yielded to pressure from the U.S. government to cut off WikiLeaks. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), a war-monger who heads the Senate Homeland Security Committee, congratulated Amazon for its decision. After staying six hours offline, the website has found a new host and is back online as WikiLeaks.ch. The Pentagon said Wednesday that it could take down WikiLeaks if it wanted to, but to that point had decided against it. The Online payment service provider PayPal says in a company blog it has cut off the account used by WikiLeaks to collect donations. A State Department official warned students at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs this week that talking about WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter could endanger job prospects.
It should come as no surprise that the U.S. government and the pro-war politicians dislike WikiLeaks: it has told the truth about their wars. To them, WikiLeaks is a rogue organization that has exposed official wrongdoing and countless war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, serving as a very important channel of information the U.S. government has tried to keep hidden from its own citizens.
WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization that is dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. In this age of embedded journalism when citizens are deliberately lied to by their respective governments and are tired of listening to and reading one-sided stories fed by merchants and promoters of war, the organization has done a superb job in publishing authentic material of ethical, political and historical significance while keeping the identity of its sources anonymous. Truly, Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks are doing the work that journalists and the media used to do in the USA: speaking truth to power and backing it up with proof and documentation instead of yellow journalism. They have allowed us to see the dirty and evil side of war, and deterred the war party to foment future wars, at least for the time being.
WikiLeaks must be allowed to remain free and provide critical information that public has a right to know. Gestapo-like conduct and McCarthy-era gagging are simply unacceptable in a society that promotes itself as an open society.
Nigeria charges Dick Cheney over bribery
According to the Huffington Post:
Nigerian authorities will charge former Vice President Dick Cheney over a bribery scandal that is alleged to involve Halliburton, BusinessWeek reports. An arrest warrant "will be issued and transmitted through Interpol," said Godwin Obla, the prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria.
The charges center on an alleged $180 million bribery payment used to secure a $6 billion liquefied natural gas.
Are you surprised to hear this bribery allegation against Dick? I am not. The sad fact however is that Nigeria won't be able to bring this monster to face the charges, nor will he be handed over to the International Court of Justice to face war crimes in Iraq.
Nigerian authorities will charge former Vice President Dick Cheney over a bribery scandal that is alleged to involve Halliburton, BusinessWeek reports. An arrest warrant "will be issued and transmitted through Interpol," said Godwin Obla, the prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria.
The charges center on an alleged $180 million bribery payment used to secure a $6 billion liquefied natural gas.
Are you surprised to hear this bribery allegation against Dick? I am not. The sad fact however is that Nigeria won't be able to bring this monster to face the charges, nor will he be handed over to the International Court of Justice to face war crimes in Iraq.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Pandit Nehru on Kashmiri people's right to plebiscite or referendum
In a recent article on Indian Occupied Kashmir, my favorite Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy quoted several statements from Pandit Nehru. This can be seen below:
1. In his telegram to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said, “I should like to make it clear that the question of aiding Kashmir in this emergency is not designed in any way to influence the state to accede to India. Our view which we have repeatedly made public is that the question of accession in any disputed territory or state must be decided in accordance with wishes of people and we adhere to this view.” (Telegram 402 Primin-2227 dated 27th October, 1947 to PM of Pakistan repeating telegram addressed to PM of UK).
2. In other telegram to the PM of Pakistan, Pandit Nehru said, “Kashmir's accession to India was accepted by us at the request of the Maharaja's government and the most numerously representative popular organization in the state which is predominantly Muslim. Even then it was accepted on condition that as soon as law and order had been restored, the people of Kashmir would decide the question of accession. It is open to them to accede to either Dominion then.” (Telegram No. 255 dated 31 October, 1947).
Accession issue
3. In his broadcast to the nation over All India Radio on 2nd November, 1947, Pandit Nehru said, “We are anxious not to finalise anything in a moment of crisis and without the fullest opportunity to be given to the people of Kashmir to have their say. It is for them ultimately to decide ------ And let me make it clear that it has been our policy that where there is a dispute about the accession of a state to either Dominion, the accession must be made by the people of that state. It is in accordance with this policy that we have added a proviso to the Instrument of Accession of Kashmir.”
4. In another broadcast to the nation on 3rd November, 1947, Pandit Nehru said, “We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given not only to the people of Kashmir and to the world. We will not and cannot back out of it.”
5. In his letter No. 368 Primin dated 21 November, 1947 addressed to the PM of Pakistan, Pandit Nehru said, “I have repeatedly stated that as soon as peace and order have been established, Kashmir should decide of accession by Plebiscite or referendum under international auspices such as those of United Nations.”
U.N. supervision
6.In his statement in the Indian Constituent Assembly on 25th November, 1947, Pandit Nehru said, “In order to establish our bona fide, we have suggested that when the people are given the chance to decide their future, this should be done under the supervision of an impartial tribunal such as the United Nations Organisation. The issue in Kashmir is whether violence and naked force should decide the future or the will of the people.”
7.In his statement in the Indian Constituent Assembly on 5th March, 1948, Pandit Nehru said, “Even at the moment of accession, we went out of our way to make a unilateral declaration that we would abide by the will of the people of Kashmir as declared in a plebiscite or referendum. We insisted further that the Government of Kashmir must immediately become a popular government. We have adhered to that position throughout and we are prepared to have a Plebiscite with every protection of fair voting and to abide by the decision of the people of Kashmir.”
Referendum or plebiscite
8.In his press-conference in London on 16th January, 1951, as reported by the daily ‘Statesman' on 18th January, 1951, Pandit Nehru stated, “India has repeatedly offered to work with the United Nations reasonable safeguards to enable the people of Kashmir to express their will and is always ready to do so. We have always right from the beginning accepted the idea of the Kashmir people deciding their fate by referendum or plebiscite. In fact, this was our proposal long before the United Nations came into the picture. Ultimately the final decision of the settlement, which must come, has first of all to be made basically by the people of Kashmir and secondly, as between Pakistan and India directly. Of course it must be remembered that we (India and Pakistan) have reached a great deal of agreement already. What I mean is that many basic features have been thrashed out. We all agreed that it is the people of Kashmir who must decide for themselves about their future externally or internally. It is an obvious fact that even without our agreement no country is going to hold on to Kashmir against the will of the Kashmiris.”
9.In his report to All Indian Congress Committee on 6th July, 1951 as published in the Statesman, New Delhi on 9th July, 1951, Pandit Nehru said, “Kashmir has been wrongly looked upon as a prize for India or Pakistan. People seem to forget that Kashmir is not a commodity for sale or to be bartered. It has an individual existence and its people must be the final arbiters of their future. It is here today that a struggle is bearing fruit, not in the battlefield but in the minds of men.”
10.In a letter dated 11th September, 1951, to the U.N. representative, Pandit Nehru wrote, “The Government of India not only reaffirms its acceptance of the principle that the question of the continuing accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to India shall be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations but is anxious that the conditions necessary for such a plebiscite should be created as quickly as possible.”
Word of honour
11.As reported by Amrita Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, on 2nd January, 1952, while replying to Dr. Mookerji's question in the Indian Legislature as to what the Congress Government going to do about one third of territory still held by Pakistan, Pandit Nehru said, “is not the property of either India or Pakistan. It belongs to the Kashmiri people. When Kashmir acceded to India, we made it clear to the leaders of the Kashmiri people that we would ultimately abide by the verdict of their Plebiscite. If they tell us to walk out, I would have no hesitation in quitting. We have taken the issue to United Nations and given our word of honour for a peaceful solution. As a great nation we cannot go back on it. We have left the question for final solution to the people of Kashmir and we are determined to abide by their decision.”
12.In his statement in the Indian Parliament on 7th August, 1952, Pandit Nehru said, “Let me say clearly that we accept the basic proposition that the future of Kashmir is going to be decided finally by the goodwill and pleasure of her people. The goodwill and pleasure of this Parliament is of no importance in this matter, not because this Parliament does not have the strength to decide the question of Kashmir but because any kind of imposition would be against the principles that this Parliament holds. Kashmir is very close to our minds and hearts and if by some decree or adverse fortune, ceases to be a part of India, it will be a wrench and a pain and torment for us. If, however, the people of Kashmir do not wish to remain with us, let them go by all means. We will not keep them against their will, however painful it may be to us. I want to stress that it is only the people of Kashmir who can decide the future of Kashmir. It is not that we have merely said that to the United Nations and to the people of Kashmir, it is our conviction and one that is borne out by the policy that we have pursued, not only in Kashmir but everywhere. Though these five years have meant a lot of trouble and expense and in spite of all we have done, we would willingly leave if it was made clear to us that the people of Kashmir wanted us to go. However sad we may feel about leaving we are not going to stay against the wishes of the people. We are not going to impose ourselves on them on the point of the bayonet.”
Kashmir's soul
13.In his statement in the Lok Sabha on 31st March, 1955 as published in Hindustan Times New Delhi on Ist April, 1955, Pandit Nehru said, “Kashmir is perhaps the most difficult of all these problems between India and Pakistan. We should also remember that Kashmir is not a thing to be bandied between India and Pakistan but it has a soul of its own and an individuality of its own. Nothing can be done without the goodwill and consent of the people of Kashmir.”
14.In his statement in the Security Council while taking part in debate on Kashmir in the 765th meeting of the Security Council on 24th January, 1957, the Indian representative Mr. Krishna Menon said, “So far as we are concerned, there is not one word in the statements that I have made in this council which can be interpreted to mean that we will not honour international obligations. I want to say for the purpose of the record that there is nothing that has been said on behalf of the Government of India which in the slightest degree indicates that the Government of India or the Union of India will dishonour any international obligations it has undertaken.”
1. In his telegram to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said, “I should like to make it clear that the question of aiding Kashmir in this emergency is not designed in any way to influence the state to accede to India. Our view which we have repeatedly made public is that the question of accession in any disputed territory or state must be decided in accordance with wishes of people and we adhere to this view.” (Telegram 402 Primin-2227 dated 27th October, 1947 to PM of Pakistan repeating telegram addressed to PM of UK).
2. In other telegram to the PM of Pakistan, Pandit Nehru said, “Kashmir's accession to India was accepted by us at the request of the Maharaja's government and the most numerously representative popular organization in the state which is predominantly Muslim. Even then it was accepted on condition that as soon as law and order had been restored, the people of Kashmir would decide the question of accession. It is open to them to accede to either Dominion then.” (Telegram No. 255 dated 31 October, 1947).
Accession issue
3. In his broadcast to the nation over All India Radio on 2nd November, 1947, Pandit Nehru said, “We are anxious not to finalise anything in a moment of crisis and without the fullest opportunity to be given to the people of Kashmir to have their say. It is for them ultimately to decide ------ And let me make it clear that it has been our policy that where there is a dispute about the accession of a state to either Dominion, the accession must be made by the people of that state. It is in accordance with this policy that we have added a proviso to the Instrument of Accession of Kashmir.”
4. In another broadcast to the nation on 3rd November, 1947, Pandit Nehru said, “We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given not only to the people of Kashmir and to the world. We will not and cannot back out of it.”
5. In his letter No. 368 Primin dated 21 November, 1947 addressed to the PM of Pakistan, Pandit Nehru said, “I have repeatedly stated that as soon as peace and order have been established, Kashmir should decide of accession by Plebiscite or referendum under international auspices such as those of United Nations.”
U.N. supervision
6.In his statement in the Indian Constituent Assembly on 25th November, 1947, Pandit Nehru said, “In order to establish our bona fide, we have suggested that when the people are given the chance to decide their future, this should be done under the supervision of an impartial tribunal such as the United Nations Organisation. The issue in Kashmir is whether violence and naked force should decide the future or the will of the people.”
7.In his statement in the Indian Constituent Assembly on 5th March, 1948, Pandit Nehru said, “Even at the moment of accession, we went out of our way to make a unilateral declaration that we would abide by the will of the people of Kashmir as declared in a plebiscite or referendum. We insisted further that the Government of Kashmir must immediately become a popular government. We have adhered to that position throughout and we are prepared to have a Plebiscite with every protection of fair voting and to abide by the decision of the people of Kashmir.”
Referendum or plebiscite
8.In his press-conference in London on 16th January, 1951, as reported by the daily ‘Statesman' on 18th January, 1951, Pandit Nehru stated, “India has repeatedly offered to work with the United Nations reasonable safeguards to enable the people of Kashmir to express their will and is always ready to do so. We have always right from the beginning accepted the idea of the Kashmir people deciding their fate by referendum or plebiscite. In fact, this was our proposal long before the United Nations came into the picture. Ultimately the final decision of the settlement, which must come, has first of all to be made basically by the people of Kashmir and secondly, as between Pakistan and India directly. Of course it must be remembered that we (India and Pakistan) have reached a great deal of agreement already. What I mean is that many basic features have been thrashed out. We all agreed that it is the people of Kashmir who must decide for themselves about their future externally or internally. It is an obvious fact that even without our agreement no country is going to hold on to Kashmir against the will of the Kashmiris.”
9.In his report to All Indian Congress Committee on 6th July, 1951 as published in the Statesman, New Delhi on 9th July, 1951, Pandit Nehru said, “Kashmir has been wrongly looked upon as a prize for India or Pakistan. People seem to forget that Kashmir is not a commodity for sale or to be bartered. It has an individual existence and its people must be the final arbiters of their future. It is here today that a struggle is bearing fruit, not in the battlefield but in the minds of men.”
10.In a letter dated 11th September, 1951, to the U.N. representative, Pandit Nehru wrote, “The Government of India not only reaffirms its acceptance of the principle that the question of the continuing accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to India shall be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations but is anxious that the conditions necessary for such a plebiscite should be created as quickly as possible.”
Word of honour
11.As reported by Amrita Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, on 2nd January, 1952, while replying to Dr. Mookerji's question in the Indian Legislature as to what the Congress Government going to do about one third of territory still held by Pakistan, Pandit Nehru said, “is not the property of either India or Pakistan. It belongs to the Kashmiri people. When Kashmir acceded to India, we made it clear to the leaders of the Kashmiri people that we would ultimately abide by the verdict of their Plebiscite. If they tell us to walk out, I would have no hesitation in quitting. We have taken the issue to United Nations and given our word of honour for a peaceful solution. As a great nation we cannot go back on it. We have left the question for final solution to the people of Kashmir and we are determined to abide by their decision.”
12.In his statement in the Indian Parliament on 7th August, 1952, Pandit Nehru said, “Let me say clearly that we accept the basic proposition that the future of Kashmir is going to be decided finally by the goodwill and pleasure of her people. The goodwill and pleasure of this Parliament is of no importance in this matter, not because this Parliament does not have the strength to decide the question of Kashmir but because any kind of imposition would be against the principles that this Parliament holds. Kashmir is very close to our minds and hearts and if by some decree or adverse fortune, ceases to be a part of India, it will be a wrench and a pain and torment for us. If, however, the people of Kashmir do not wish to remain with us, let them go by all means. We will not keep them against their will, however painful it may be to us. I want to stress that it is only the people of Kashmir who can decide the future of Kashmir. It is not that we have merely said that to the United Nations and to the people of Kashmir, it is our conviction and one that is borne out by the policy that we have pursued, not only in Kashmir but everywhere. Though these five years have meant a lot of trouble and expense and in spite of all we have done, we would willingly leave if it was made clear to us that the people of Kashmir wanted us to go. However sad we may feel about leaving we are not going to stay against the wishes of the people. We are not going to impose ourselves on them on the point of the bayonet.”
Kashmir's soul
13.In his statement in the Lok Sabha on 31st March, 1955 as published in Hindustan Times New Delhi on Ist April, 1955, Pandit Nehru said, “Kashmir is perhaps the most difficult of all these problems between India and Pakistan. We should also remember that Kashmir is not a thing to be bandied between India and Pakistan but it has a soul of its own and an individuality of its own. Nothing can be done without the goodwill and consent of the people of Kashmir.”
14.In his statement in the Security Council while taking part in debate on Kashmir in the 765th meeting of the Security Council on 24th January, 1957, the Indian representative Mr. Krishna Menon said, “So far as we are concerned, there is not one word in the statements that I have made in this council which can be interpreted to mean that we will not honour international obligations. I want to say for the purpose of the record that there is nothing that has been said on behalf of the Government of India which in the slightest degree indicates that the Government of India or the Union of India will dishonour any international obligations it has undertaken.”
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Thanksgiving – the real truth
Thanksgiving Day is the most observed holiday in the USA, which is celebrated by people of all races, colors, ethnicities and even religions. It is a day in which family members gather to eat turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving holiday falls on the last Thursday of November. There is even a White House event in which the President pardons a turkey on Wednesday.
This year, the National Thanksgiving Turkey Apple, and his alternate Cider, both 21-week old, 45-pound turkeys, came to the White House from Foster Farms Wellsford Ranch near Modesto, California. Both turkeys participated in a rigorous competition back home at the farm in order to win the ultimate prize of a Presidential pardon and an all-expenses-paid trip to the White House. Apple and Cider will live out their days at Mount Vernon, home of the first President George Washington. Jaindl’s Turkey Farm in Orefield, Pennsylvania, gave President Obama’s family two dressed turkeys that were donated to Martha’s Table, a community based non-profit organization in Northwest DC that helps feed and clothe those in need.
Like every other major popular celebration in our world, Thanksgiving has its history, not a pleasant one though – the kind that we often hear which associates it with the “Pilgrims” that landed in the New World. According to a single-paragraph account in the writings of one Pilgrim, a harvest feast did take place in Plymouth in 1621, probably in mid-October, but the Indians who attended were not even invited. Though it later became known as "Thanksgiving," with giving thanks to God for the harvests of the land, the Pilgrims never called it that.
So, what did really happen in Plymouth in 1621? For that we have to dig deeper into history, away from popular myths and traditions -- the imagery of a picnic of interracial harmony -- and come to terms with some of the most terrifying bloodsheds in New World history.
We are told that on September 6, 1620 the Pilgrims had set sail for the New World on a ship called the Mayflower. They sailed from Plymouth, England. When the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean they landed on the rocky shores of a territory that was inhabited by the Wampanoag (Wam pa NO ag) Indians. It was there that the Pilgrims decide to settle. The Pilgrims biggest concern was attack by the local Native American Indians. But the latter were a peaceful group and did not prove to be a threat. Any visitor to a Wampanoag home was provided with a share of whatever food the family had, even if the supply was low. This same courtesy was extended to the Pilgrims when they met.
We can only guess what the Wampanoags must have thought when they first saw the strange ships of the Pilgrims arriving on their shores. But their custom was to help visitors, and they treated the newcomers with courtesy. It was mainly because of their kindness that the Pilgrims survived at all. The wheat the Pilgrims had brought with them to plant would not grow in the rocky soil.
On March 16, 1621, what was to become an important event took place, an Indian brave walked into the Plymouth settlement. The Pilgrims were frightened until the Indian called out "Welcome" (in English). His name was Samoset and he was an Abnaki Indian. He had learned English from the captains of fishing boats that had sailed off the coast. After staying the night Samoset left the next day. He soon returned with another Indian named Squanto who spoke better English than Samoset. Squanto told the Pilgrims of his voyages across the ocean and his visits to England and Spain. It was in England where he had learned English. Squanto's importance to the Pilgrims was enormous and it can be said that they would not have survived without his help.
The Pilgrims needed to learn new ways for a new world. They were not in good condition. They were living in dirt-covered shelters, there was a shortage of food, and nearly half of them had died during the winter. They obviously needed help. Squanto brought them deer meat and beaver skins. He taught them how to cultivate corn and other new vegetables and how to build Indian-style houses. He pointed out poisonous plants and showed how other plants could be used as medicine. He explained how to dig and cook clams, how to get sap from the maple trees, use fish for fertilizer, and dozens of other skills needed for their survival. By the time fall arrived things were going much better for the Pilgrims, thanks to the help they had received. The Pilgrims decided to have a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune.
Captain Miles Standish, the leader of the Pilgrims, invited Squanto, Samoset, Massasoit (the leader of the Wampanoags), and their immediate families to join them for a celebration. As the Thanksgiving feast began, the Pilgrims were overwhelmed at the large turnout of ninety relatives that Squanto and Samoset brought with them. The Pilgrims were not prepared to feed a gathering of people that large for three days. Seeing this, Massasoit gave orders to his men within the first hour of his arrival to go home and get more food. Thus it happened that the Indians supplied the majority of the food.
Contrary to the fabricated lore of storyteller generations no Pilgrims prayed at the meal. What's more, they consumed a good deal of home brew. In fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of beer a day, which they preferred even to water. This daily inebriation led their governor, William Bradford, to comment on his people's "notorious sin," which included their "drunkenness and uncleanliness" and rampant "sodomy".
Later as the pilgrims grew in number they started showing intolerance to the Indians and their religion. The relationship deteriorated. Any Indian who came within the vicinity of the Pilgrim settlement was subject to robbery, enslavement, or even murder. The Pilgrims further advertised their evil intentions when they mounted five cannons on a hill around their settlement, constructed a platform for artillery, and then organized their soldiers into four companies - all in preparation for the military destruction of the Native American Indians.
Pilgrim Miles Standish went to the Indians, pretended to be a trader, and then beheaded an Indian man named Wituwamet. He brought the head to Plymouth, where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years. Standish had the Indian man's young brother hanged from the rafters for good measure. From that time on, the whites were known to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name "Wotowquenange," which in their tongue meant cutthroats and stabbers. A monument in Weymouth, rededicated in 1923 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of settlement, still bears testimony to the encounter between the natives and the white settlers under Miles Standish that killed Indian chiefs Pecksuot and Wituwamet in March, 1623.
By the mid 1630s, a new group of 700 even holier Europeans, calling themselves Puritans, had arrived on 11 ships and settled in Boston, which only served to accelerate the brutality against the Indians.
In one incident in 1637, a force of whites trapped and killed some seven hundred Pequot Indians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, who had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival near the mouth of the Mystic River. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "A Day of Thanksgiving" because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered. This event marked the first actual Thanksgiving.
In just 10 years 12,000 whites had invaded New England, and as their numbers grew they pressed for all-out extermination of the Indian. Euro-diseases had reduced the population of the Massachusetts nation from over 24,000 to less than 750; meanwhile, the number of European settlers in Massachusetts rose to more than 20,000 by 1646.
By 1675, the Massachusetts Englishmen were in a full-scale war with the great Indian chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed "King Philip" by the white man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyle and culture of his people as European-imposed laws and values engulfed them.
When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and murdered Metacomet in 1676, his body was quartered and parts were "left for the wolves." The great Indian chief's hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head went to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole on the real first "day of public Thanksgiving for the beginning of revenge upon the enemy."
As the Native American Holocaust continued, several official Thanksgiving Days were proclaimed. Governor Joseph Dudley declared in 1704 a "General Thanksgiving"-not in celebration of the brotherhood of man - but for [God's] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors...In defeating and disappointing... the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them into our hands.
Just two years later one could reap a £50 reward in Massachusetts for the scalp of an Indian-demonstrating that the practice of scalping was a European tradition. According to one scholar, "Hunting redskins became...a popular sport in New England, especially since prisoners were worth good money…" [The Hidden History of Massachusetts: A Guide for Black Folks ©Dr. Tingba Apidta]
At the end of that conflict most of the New England Indians were either exterminated or made refugees among the French in Canada, or they were sold into slavery in the Carolinas by the Puritans. So successful was these early trade in Indian slaves that several Puritan ship owners in Boston began the practice of raiding the Ivory Coast of Africa for black slaves to sell to the proprietary colonies of the South, thus founding the American-based slave trade.
The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre. Later Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War -- on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota.
So how and why this contemporary mix of myth and history about the "First" Thanksgiving at Plymouth developed? According to Chuck Larsen (a teacher and Native American), it developed “in the 1890s and early 1900s. Our country was desperately trying to pull together its many diverse peoples into a common national identity. This was the era of the "melting pot" theory of social progress, and public education was a major tool for social unity. It was with this in mind that the federal government declared the last Thursday in November as the legal holiday of Thanksgiving in 1898.”
Today the town of Plymouth Rock has a Thanksgiving ceremony each year in remembrance of the first Thanksgiving. There are still Wampanoag people living in Massachusetts. In 1970, they asked one of them to speak at the ceremony to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's arrival. Frank B. James, president of the Federated Eastern Indian League, prepared a speech. But he was not allowed to deliver it; the Massachusetts officials told him to write another. James declined to speak. Here is part of what James wrote: "Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of looking back to the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white people. Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once again are important."
Last year President Obama did not seem all that thrilled about the Turkey event. He was severely criticized by the conservatives who thought that his White House proclamation wasn't nearly so religious. This time he more than compensated that perception with his proclamation, "A beloved American tradition, Thanksgiving Day offers us the opportunity to focus our thoughts on the grace that has been extended to our people and our country...We also pause our normal pursuits on this day and join in a spirit of fellowship and gratitude for the year's bounties and blessings." He continued, "As we stand at the close of one year and look to the promise of the next we lift up our hearts in gratitude to God for our many blessings, for one another, and for our Nation."
This year's Thanksgiving proclamation sounded more like those from President George W. Bush, whose 2008 statement on the holiday said that the nation's "blessings, and life itself, come not from the hand of man but from Almighty God."
Is president Obama's more religious statement this year a sign of current rough times for the White House, let alone the surveys that show that many Americans are confused about the president's religion?
This year, the National Thanksgiving Turkey Apple, and his alternate Cider, both 21-week old, 45-pound turkeys, came to the White House from Foster Farms Wellsford Ranch near Modesto, California. Both turkeys participated in a rigorous competition back home at the farm in order to win the ultimate prize of a Presidential pardon and an all-expenses-paid trip to the White House. Apple and Cider will live out their days at Mount Vernon, home of the first President George Washington. Jaindl’s Turkey Farm in Orefield, Pennsylvania, gave President Obama’s family two dressed turkeys that were donated to Martha’s Table, a community based non-profit organization in Northwest DC that helps feed and clothe those in need.
Like every other major popular celebration in our world, Thanksgiving has its history, not a pleasant one though – the kind that we often hear which associates it with the “Pilgrims” that landed in the New World. According to a single-paragraph account in the writings of one Pilgrim, a harvest feast did take place in Plymouth in 1621, probably in mid-October, but the Indians who attended were not even invited. Though it later became known as "Thanksgiving," with giving thanks to God for the harvests of the land, the Pilgrims never called it that.
So, what did really happen in Plymouth in 1621? For that we have to dig deeper into history, away from popular myths and traditions -- the imagery of a picnic of interracial harmony -- and come to terms with some of the most terrifying bloodsheds in New World history.
We are told that on September 6, 1620 the Pilgrims had set sail for the New World on a ship called the Mayflower. They sailed from Plymouth, England. When the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean they landed on the rocky shores of a territory that was inhabited by the Wampanoag (Wam pa NO ag) Indians. It was there that the Pilgrims decide to settle. The Pilgrims biggest concern was attack by the local Native American Indians. But the latter were a peaceful group and did not prove to be a threat. Any visitor to a Wampanoag home was provided with a share of whatever food the family had, even if the supply was low. This same courtesy was extended to the Pilgrims when they met.
We can only guess what the Wampanoags must have thought when they first saw the strange ships of the Pilgrims arriving on their shores. But their custom was to help visitors, and they treated the newcomers with courtesy. It was mainly because of their kindness that the Pilgrims survived at all. The wheat the Pilgrims had brought with them to plant would not grow in the rocky soil.
On March 16, 1621, what was to become an important event took place, an Indian brave walked into the Plymouth settlement. The Pilgrims were frightened until the Indian called out "Welcome" (in English). His name was Samoset and he was an Abnaki Indian. He had learned English from the captains of fishing boats that had sailed off the coast. After staying the night Samoset left the next day. He soon returned with another Indian named Squanto who spoke better English than Samoset. Squanto told the Pilgrims of his voyages across the ocean and his visits to England and Spain. It was in England where he had learned English. Squanto's importance to the Pilgrims was enormous and it can be said that they would not have survived without his help.
The Pilgrims needed to learn new ways for a new world. They were not in good condition. They were living in dirt-covered shelters, there was a shortage of food, and nearly half of them had died during the winter. They obviously needed help. Squanto brought them deer meat and beaver skins. He taught them how to cultivate corn and other new vegetables and how to build Indian-style houses. He pointed out poisonous plants and showed how other plants could be used as medicine. He explained how to dig and cook clams, how to get sap from the maple trees, use fish for fertilizer, and dozens of other skills needed for their survival. By the time fall arrived things were going much better for the Pilgrims, thanks to the help they had received. The Pilgrims decided to have a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune.
Captain Miles Standish, the leader of the Pilgrims, invited Squanto, Samoset, Massasoit (the leader of the Wampanoags), and their immediate families to join them for a celebration. As the Thanksgiving feast began, the Pilgrims were overwhelmed at the large turnout of ninety relatives that Squanto and Samoset brought with them. The Pilgrims were not prepared to feed a gathering of people that large for three days. Seeing this, Massasoit gave orders to his men within the first hour of his arrival to go home and get more food. Thus it happened that the Indians supplied the majority of the food.
Contrary to the fabricated lore of storyteller generations no Pilgrims prayed at the meal. What's more, they consumed a good deal of home brew. In fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of beer a day, which they preferred even to water. This daily inebriation led their governor, William Bradford, to comment on his people's "notorious sin," which included their "drunkenness and uncleanliness" and rampant "sodomy".
Later as the pilgrims grew in number they started showing intolerance to the Indians and their religion. The relationship deteriorated. Any Indian who came within the vicinity of the Pilgrim settlement was subject to robbery, enslavement, or even murder. The Pilgrims further advertised their evil intentions when they mounted five cannons on a hill around their settlement, constructed a platform for artillery, and then organized their soldiers into four companies - all in preparation for the military destruction of the Native American Indians.
Pilgrim Miles Standish went to the Indians, pretended to be a trader, and then beheaded an Indian man named Wituwamet. He brought the head to Plymouth, where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years. Standish had the Indian man's young brother hanged from the rafters for good measure. From that time on, the whites were known to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name "Wotowquenange," which in their tongue meant cutthroats and stabbers. A monument in Weymouth, rededicated in 1923 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of settlement, still bears testimony to the encounter between the natives and the white settlers under Miles Standish that killed Indian chiefs Pecksuot and Wituwamet in March, 1623.
By the mid 1630s, a new group of 700 even holier Europeans, calling themselves Puritans, had arrived on 11 ships and settled in Boston, which only served to accelerate the brutality against the Indians.
In one incident in 1637, a force of whites trapped and killed some seven hundred Pequot Indians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, who had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival near the mouth of the Mystic River. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "A Day of Thanksgiving" because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered. This event marked the first actual Thanksgiving.
In just 10 years 12,000 whites had invaded New England, and as their numbers grew they pressed for all-out extermination of the Indian. Euro-diseases had reduced the population of the Massachusetts nation from over 24,000 to less than 750; meanwhile, the number of European settlers in Massachusetts rose to more than 20,000 by 1646.
By 1675, the Massachusetts Englishmen were in a full-scale war with the great Indian chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed "King Philip" by the white man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyle and culture of his people as European-imposed laws and values engulfed them.
When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and murdered Metacomet in 1676, his body was quartered and parts were "left for the wolves." The great Indian chief's hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head went to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole on the real first "day of public Thanksgiving for the beginning of revenge upon the enemy."
As the Native American Holocaust continued, several official Thanksgiving Days were proclaimed. Governor Joseph Dudley declared in 1704 a "General Thanksgiving"-not in celebration of the brotherhood of man - but for [God's] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors...In defeating and disappointing... the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them into our hands.
Just two years later one could reap a £50 reward in Massachusetts for the scalp of an Indian-demonstrating that the practice of scalping was a European tradition. According to one scholar, "Hunting redskins became...a popular sport in New England, especially since prisoners were worth good money…" [The Hidden History of Massachusetts: A Guide for Black Folks ©Dr. Tingba Apidta]
At the end of that conflict most of the New England Indians were either exterminated or made refugees among the French in Canada, or they were sold into slavery in the Carolinas by the Puritans. So successful was these early trade in Indian slaves that several Puritan ship owners in Boston began the practice of raiding the Ivory Coast of Africa for black slaves to sell to the proprietary colonies of the South, thus founding the American-based slave trade.
The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre. Later Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War -- on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota.
So how and why this contemporary mix of myth and history about the "First" Thanksgiving at Plymouth developed? According to Chuck Larsen (a teacher and Native American), it developed “in the 1890s and early 1900s. Our country was desperately trying to pull together its many diverse peoples into a common national identity. This was the era of the "melting pot" theory of social progress, and public education was a major tool for social unity. It was with this in mind that the federal government declared the last Thursday in November as the legal holiday of Thanksgiving in 1898.”
Today the town of Plymouth Rock has a Thanksgiving ceremony each year in remembrance of the first Thanksgiving. There are still Wampanoag people living in Massachusetts. In 1970, they asked one of them to speak at the ceremony to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's arrival. Frank B. James, president of the Federated Eastern Indian League, prepared a speech. But he was not allowed to deliver it; the Massachusetts officials told him to write another. James declined to speak. Here is part of what James wrote: "Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of looking back to the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white people. Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once again are important."
Last year President Obama did not seem all that thrilled about the Turkey event. He was severely criticized by the conservatives who thought that his White House proclamation wasn't nearly so religious. This time he more than compensated that perception with his proclamation, "A beloved American tradition, Thanksgiving Day offers us the opportunity to focus our thoughts on the grace that has been extended to our people and our country...We also pause our normal pursuits on this day and join in a spirit of fellowship and gratitude for the year's bounties and blessings." He continued, "As we stand at the close of one year and look to the promise of the next we lift up our hearts in gratitude to God for our many blessings, for one another, and for our Nation."
This year's Thanksgiving proclamation sounded more like those from President George W. Bush, whose 2008 statement on the holiday said that the nation's "blessings, and life itself, come not from the hand of man but from Almighty God."
Is president Obama's more religious statement this year a sign of current rough times for the White House, let alone the surveys that show that many Americans are confused about the president's religion?
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